Heartsick

by Dia Reeves

  He looked more surprised than Rue when he began weeping. “Man, where did that come from? Stupid grief. One second I’m fine, and the next…” He sniffed. “Goddamn irritating.”

  She handed him a braid and let him wipe away his tears.

  His laugh was short and watery. “Can I blow my nose on it, too?”

  “Snot I can handle.”

  Instead of blowing his nose—maybe that had been a joke?—he fingered the hair bobble on the end of the braid. “What’s that stuff inside?” he asked, shaking it like dice.

  Rue might have told a different boy that it was blood, but this one didn’t seem morbid enough to appreciate such info. So she changed the subject.

  “If I mate with you, will you stop crying?”

  “Mate?” The word seemed to stump him. “With me?”

  “Only if it’ll make you stop crying. Otherwise there’s no point.”

  “I’d stop crying.” He’d already stopped. “Are you serious?”

  “Come see if I am.” Rue stood, suppressing a moan only with great concentration. It took a lot of concentration to fend off rigor mortis.

  “Tell me about Wendy.” Rue couldn’t believe she was asking. It was never a good idea to get personal with victims.

  “She was short and loud.” Peter’s smile was sad. “Always asking questions, always wanting to tag along.”

  “They only want to tag along when they look up to you. Was your sister your most favorite person in the world?”

  “Not while she was alive. She was always underfoot, you know? But now—” He turned to Rue, alarmed. “You cold? You’re shaking like—”

  “I know. I’m freezing.” The weather had been pleasant, but as twilight approached, the wind grew teeth.

  “You want my jacket?” he said, already tugging down the red zipper.

  “That’s not what I need.” Rue looked back and saw the teens. Still in sight. She led him on, down the dark trail. “How did your sister die?”

  Peter yanked up his hood, the question chilling him as the biting wind hadn’t. “Cancer.”

  “Do you imagine her in heaven, looking down on you?”

  “I don’t believe in heaven.”

  He put his hand over hers, and then jerked away.

  “What?”

  “You don’t have fingernails.”

  “Does that disgust you?”

  “It’s okay,” Peter said, after an endless pause. “I have hammer toes. Nobody’s perfect.”

  Rue grabbed his elbow, careful not to touch his hand again, and hurried him onward. “Let’s go sit over there,” she said, pointing toward a hillock just off the path and out of sight of the teens in the playground.

  “No way,” said Peter. “That’s too close to the dark park.”

  “The dark park is downsquare. We’re upsquare, miles and miles away.” He looked doubtful so she said, “Don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not,” said Peter. “I just know what it’s like here. I’m from Castelaine, but my folks ship me over here to my aunt whenever they wanna fight in peace, so I know about all the monsters. Still. Better to get eaten by a monster than by cancer.”

  Peter allowed Rue to take him further off the path toward a cluster of newly blossomed azalea bushes. When she pulled him down and unzipped his jacket, Peter kissed Rue. A basketball court was nearby, the thudding bounce of the ball a counterpoint to Peter’s heart.

  He jerked away, without warning, staring nervously into the woods.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” said Rue, the pain in her stiffening limbs balanced by the warmth of his body. “Peter relax.”

  “I am relaxed. My aunt was telling me the other day about some guy who was found dead near the woods”—he lowered his voice—“with his heart missing.” He looked down at his chest as if making sure his own heart was right where he’d left it. “They looked around but couldn’t find it. Whatever stole that poor bastard’s heart probably ate it with a side of fries.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “It’s true! You’re from here. You know what Portero’s like.”

  “I do know,” she said, exasperated. “I mean it’s ridiculous you think the man’s heart was eaten. We don’t eat them.”

  Rue cracked Peter in the face with her elbow and knocked him unconscious. Normally, she would have bemoaned such poor technique, but too much time had passed.

  She unbuttoned her uniform to prevent blood spatter, freezing in the wintry air. She manhandled Peter until his back was pressed to her front, and sank her protracted nails into his chest. After much splintering of bone, and spurting of blood, Rue held his heart in her hand. It seemed fine, healthy. As strong as it sounded.

