The Truth of Things Unseen

Knock, knock.

The second monster felt her heart call to her, deep in the hollow place in her chest. A tug and an ache.

She stretched her leg out into a shaft of sunlight, feeling the tension in the calf and the arch of the foot. She leaned back on her pillow, her hair tickled her shoulders.

Her ceremonial gown hung ready over the dresser, a spangled ghost of misty grey chiffon and silk, dripping with pearls.

Today was going to be glorious.

Knock, Knock.

The monster ignored the sound. Her heart anticipated her, still locked in its glass prison in the locked dresser downstairs. A quiet dove, trembling. She could feel it calling to her, but not in words, it had nothing to say. It was not yet in her body. She was still free for one more day.

Today, she could do what she wanted.

She stretched again, enjoying the tension across her spine, her shoulders and arms, fingers reaching down by her hips, the tightness in the back of her calves, the length of the toes, pressed into the softness of the air.

Her heart was waiting for her, but the morning sun was yet low in the sky, there was plenty of time to play.

"Come in," she purred, The words unravelling on her tongue like honeycomb.

A servant girl stood in the hallway, starched black gown, white pinafore, silly little hat with white lace flounces. A new girl. It was always a new girl, they never lasted.

"I brought your breakfast, Miss."

The girl’s voice was tiny. Come in now, little one; there’s no need to be afraid. The monster watched from the bed with narrowed eyes. There was nowhere for the girl to go until she was dismissed. No need to hurry things.

"Shall I leave it here for you, Miss?"

The girl was shifting towards the door

"Put it on the nightstand, please."

The monster controlled her voice. A warm and welcoming voice. There is power in a voice, Mother had said. The right voice may summon armies.

The girl set the tray down next to the bed. A bowl of apples. A decanter of water. A razor-sharp knife, bright and silver. The sunlight pierced the decanter and broke into tumbled shards that cavorted across the bedclothes.

"May I leave it for you, Miss?"

The monster ignored her. She took her time stretching out her fingers and toes. She lifted the knife and felt the tip of it with her index finger.

"May I go now, Miss?" the girl said again, shuffling her feet, eyes flitting over and over towards the door.

"I don’t remember your name," said the monster, putting sugar into her voice. A sweet voice, like honey. A sweet voice lets you take what you want. A sweet voice makes them trust you.

"Jessamy, miss."

"Do you know what day it is today, Jessamy?"

"Miss, it's your sixteenth."

The monster selected an apple from the bowl and used the knife to shave away a piece of the rosy skin, revealing the white beneath. The knife was keen; it slipped through the flesh so very easily. She speared a piece with the tip of her blade, placed it between her sharp white teeth, and bit.

"There will be a special breakfast, just for me," she said. "I will eat a new-laid egg. I will have my first glass of wine. Do you know what gift my Father will give to me today, Jessamy?"

"Miss, I don't want to say it."

"I will receive a box, the most beautiful rosewood box, inlaid with ivory and pearl, and in the box will be my own true heart, isn't that delightful?"

"Yes, Miss."

"You know Jessamy," the monster continued, layering her voice with sugar. "Now that it comes to it, I'm not altogether sure I want it. Maybe I will leave it in its box, at least for now. Do you have a heart Jessamy, underneath your skin?"

"Miss, may I go now?"

"No, you may not. You have to do what I say, or I'll tell my father and he'll tell the magistrate, and then bad things will happen to you and the people you like."

The girl didn't move. There was fear there, but a flicker of something else, defiance maybe? Oh that wouldn't do at all.

"What does it look like, I wonder? Your heart? Can you dig it out with a knife? I do suppose that’s what happens in a war, all those swords flying around. People with bits hanging off them. Take the heart out, and the person dies. That’s the usual way of it, isn’t it, but not for me."

"Miss, I..."

The monster ignored her. "I have been told that a heart can make a person feel things. I understand that sometimes when a person hurts another person, their two hearts talk to one another secretly, and the pain somehow bounces back on the person who did it, like one heart reflects the pain in another. Say, for example, I were to squish this knife into you right now, right through the eyeball or something, my heart would make me feel a piece of the pain. Is that true Jessamy? It seems like it would take some of the fun out of life, don’t you think?"

She shaved another piece of apple, using the point of the blade to place the white flesh in her mouth. She pressed the tip of her tongue against the point. She felt a little blush of pain and the sweet-salt taste of blood. A little thrill ran through her.

