Heartsick

by Dia Reeves

  “But they were eating the cake.”

  “Hummingbirds don’t eat cake.” Sterling ripped off the notebook paper and dropped it into a dark cup of tea where it dissolved and turned the liquid pinkish and cloudy. “Drink this. It’ll help with the hallucinations. And the weakness.”

  “I’m not weak!” Rue slapped the proffered cup into the bushes. Grabbed the blue sloth’s hand. Marched off.

  “Rue?”

  She stopped.

  “The root cellar is that way.”

  Rue changed directions, cursing under her breath.

  “It doesn’t matter what Sterling says or what direction we go,” she said, once she and the blue sloth were out of hearing range. “There’s plenty of woods all around. You can go across El Camino Real and into those trees and follow them back to the dark park without ever being seen.”

  The blue sloth began biting her hind leg again. Not nipping the way she had earlier, the way a flea-ridden dog would. Gashing. Tearing. Trying to bite her own leg off.

  Rue hunkered down and touched the blue sloth’s sore leg, burrowed her fingers through the thick blue fur, felt the blood from the bite marks, felt the huge wriggling mass just beneath the skin.

  Definitely not fleas.

  Rue extended one claw and sliced into the blue sloth’s skin, quick and deep, and in no time had grabbed hold of the problem. Wrenched it free. Purple, glistening with blood and ooze, as long as Rue’s forearm. Slick and whippy, desperate to be free, but Rue secreted a sticky residue from her hand that let her keep a tight grip. A barbed tongue flicked out of the round opening of its head. Swiped at her hand and arm, licking the skin away in strips. As painful as it felt, the parasite only got in two or three licks before it began to slow down. To stiffen. To cool.

  Rue held it high, let her hand go cold to speed the process, and between her icy hand and the icy wind, the parasite quickly froze into the world’s most hideous Popsicle. Rue set it aside on the cold ground and used her wet wipes to clean the blue sloth’s wounds, sealed them with more of the sticky resin. As she worked, the blue sloth rested its hand on her knee. A hand with four fingers and a thumb, fur lifting in the stiff wind.

  When Rue had done everything she could medically, the blue sloth stood and walked with Rue to the edge of the property.

  “Stay safe,” Rue told her. “And if you run into any more trouble like that, instead of chewing yourself to death, come find me.”

  The sloth nodded. Crossed El Camino Real without getting hit by a car. Crossed into the woods without being mauled by a cackler. Rue waited a bit longer for any signs of distress, but nothing happened.

  Not on her watch.

  Rue carried the purple parasite into the kitchen and dumped it down the disposal, listening to the icy grind and crack as it was reduced to mush. She tarried a moment, soaked up the heat blasting from various pots bubbling and steaming on the stove. The brown liquid in the largest pot began to smell increasingly familiar the longer Rue stood there, but before she could place the scent, arms surrounded her. Strong, supportive, cold. Ice fingers plucking at the buttons of her uniform.

  “Come on then.” Warm breath in her ear. “Show us your tits.”

  Rue broke free, putting space between herself and Drabbin.

  Drabbin tsked at her and when she didn’t comply, began to pull things out of cupboards: a bowl, a box with a smiling tiger on it. A spoon. His eyes never left hers. “I just had a long session in the lab with the mister. He said when he first clapped eyes on you, you was starkers.”

  “I wouldn’t go to a job interview naked. The rug acid ate away my shirt.”

  “No fair the mister having a look and not me. A feel too, from what he said.”

  “A smack too. Did he tell you that part?”

  “Aye. Because he didn’t ask first. I know birds like to be asked.” Drabbin’s eyes went misty and faraway, like he was remembering something pleasant. “Some of ’em.”

  Rue clutched the front of her uniform, remembering how Westwood had groped her in the music room.

  The music room. That smell.

  Rue looked at the bubbling pot. “Shirley?”

  “Quite a nose on you.” Drabbin poured himself a bowl of cereal. “Yeah, it’s Shirley.”

