Heartless

Miles and miles of forest lay beyond the bridge. Goldstone Wood was the largest wood in all the kingdom of Parumvir, so large that no one had ever attempted to map its mysteries. And here Una was, a girl of imagination with a taste for adventure, and she’d never even thought to cross over! Wasn’t it strange –


An icy splash of water down her neck shocked her from her reverie. Una dropped her pencil with a scream. “Felix!” She watched the pencil swirl out of sight in the muddy water, then snapped her journal shut and whirled about.

Her brother stood on the bank, his hands cupped and dripping. He laughed. “Wake up!”

“I was not asleep!”

“You weren’t awake either.” Still laughing, he scrambled up the steep embankment and around to the bridge. He flopped down at her side, grinning, and held a glob of mud under her nose.

“Eeeew, Felix!” She pushed his hands away. “Stop it!”

“It’s all that was left,” he said.

“All that was left of what?”

“The Flowing Gold,” he said. “I think it got melted by a dragon.”

“Melted gold doesn’t turn into muck.”

He let the mud dribble between his fingers and plop into the stream beneath them, then sneaked a peek at her journal. “What are you writing?”

“Nothing.” Una glared at him.

“Are you composing verses?”

“Maybe.”

“Can I see?”

“May I see.”

Felix rolled his eyes and made a grab for her book, but she pulled it away, leaning back across the bridge. “Let me see!” he demanded. Feigning reluctance, she opened her journal. She turned her shoulder to keep him from reading and flipped through to find the most recent page, full of her scratched-out work. She could still discern the words, and she read them aloud, half singing:

“I ask the silent sky



Tell me why



As I look so high



Into the leaf-laced sky



You do not reply



So I – ”



“So I flop down and cry in a muddy pigsty!” Felix flung his arms wide and burst forth in a squeaky falsetto. “Then I go bake a pie out of apples and rye! O hey, nonny-ni and a fiddledee – ”

Una closed her book and smacked him in the stomach, then knocked him again on the back of the head as he doubled up, laughing wickedly.

Resisting the urge to push him into the stream after her lost pencil, Una instead grabbed her stockings and buckle shoes from behind her, pulled them on, and got to her feet. Tucking her journal into her pocket, she stepped away from Felix to the middle of the bridge. “I’m going to cross over,” she said.

Felix, still rubbing the back of his head, looked up. “What?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding. A determined line settled between her brows, and she took a few more steps across the bridge, the heels of her shoes clunking on the planks. “I’m going to cross over.”

“No, you aren’t.” Felix swung his feet up onto the bridge and leaned back to support himself on his hands. He watched her, his head tilted to one side as she stood looking into the far forest extending down Goldstone Hill. “You aren’t,” he said again.

“I will.”

“When?”

She did not answer for several long moments. Felix pushed himself to his feet and went to stand beside her. They gazed into the leaf-shrouded shadows.

Goldstone Wood waited.

A breeze darted between them, dragged at Una’s skirt, and skittered off into the forest beyond, rustling leaves as it went. The trees laughed quietly together, and their branches seemed to point at the brother and sister standing solemnly on the Old Bridge. Somewhere far away down the hillside, a wood thrush sang again. The breeze darted back, carrying the silvery song to their ears – a song of mystery, of secrets.

“Now,” Una whispered at last. “I’ll go right now.” She took a step, then another.

A horrible caterwaul filled the air, startling her out of her skin. She leapt back, stumbling into Felix, and the both of them nearly went into the stream. Clutching each other in surprise, they stared into the trees beyond.

A cat stepped into view.

“Ha!” Felix burst out laughing and pinched Una. “You were scared of a kitty cat!”

“Was not!” Una glared at him and pursed her lips, then looked back at the cat.

It was a large golden animal with a plumy tail, but its fur was a mass of burs and snarls. It appeared from among thick-growing ferns on the far side of the bridge, picking its way carefully, as though hurt.

“What’s wrong with it?” Una said as it made its way down the steep embankment of the stream. At last it reached the water’s edge, where it put its nose down and lapped. Then it raised its face to them.

It had no eyes.

“Oh, the poor thing!” Una cried. “The poor little cat! Do you see that, Felix?”

“Poor little cat, my foot.” Felix snorted. “He’s ugly as a goblin. A regular monster.”

“She’s blind!” Her venture into the Wood forgotten, Una scrambled back to the familiar side of the bridge and down to the stream. She stood across from the cat, which seemed to watch her without eyes, the tip of its tail twitching slightly. “Kitty-kitty-kitty!” she called, holding out an inviting hand.

It began to groom its paw.

“Felix!” she called to her brother, who still stood watching on the bridge. “Felix, get her for me.”

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