Hearts & Other Body Parts

by Ira Bloom

  The way the story broke, it was determined that Drake Kallas, a known organized crime boss, human trafficker, and psychopath, had forced his son, Zack, to recruit girls for purposes of trafficking, having manipulated the boy into submission through years of psychological and physical intimidation and abuse. The story was supported by the victims, who recalled that Zack had always been kind to them, and with prompting, owned that he’d often intervened on their behalves when his father resorted to violence.

  There was some grumbling in town about Zack’s involvement in his father’s affairs, but Zack, in a full body cast in quarantine under Dr. Stein’s care, testified that his father had gone crazy and beaten him nearly to death for purchasing antibiotics for one of the victims. The testimony was corroborated by a pharmacist at Rite Aid and Esme Silver, hero of the day, and it swayed public opinion substantially.

  Very high-ranking people at Interpol, coordinating with very high-ranking people at the CIA, commandeered Drake Kallas’s mortal remains to whisk off to France under some kind of obscure extradition treaty. The official cause of death was “eaten by bears.”

  Drake Kallas’s lawyer, Barry Silver, produced documentation that Zack was the sole heir. Hampstead Manor was owned free and clear, and Mr. Silver also produced banking information for sixty million dollars and change, which he’d recently, at the behest of the deceased, gone to Europe to have transferred to American banks. Interpol and the CIA were very interested in that money. Barry became executor and manager of a trust he arranged for Zack. Dr. Stein agreed to take Zack on as a foster, and as soon as was medically feasible, had his ward discharged from the university hospital and moved back to the Hampstead Manor, where he was locked in Veronica and Katy’s old room, retrofitted with a steel door, because nobody was entirely confident that he was the least bit trustworthy.

  Zack was entirely compliant to all restrictions placed upon him. In Drake’s absence, his humanity was slowly returning. Wracked with guilt and remorse, he owned that he was deserving of any punishments that could possibly be meted out to him, and some of his own, which were practically medieval. His unique dietary requirements were met by his foster dad, Dr. Stein, who could easily obtain as much blood as his charge required.

  Ronnie and Katy made full recoveries in a matter of months, with the help of weekly tea and meditation sessions in Esme’s room, invoking the Goddess for clarity. The sisters were never closer. Katy’s grades improved markedly. Veronica decided to give up on her modeling and ballet ambitions, switching to modern dance. “Maybe I’ll be a swimsuit model,” she said. By March she’d gained eight pounds. Impossibly, she was more beautiful than ever.

  Veronica turned fifteen in January, and Katy turned sixteen in February, and Esme turned seventeen in March. Esme had to come up with explanations for all the insanity that had occurred. The bear alibi gained some traction among the locals. Jackson, Nick, and Wilson formed a mini cult of adoration—not to mention fear—for Esme. Well, what could she say? She was pretty awesome at that. And she found she needed Nick, for shoe shopping. Zack conveniently forgot all about Kasha, and puzzled over what might have rid the world of Drake Kallas, worst dad in history.

  Esme told what she could of the story to her mother, leaving out specifics about Kasha’s manipulations. Melinda, appalled by the details, blamed alternately herself and Kasha. “If I’d been a better mother, this never would have happened,” she rued remorsefully. One thing Melinda couldn’t deny was that Katy and Veronica had been kidnapped by vampires, and Esme and Norman and Kasha had gone in and gotten them out. She still didn’t trust Kasha, but figured Esme could handle him. In penance, Melinda started returning home to Middleton on alternate weekends, which pleased Barry no end.

  Esme had found some organic peaches at the store that would do for pie, so that was what she served Norm in her room, after dinner by candlelight. She’d asked him to bring a bottle of wine from Drake’s cellar, but straitlaced old Norm had refused. He was of a mind that people below the legal age should not drink the stuff, or otherwise engage in illegal activities, with the possible exception of breaking and entering vampires’ lairs and killing bloodsucking predators, which the law seemed fairly ambivalent about. They chatted easily, about classes and books, and movies they’d like to see together, and the AP biology test that Esme had just set the bell curve on, beating Norman by two points.