Father would be angry if she hurt the girl. There would be an argument and consequences. It wasn't a day for fighting, with the dress hanging over the rail and the box downstairs waiting for her. Still, there were more subtle games to play. Games that left no marks.

"Do you like apples, Jessamy?"

The girl remained silent.

"I asked you a question Jessamy, no need to be afraid of me." More sugar in the voice, a gentle voice, eyes wide and innocent, brow clear. Kind words from a good kind person. It was easy to pretend, mother had shown her how.

"Yes, Miss. I like them."

"Here, you have the rest. I’m not hungry."

The monster swallowed her mouthful, then tossed the half-eaten apple into the fireplace.

"Go on then, eat it up."

"But Miss, it's black with ash."

The girl shifted her feet, eyes fixed on the floor.

"Don’t make me wait for you."

"But miss, I haven't cleaned out the grate yet."

"Oh, well, I’m sure we have time. Why don’t you do that now? That way I get a lovely clean grate and you get your breakfast." A reasonable voice for a reasonable request. Nothing surprising.

The girl shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. It was a pleasant enough game for the morning. The sun was so very warm and there was still plenty of time before she had to go down.

"You’re not crying, are you, Jessamy?"

The girl began to shuffle very slowly towards the fireplace.

"Go on, go get it, no, no, don't wash it, I'll need the water for my face."

The girl crouched by the grate, picking through the cold ashes. The rosy apple was caked in grey powder. The monster listened to the crispy, choking, sobbing sounds as the girl chewed the lumps of charcoal.

It was a pleasant enough game for the morning.

The monster paused at the top of the grand sweep of the staircase. The house was silent. No one greeted her as she padded down the stairs into the wide hallway. Her silk slippers made no sound on the marble tiles. Her dress was perfect. The sun poured down through the rose window and pooled in quiet rainbows.

There were no guests. The front doors were locked against the morning. She frowned, was she early? There should be a dozen guests invited from the town, the Ombudsman and the magistrate, here to watch her special morning. She would frown at them and swish her skirts and they would tell her what a pretty thing she was.

Silent in her slippers, she pushed open the banquet room door. At the end of the table, Father sat alone, dressed in evening clothes as though he had not slept. His hair was a mess. There was no one else there.

Where were the relatives and suitors, coming to welcome a new dawn, her first day grown? Where were the servants waiting with coffee? Perhaps he had sent them away. A surprise maybe in the next room.

"Father?"

"Daughter."

"Where is everyone, Father?" she said. "Where are my breakfast and my coffee and my first glass of wine?"

As she came closer to him, she smelt the sweet tang of liquor, noticed the empty bottle.

He steepled his fingers, squeezed his eyes shut. There were age spots on the back of his hands.

"I wanted to tell you sooner..." he began. "I have done something. It is not easy to talk about."

"What did you do, Father?" she asked brightly, waiting for the joke, the sudden reveal. Relatives hiding in the next room, bursting out with surprises. But her father’s tone was raw, and there was a shadow across his face.

"I did it for us, I hope one day you will forgive me. It was for the best, I think. At the time at least it was for the best."

"And what did you do, Father?" She smoothed the brittleness in her tone. Control yourself, Mother had said. Always control yourself. Never let them see inside. If they see you, they own you. IF they know what's inside you, they can use it. She put a smile in her voice, a natural little quirk in the corner of her mouth to frame the question. Whatever it was, it was nothing that could possibly spoil the day.

"Your mother had just..." She heard the note of accusation in her father's voice, but she ignored it. "I was not myself. I gambled, and I lost. Lost everything, the house, all the money. We were going to be thrown out. You were just a little girl."

What was the dimwitted old man saying? He still had the house. They were rich, weren't they? Rich enough to buy anything.

"That was years ago, Father."

His shirt was not fully tucked in. A little triangle of pale, hairy belly fat was bulging over the top of his trousers. Little black hairs and yellow skin. She had nothing to fear from him, but there was something off, something broken in the air, and the shadow still lay across his face.

And there was something missing. Something that should have been on the table, fluttering in a rosewood box.

"Where’s my heart, Father?" she asked politely, placidly, keeping her voice very civil.

"You were just a child," he mumbled, face down, weak flabby chin. "Just a little girl and your mother was fresh in the ground..."

His fumbling fingers bumped the empty wine bottle on the table, setting it spinning, and for the first time, she noticed another on its side next to his chair.