  She slipped his heart into the gaping place between her breasts until her arteries latched hold and snatched it out of her hands. Her slit sealed tight on its own, and after the first few pumps, Rue relaxed all over, limbs loosening as her blood warmed and began to circulate. The pain left her body in a heated rush. She collapsed next to Peter in a kind of ecstasy, luxuriated in the warmth and painlessness as she watched Peter’s blood drip-drop from the Christmas green leaves. She raised her body temperature, just because she could; she hadn’t been able to in forever. The fullness and motion in her chest was soothing.

  When she heard curious animals approaching, wanting to investigate Peter’s body, she made herself get up and drag him deeper into the woods, to rot out of sight among the bare oak trees.

  “Are you okay?” Stanton asked.

  The twins stood behind her. She could tell they’d watched the whole thing, even though they didn’t seem disgusted.

  “I’m fine!” She raised her temperature even more, a luxury she’d dearly missed. “I think Peter heard y’all galumphing around though.”

  “We just wanted to see,” Sterling said. “I loved the part where you made out with him. That was awesome.”

  “I like to make their last moments pleasant.”

  “Elbow smacks to the face are pleasant?”

  “I was…impatient. It’s usually a lot smoother than that.”

  “Do you feel better?”

  “Much better.” She took their hands and held each one over her heart. “Say, ‘May it last.’”

  They did. “Why did we do that?”

  She buttoned up and slipped into the coat Stanton held out to her. “Because that was what my family would have said. If they didn’t hate me.” The tears caught her by surprise. “Sorry. The heart’s just really fresh.”

  “Heart drunk like Thyme?” Stanton put an arm around her. “It’s okay; I like you like this.”

  “Why? I really thought about killing you. I would have.”

  “I know.” Sterling put his arm around her as well. “But we already gave you our hearts. Tearing them out would be redundant.”

  Chapter 24

  The next day found Rue tracking an unfamiliar beast’s footprints through the mud. A five-toed creature with freakishly long middle toes and the unexpected scent of the ocean, as if the beast had traveled up from the Gulf just to befuddle her. The fog intensified the befuddlement, a thick fog that cloaked the pines, the world, unless Rue was within a few feet of what she wanted to see, like the prints she followed into the pines below the hill.

  “You walk by twice without smelling me.”

  Rue shrieked in surprise, then delight as her sister materialized next to a tree with peeling bark, a sharp contrast with Nettle’s baby soft skin, her delicate throat draped with the necklace that had been made of their grandma's flesh. An irrefutable sign of her matronly status. Any other time, Rue would have hugged her sister, but baby-soft skin or not, Nettle may as well have been covered in thorns.

  Rue kept her distance.

  I wasn’t expecting you. Hey there. Sorry. I never thought you’d really come. But here you are. For the ball? Forever? Forever’s okay. The twins worked it out with their dad. That was why I needed Thyme—to get permission for you to stay here. Y
ou can stay here. I’ll take care of you.

  “He was our grandfather.”

  The flood of words evaporated in the face of such heat.

  He left. He turned his back on us.

  “So did you. I can kill you or Dodder can, and for your logic, it’s okay?”

  The fog pressed against Rue with clammy hands. She shivered. Tried to stop. Couldn't, even after raising her temperature.

  “Heath’s waiting for me on the road. He only drive me here so I can—”

  STOP SPEAKING ENGLISH.

  Nettle looked away, squinting, as if it would damage her eyes to stare at Rue too long. “English is better. The distance is better.”

  When the beast leaped out of the fog at Rue, she dodged it, its marine smell having reached her long before its attack. Hairy. The blue-black of deep night. The stuff covering it? Not hair, but antennae of some sort that wriggled independently. Sensory organs since the beast had no face with which to make sense of the world.

  “Can you speak?” Rue said, then gasped at the pain in her belly. One of the antennae had shot forward and lodged just above her waist.

