Authors: R. R. Smythe
I tire of this place. I don't think I shall ever adjust. I know Beth meant well⦠at least I think she did, bringing me here.
Or was it out of fear? I check the clock â she'll be back any moment.
Her laptop is on the sweets counter, open and humming. I know it's dishonorable â but of late, I'm having difficulty with noble. It's as if my former self dried up and blew away on the journey here. Like my bitter circumstances have finally taken root in my heart, and bloomed into an acidic man. At home, I was a man. Here⦠men my age are still boys.
I stare at the screen, and the page is open to Beth's email. It's a letter to Edward, her husband, who is constantly traveling for work. I'd never consent to leaving someone I loved for so long. My throat constricts at the thought â but I put those feelings away. They will do nothing but harm.
Dear Edward,
I really need to have you home. Too much has been going on. I think I made a colossal mistake bringing Morgan here. He is utterly miserable, and rightly so. He did not ask to come â to be saved.
I don't know if my sister made the right decision, sending him to me. There's something wrong with the tunnels, and Mia â well, I don't want to put it in an email. Please write and tell me when you'll be home. I have trouble staying strong without you.
All my heart,
Beth
P.S. The pregnancy test was negative. Again.
My teeth grind together, I can't decide how I feel â but the constant vacillation is making me insane.
Empathy floods half my heart for Beth â who so longs for a child. She is so very kind. Too kind. On one hand, I want to protect her, despite being ten years her junior. On the other half, the shriveled side⦠I want to scream in her face till I'm hoarse, till I make my pain, her pain⦠for being so selfish. Did I
ask
to live?
She and her bullheaded, meddling sister.
My conscience whispers in my ear. Beth isn't the heart of your pain. You must move on. You cannot change the past. You can only change the future. My irritating conscience takes the voice of my dear mother, now long gone. I know it to be right.
I just have utterly no idea how to follow her advice.
I have no words of wisdom from my father. The fraud refused to acknowledge my life. My very existence, no doubt, caused his already troubled life great sorrow.
It's like my heart is a blistering sun, emitting scorching rays of pain. The anger is my protective clouds; blotting out and dampening down the full effect of my bitterness. So I can live â if that's what I'm doing.
Beth's car spits gravel as she pulls into the driveway.
She's up to something again.
I can feel it, something, besides me, is wrong with the cottage. Juvenile as it may be, I bolt to the back room and hide.
The front door jingles its silver bell as she enters. She looks around, “Morgan?” cocking her head, waiting for my answer.
Empathy kicks my gut as I see her tears, her trembling lips. My old self itches to hold her, soothe her â tell her all will be well.
A Jewish friend once told me, “God counts the tears of women.”
I believe that.
Beth slides around the counter to the laptop, checking her email. The slump of her shoulders tells me Edward hasn't yet responded.
Her dark hair cascades around her as she tilts her head, checking outside. She crosses the room, locking the shop door and flipping the sign on it to âClosed'.
Her face pinches in guilt as she slides a faux-book from her Louisa-shelf. Opening its cover, she extracts a folded piece of paper.
“No,” I whisper. “She can't still be writing her. She knows the rules.”
But she is, I feel it to my core. Taking more risks â that will affect us all. Doom us all, my conscience chastises.
She ducks behind the counter, hauling open the trapdoor that leads to the tunnels.
I hurry over to the entrance, making my feet still while I count to 30, giving the tunnel time to swallow her.
I glance outside before stepping onto the steps. Twilight. I jam my eyes shut, debating.
I shake my head. “Blast it, woman.”
I haul open the door and slip into the gloom.
****
I can make out the dim outline of her skirt, flying through the tunnels. My eyes flick warily left and right. At any moment, the tunnel will transform â and I will be stuck in the middle of it. But what choice do I have? Beth is being irresponsible â thinking only of herself.
A popping, crackling sound, like a fire stirring, rustles behind me.
I will not look. I do not want to see
.