  “Why are you cooking her?” This new mystery replacing the memories of Westwood’s hand on her. “Who do you expect to eat Shirley?”

  Drabbin took his cereal to the island at the center of the kitchen. The metal stool made a horrid screech as he dragged it out and sat. “Karissa and the twins. Who else?”

  “They’re cannibals? Really?” Rue continued to clutch her chest, but for different reasons. “I never would have guessed.”

  Drabbin said, “John’s a wanker, but he’s right sharp he is. He says to me, human flesh has soul in it; the more flesh you eat, the more soul you has. It’s important to feed the kids’ souls, make them bigger and brighter.”

  “Only the children? Why don’t you eat it, if souls are so important?”

  The steam from the cooking pot. She was breathing it in. Breathing Shirley in.

  Rue hurried away from the stove and sat across from Drabbin who looked even better up close.

  “No point,” he said. “I’ve not got any soul. If you got no soul, what’s there to increase?”

  “Did you lose it?”

  “‘Twas et. Me and Grissel’s. But no matter. The twins got plenty, and John wants every bit of it.”

  “NDE! That’s what Westwood meant: near-death experience. He killed Shirley because she’d come back from the dead and…it affected her soul in some way?”

  “Aye. People who have NDEs have a special kind of soul. A strong kind, capable of moving between our world and eternity. Usually that’s a one way trip. But a soul that can travel back and forth, that’s the kind as makes the best lab subjects.”

  “For the bone machine. What happens to a soul in the bone machine?”

  “Gets shredded. At least, so far. John’s clever, but he ain’t God, no matter what he thinks.”

  Rue was stunned. “You can destroy a soul?”

  “John can. John and his machine. Or they can be eaten.” Eyes heavy on her. “Yours looks…meaty. Large as life itself.”

  “You see it?” If Rue could have shielded it from his sight, she would have.

  “Comes with not having one of my own. I get to be tormented by other people’s. By yours.” Drabbin leaned toward her. “Grissel was right about you, about the light inside. Little star, she called you.”

  Rue leaned away, head on the verge of explosion. “This is what Westwood’s spectacular is going to cover this year. Souls.”

  “Pretty and clever,” Drabbin said. “Always a bad combination.”

  “What kind of project requires Westwood to steal your souls?”

  “Weren’t stolen.” Drabbin said. “I told you. Westwood got on the wrong side of a souleater, and me and Grissel had to pay for it.” He shoved the cereal bowl aside so violently that milk sloshed onto his hand. “Reason food tastes like swill.” He rubbed the milk into his skin as though it were lotion. “Nothing feels right.”

  When he reached for her, Rue dodged him.

  “I answered your nosy questions, yeah? You owe me.”

  Rue thought about it, decided she did owe Drabbin. He’d volunteered more in five minutes than anyone else had in over a week.

  She unbuttoned her uniform and peeled it down to her waist, and as she pulled her arms free, Drabbin came around the island to sit next to her.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “Why?” His eyes rolled over Rue, made her skin feel as crawly as Grissel had the other day. “Afraid I’ll reach through that slit and grab whoever’s heart you shoved in there? I bet that’d feel intense.”

  He leaned close, like he wanted to kiss her, except he was inhaling, trying to vacuum out a piece of her soul.

  “Stop that.”

  “Not even a taste?”

  “Get Westw
ood to give you a new soul if you want one so badly. He owes you more than I do.”

  “I don’t want a new soul. I want to taste yours. Selfish to keep all that to yourself.”

  “Why would you want to taste any part of me? We’re not even family.” Rue decided she’d more than repaid him for answering her questions, but before she could tell him so, Stanton came into the kitchen. Dressed like his brother in an old-fashioned hat and waistcoat. On the way to join his siblings no doubt. But he paused at the sight of her and Drabbin. Gave Drabbin such a look, Rue was surprised Drabbin’s head didn’t burst into flames.

  “Dad’s waiting for you in the lab; go see what he wants.”

  Drabbin gave Rue’s breasts one last, wistful once-over. Popped up from the stool. “I know what John wants. Same thing he always wants. Someone to clean up his mess.”