  Nettle slashed the antenna, severing the connection. Sliced into the beast two handed and ripped it down the center. A rainbow spilled from the beast: red, purple, orange-yellow. A child’s watercolor set, regurgitated. Vibrant in the fog.

  Nettle cleaned her claws on a handkerchief. “Why you let it get so close?”

  I wanted to know what it was. Rue’s belly had healed, but her uniform would need mending. Again. I wanted to know what it wanted.

  “To eat you.”

  What are all these colors? She dipped her fingers into the various fluid, painting question marks in the beast's entrails. How interesting.

  “So soft you are. You live too long with humans.”

  Humans didn’t change me. I’ve always been this way. But my way isn't weak. Not always. A little compassion never hurt anybody.

  “The compassion that made you kill Thyme? You keep your compassion to yourself.”

  I did it for you. Westwood wouldn't have let you stay here. Don't you get that?

  “Why you care about Westwood? He’s nothing. Kill him and take over his house, and you make the rules.”

  His kids like him. Rue licked the purple goo from her finger, absently noting the salt flavor. They would be sad.

  “You care about their sadness but not mine? Or the family’s? You killed Grandpa because a human tell you to. Did you eat him at least?”

  The dogs ate him.

  Nettle burst into tears.

  I did it for you.

  “Don’t say that again! Whatever you do for me, you waste your time. This is a waste. I won’t tell anyone what you did. I can’t even think about what you did. I can never speak it—” She held her hands over her mouth, sobbing.

  I’m sorry.

  “You are not. You do not care. You never did.”

  I care about you.

  Nettle recoiled, as though slapped. Rubbed the tears from her face. “I found food for you. A lot of food. I will leave it with Mr. Beardsley.”

  Nettle—

  “So you have no reason to come near us! Not you. Not your twins. Not any of you. Do you understand?”

  I love you.

  “I love you too, but not enough. I can never love you enough. Not more than family. Goodbye.”

  Nettle disappeared into the fog.

  Rue went down the hall to the twins’ room, and though the fog no longer surrounded her, it had infiltrated her head. Made it hard to think. When she found the twins peeling some sort of clear membrane from the backstabber eyeballs, the way some people peeled grapes, and separating them into bowls, she assumed they meant to eat all those eyes.

  “Nettle hates me.”

  Stanton said something, flicking a membrane from his finger into the bowl, but the fog in her head made it hard to hear. The twins poured the bowls of membranes into two huge jars full of violet liquid, acrid enough to bring tears to Rue’s eyes. That was definitely why her eyes were so wet. When they carried the jars out of the room. She followed.

  “Nettle came up here. To talk. It didn’t go the way I imagined. Nothing’s happening the way I imagined. She thinks I’m a monster. What if she’s right? Do you think she’s right?”

  The twins unlocked the door to the lab. Shimmered away over the threshold.

  The door closed in Rue's face.

  Chapter 25

  As the sun began to set the following Sunday, the day of the spectacular, Rue sat in the garden photographing the flora. She had decided she needed to get in the habit of identifying and classifying specimens—her professors would expect it.

  Dr. Rue. She really liked the sound of that.

  One of Rue’s favorite statues in the garden was of a woman with tentacles, outstretched as though she was showing them off or exposing them in horror. Such a tough expression to read. Rue sat in the statue’s embrace, feeling small and safe, going over her notes and the photos she’d already taken, when Karissa hurried over.

  “It’s almost time. The twins said to tell you.”

  “Time for what?”

  “The spectacular!”

  “You look so pretty in that dress.”

  Karissa smiled and pirouetted.

  “Go on back to the house, though, before you get mud on it.”

  “But the twins said—”

  “I don’t care what they said.”

  Karissa gave her a troubled look and then flitted back to the house.

  Rue twisted in the statue’s arms to consider whether the teacups growing nearby counted as plants or animals and where you could reasonably draw the line. The showy petals—and the liquid they encircled—attracted a dragonfly that didn’t alight. The teacup seemed to droop in disappointment as it zipped past. Rue recorded the interaction on her phone, fascinated.

