The Heartless

“Mom, why do I have to keep what I am a secret?”

My mother set another cup of warm milk in front of me and pursed her lips. After seeming to think for a moment, she answered carefully, “Because, dear, there are a lot of mean people in the world who would do bad things if they knew.”

“What kinds of bad things?”

It was one of my earliest vivid memories; I was six years old. From as far back as I can remember, my parents had always told me that revealing that I was Heartless to anyone, no matter how trustworthy, was strictly forbidden.

“Well, your father and I could get in trouble. Or they may hurt you or take you away.”

“Why?”

My mother hesitated. This was before I knew of the curse; my parents had always kept it from me. Finally, she said, “Sometimes people are afraid of those that are different from them.” She bent down to eye-level and placed a hand on my shoulder. “The reasons don’t matter. What matters is that you don’t ever tell anyone, not even your friends.”

“I know.”

I did know. It was the earliest truth instilled in me; my identity was something to be hidden from view. It was the seed that one day, when Marcus spun his tale of the great evil that lived inside me, sprouted into shame.

So I learned to fake being normal and told no one, not for two more years. But I still carried the shame between my ribs, like a thorny stem that never quite blossomed into a rose.

Swallow’s Point was not much different than I remembered it, though the buildings had begun to wither and fade with the passage of time. Traipsing through the northeastern woods to get there had been a quiet affair, with only my thoughts and the gentle crunching of the autumn leaves under my boots to keep me company. The journey had only taken a few days this time, as compared to the week it had taken me to reach the Village of the Heartless seven years ago. When I began to run out of water as early as the third day, I was more thankful than ever for improved navigational skills and longer legs.

As I approached my house from down the road, I could see it had become overgrown with vines in the years since I ran away. The same old fence stood in a state of disrepair, and my father’s vegetable garden had yet to be replanted for the fall harvest. When I reached the front door, I froze. What if my parents didn’t want to see me?

The curse had always been a burden for them, to the point where sending me away became their only reasonable course of action after keeping me—against royal decree—for ten years. Perhaps they resented me for being born broken; if they’d had a normal child not plagued with the curse I had been dealt, then they would never have had to put themselves at risk. They could have had the perfect child, who grew up in the safety of their home and perhaps one day got married and bore them grandchildren. I was never going to be that child for them, and as I turned the knob to open the door I wondered if they regretted having a child at all.

The door swung open.

“Mom?” My voice broke and echoed through the small house. I don’t know if I had been expecting a grand welcome or the sting of rejection, but I had not expected what I received, which was nothing at all. Not a look, not a single breath, not even a crackle of the wood in the fireplace.

“Mom? Dad?” I called, stepping inside. “Hello?”

The house was eerily empty, the wooden dining table dusty like it hadn’t seen use in years, so empty that it seemed larger than it ever had. There was only stillness and silence, the only sounds my careful footsteps and bewildered breaths.

My own room, though dusty and donned with cobwebs, was in pristine order. The now faded quilt over my bed had been folded neatly over my pillow. What few books and toys I had owned were organized neatly on my shelf. What surprised me was the yellowing family portrait we had taken when I was seven years old, beaming from ear to ear, before I knew of curses or emptiness or human cruelty in child-sized packages. It sat framed on the shelf beside an empty, dirty vase which must have once held flowers before they decomposed over several years. It was as though someone were mourning my loss; maybe I might as well have been dead to them, or perhaps it was what they pretended to explain my absence.

“Ace, you need to run! Go! There isn’t much time!”

What had my father meant, there wasn’t much time?

I ran out the door and had half a mind to glance toward the center of the neighborhood first, where several adults had congregated amongst the children, trying to make sense of the chaos in its aftermath--Basil was nowhere to be seen. Carita made eye contact with me and stared, briefly, but said nothing and looked away as I turned and bolted down the road and toward the village’s western edge where my parents told me to run, crashing through the brush with branches scratching at my limbs until I was sure I was far enough away to never look back.

The air in the room suddenly felt oppressive, thick with some sadness I hadn’t allowed myself to feel for quite a while. Without thinking, I snatched up the frame and slipped it into my satchel. Then, in a panic, I bolted from the room and from the empty house of my childhood and pulled the door shut firmly.

