Page 31 of House of Hearts

It’s the verbal equivalent of an atom bomb, the room stunned into absolute silence. Tripp sobers in the aftershock of it all, his eyes widening. “You’re serious?”

“You think I’d joke about that?” Sadie seethes. She’s got her mother’s expression mastered, the purse of her lips and the narrowed slits of her eyes.

He scratches his cheek. “When…when you say ‘found’…is he dead?”

Calvin answers with a vague swish of his hands. “Not really.”

“What the hell does ‘not really’ dead mean?”

Sadie tells them precisely what it means, relaying the last half hour in excruciating detail. Then the questions really start.

“Do we bring him to a hospital?” Mallory blurts, her phone whipped out and ready to dial 911 as soon as someone gives the A-okay.

“And tell them what?” Calvin volleys back. His head rests against the front door, and his chin tilts up to the ceiling. “That he’s in a magical coma?”

“I don’t know! We’d tell them something! Did you at least try CPR?”

“What would CPR do at this point?” Oliver weighs in with a sardonic lift of his brow. “His heart is beating.”

“What about true love’s kiss?” Ash offers uselessly. “That always works in the movies.”

“Too late, asshole, his girlfriend’s fucking dead,” Tripp shoots back. He throws us a sheepish look after that, but Birdie’s cheeks burn with a flash of indignation.

“I don’t see you throwing out ideas. Also, can you not talk about Emoree like that?”

I give her an appreciative nod before turning to glare at Tripp as well.

He wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “All right, here’s an idea. Ash and Oliver translated Anastasia’s magical grimoire. Why don’t they hocus-pocus Percy awake?”

“I’m not a wizard, for starters,” Ash argues.

“Also, like we said last meeting, most of the pages were useless. You want clear skin? How about getting a boy to notice you? Hit me up. Otherwise, you’re screwed as far as the spells in there go.

We still can’t translate that final page, so God knows what that one’s talking about.

There’s a reason Em and Percy ripped out what they needed and left the rest behind. ”

No one says anything to that for a long time. In the silence I swivel to check how far we’ve gotten Percy’s battery charged to. Ten percent, good enough for me.

“What’s the code?” I ask, and Sadie’s smile is solemn and half-broken.

“Zero, two, two, zero.”

“Emoree’s birthday.” I hiccup. The group crowds around me as I tap out the four numbers and the phone clicks to life.

I scroll through Percy’s group chat with Calvin and Sadie, passing the I’m going to end this text as I work my way to the top.

Several weeks before that, I see a drunken selfie of Calvin in the back of a Bentley Mulsanne, the background a blur of city lights and red leather seats.

you’re missing out, dude

He winces in my peripheral, and for his sake, I exit the app and navigate to the camera reel.

Beyond lovesick photos of Em and Percy kissing and textbook snapshots, the rest of the album is a disturbing downward spiral: selfies zoomed in to show the dark bags beneath his eyes, distorted angles of the hedge maze magnified and cropped to show fuzzy silhouettes.

Several of them have been marked up in digital red pen, the text overlaid in all caps: SHE WAS HERE.

I wince before opening the Notes app.

It’s a world away from the usual grocery lists or bullet-point to-do lists. It’s a frantic array of thoughts, his mindset deteriorating with each additional note.

October 28, 1:21AM

I can’t sleep. I see her whenever I close my eyes. She’s always there.

October 31, 11:00PM

i need to hide. i need to stay away. i need to keep em safe. i need to wrap my fingers around her neck. i need to press until she turns blue. i need to rip out her heart.

November 3, 12:00AM

RIP OUT HER HEART RIP OUT HER HEART RIP IT OUT RIP IT OUT RIP IT OUT RIPITOUT

The battery dies once more and the screen burns black, and Calvin lets out a strangled noise.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” he says before he quite literally charges out the front door and empties his stomach into the bushes.

The campus party rages on in the distance, and the strobe-light flashes illuminate the arch of Calvin’s spine.

“Are you okay?” I ask, following him outside. My hand tentatively rests on his arm, and his skin is cold to the touch.

“I’m fine.” His voice is an uncharacteristic growl in the back of his throat.

He wipes his hand against his mouth and glares at me, the golden light extinguished from his eyes.

Burned down like the amber glow of a candle giving way to a black puff of smoke.

Then, to the rest of the group standing in the doorway: “I’ll see you all later. I’ve had enough for today.”

The rejection should sting more than it does. All I can think of, though, is my mother’s stricken face on orientation day, the same question leaving her lips and the same lying answer leaving mine. I’m fine , I said, over and over again.

But I was far from it then, and if you asked me now, I’d say it couldn’t be further from the truth for Calvin. Neither of us is fine, and I have a horrible feeling that the worst is yet to come.

Dear Diary,

My sister is a great many things, but she isn’t daft. She is cunning, calculated, and far too perceptive for her own good.

“You’re spending a lot of time in that maze,” she commented out of nowhere this evening. It was more an accusation than observation. She was sitting in the drawing room with two knitting needles in hand, crafting something that looked an awful lot like a trap.

I was measured with my response. “I enjoy the solitude it provides.”

She hummed. “That’s the funny thing, Ana, I don’t quite believe you’re alone in there.”

Helen didn’t look up from her handiwork. If she had, perhaps she would’ve seen the way I stiffened in the doorway. “What makes you say that?”

“It’s curious, that’s all. You enter in the early dawn and you leave at dusk, flushed and disheveled…and I could swear sometimes I hear another voice in there with yours.”

“What are you insinuating, sister?” I asked icily. I inherited my father’s temper, though it flares differently in my chest. There are times when his blazes hot enough to heat the whole estate. Mine is frigid; my grudges chill me down to the very marrow.

She shrugged. “I’m not insinuating anything, but it’s curious, wouldn’t you say?”

“Perhaps you ought to be examined for sun sickness. I’ve had a bout of it myself in the past, though I can’t say I’ve ever had these hallucinations.”

Helen paused over her work. “I know you’re seeing someone, Ana. Is he a student at this academy?”

I didn’t dignify her question with an answer.

“Be careful,” she warned when the silence between us persisted. “You have seen our mother’s marriage. Some men know how to burn a girl down and leave nothing but ash in their wake.”

—Anastasia Hart