Page 16 of House of Hearts
“Monday,” he repeats, covering my face and carrying me deeper to the center of this labyrinth. My world is reduced to the shuffle of earth beneath my shoes and the scratch of burlap tickling the bridge of my nose as I breathe in.
I’m only gifted my sight again once we’ve reached the dead center of the maze and the largest clearing thus far. Calvin lifts the mask in time to show me the most gruesome orientation gift ever.
A knife. We’re alone in the heart of the maze, and he’s got a goddamn knife in his hands.
“I knew it!” I screech. “I knew it. You’re going to kill me, too!”
He winces and with his free hand—the one not holding the knife , of all things—does his best to hush me. “Shhh.”
“Don’t you fucking shush me! I’m allowed to scream if you’re about to stab me!”
“I’m not going to stab you!” he snaps, twisting the hilt of the knife around so that the blade is pointing away from me. “I want you to take it.”
“You want me to take it?” I echo, and he nods, again lowering the volume with his hand like I’m the one being hysterical here. “And do what? Stab you with it?”
“P-preferably not.”
I swallow hard. Sure, it’s got all the makings of a bad horror movie. A group of entitled rich kids, an unexplained murder a year prior, a convenient scapeghost. But I guess, hey, at least I’m the one holding the knife.
The blade glints in the moonlight. I idly twist it side to side to examine the hilt. It’s simple black leather.
“It’s part of the game,” he says slowly, carefully, because, hey, maybe being on the receiving end of a knife isn’t that fun after all . “They want you to prick your finger and recite a dumb oath. That’s it. Here, see, I’m not making this up.” He hands me a scroll.
I stare down at what is most definitely an incantation of sorts. Someone really had the job of tea staining this paper and scorching the ends like a Pinterest DIY.
“A couple drops of blood and then you read this three times and you’re done. You’ll be free to find the heart and figure a way out of here.”
“Okay,” I say, because I can totally do that.
It’s the knife that makes me waver, but luckily, I think I’m up to date on tetanus shots.
One drop can’t hurt, right? I lower the top of the blade to the pad of my ring finger.
It kisses the skin for only a second, the point slicing into the flesh.
Blood wells on my fingertip before staining the page.
Em’s pendant chafes against my clammy skin, hanging like a second heart above my own. I’m not superstitious in the slightest, but some baser part of me shoots warning signals up to my brain. I smother it down and force out the words on the page.
“Blood for blood, I do impart.
I invite you, Ana,
Come rip out my heart.”
I clench my fists and say it a second time, then another, each repetition building in my throat. Louder and louder until the third and final chant feels like a Hollywood exorcist expelling a demon.
Nothing happens. Go figure. I square my shoulders in response, but Calvin jerks around like he’s worried the words have already taken root.
“What now?” I ask as he sheathes the knife and puts it back in a satchel across his shoulder.
“Close your eyes and count to thirty. Then you’re on your own,” he answers, like it’s that easy. His words are accompanied by the softening thuds of his footsteps as he abandons me there in the middle of nowhere with my eyes closed.
“One, two, three, four, five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten —” Screw it, I’m peeking.
He’s gone. The moon swells heavy in the sky above me, partially entombed in a shroud of fog.
What little light shines through casts a faint glow on my surroundings.
The grass is parched and yellow beneath my feet, and four slabs of cold marble stand behind me on the lawn.
The mausoleums , I realize soberly. I stare at the death date of the one directly behind me.
The life cuts off at a tragically young sixteen, and I know without looking just who it belongs to.
Anastasia Hart.
Dear Diary,
I struggle to conjure a single second in my existence when my feelings have ever been reciprocated tenfold.
I can’t shake the sensation that I have cast this poor, beautiful boy under a spell.
There’s the ever-present fear that he might look upon Helen’s face one day and he will be woken from his trance.
If that fails to do the trick, he must only have a single conversation with my sister to discover the impossible valley between us.
He will be charmed beyond return—if not by her fair looks, then by her sharp wit.
No, I simply can’t let her steal him away from me. I spent all last night into the early hours tossing and turning and thinking of all the ways I might keep him forever. I’ve thought about it in my dreams, every moment while waking, and even pondered it whilst brushing my hair at the vanity.
It’s only this evening that I received the answer I’ve been searching for all along. Perhaps I’m not casting spells yet, but maybe it is high time I learn.
—Anastasia Hart