“I thought that was you I saw coming up the road,” an eerily familiar voice piped up behind me. I jumped and whirled around to see Carita leaning against the beaten fence, arms crossed over her chest. She bent down and lifted a wicker basket from the dirt beside her feet.

“I got this for you when I saw that you were coming,” she explained, pulling off the covering cloth to reveal a few small bread rolls and a large canteen.

Wordlessly, I narrowed my eyes at the offering, cursing my traitorous stomach for growling at the prospect of food.

Carita placed a hand on her hip, rolling her eyes. “What, do you think I would poison you?” she questioned. Then she laughed. “Please, I had feelings for you when we were little. I’m just doing you a favor.”

I hesitated for a moment before reaching out and grabbing the basket from her hand. I felt like a desperate, wounded animal, downing all of the bread and the entire canteen of water in minutes while Carita stood over me like a self-satisfied hunter who had just spared me from a bullet between the eyes, dripping with smug confidence over having done the bare minimum of human decency.

“What’s your ulterior motive for being kind to me?” I demanded, taking a step back and crossing my arms.

Carita sighed. “Can’t I just be kind to an old childhood friend?”

“We weren’t friends.”

This caught her off guard. “Well—I mean, surely we were before… you know.”

“It proves we never were. You were friends with an idealized version of me that never existed.”

Plaintively, Carita toyed with the cloth in her hands, frowning at the dirt. “And which version would that be?”

“The version of me that is capable of love.”

I watched Carita’s eyes drift toward my chest, and she paused that way for a moment before reaching a palm forward. Possessed by raw fear, I leapt backward.

Carita’s lips formed a tight smile. “I figured as much,” she lamented. “Since you disappeared right after Marcus did what he did to Basil.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Where is he?” I demanded.

“Marcus?” Carita shrugged. “Probably in town. Don’t worry, I won’t tell him you were here.”

“Not Marcus. Basil.”

“If I knew, I would tell you. Last I ever saw him, he was escaping through the woods.”

My blood ran cold thinking of what could have happened to my best friend after I had run off. “And my parents?”

She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “A couple of days later, the royal guard passed through the neighborhood, and they disappeared; Basil’s too.”

My face must have fallen, as Carita smiled sympathetically, the cloth changing hands again.

“I’m sorry. I know what it feels like to lose someone.”

I shook my head vehemently, shutting my eyes. “You don’t. It’s not the same.”

“It might as well be.” I could feel Carita step closer to me.

“Quit toying with me,” I demanded, trying to step backward but finding myself firmly rooted to the ground. “I lost both my parents and the one person in this town who understood me thanks to the ignorance of people like you and everyone else in this godforsaken kingdom and you think your pain compares to mine? How can you say that?”

“Because I lost you seven years ago.”

My stomach lurched. “Th-That’s not the—”

I was cut off by Carita gripping me by the shoulders and pressing her lips against mine. My eyes shot open. Every muscle in my body froze, every drop of my blood went cold and still; the fairytales in the old books my mother used to read me always spoke of sparks flying, but the only warmth I felt was white hot terror creeping through my veins. I was paralyzed by fear for several moments before I managed to push Carita away from me, sending her stumbling backwards and landing flat on her back in the dirt road, the cloth from the basket fluttering through the air before coming to rest at her side.

“Stay the hell away from me,” I shouted, pulling the hood of my cloak up over my head and backing away down the road.

Carita pushed herself to a sitting position. “Ace, I didn’t mean it!”

“And I’m sure Marcus didn’t mean it when he ruined my life!” I turned around and sprinted down the road, turning the familiar sights of my hometown into a blur.

“Ace, wait! Come back!” I heard Carita call after me.

“I hate you!” I screamed, bolting through town without caring who saw or who was listening. “I hate this entire village! I hate this kingdom! I hate this curse and I hate myself!”

I kept running, darting between people and houses and market stalls with my head down and blinders up until I came crashing into Marcus himself, in all his six feet of smug-faced glory.

“Watch where you’re going,” he grumbled, glaring at me.

After stumbling backward, I took a defensive stance. “Don’t even think about coming any closer,” I threatened, gripping my bow behind me.

“You bumped into me,” he pointed out, raising his eyebrows. “Do I know you?”

My grip on the bow went slack, as did my jaw and every other muscle in my body (which had been tense ever since Carita first laid a hand on me). I stood there just like that as Marcus shook his head in disbelief and pushed past me, headed for home in the direction I had come.