Gooseflesh prickles my skin, remembering the first night I happened down here after dark. My breathing hitches and I plow forward, ignoring the instinctual recoiling in my mind.
Beth bobs and weaves ahead through the familiar passageways, just out of earshot.
I watch her move through the dark and witness the tunnel coming alive in her wake. Beneath her feet, toadstools erupt on every footprint.
They follow her, popping up like white stepping stones in water. With every touch of her hand along the cave wall, streaks of light match the drag of her fingertips, as if they're dipped in colored ink. Flowers sprout from the black soil, appearing as green shoots and spiraling into wildflowers, which grow on either side, till she's cutting a path through them.
The draw is a blessing and a curse. To become one of the court.
The dark thickens in circular whirls on either side of me and suddenly yawns open with mirroring, blinding doors of light. Pulsing and contracting like a live being.
I hear them coming. I hear their footsteps.
Approaching behind the churning white gateways.
“Beth!”
She is running now and doesn't hear me. My legs pump, and I break a sweat, weaving through the animated flowers.
I'm gaining on her now.
Another blasted letter is clutched in her ghostly white fingers.
In the twitch of an eye â the tunnel solidifies so quickly her forehead crashes into the dark rock in front of her.
A tree stump materializes at her feet. I know it is exactly like the one she used as a child to play post with her sisters. She shoves the letter inside, jamming down the carved top.
“Beth, are you mad?” I hurtle forward, pushing her out of the way. I lift it⦠but the letter's already gone. “Haven't you broken enough rules already?”
Beside her, a handful of toadstools rotâthe dank stench immediately surrounds us. Her hand accidentally brushes a circle of flowers; they wither and crumple to dust.
Her brown eyes are wild and empty. She slumps against the tunnel wall, scratching her fingers down her face. “I cannot do this anymore. I don't want the responsibility. Iâ”
“So you thought you'd just pawn it onto me? Is that what
she
told you?” I jerk my head toward the stump.
A snuffling fills the air, and a blast of acrid smells: gunpowder, decay⦠and one most familiar. One whose presence fills me with indignationâ¦
death. I smell death.
“Oh, Morgan!”
“Run!” I grasp her hand, hurtling her down the passageways, which have altered since we entered. I weave right, then left, hoping I am heading toward the house.
The snuffling rises and rises into a frenzy. A growl rips behind us. Just a few feet behind.
My gut twists like a slipknot, strangling my stomach. The odor intensifies, and I choke, coughing into the crook of my arm, gasping for pure air.
“I never should've given in. I'm so sorry, Morgan. They're coming.”
I grasp her hand tighter as the whirling circles imbedded in the tunnel's walls pop in and out; in orderly intervals like a swinging pendulum.
People appear at the holes, all with searching eyes. They aren't solid; their bodies are more like puffs of gray smoke than flesh and blood.
One man, in a uniform like the one I once wore, steps out into the tunnel. As his feet pass the circular threshold, his body solidifies, to black and white. He's headed in the direction of the snuffling.
“No, stay away from them!” Beth chokes.
“Beth, he'll be fine â they aren't after him!” I yank her arm, wheeling her around, and pull her toward the steps.
They arrive.
Thundering, cloven hooves barreling down the tunnel
.
So large, only two can fit at one time.
Adrenaline bursts at the back of my spine, coursing down my arms in stuttering shockwaves of fear.
I push Beth up onto the stairs.
Sweat breaks on my brow
.
I hate them
. My hand slips to my waist, for the ghost of a pistol, left on my dresser.
“Blast. Go Beth, hurry!”
I turn around, squinting into the tunnel's depths. I see its condemning, coal-black eyes.
The sharp, white tusks jutting from its mouth.
Beth scrambles through the trapdoor. I fly up the ladder behind her and feel hot pain as its bristles cut my ankle.
My hands grasp the hardwood floor, and I heave myself up, swinging my legs out in one motion.
