Page 33 of The Book of Heartbreak

‘You’ve sensed something,’ Leon says, after a long pause.

‘I-I’ve just—’ I grapple with finding an explanation, revealing the truth without revealing the burden of the curse.

How can I tell him I’ve stood here dead four times?

Four times, Munu sent me back to life from this tower.

‘I’m just overwhelmed, thinking about how Iris and Theodora died here, on this exact spot. ’

And that I have been resurrected in the same place they died.

‘Is that all?’ Leon insists, and I study him, the sharp contours of his face illuminated under the luminous gaze of the moon, his gaze dark with a stark desire to know.

He smells my lie. I see it in his eyes, but still I shake my head.

‘Okay.’ He finally exhales, leaning over the railing. ‘I thought you’d have something. I thought this would work.’

A shiver overtakes me. It did work. Do I arrive in this place because I kept dying here? Am I really reborn?

There’s only one person who is always with me in the Inbetween, and I’m certain she holds the key to this mystery.

I clutch the evil-eye pendant that rests strangely cool against my skin.

‘I should summon Munu,’ I tell Leon. ‘So you can bend her.’

I need the truth. I need to know if I really am Theodora.

Leon’s face is shrouded in shadows but his eyes gleam in the dark. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ I hold his gaze. I have to uncover the true origins of the curse.

My fingers tighten around my necklace, not allowing doubt to creep in and dissolve my courage.

‘Munu,’ I whisper. ‘Munu, I need you.’

I’ve never needed you more.

For a second, I assume she won’t arrive. But then the air between Leon and I thickens and Munu appears with a crack, gaunt as a galley slave in the depths of a dark ship. My stomach tightens upon seeing her thinning face.

What if I’m betraying my friend for nothing?

‘Canim.’ Munu cruises to me, then lets out a soft scream when she notices where we are. ‘Why— What are you doing here? I don’t want to be in this place.’

‘Forgive me,’ I mutter.

‘The seer dragged you here, didn’t he? It stinks of him, even more than it stinks of the sea.’

‘Where’s the book, Munu?’ Leon says behind her.

‘You cannot command me, boy seer.’ Munu whirls around. ‘What are you? A mere child with less skills than height.’

‘You owe me the journal.’ Leon’s eyes narrow. ‘You stole what is mine.’

Munu rises in the air, as if she wants to belittle him.

‘The book didn’t want you to find it. I heard them talking about it—’ She drops her voice as she always does when she’s speaking of the Hidden.

I lean forward to hear. ‘They say you have the same compulsions as Chelebi. And his book wished to protect you, silly boy. It didn’t want you to perish like the fool himself did.

But the madness already pesters you, doesn’t it?

You’re obsessed with Sare. You think she’s the maiden.

You dream of her when you sleep and even when you’re awake – you even forget to eat unless you see her eating. ’

Hearing Munu accuse Leon of being obsessed with me sends a jolt of adrenaline to my core, distracting me from why I summoned her in the first place. Leon, obsessed with me? He can’t fall for me. I glance at him with a pang of concern, but his stern expression betrays no hint of his true feelings.

‘You have been reduced, just like Chelebi,’ Munu snarls, unaware of the effect her words have on me. ‘A girl blinds you, of all things. But I caution you: what you seek isn’t yours and it never will be. The book –’ Munu nods her head to the sea, then to me – ‘the girl. None of it.’

A vein throbs on Leon’s neck. I’ve spent enough time with him to recognise his fury.

As I decide to intervene and tell Munu to shut it, all of a sudden, Leon’s face crumples, his eyes fixed on a point beyond me.

I check behind my shoulder to see what he’s staring at, yet there’s nothing but darkness.

‘Grey—’ Leon shuts his eyes. ‘I’m ready. Go ahead.’

Then he becomes unnaturally still, straight as a telegraph pole.

‘Leon,’ I call, cautious. But he doesn’t seem to hear me. His head yanks back, and forward, then he doubles over, clutching his stomach. Panic sweeps me. ‘What’s happening to him?’ I turn to Munu. ‘Are you doing this?’

‘Don’t be daft. I don’t have such powers,’ Munu moans. ‘Grey is coming. Leon will be the vessel through which Grey will manifest.’

I recall how angels watched us through the gulls, how they controlled them. I swallow hard as Leon finally straightens, his posture relaxed.

‘Ahh . . .’ He sounds odd, childlike. And then I realise it’s not just his voice that seems out of place.

His eyes emit a faint grey light, casting an ethereal glow, and his face wears a serenity I’ve never witnessed before.

Gone is the usual, confident Leon I know.

Instead, there’s an expression of innocence, disarmingly guileless.