"Where’s my heart Father?" She kept her voice even, though a hot, churning feeling was rising up in her chest. A trapped feeling and she wanted to leap at him, to bite his eyes out and tear at his face, but she kept the smile in her voice. Never let them see.

"It feels good," he muttered. "It feels good to finally talk freely about these things. I’ve kept this secret for so long. It’s been such a burden for me. Telling you now is like freeing myself. I feel giddy." His wet mouth formed into a furtive little grin.

"What did you do, Father!"

"You must understand, my dear, I did it for us."

The monster felt her skin growing warm under her grey dress. The pearls hung heavy around her neck and wrists. She got to her feet, pressing her fists into the table. He looked up at her, eyes swimming and bleary.

"You gambled my heart?"

"No! No, everything else, never that. I would never gamble your heart. But your mother was always the sensible one. After she was gone, I didn't know what I was doing. We had nothing. Walder Gintas, you know Gintas, right? He helped us. He paid all the debts back. He has been very kind to this family, almost like a second father. He only asked one thing. You understand I had to give him something, and what else was there, after your mother had gone? What else did I have to offer him?"

Walder Gintas, the ugly little bald man who sometimes came to dinner, the one who always stared at her across the table. She felt her skin grow cold again.

"You traded my heart for this house?" Her voice became louder, unladylike, but she didn’t care. Her idiot father had traded her heart to a gangster? There was no point hiding her feelings now. All was lost.

"We had nothing. I gave you a home, a life, the best schooling..."

"And what use is that to me now?" The words were thick and fat in her mouth. They choked her. "You sold me for a... a what... a house? I belong to me, not to you, not to Walder Gintas! You had no right to do that! To me! Never any right!"

She could picture the man, small, bald, dressed in dark leather, waddling through the town surrounded by crooks and lackeys. A little round man with a stupid little round head under a stupid little round leather hat.

"You sold me to Gintas the midget. Gintas the rat. He killed his own wife!"

"No one knows that for sure."

"Everyone in town knows it. He’s a monstrosity, a murderer, a nasty little cutthroat sneak of a worm-faced toad! You sold me to him? You gave him my heart when I was just a little girl? What does he want? To marry me? To take me into his bed? I won’t do it! It's disgusting!"

"I think he has different ideas."

"I'll kill him."

"You can't kill him. He has your heart. You’d be killing yourself."

"He’s a monster. I am my own, not yours to trade, not his to take and use. It makes my skin crawl to think of him touching it. I belong to me. How could you! I'll not forgive you for this, not ever. I hate you! I hate you forever!"

Her father clenched his jaw. He got to his feet. Though he was a small man, he was still taller than her. His knuckles cracked into fists.

"You spoilt little brat." his voice was quieter now and it shook slightly. "I gave you everything. I sacrificed everything for you. Your mother sacrificed everything. She would be here if it wasn't for you."

The monster fell silent as a thought occurred to her.

"It's lucky Mother's dead then."

"What did you say?"

"I said it’s lucky she's dead! You must be glad she's dead. Imagine what she would have done to you if she had known. She would have hated you, just like I hate you. She would have spat at you. She would have..."

He hit her in the mouth.

And she was falling across the table and onto the floor, a high-pitched whine ringing in her ears. She scrabbled at the tiles with her fingernails. A string of blood and drool hung from her lower lip. A long string of blood, sliding across the black and white tiles, leaving a wet spitty mark as her shoulders heaved and she gasped for air. And then a deep well of laughter cracked open inside her, and she could not stop. She was laughing and watching the bloody string of spit wobble from her lower lip, down onto the tiles, and he was standing over her, and all she could do was laugh at him.

What an idiot, what a disgusting dirty old shit old shit of a fool he was. He had sold her heart and he had struck her and knocked her down, and now, every debt she owed him was repaid and he would never see her again, She would never let him see her again, and still, she could not stop laughing at him.

She struggled to her feet, not bothering to wipe herself, letting the string of blood swing from her chin down onto the front of her dress, splattering the pearls and staining the grey satin. He stared at the floor. He could not even meet her gaze.

She brought her voice back under control, no emotion, never let them see inside.

"Are we done now?" A sweet voice. The right voice can summon armies.

He was rubbing his knuckles as though he had hurt himself. Hurt himself on her little pointed chin. She had never seen him cry before. He looked ridiculous.

"Jolly good then." Brisk. Formal. Always in control, though her head felt loose on her shoulders.

Then she turned on her heel and walked out of the ballroom, out of the house, across the lawn, onto the road.

Away from him forever.