  “You look like a messed up love deprivation experiment.” Sterling arrived, half-dressed in tuxedo pants and a tee shirt. “Why are you out here, alone in the cold?”

  “I’m surprised you noticed. You’ve been so busy in the lab all week. Busy with all the things that matter to you.”

  “What are you, jealous? Is that what this is about? You don’t strike me as the needy type, Rue.”

  “I’m not. You don’t need me. I don’t need you. And I especially don’t need to see your father showing off in front of a bunch of easily impressed humans. But I hope y’all have a great time, just the same.”

  “Rue—”

  “No.”

  “Are we back to that again?”

  When she didn’t answer, he stormed off.

  “Can you communicate?” Rue asked the teacup nearest her. “I think that’s a good way to draw the line between plants and animals—interspecies communication.” Rue tilted her head. “Do you know what I mean?”

  The flower tilted at the same angle as Rue’s head. A considering angle. Rue photographed it for her notes and then took a selfie with the teacup because it was just that adorable.

  “Rue.” Stanton stood before her, fully dressed and imposing in a tuxedo. “Come with me.”

  Rue put her phone away and took his hand. Felt like one of the teacup flowers, trapped between kingdoms, unsure of her welcome. But when she tried to pull away, Stanton wouldn’t let her.

  “It was all for nothing, what I did. Betraying Thyme. Nettle disowned me.”

  “What?”

  “I needed to talk. I just wanted to talk to someone. And you slammed a door in my face.”

  “When?”

  “Last week. I haven’t said one word to anyone all week, and no one noticed. I may as well not exist. Only your experiments matter.”

  “Tell me what happened with Nettle.”

  “I tried to! I tried last week.”

  “Try again.”

  She told him what happened.

  “The next time Nettle calls—”

  “She won’t. Weren’t you listening?”
<
br />   “The next time she calls, tell her we’ll make a heart for her too. If it’ll change her mind. If it’ll make you happy. Sorry we’ve been ignoring you, shutting you out. We won’t anymore.” He pulled her into his arms. “If you think you can stand it.”

  Hugging him was different from hugging a statue.

  “Well?” she said. “This is it. The big day. Was the experiment a success?”

  “We don’t know yet.” Stanton led her into the house via the kitchen, which was full of staff racing up and down the stairs, and a catering company crew trying to find room for the tons of food they’d prepared. “There’re two shows: a public one and a private one. If this public one is a success, we’ll know whether the private one is even possible. Frida!” He snagged her in the foyer. “Help Rue get ready. I have to meet Dad in the theater.”

  After Rue showered, Frida brushed and styled her hair and helped her into the champagne-colored dress.

  “Too bad you’re not going,” said Rue. “I won’t know anyone there who’s not a Westwood.”

  “Who says I’m not?”

  “Grissel said staff were never invited. You were invited?”

  “Not exactly.” Frida’s cheeks were scarlet. “But I’ll be at the ball, for sure. Don’t tell anyone!”

  “I won’t,” Rue promised. “I've been disowned and have no one to tell secrets to.”

  “You have the twins. They’re obsessed with you.”

  “They’re obsessed with something.” Rue slumped in the chair as Frida slipped a pair of heels onto her feet. “But it’s not me.”

  “Damn, Rue,” said Sterling. “You clean up nice.”

  “It’s not…indecent?” Rue asked, hands hovering over her exposed slit.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Stanton. “Classy, even.”

  “You don’t think anyone will touch me there? Just because it’s on display?”

  “I doubt it,” Sterling said, “but if anyone does, use your claws—there’s plenty of room in the root cellar for an extra body.”

  Squeezed between them, Rue felt safe enough to lower her arms.

  They entered the theater and went upstairs to a balcony overlooking the rest of the theater and the stage. There was only one other balcony across the way, where the Mayor sat with a handful of Mortmaine, the real kind in head to toe green.