by Dia Reeves
“I’ll feed her,” said Rue. “I know what I’m like when I’m hungry.”
“Feed her what?”
“Something I can spare. A limb. Something like that.”
“Sounds great.” Westwood pushed Rue toward the gurney, toward the Grissel-thing’s mouth, and her arm disappeared inside of it, to the shoulder.
As her arm fell free, Rue also fell, to the floor. And the Grissel-thing fell atop her.
But not for long.
Everything began to fall. The gurney tipped over, the ventilator shut down, the bone machine smashed into nothing but metal and bone shards. Because of the Westwood children. They were fighting the Grissel-thing. And it took all of them, as the Grissel-thing was quite formidable when nothing was holding it back.
Peppermint had tied himself into a knot around its throat. Stanton and Sterling had put a few scalpels and surgical scissors to work and had turned the Grissel-thing into a grotesque pincushion. And Karissa. She had worked one hand into the Grissel-thing’s belly and was pulling Rue’s severed arm free, like the world’s goriest magic trick.
“I got it!” she yelled. “Don’t worry, Rue. I got it back!”
And then Westwood grabbed her.
“Stop! Get away from my wife or…I don’t want to hurt your sister.”
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me anymore.”
“I won’t. All I’m asking for is a trade. You for your mother.” But he was speaking to Stanton. “Deal?”
“Deal,” said Stanton, his face as stony as his father’s was desperate. “You first.”
Westwood shooed Karissa toward Rue. And the twins shoved the Grissel-thing toward their father.
Which ran into his arms. Tumbled with him to the ground. Fed on his flesh. He smiled the whole time.
“Jesus, Rue.” Sterling helped her rise. “Are you okay?”
Except for the initial severing of bone, Rue wasn’t in pain. Not terrible pain. She wasn’t bleeding. For a makeshift job, the paper heart the twins had made for her was doing a standout job. But instead of responding to Sterling, she retrieved her severed arm and walked toward the couple writhing on the floor. Took aim. And with one swipe, severed the Grissel-thing’s head. Again.
The head rolled to a stop at Stanton’s feet. He lifted it. “Weird. It looks like Aunt Grissel. Before she lost her soul.”
Plain brown hair. Plain pink skin. Same remarkable eyes though, even in death.
“If you take Dad’s head, we’ll have a set.”
Westwood’s head was no longer recognizable. “I don’t think I will. I’d rather go home.”
“Me too,” said Karissa. “Peppermint’s up past his bedtime.”
Stanton led them to a door at the back of the lab that had a keyhole. Once unlocked it opened onto the second floor hallway across from Westwood’s room.
They filed through and closed the door.
“Do you still have that key, Kissy Face? The one the Mayor signed?”
“Yeah, it’s my lucky key.”
“Do you remember how she said to lock the door to Dad’s lab?”
Karissa showed Sterling that she remembered, turning the black key three times clockwise.
“Open it.”
“I just locked it.”
“You locked the lab door. I hope. Let’s see if you did.”
Karissa tried the knob and the door opened easily…onto an empty spare room.
“Do you think we should have brought his body back?”
“No,” said Stanton.
“Family sticks together,” said Karissa. “It’s supposed to.”
“It did.”
The four of them went to the family room where Sterling placed Grissel’s head next to Uncle Ethan’s on the mantle.
“There’s room for your arm, Rue,” he said. “A place of honor.”
“I left it back in the lab.”
They collapsed together on the marshmallowy couch.
“I guess Mama didn’t forgive us.” Karissa said, her voice muffled against Stanton’s chest.
The twins didn’t answer, so Rue did. “That wasn’t your mother. That was someone who wanted you to know you have to leave Elnora where she is. It’s just as well. Getting your heart’s desire never makes you happy like you think it will.”
“Didn’t get to speak to her or hug her or introduce her to Peppermint or anything.”
“We must have opened the wrong door. Or there’s more than one kind of eternity.”
“Or that was a door into Westwood’s personal hell,” Rue said.
“Daddy was mean to me. And he said he wouldn’t be.” Karissa bounced up and opened the curtains and the balcony doors. As sunlight poured in, Stanton screamed, startling everyone.
He ripped the painting of Elnora from the wall and tossed it over the balcony.
“I tried so hard to make it right,” he said. “To fix everything that went wrong. Failure doesn’t even begin to describe what happened today.”
“Fix it with what?” said Sterling.
“Love.”
“There was never any love in this house.”
“But we changed. I wanted her to see that we’d changed.”
“I think love is a choice,” said Rue. “We chose and so did Westwood.”
“If Dad doesn’t regret choosing mom over us, I guess I can’t regret choosing us over him. Over her too, I guess.”
Stanton sat beside her, deflated.
“I can’t dwell on it. We have things to do. Lawyers to see. Papers to sign. Now that dad’s not coming back.”
“We still have my dad. We can share him. Sharing is caring. The painting was a lie. All the paintings are. Lies are bad.”
“No more lies,” said Sterling. “We’ll build something good and strong. Something we can believe in.”
“If you make it as good as you made this heart, we’ll be just fine.”
“Did you stop the bleeding yourself, or did it happen automatically? Or autotomically, I should say.”
“I stopped it. Stopped the pain too. I didn’t think that heart you made was any good; it seemed so flimsy, but so far it’s doing a fabulous job. My new arm is already growing in.” Rue made the stumpy appendage wave at them.
“It is flimsy. It’s paper. We’ll make you another heart,” said Stanton. “A stronger one.”
“You’re my heart.” Rue looked at each one of them in turn, watched the emptiness in them slowly fill. Glad she had enough to fill them. “All three of you. I don’t need anything else.”
About Heartsick
This book took years to write, and I still don’t like it. I rewrote it a billion times, but I could never get it to be like the cool idea in my head. This is definitely a case of “books aren’t finished, they’re abandoned.” There are parts of it I like—Karissa’s my favorite character, and I like all the scenes with her—but mostly I’m just glad this book is over. Maybe your reading experience will be better than my writing experience? I certainly hope so, but do leave a review and let me know what you think. You can also sign up to be notified of my new releases here.
Also by Dia Reeves
Miscreated