  “You really should try my tea and meditation, Norm,” Esme recommended. “It’s one hundred percent holistic, and it gives me such focus. I meditate for a bit before I study at night, and then before I take the test, and I have perfect recall.”

  “Well it worked wonders for Nick,” he said. “But it probably allows some alien intelligence from outer space to take over your brain, because that’s the only logical explanation for how you could possibly have beaten me on a bio test.”

  It was after ten o’clock, but it was a Friday. They moved over to the sofa at the side of the room, and Norman put his feet up on the steamer trunk that served as a low coffee table. Esme had found the trunk in the boot of Drake’s Bentley and moved it to her room the same day she’d used the car to drive Katy and Ronnie to the clinic, after Kasha had eaten Drake.

  The trunk contained about two million dollars in crisp hundred-dollar bills, and another two million or so worth of large-denomination euros. There were some gold bars and unset gems, and a cache of very old gold coins that were probably valuable, but it wasn’t anything like the ten million dollars Drake had claimed. There was also an extensive collection of records and Swiss bank account passbooks and property deeds and account numbers in the Caymans and a significant amount of damning information about criminal cartels run by vampires in Europe, including addresses and email accounts and names and photos.

  Esme had no intention of keeping the money, or not much of it. She had an immortal soul to protect. She did enjoy driving the Bentley around, though. Nobody seemed to mind. She’d toyed with the idea of just handing the entire mess over to Interpol and washing her hands of it, but she didn’t trust them with the information. Vampires were serious business, and the world needed to be rid of them. Human trafficking was an atrocity that galled her to the pit of her soul. Esme wanted time to decipher all the information she had, before acting. Interpol was well meaning, but she had a line on some folks who were better qualified to handle the vampire problem. But there were complex legal ramifications to be worked out. She’d need to consult an attorney. And first, she had to find someone who was willing to purchase some good Scotch for a retainer.

  Esme, beside Norm on the sofa, tucked her legs under. She leaned over on the couch, against Norman’s chest. Norman stiffened, so she took his right arm and draped it over her shoulders. It weighed so much, she couldn’t have achieved the task without Norm’s cooperation. She’d spent hours going over all this. Norm was the right guy. Everybody saw it but her. In a perfect world, she’d kiss him, and then she’d know that she really had loved him all along. If it was right. If it was meant to be.

  Esme rose up onto her knees on the couch, taking Norm’s enormous head in both her hands. The light was dim, but his face was … well, she liked him, genuinely, enough that the word repulsive did not come to mind. But he was not attractive. And he was so huge. She leaned in and kissed him, on the mouth. Esme had never kissed a guy before, not in a romantic way. Their lips parted. Norman was gentle. Nothing wrong with his breath, anyway …

  After a few minutes, Esme pulled away and sat back on the sofa beside Norman.

  “That was nice, Esme,” he said. “Thank you, for that.”

  But Esme knew. She knew the kiss had meant everything to Norman and not a whole lot to her. Zack had ruined her, with all his surging neurohormonal love chemistry and mesmerism. Whatever she felt for Norm, it would never be more than a shadow of those false feelings for Zack.

  “Norman, do you trust me?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he said.

  Esme rose, went to her desk, and opened a dra
wer. She removed two small brown vials. On the desk were two empty ceramic tea cups and a pot of her magic tea, now room temperature. There was also a petrified vampire heart, which she’d retrieved as a souvenir from a pile of goo in front of Hampstead Manor. She poured tea into each of the two cups, then opened the two vials. She poured the love potion into one cup, and the beauty potion into the other, then she stirred both. She handed Norm one before seating herself beside him again.

  “Drink this,” she insisted. “Drink it all.”

  Norman stared at the cup in his hand. It went against every impulse in his brain to drink something he’d just seen a professed witch pour into his tea from a little brown vial. It also went along with every feeling of regard he had for the girl he honestly loved to do exactly what she asked him, to trust her with no hesitation. “It tastes nasty,” he said, placing his empty cup down on the trunk in front of him.