We lunge for the door in unison, and it slams shut with a bang. The sound echoes through the empty shop.
Beth steps back in fear. The sound of tusks scratching against wood lifts the door an inch.
I jam it down with my boot, and throw the bolt.
Â
The Heart is Treacherous
Â
“No, Mom. I'm fine. If I feel⦠weird, I'll go to Claire's.” I roll my eyes at Claire as she eases her Mini-Cooper into Orchard House's gravel parking lot.
She rolls her blue-eyed ones in return, but they quickly flick forward, waiting for my conversation to be over. She knows as well as I do where it will go. How it will end.
With me alone in the house,
as usual
.
The brief interlude of extra attention after my surgery is officially over.
“No, it's fine. I'll see you after both your shifts are over. Yes, I'll page you. Mom â I'm going. You're making me late for work.” I snap my cell shut.
My heart hurts, and not because of my new scar. It's an old, familiar hurt. I am so different from my parents.
They're so analytical⦠and I'm so flippin'weird.
Claire's eyes search mine.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. Will you need a ride home?”
“You mean after you practice, and then go shopping, and then do fifty million other errands?” I smile and shake my head. “No, I'll be fine. I'll walk.”
Claire opens her mouth to protest.
“Beth will drive me if I don't feel up to it,” I amend.
Claire gives me a little
soldier-on-with-it
smile, and I slam the passenger door shut.
I wait till she pulls away. My heart filling with the familiar gratefulness as I watch her go; grateful she's been my friend since I was seven. Grateful she never leaves me. Grateful⦠just for her.
I sigh and walk toward the shop. A group of tourists are trudging off the battlefield. Their presence ignites the whispers, so I turn my head, curious.
Sure enough, Morgan is buried in the center of them, animatedly explaining another battle scene. The whispers are like some weird, polarized, mental-magnet, and Morgan is the other pole. Constant attraction or repulsionâdepending on the day.
I ignore the stupid little murmuring voices and push the door open. The shop is mercifully quiet. The inside of my head is clanging like the old church bell with the remnants of today's high school noise. The day lasted for-ev-er.
I slump against the sweets counter, close my eyes, and breathe in the comforting, familiar scents. I suck in a deep, steadying breath.
This place⦠is home. I trail my fingers over the counter. My eyes fill with tears and my emotions jumble. I'm sad my home isn't exactly as I'd like it to be, but am very grateful to have Beth. To have a place where people understand me and my need to live inside my head.
Footsteps shuffle in and I open my eyes. Beth gives me a tentative smile, but it quickly crumbles on her quivering lips. The contrast between her chocolate eyes and the red veins popping out around them make my stomach flip.
“Beth, what's wrong?”
My mind lists the possible options.
Her infertility. Her miscarriages. Her perpetually absent husband. That insane boy-lunatic she decided to take in.
“I'm so sorry you have to see this, Mia. After all you've been through. Here I am, blubbering at work.”
“Well, I'm not the only person with problems, you know.”
But I'm pretty sure I'm the only one with bizarre, mental voices in my head
.
“It's fine. Misery loves company, right?”
I laugh, a real laugh. My first in months.
She returns my smile, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand. “It's so good to have you back. It just wasn't the same around here without you.”
Her eyes cast a tentative flick outside to Morgan, and she flushes. She recovers, quickly walking behind the counter. This is my chance.
“What is his
deal,
anyway? Why is he so angry all the time?”
Beth fidgets with a tray of already perfectly aligned chocolate covered cordials, strategically avoiding my gaze. “He's been through a lot too, Mia. Give him time. I think he's worth it.”
Air whistles out between my teeth. “Yea. I don't know about thatâ. I'm not feeling the love. Actually, I think he hates me, and I have no clue why.”
The red on her cheeks deepens, and her eyes shoot to him again and narrow. “I don't think he does. Quite the opposite.”
My stomach cartwheels. “What? How could you knowâ?”
