Heartsick

by Dia Reeves

Rue wandered closer, delighted as always by anything new. Once she was within range, the “arms” spat simultaneous gobs of yellowish fluid that splatted against Rue’s pinstriped shirt and ate through it.

  This is how the man in the empty room had lost his skin, how the arm she’d found had lost its man.

  The remnants of shirt sloughed away in tatters, and Rue’s breasts and most of her belly disappeared. Mr. Imp clung to her, pinching what remained of her skin, huddled close to her chest, but he lost his grip and fell. Into a pool of the yellow substance. Rue fished Mr. Imp free, tried to wipe him clean with her burning, melting fingers, but instead found herself with handfuls of gray flesh.

  “Poor Mr. Imp,” said Rue, staring at the unrecognizable goo in her unrecognizable palms.

  And then the rug spat again. In her face.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  A man drifted into the music room and surveyed the carnage. The broken window. The slices of rug leaking across the floor. The dead servants. The half-naked girl.

  Rue had managed to reconstruct her hands, breasts, nose, and part of the eye that had been damaged by the rug’s spit. The eye would be good as new tomorrow, but her fancy job interview shirt was a lost cause. Her hair, the brown of fire-cured tobacco, waist-length and wavy from the braids she’d unraveled, had become a makeshift blouse. She’d found wet wipes in the pockets of Shirley’s uniform and had done the best she could.

  At least her hands were clean.

  “Lethiferists kill monsters, not people,” was what the man offered instead of an introduction.

  Rue could only sigh as she pondered the sudden demise of what had seemed to be an interesting old woman. “Shirley was dead when I got here.” Rue pointed out the manless arm across the room. “So was Allan. And so was James, the skinless man in the pointless room behind you.”

  “Is that so?” The man wore a tailored suit, his dark hair parted and neatly combed. He had a handsomeness that came from power and impeccable grooming, and a joyless face that would have been at home in a post-mortem photograph.

  “You’re John Westwood.”

  “And you’re Just Rue.”

  He came further into the room and spoke into his phone. “At least three: one in the apparently pointless ballroom and two in the music room. No, Grissel, none of the men were gray-haired. When Drabbin’s done in the lab, send him down to collect the bodies. We can feed them to the Apparatus at least; something good may come of this yet.”

  After Westwood ended his call, Rue said, “What’s the Apparatus?”

  “A machine. Something that will be a machine once I have perfected it. I’m an inventor.”

  “Of a machine that eats people.”

  “I was speaking figuratively, Just Rue.” He prodded the rug slices with the toe of one glossy shoe. “Three servants in one day. That must be some kind of record. Shirley and James and Allan.”

  “And Mr. Imp.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I met an imp in your kitchen and made friends with him. He said James was the only home he’d ever known.”

  “Kill beasts. Don’t befriend them. I’ll tolerate kindness to a point, but not weakness.”

  Rue had no idea how to interpret such a statement. “You don’t think kindness is weak?”

  “It can be.”

  “Are you kind?”

  “I’ve…improved.” Westwood removed an elegantly crafted pocket watch from his vest and looked at it. “Let’s talk about the job. I haven’t much time.”

  Rue sat at attention, hands folded neatly in her lap.

  “Do you believe that things happen for a reason?”

  “No.”

  “I do. I think the universe cleared those servants away to make room for you. Which means you must be worth at least three people. I was prepared to send you packing, a young girl like you. But it makes sense, after seeing you this way.” Westwood stared at her chest. “You’re heartless.”

  Rue waited, but a mob carrying pitchforks and torches didn’t burst into the room.

  “Why aren’t you screaming for the Mortmaine to come save you from me?”

  “If they didn’t have their own dark agenda, I’d have hired one long ago. I do wonder what they’d make of you.”

  “They leave us alone now. They didn’t always. A long time ago, we preyed on Porterenes. A lot. Enough to draw the Mortmaines’ attention. Do you know what decimation is?”

  “When one out of every ten persons is killed.”