‘What a beautiful evening,’ Leon utters. His voice, now distinctly not his own, resonates like a chorus of singing children. ‘I’ve always favoured Konstantiniyye’s skyline to any other.’

‘Leon, what’s going on?’ Even as the words leave my mouth, I know it won’t be Leon who answers.

‘He’s not Leon any more,’ Munu mutters, darting towards me. ‘His boss is here.’

‘Silence,’ Grey commands.

I suppose I should feel terrorised in the presence of an angel, but beneath my concern for Leon lies only my determination to unmask the truth.

‘I’m no one’s boss,’ Grey declares. ‘Quite the contrary, I’m here to save those who need saving – I sense mistakes that have run well past their due course.’

Mistakes? I frown. The angel speaks in riddles.

‘As if we need saving from anyone but you two busybodies,’ Munu mutters. Like me, she looks like she’s past the point of being frightened. ‘And I’ve made no mistakes.’

‘Dear daughter, you made mistakes, and mistakes were made to you.’ The creature that inhabits Leon smiles.

‘You have been suffering for long enough, Munu, don’t you think?

Now you will reveal the truth your supervisor has been hiding so wickedly: confess the evidence of his misdeeds. Or would you rather have me bend you?’

‘Sare,’ Munu says as she begins to shrink. Clearly not past the point of fear, then. It tugs on my heartstrings. ‘Please, tell him to leave me alone.’

‘Sare Sila Silverbirch?’ Grey-Leon’s face lights up. ‘I’ve heard so much about you. Well, heard is a stretch perhaps, but you’re floating around in Leon’s head a great deal. The youth and their fixations, eh? What great passions you all have! All those . . . feisty feelings!’

‘Nice to meet you too,’ I mutter, blushing. I don’t know what else to say. ‘Is Leon alright?’

‘Of course he is! Do you think I’m a monster?

Your . . . friend will be back as soon as I depart, good as new.

Now shall I start the interrogation?’ Grey suggests.

‘I don’t think the ethereal is going to confess by her own free will and, as much as I’d like to bless you with my presence, I don’t have all night. ’

‘Sare,’ Munu begs. ‘Tell him you don’t want this – he’ll listen to you!’

‘No need to be dramatic.’ Grey-Leon towers over her as she continues to shrink.

‘Ah, a plume of fear, worry, and – anger? Emotions are fascinating, aren’t they, Munu?

I’ve always wondered why Our Boss Almighty never blessed us celestials with hearts, while every mortal possesses one.

I’d love to have a couple of hearts myself.

’ He reaches forward with hawk-like precision, snatching Munu with his hand.

‘You’re nearly half alive, aren’t you?’ His eyes widen with surprise.

‘It’s astonishing how he didn’t fully send you to the Otherside. Kind of genius, I give him that.’

I stare at them both, stupefied. Who does he mean?

But before I can ask, Grey lifts Munu and blows a puff of air onto her face. ‘Be still,’ he murmurs.

A moan escapes from Munu’s throat.

‘Let go—’ Munu stops, mid-sentence. Her face crunches and for a moment I almost consider begging Grey to stop, but I know that Munu will never really talk otherwise, and I have to know.

‘There, there, now,’ Grey says. ‘You’re all ready to tweet. Tell us: where’s the book?’

‘F-F-Five has it,’ Munu says. ‘ The Book of Heartbreak must be destroyed.’

Who the fuck is Five? I’m too stunned to ask.

‘What a shame! But I’m not surprised, he never seems to appreciate anything done by mortals.’ Grey chuckles, though it sounds like pouring rain. ‘Sare Silverbirch, please proceed with your questions as you see fit. I have to keep hold of her, if you don’t mind?’

I nod. Even though I’m well aware that Grey probably doesn’t care whether I mind or not.

Inside Grey’s palm, Munu trembles like a twig in the winter wind despite the warm night. But I can’t worry about her now. Ever since I saw Theodora’s face, one question has been plaguing me and now I can have it answered.

‘Tell me,’ I whisper. ‘Was I Theodora once? Am I the maiden in the tower?’

‘You are only you and no one else,’ Munu replies.

‘Liar,’ I say.

‘I only speak the truth,’ Munu says. ‘Not what you want to hear.’

‘Then why is this place the Inbetween—’ My throat runs dry. ‘Why do I rise from the dead on the same spot where the maiden and Iris died, if I’m not their reincarnation?’

‘You are no reincarnation,’ Munu says. ‘You gravitate here, because this place is the origin of the curse.’

Finally, she admits one piece of the truth.

‘Then how am I linked to Theodora?’ I demand.