The silver bell above the door tinkles. My stomach leaps, and so do I. The door opens and Morgan steps inside.
My draw to him overwhelms me, pounding my heart in odd little throbs.
A congealed sound-storm of skittering leaves, hushed murmurs and feminine sighs drown out his voice. His lips move, but I only hear the wordless protests from within.
The whispers invade my head, a verbal platoon, taking it by force.
A wave of images drowns my brain and I'm transported.
Beth notices my rigid body. “Mia?”
I hear them calling. But I give in to the images, allowing myself to step fully inside.
“Mia? Can you hear me?” Their concerned voices disappear as if from far away.
Morgan's lopsided smile, staring at me with intense longing. His hand lifts to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. Walking with him through a field of wildflowers. The feel of his rough hand in mine makes my heart surge. His blue eyes search mine and speak a thousand sentiments. Love, concern⦠desire.
These aren't my memories
. But it doesn't matter. They
feel
like my own. An explosion rocks my heart. Love?
Is this what love is like?
My heart lifts as if floating â but the sensation is coupled with a sickening fear in my gut.
That he'll reject me.
I've never wanted anyone to want me. Not like this.
I'm back in the shop. The whispers are quieting and on the retreat.
“Mia, are you ok? You look ill.” Beth's concerned eyes are on me.
So are Morgan's. His gaze is intense.
An urge, no, a compulsion, to kiss him drives me forward. Inside, mortification and desire do battle, but my feet walk me around the sweets counter. Toward him.
It's like sleepwalking. I can't stop it.
Oh. Snap
. What am I doing? But I have no say in the matter.
“Mia?” I hear Beth's voice, far away.
Morgan's face is turned toward the ground as he sets down his reenactment shotgun. His eyes lift toward me and widen in surprise.
I throw my arms around his neck and press my lips to his. At first, they are unresponsive â dead against my urgent ones.
“Mia?” Beth's voice trembles.
His icy demeanor thaws and the warmth flows through him, heating parts of his body back to life; his arms wrap around my waist, his lips turn frantic, returning my strokes with a heated, perfect fervor.
No one's ever kissed me like this before. This feels practiced, sure. And imbedded in every stroke of his lips is a deep, searing desire.
He tugs me gruffly, pulling my hips to his own. His eyes, though closed, crinkle tightly â as if it's painful.
The whispers are exultant. Wild, resounding echoes against my skull.
“Blast. Morgan, what are you doing?” Beth is freaking out.
Pictures slip and skim through my head.
Like thumbing through a mental photo album.
Someone else's photo album.
I don't care
. I want them to be mine.
Morgan stands beside a huge black horse in his familiar military uniform. A quiver of light, a wave of nausea, and the picture changes.
Now clad in a white shirt â he's walking toward me, holding two buckets, sloshing water all over his boots. His face breaks into a smile â and his eyes belong to a different man. So clear, so free of pain.
A ripple of color, and now he's unbuttoning his shirt, letting it slide to the ground. I stare at his hard chest, and my insides quiver in response to the smolder in his eyes.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump
. My heart skips and heat floods down my neck, spreading across my ribcage like a warning.
I break the kiss, clutching my chest.
The whispers are whimpering, reluctantly fading.
“I-Iâ”
The world tilts and the hardwood floor rushes toward my face.
Pain explodes through my face as my nose takes the impact. I feel a hot flow, dousing my dress.
“Bloody â Beth!” Morgan's voice is close, and his knee hits the ground by my ear.
Beth's hands cradle my head in her lap. Blackness presses in, and I fight against it. But it's a heavy vise, crushing my thoughts. Their conversation slips in and out in time with my battle against the darkness.
“What have you done?” Beth, her voice catching.
“I'm sorry, sister. I don't know what came over me. She â I'm drawn to her. Despite it all. Despite the futility.”
“Morgan! She is not of your class. She may not even be in the court.”
“I know.” His voice deepens. “I can no longer fight it, Beth. I've tried.”