  “That’s why we prey on outsiders now. Mostly. It’s safer.” Rue thought of Mr. Imp. “As safe as anything can be.”

  Westwood crouched before her, the creases in his dress pants as sharp as cleavers. “Which do you enjoy killing: monsters or people?”

  “Neither,” Rue said. “Killing isn’t a form of entertainment.”

  “You seem young to be on your own. Will your...parents? Is that what you call them? Will they mind?”

  “I have parents. And brothers. A sister. All that.”

  “Perhaps I should pay them a visit,” he said, unfazed by her tone, “and get their permission in person. I assume you live in the dark park with the other monsters.”

  “I don’t live anywhere. That’s why I’m here; it has nothing to do with the universe.”

  “Not the universe, then. My need called you here.” Westwood fingered the slit that vertically bisected her chest. “My will.”

  Westwood flew backward and slammed against the music room door. His formerly immaculate hair punked out, the fingernails of the hand that had touched her blackened and smoking.

  “I bet you think I did that on purpose.” Rue crossed her arms over her torso, over her slit. “I didn’t. I don’t have to. That spot is weak; my body protects its weak spots.”

  Westwood was slow getting to his feet, but when he managed it, he seemed in control of himself, if not his hair. He didn’t seem put out by the sudden violence to his person. “Does the amount of energy you expended to shock me weaken you? Your stolen heart, perhaps?”

  It did immensely, but Rue didn’t think Westwood needed to know her secrets. Not even heartless touched each other there. Not without permission. She didn’t have the vocabulary to discuss it in her own language, let alone English. She pulled her knees to her chest to doubly protect it.

  “I would soak that hand in ice water if I were you. Maybe take a nap or something—you have to play it safe around electricity.”

  A smile appeared on Westwood’s face, crippled and dying. “I’m pleased that your reaction to my curiosity was relatively mild. The sort of reaction that speaks of a girl who won’t go on a rampage and kill us all in our sleep.”

  “I’ve never been on a rampage.” It sounded like fun though: go to the country, go to the movies, go on an airplane, go on a rampage.

  She must have sounded wistful because he said, “My home is not the place to start. Take the occasional heart, if you must, but not from the servants. It would be bad for morale.”

  Rue tried to keep the memory of draining Allan out of her face.

  “Of course,” he added sternly, “better the servants than the children.”

  “Children?”

  “My sons,” said Westwood, as though it should have been obvious. “The twins. The reason you’re here. I’m working on an important project and everyone is helping—the twins more than anyone.” He nodded at one of the bloody rug slices. “Now that my home has become a refuge for beasts, it’s vital that my sons are protected.”

  “The ad didn’t mention children. I can’t have them underfoot while I’m working. Can’t your wife take care of them?”

  Westwood stared at her for the longest time.

  “Isn’t that pretty woman in the pictures your wife?”

  Rue, like many heartless, had a keen understanding of how to attract humans, to offer whatever verbal or visual enticements needed to make the human pliable, but unlike other heartless, Rue was actually interested in humans, had learned to read them, their e
xpressions and micro-expressions. Could look into any stony and colorless human eye and divine mysteries.

  But Westwood may as well have been eyeless, faceless. Headless.

  “My wife, Elnora, died five years ago. I’m not asking you to take care of the twins, only protect them. Especially them. I’ll pay you one thousand dollars a month, plus room and board.”

  “Three thousand. Since I’m worth three people,” Rue reminded him. “And vacation time. So I can take my sister to Europe.”

  “Done. After a six month probationary period, of course. I told you I’ve made up my mind,” he added when she looked surprised. “Something tells me you’re just what this family needs. But I have to ask: why live among humans? Heartless aren’t known for their joy of commingling.”

  “My folks kicked me out for being kind. ‘Humans are kind. We are heartless.’ But I’m not my family. Humans don’t bother me. I learn a lot from them. Something new every day. At home, nothing’s new. Nothing changes. It’s like being dead, except even dead things change. You don’t mind if I study you? Learn from you?”

  “May I do the same?” said Westwood, eagerly.

  “Not if you touch me again.”