  “I’ll bet mine’s worse,” she countered, making a face and setting her empty cup down. She stared at Norm, not wanting to miss a thing.

  According to Kasha, she was supposed to notice some changes almost immediately, though the full effects would take a week or so. It all happened very slowly. The first thing Esme observed was the improvement in Norm’s color. Then his scars started subtly to fade, his skin to smooth. His one brown walleyed eye seemed more centered. His jaw seemed less severe. Esme was pretty pleased with the results already. “Damn, I’m good,” she bragged. She could hardly wait to see what Norm would look like in a week. There would be no side effects like loss of IQ, she knew, since Norm was taking the potion with an innocent heart.

  Katy’s love potion was taking its sweet time, though. She couldn’t tell if her improved attraction for Norm was from the love potion or the tea or his enhanced appearance, but she felt something. It wasn’t anything at all like what she’d felt for Zack. So that was good news. Esme unbuttoned Norman’s shirt a few buttons, recalling what he looked like without it. Okay, without the shirt, Norman was pretty hot. But that could wait.

  She had to give Katy credit. Her feelings were subtle, but there was the ring of truth to them. She was certain, absolutely, that Norman was her guy, but nothing had changed. She was definitely more attracted to him. Though it was hard to be objective. But she was getting clear results. She could feel them, stirring. Kudos, Katy: a love potion so good, it could even convince a girl nothing had changed.

  But everything had changed. Maybe you do get to pick who you love after all.

  “Let’s give that kissing thing another try,” she suggested to her boyfriend, snuggling up.

  The witching hour on Midsummer’s Night found Kasha creeping about the barn, doing pro bono work, ridding the world of the scourge of underground rodents. Veronica’s horse was in a neighbor’s field. The pasture was heavily scented with horse poop, but he picked up a whiff of something wonderful: feral feline. He tracked the scent, twisting his whiskers in the breeze, peeking out through the patches of dandelion and weeds and wildflowers. In the thin moonlight, he spied his prey: a smoky gray tabby, very young. And in heat.

  Kasha stalked: She played hard to get. She fled, he pursued. Always, she was just out of reach, just out of sight. When he espied her, it was as a blur, as if in a mist. He chased her through the blackberry bramble, through the coyote brush, into the witches’ herb garden, and back around to the barn. He finally cornered her behind the woodpile.

  “Come out here, you little tease,” he coaxed, sideling in toward the woodpile, tail erect, poised to pursue in either direction should she make a break. She poked out an ear, a whisker. Her tail curled up and around provocatively, toying with him. He liked that. The tabby darted out in a blur, but Kasha was on her, herding her. He pounced, claws extended to scoop her into his rough, sharp embrace, but the paws passed right through her. She was made of moonbeams and mist, and nothing more.

  “Ha! You old fleabag,” the voice of Aunt Becky rasped. “You’re not my type.”

  The mist of the spectral feline reassembled itself in the summer air, and took the shape, vaguely, of Kasha’s former mistress.

  “You wrinkly old bag of farts,” he said contemptuously. “I never liked tabbies anyway.”

  “You’re nothing but a neutered old housecat,” she charged.

  “Talentless hedge-witch,” he replied. “Satan’s armpits, I’ve missed you, Becks. What brings you around these parts?”

  “I always like to see family on the high holy days. But nobody’s around.”

  “Ronnie and Katy are in the city with their mother for the weekend, and Esme’s out with her boyfriend to a late-night movie.”

  “She’s dating the giant now?” Becky asked. A thin breeze blew up, and she wavered in it, losing form, but it settled and she took shape again. “I always liked that boy. He smashed that vampire up pretty good, didn’t he?”

  “You should have seen the one I got my fangs into.”

  “Well I’m glad to hear she’s with a decent type.”

  “You didn’t know?” Kasha asked. “Esme wasn’t really attracted to Norman, but she knew he was a good choice, so she drank the love potion that you helped Katy brew. Seems to be working pretty well, too. You haven’t lost your touch.”

