Page 22 of House of Hearts
Loved Dearly by Her Sister
I brush a hand over the railing. Students have littered the gate with heart-shaped love locks. A miniature Parisian Pont des Arts with young lovers leaving behind their initials. Some names are engraved in Edwardian script, while others are simple silver and stamped in permanent marker.
I narrow my eyes at the one beside me. Fairly nondescript despite the two letters carved into the back:E+P. It hits me like a blow to the gut. Could be a coincidence, but…
Somehow I know it isn’t.
“A girl died here over a hundred years ago, you know,” Tripp says, clearing his throat as the rest of the Cards line up next to Sadie.
Oh good, we’re starting this shit already. We all stand next to one another in the maze’s first courtyard. If the earlier map is to be believed, there are dozens of these small clearings littered throughout the maze, the largest of which sits smack-dab in the center.
“She came into this world in…uh…in 1860…” says Tripp, treating this little ghost story like a failed book report.
“Anastasia Hart came into this world crying in 1860, and that’s how she left it,” Sadie interjects. “She was the baby of the family. Always in love. Always crying when her love wasn’t returned. Her heart was too big, and when she fell for someone, she fell entirely.”
“She fell super hard at sixteen,” Mallory continues, and her voice has that airy, whisper-tone quality that lends itself well to ghost stories. “And this time felt different. The guy’s name was Oleander Lockwell, and—not to be weird, Cal and Sadie, but he was hot.”
This has to be scripted, because Oliver suddenly lifts his head up like a marionette pulled to life. He tugs at the collar of his vest and throws a disparaging look at the wet ground before addressing us. “Their meetings were a clandestine affair. They’d hide out in the heart of her family’s maze on campus under the shadow of nightfall. Anastasia was the only one who ever spent any time in the maze, so it felt like the one thing that belonged to her. And now she thought Oleander would belong to her, too.”
Birdie throws a weak smile his way, but he doesn’t return it. He struggles to even look at us and opts instead to stare at the ground.
Calvin picks up the ghost story next, digging his hands into his pockets. “But legend has it his sister was a bitch.”
Sadie twists from her spot in the circle to glare at him, and he amends with a groan, “My bad.Hersister.”
Ash swings an arm over Birdie’s shoulder, reeling her in like he might whisper a secret in her ear. “Helen, Helen, Helen,” he tuts. “What a nightmare her older sister was. Couldn’t let Ana have a bloody thing. Admittedly, Anastasia was pretty, but Helen was prettier. Couldn’t evenlet her get laid, could she, now? Had to be a home-wrecker.”
Birdie wiggles out from under his arm with a grimace and shuffles instantly back to my side.
Tripp’s grin slashes through the dark. “Shit came to a head when Anastasia caught them together by the lake. Oleander was down on one knee, proposing, and she totally lost it. It absolutely broke her. So, next thing you know, she was running into the maze. But this time she’d never leave.”
Mallory takes over and mimics the breaking of a heart with her hands. “Her heart hurt. It burned in her chest. She could feel every crack in it, and she wanted it gone. So she took a knife and dug it right out.”
In true performance-art style, someone else has to carry on the last monologue. I bet it’s really killing them right now that this isn’t around a campfire, no bulky flashlight to point up at their chins.
Sadie finishes the story with a dark gleam in her eyes. “She didn’t stay dead. Some say her grave site swelled with a bad storm, and her body was lifted out of the dirt. Others claim that she practiced black magic and cast a curse before she died. Either way, she’s lurking in that maze, waiting. Looking for her missing heart, and believe us when we say any heart will do.” She lets that last word hang in the air as she stares down each one of us.
All righty, then. I look around to see if anyone’s buying this, and sure enough, most of the students look actively freaked out, but two of them are elbowing each other excitedly. It’s got “fake urban legend” written all over it. For starters, I doubt she could stay conscious long enough to drag a knife through her rib cage and pull out the very organ keeping her alive. She’d probably die from blood loss before getting very far. It also reads like a bad pun with her last name, so there’s that.
“The time has come for you to pledge your loyalty to the Cards and your hearts to Anastasia.”
There’s a flurry of movement as each new recruit is matched up with an existing member. Birdie is red-faced and stumbling at Sadie’s side, a kid from my econ class is trembling beneath Tripp’s hard gaze, and I’m left behind with Calvin.
He bristles as I reluctantly walk toward him, rolling his eyes at me until his sister snaps in the air and the pledge begins. It’s all very methodical and well practiced, almost routine, even, as Calvin lifts a whole pomegranate from his pocket. The fruit is a deep, dusky red, the ends unfurled like the jagged points of a crown. He tosses it once in the air before peeling into its tender flesh with a pocketknife. “Eat.”
“Excuse me?”
He grins, sly and dark, his fingers bleeding red from the fruit. “Isn’t that the first rule of hell?” he whispers, his voice scraping and raw. “You need to eat its fruits to stay forever.”
I stomach my hatred and reach for it. I can eat a damn pomegranate.
He yanks it out of reach. “Open wide. Pledge your loyalty to us above all else.”
I flush but comply. “I swear it.” He leans in, his fingers brushing across my waiting mouth. As he does this, his spare hand steadies the anxious tremble that’s sparked to life in my veins.
Calvin pushes a bit of fruit between my lips, his ring finger lingering as it brushes against the sharpened tips of my canines. It feels as if he’s silently urging me to bite down and draw blood. The acrid taste of pomegranate trails my tongue and rolls its way down my throat, and just like that, he pulls away.
I try not to look at the fruit in his hands and think of the way Ileaned into his touch. It was intimate and terrifying, but I’m not one of his pretty girls. If his type is roses, I’m a ragweed girl. Stubbornly sprouting in the cracks between the pavement, growing into my bristles.