  “You can’t prance around here like it’s a nudist colony,” Stanton told Rue when Drabbin had gone. “That’s not allowed. Do you understand?”

  Rue waited to see if his eyes would slip down to her chest. They didn’t. “I understand.”

  “And don’t let Drabbin talk you into…anything. You’re an employee; it wouldn’t be ethical. Do you understand ethics?”

  Rue nodded. “Like white people and Eskimos.”

  Stanton came forward and threaded Rue’s arms back through her sleeves, as though he didn’t trust her to cover herself.

  “Ethics means keep your clothes on.” He buttoned her uniform from her waist to her neck and as he buttoned the last button, Rue’s head popped like a balloon.

  When she awakened, Stanton was cradling her on the floor. She reached up, quickly. Paused, fingers trembling. Touched her head. It was still there, still intact.

  Stanton smiled at her, reassuringly. “The side effects of that experiment are killer, aren’t they?”

  “That’s what Sterling said. Side effects.”

  “You talked to him? He didn’t tell me.” As though that was unheard of.

  “I only just did.” Rue told him what happened at the tea table. “And then Sterling called me weak and tried to fix me.” She closed her eyes, relaxing into Stanton’s embrace. “Maybe I should have let him.”

  “Sterling is gauche, but that’s my fault. In our mother’s womb, I gobbled up all the tact and left none for him. Do you want to come to the Basin with us? Kissy and Sterling and I are going tomorrow.”

  Rue was dumbstruck. Searched Stanton’s face for clues that he was joking. He was not.

  “But Sterling hates me. Karissa too. She hides from me.”

  “Inviting you was Sterling’s idea, and Kissy hides from everyone. Though she would be less inclined to hide from you if you didn’t feel the need to call her a bastard.”

  “Tell her I won’t do it again.”

  “You tell her. She’ll listen. Especially if you show up just as you are.” He helped her rise to her feet. “Fully dressed.”

  Chapter 12

  The du Haven plantation stood off in the distance, floating above the tree line, holding court over the smaller but equally grand houses that overran the Basin like illegitimate offspring.

  Would it be impolite to call someone’s house a bastard? If Rue had been with the twins, she would have asked, but it was just her and Karissa, snug in her black velveteen coat and a pink knitted cap with bunny ears. She’d learned her lesson about using that word around Karissa.

  The kite she carried was also bunny-themed; she handed it to Rue because it wasn’t that windy, which meant she’d need to draw out the line and run the kite to get it in the air. Little kids loved holding toys and running around.

  Except Karissa didn’t seem particularly excited. And Rue thought she knew why.

  “Sorry I made you cry. When I called you a bastard? Sorry I yelled at you for feeding me gross things when I’m the one who asked you to. My soul asked. Probably because I keep not eating, and she has to come up with some new way to keep me alive that won’t hurt me psychologically. My soul is the one who discovered the trick of draining hearts without stealing them. Because I don’t like killing people. Problem is I use way more energy than other heartless do; I use as much energy as warm-blooded people. That used to mean hearts. Tons of them. I killed so many people…and it made me feel bad.”

  Karissa waited as if Rue had not yet said enough words.

  “Hurting people, hurting anything, makes me feel bad. Talking is hard for me sometimes. I know all the words, but not all the meanings. I didn’t know bastard had a meaning that makes people angry. Or sad. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but sometimes I don’t know how to say things the way humans want to hear them.”

  Karissa nodded, thoughtfully.

  “I have a sister, a little older than you, named Nettle.” Rue heard weeping from the open window of one of the houses, but it was probably from the TV. “If anybody made Nettle cry, the way I made you, I’d punch him in the nose.”

  “I thought Sterling was gonna punch you.”

  “I wouldn’t have blamed him.”

  The twins sat a few yards away at the communal pier stretching over the calm water. Stanton rose and walked to a house with a willow in the yard, and when he caught her looking, he gave her a thumb’s up. She had no idea why.

  But she liked it.