  At that, the specter laughed a raspy, ghostly laugh. “Ya durned fool,” she chortled. “It isn’t the love potion at all. It’s a dud.”

  “You mean, a placebo? But it smelled good to me.”

  “We left out the blood of innocents,” she said. “Do you think I’m daft enough to help my favorite grand-niece brew up a love potion and damn her immortal soul to the likes of you for a two-bit vampire?”

  “Becks, you surprise me. You never showed such good judgment in life.”

  “Yeah, well,” she cackled. “I may be dead, but I’m not stupid.”

  “So,” the cat said. “Esme isn’t under the influence of a magic potion that makes her love Norman? Their love is based on regular old common give-and-take, mutual respect, honest affection, and all the ups and downs and stupid fights and pitfalls of a normal relationship, no better than any other human ever had?”

  “That’s right,” Becky replied. “Just a normal, plain old mundane love, with all the problems people have had to deal with since the beginning of time.”

  “Wow,” Kasha said. “That sucks.”

  I’d like to thank Rachel Griffiths, without whom …

  But no. There can be no Rachel Griffiths “without whom.” Without whom, what? Bubkes. Nothing at all. Even now, with the whole thing done, I can’t bear to consider a world without whom Rachel. Let me start again:

  I’d like to thank Raymond Lesser, editor of The Funny Times, for publishing my stuff and opening up the door to this industry a crack wide enough for me to shove my foot into, and for giving me the best advice of all time: “Don’t quit your day job.” And I’d like to thank Mickey Novak—aka the Mickster, aka the New York Mickerbocker, aka Typhoid Mickey—my first agent, who opened up that same industry door and said, “What are you doing out there? Come in out of the rain and warm yourself by the fire!” And I’d like to thank Merrilee Heifetz, my forever agent, who blew that damned door off the hinges and took out a big chunk of wall in the process. And then clawed back our security deposit. I knew this metaphor would get silly eventually.

  Kudos to readers of earlier drafts for their comments: Mary Lou Bloom (mother, and also thanks for the other stuff, I heard it was a long labor); Yasuko Bloom (wife, and thanks for marrying me when a lot of people didn’t); Isabella Bloom (daughter and inspiration for all three sisters); and Mary Kate Flugum (also, for watching the dog while we were gone).

  Thank you, Sherry Audette Morrow, for industry advice; Alisha Bloom, cousin and fellow writer, for editorial advice; my friend Kitaro, for inspiration; and a special thanks to David Lubar, a true mensch, for being so generous with your time and friendship.

  Thanks to the various and sundry geniuses at Writers House: Julie Trelstad for all the Internet stuff; Alexandra Levick
, Merrilee’s assistant; and Albert Zuckerman, for making it all possible.

  At Scholastic, thank you, Erin Black, for stepping in for editorial services above and beyond the call of duty; Nina Goffi, for the inspired book design; Jon Gray for the artwork; Kelly Ashton, for making it all run smoothly; David Levithan, the man behind the magic; Elizabeth Tiffany, the production editor; Jennifer Abbots (there’s the meta: publicity for the publicist); copy editor William Franke, who does it all with a plum; Lauren Festa, the marketer; and Maya Marlette, the only one of her kind and not a mere device.

  And last, but also first, did I mention Rachel Griffiths? She’s awesome. Thank you, Rachel, for editing this mess. You’re the only force in the galaxy powerful enough to have pushed this thing through such a wall of obstinacy. Though I hear in Andromeda they have editors who just give you a pill and you go to sleep, and when you wake up the whole manuscript is perfect. But really, what fun would that be?

  Ira Bloom makes his literary debut with Hearts & Other Body Parts. Previously, Ira was a teacher of junior high English, ESL, and Japanese for the Los Angeles Unified School District. Ira and his wife currently operate a fashion and vintage kimono business, and he is something of an expert on Japanese textiles. Ira lives in Northern California with his family and an assortment of furry beasts. None have proven to be demons … yet.

  Copyright © 2017 by Ira Bloom