  His ability to remain perfectly motionless was unnerving, but it was the only way he seemed able to think things over. “Deal,” he said, at last. “Any questions?”

  “One day, my little sister might need to come stay with me. Will she be welcome?”

  “How old is she?”

  “She’s a…teenager? Barely?”

  “If you’re still here after the probationary period, we’ll discuss it then. Perhaps renegotiate terms.”

  Westwood knelt and went through Shirley’s pockets, extracted a set of keys, and Shirley snatched at his lapels, his tie. Grabbed him tight.

  “Mister,” Shirley gasped. The blood pooling in her mouth sprayed his shirt front.

  “You shouldn’t speak, Shirley. You’ve…had an accident.” He turned to Rue. “I thought you said she was dead.”

  But Rue could only shake her head, transfixed by Shirley’s struggle to breathe through all the blood.

  “Mister…I was dead.”

  A fierce light brightened Westwood’s face as Shirley continued.

  “I…I was sent back. My dear Tony sent me…back to you. He said I was…needed here.”

  Westwood’s transcendent expression mirrored Shirley’s.

  “You are needed. Oh Shirley, you’ll never know. This is too perfect.”

  Westwood ripped away from Shirley’s death grip—back-from-death grip?—tearing his jacket as he stood and stomped Shirley’s head in. It took a surprisingly long time, her skull as hard as a coconut, but the stuff that came out wasn’t white and tasty.

  When Westwood was done, Rue considered the brain matter clinging to her bare arm, “I’m pretty sure I learned something from you just now, and much sooner than I expected.”

  He tossed her the keys he’d salvaged from Shirley, only slightly out of breath. “You just learned the importance of sacrifice.” The light in his face had transformed that crippled smile into a masterpiece.

  “Shirley gave her life for me. What are you willing to give?”

  Chapter 2

  The plink of rain against the windows made Rue want to pull the covers over her head, but last night, Westwood had told her to come down early to meet the twins.

  She fought her way off the overly soft mattress and shivered across the room Westwood had chosen for her. It was decorated in the same cold, grand style as the rest of the house, with massive wooden furniture, a ridiculously ornate chandelier hanging over the bed, and a fireplace big enough to stand in. Big enough to share with Nettle. Maybe.

  Westwood was weird. Surely too weird for someone as impressionable as Nettle.

  She checked the stolen phone, one of a pair she had procured for her and Nettle, but Nettle hadn’t responded to any of the pictures Rue had sent last night, nor any of her texts.

  Rue put the phone away, opened the wardrobe, and found clothes of better quality than she was used to. A few nightgowns—like the one she’d donned after washing off the blood and brains from last night’s job interview—undergarments in the built-in drawers, several uniforms, and best of all, a thick belted coat.

  Rue changed into one of the uniforms nearest her size—a plain black dress with long tight sleeves, a stiff white collar and cuffs, thick woolen tights, and a pair of heavy black oxfords that were only slightly too large. After pinning her Portero key to her waist, where it gleamed like a buckle, she twisted her hair into the two braids she favored and fastened the ends with her heart-shaped hair bobbles. The blood inside the bobbles frothed, blood from the first heart she’d ever taken.

  Since she was facing the mirror built into the door of the wardrobe, Rue spent a few minutes perfecting her friendly face. Facial expressions were hard for the stoic heartless to master, aside from the easier ones like hi-I’m-friendly and of-course-you-can-trust-me, critical expressions for anyone who made a living predating on humans. Rue on the other hand, who’d spent more time with humans than other heartless did, was uncommonly good at shaping her face into whatever mask pleased her best. When she had her look down, Rue headed out. And nearly tripped on the items lined neatly just beyond the threshold.

  A vial of perfume. A little cake wrapped in gold paper. A bundle of paperback books. Stationery with watercolor beetles trundling in the bottom corners. Jaunty ribbons of velvet and lace tied around each item.

  Gifts.

  Gifts?

  Rue stashed them in her room and looked forward to pondering them later, assessing the meaning behind each one. She loved unraveling human puzzles.