  “That’s stupid.” Karissa continued backward with the kite, distancing herself from Rue’s stupidity. “Boys aren’t allowed to hit girls. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Why not?”

  “Boys are stronger. They have more muscles and stuff.”

  Muscles and stuff? The human definition of strong was dangerously limited.

  “It was stupid to cry. Like a baby. It’s just...you seemed nice.”

  The friendly face did work on them.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to say mean things.” Karissa sighed. “But I know better now.”

  “I’m not really a nice person, that’s true. But I don’t want to make anyone feel bad.” Rue replayed that and then said, “I don’t want to make you feel bad. So if I say something hurtful, tell me, and I’ll stop.”

  “You will?” Karissa seemed pleased. Finally. “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  After judging the distance between them, Karissa said, “Let go.”

  Rue did, and Karissa took off, circling the Basin until her kite was high in the air. So high, a drake swooped down from the heavy clouds, a drake with scales that were the same perfect blue as the twins’ painted ceiling. He pursued the kite, his wingless snake-like body undulating like an ocean wave. A mane of white feathers ringed his head, fluttering as he snapped playfully at the bunny kite, and when Karissa hooted in glee at the sight of him, he hooted right back.

  Rue joined Sterling at the pier where he watched Karissa and the drake, tense.

  “She’s fine.”

  “I know.” And he did. Everyone knew drakes were harmless, but Sterling would know it better if he had picked someone else’s sister to play with.

  Instead of reflecting the gray sky, the Basin water remained black, so black it was impossible to see the many creatures Rue sensed lurking below. Out of sight. Leaving her with only Sterling to talk to. But Sterling, as usual, had nothing to say, and so Rue sat near the edge of the pier to give him his space.

  The wooden slats were far enough apart to see the water. It was high this time of year, swollen with winter rain, making it impossible to dangle her legs over the pier without getting them drenched. So she sat cross-legged like Sterling, only more gracefully, he wasn’t nearly as flexible as Rue. Not his legs. His fingers, however, were incredibly nimble, twisting sheets of paper into doll-sized men complete with fingers and toes and wings and Mohawks as sharp as pinking shears. He’d made seven so far, and they stood in a line bobbing up and down on their feet, peering into the water excited, as if they couldn’t wait to dive in.

  “How are you able to make paper do that?”

  She didn’t really think he would answer, but he surpri
sed her.

  “We build in circuitry so we can program it. Write the code to let the paper know what to do. Shape it into whatever. Voila.”

  “What are you making?”

  “Dumb stuff. To pass the time.”

  “So you make things to torture people with, but sometimes you make things just for fun?”

  “Is that what you do? Things? For fun?” The word didn’t seem to hold any pleasant associations for him.

  “This is fun.” She looked across the water. “It will be when Stanton gets back. When will he be back?”

  “When he gets the drinks. One of our friends lives back there.” He pointed to the house with the willow in the yard. “He went to ask her mom for hot chocolate.”

  “You can drink chocolate?”

  Sterling didn’t answer, but not because he was being mean. He seemed…confused? Shocked? Something like that. “I keep forgetting you’re from outer space.”

  “Where killer labradoodles come from?”

  He smiled and went back to folding his dolls. “Of course you can drink chocolate. Can drink anything if you blend it well enough.”

  Through the gap in the slats, Rue caught a flash of movement, which turned out to be a blinking eye. As big as her fist.

  She waved. “Hi.”

  A tentacle reached out of the water and patted her head, and then Sterling yanked her away from the edge of the pier, closer to him.

  “The hell was that?”

  “I don’t know. It seemed friendly.” The eye and the tentacle were gone. “I think you scared it.”

  “Me?” He was giving her that look again. “Just sit next to me, and stop making friends.”

  Rue looked across the water and sighed. “I like making friends.”

  “Are you the one who left the backstabber eyeballs?”

  “Yes.” She gave him a quick glance—no rapture, no gratitude—and then looked away.

  “We haven’t talked to Dad yet, if that’s why you did it. But we will.”

  “Don’t bother. I did it because backstabber urine doesn’t attract backstabbers.”