‘Theodora of the House Doukas . . .’ Munu hesitates, then speaks again. ‘She was your grandmother from twenty generations back. She was the first bearer of the curse. A sick twist of fate how you look so much like her. The curse exists to cause suffering, of course.’

My spirits sink as Munu confirms what I already suspected: I am from Theodora’s bloodline.

But how could Theodora become a mother or a grandmother, if she lived and died here on this island?

The truth seems complex, enshrouded in layers, and the prospect of uncovering the core of it fills me with dread.

‘But Theodora died here.’ I think of the multiple versions of the myth I’ve heard, but I’m certain none of them mentioned any children. ‘She had no children.’

Munu snorts. ‘ The maiden died here, devoid of love and company. She didn’t have the warmth of any other human being. She never had children of her own.’

‘Why are you talking in riddles?’ I snap. ‘How could Theodora be my grandmother, then?’

‘Theodora wasn’t the maiden.’ Munu laughs now, like a mad woman. ‘The fool got it all wrong. That great seer, Sufi Chelebi.’

‘But Chelebi— He summoned the maiden—’ I stammer. ‘I don’t understand . . .’

‘I told you not to trust the seers, didn’t I?

Yet you let them manipulate you. That pretentious Ottoman assumed that the maiden was cursed, and he ended up summoning Theodora, the true bearer of the curse.

I bet it’s his own foolishness that brought on Sufi Chelebi’s doom, once Theodora revealed to him what she had done.

’ Munu looks me in the eye. ‘The maiden herself wasn’t cursed. She was the one who cast the curse.’

‘The maiden—’ I manage. ‘The maiden is the origin of the curse?’

I think of The Book of Heartbreak , how Sufi Chelebi avoided explaining what Theodora showed to him. She wasn’t innocent , was all he had said. Was it his own shame that stopped Chelebi from explaining the mistake he made in assuming Theodora was the maiden?

But who was the maiden, if it wasn’t Theodora?

‘She couldn’t forgive.’ Now Munu is crying, tears running silently down her cheeks. ‘How could you forgive, when your own flesh and blood betrays you?’

My mind races through the fragments I read from The Book of Heartbreak . And then I remember how Theodora pleaded to Sufi Chelebi: My heart shall remain forever fractured, as shall my sister’s.

‘Her sister,’ I mutter, still hardly able to believe it. ‘Theodora’s sister was the maiden!’

‘Yes.’ Munu nods. ‘Eudokia of House Doukas was seventeen when she stepped inside here, to her prison.’

‘Eudokia of House Doukas,’ I repeat, still trying to put together all the pieces of the puzzle.

‘The tale has transformed through the ages, hasn’t it?

What do they say these days? How do they reimagine it?

A devoted father locks up his daughter in this forsaken tower in desperation, so he could protect her from death, right?

’ Munu laughs a bitter laugh. ‘I listened to Daphne telling you all about it when you were young. The ending never changes. Death always finds its way here, and the maiden always dies. That is the only part that remains true.’ Munu lifts her head to gaze at me.

‘None of those versions mention Theodora’s wickedness, though.

No one knows how one sister’s venom poisoned another. ’

I no longer understand which sister she means.

‘Theodora deserved everything she got. She deserved the curse, the hurt, the grief. Eudokia – she was innocent. At least at first . . . Then she changed too.’ Munu slowly shakes her head. ‘Love rots everything. But hatred . . . Hatred helps you survive.’

‘Were you Eudokia’s guardian, then?’ I crave her confession. The truth seems so near, as if I can reach out and clutch it, if only I knew the right questions to ask. ‘But . . . Eudokia wasn’t cursed, so why did you help her, Munu?’

‘Don’t you get it? I wasn’t anyone’s guardian.

I wasn’t helping anyone.’ Munu writhes, and Grey releases her with a pitiful look, as if she’s no longer worth the effort.

She flies over to me and reaches out to touch my cheeks, as if she’s throwing herself onto my mercy.

‘The maiden caused all the suffering. It’s why everyone is so angry with her.

It’s why everything is always her fault.

She caused so much unrest, so many glitches in the divine system.

She’s the one to blame, because she didn’t listen. ’

I freeze. Suddenly, the truth dawns on me. Yet, I can’t believe or accept it. It suffocates me, destructive, unthinkable. No, I tell myself. It can’t be. There must be another explanation.

Still, I must ask. ‘How do you know all of this?’

The stars above us seem to falter when Munu speaks again.

‘Because I am the one who cast the curse. I am the maiden,’ she says at last, and my heart burns as if it’s been thrown into a fire. ‘I, Eudokia of the House Doukas.’