  Darkness hung inside the house like fog, the scant lighting from the wall sconces negated by the dark wood and the shadows that clung to the ceiling like bats. She slid her hand along the banister of the grand staircase as she descended and found it wet. With blood. Her descent slowed.

  The steps were carpeted in red and squished beneath her shoes with every step. At the bottom of the stairs, bloody footsteps curved to the left and disappeared down the hall, away from the room on her right. Voices came from that room. She recognized Westwood’s; her name escaped his lips, floated through walls to reach her.

  The blood trail, however, led back toward the ballroom, the same path she’d followed the night before. She was only halfway down the hall when the footprints vanished, but instead of a victim, Rue found a little girl sitting in the shadows beneath the stairs.

  She was about seven or eight and dressed in a school uniform: black jumper, gray shirt and knee socks, saddle shoes. A red and white snake curled in the girl’s lap like a flaccid candy cane. Rue immediately crossed the snake off the suspect list. As far as she knew, snake attacks didn’t create pools of blood. A little girl could though. Especially one who liked to hide in the dark.

  Rue knelt before her. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” The girl seemed surprised by the question.

  “I saw blood back there,” Rue explained. “On the stairs. Do you know anything about that?”

  “There’s always blood somewhere.”

  Rue found herself charmed by the girl’s sensible attitude. “Why are you sitting in the hall?”

  “Daddy’s in the dining room, and I can’t be in there when he’s in there.” Her lower face and shoes were supernaturally bright, but only because the rest of her was shadowed. Her mouth was small, but her upper lip was twice as big as her lower one, as though she’d been slapped. No pain in the girl’s face, however; only a child’s open curiosity. “Who’re you?”

  “Rue.”

  “Like Kanga and Roo?”

  Rue’d asked her mother the same question years ago, but no one in her family had ever read Winnie the Pooh and so they hadn’t gotten the joke. Except Nettle. Nettle always got the jokes. “Like the plant,” Rue said, and spelled it.

  “I’m Karissa.” She squirmed, ticklish, as her snake slithered in
to a new position around her neck. “And this is Peppermint. Say hi, Peppermint.”

  Rue waited, but the snake didn’t speak.

  “He’s a corn snake, but he doesn’t eat corn. Just mice.” Karissa pointed to a dead mouse lying slimy and undigested next to a bunny-shaped backpack. “He keeps throwing up though.”

  Peppermint butted Karissa’s mouth. It could’ve been affection or simply a warning to shut up—Rue could read humans well enough, but pet snakes were beyond her range of expertise.

  “You’re the lethi…lethiffa…”

  “Lethiferist. That’s right. How many children does Westwood have?” Rue could have sworn he’d only mentioned the twins.

  Karissa held up three fingers.

  Three small children.

  It might not be so bad. This one was quiet and tractable enough. Perhaps they all were.

  “Why don’t we go into the dining room? I assume he wants to introduce you all at once.”

  “Not while Daddy’s in there. He doesn’t like when I’m around.”

  Rue filed the information away and stood. “You understand your family better than I do. If I leave you out here, do you promise not to get killed?”

  “I promise.”

  Karissa answered with such an amazing amount of confidence that Rue gave her a real smile, not a practiced one. She grabbed the vase from the table beneath one of Elnora’s portraits.

  “If something comes for you, throw this at it”—she handed Karissa the vase—“and then come get me.”

  Karissa solemnly sat the vase beside her on the floor and then watched Rue smooth her braids and twitch the skirt of her uniform into place. “You scared of Daddy, too?”

  Rue made herself stop fidgeting; fidgeting clearly sent the wrong sort of message. “Not scared. Worried. Which is stupid. He hired me, so he must like me.”

  “Daddy likes chicken,” Karissa said, cradling Peppermint. “Daddy eats chicken. Don’t give him a chance to be sneaky.”

  Rue retraced her steps and went through the archway into the dining room, hoping she wouldn’t have to demonstrate to Westwood where they stood in relation to one another on the food chain—Rue was nobody’s chicken.