The water’s a murky red, so I drain it and refill.
Thomas and James appear to be watching television, though their expressions give nothing away. They were far more interesting when they argued and fought and cared about each other. I’ll never understand glass hearts. Glass may be recyclable but it’s also cold and weak. Amorphous, with no clear shape or form. Charles VI of France believed he was made of glass. He carried pieces of iron in his clothing to protect himself from breaking. Fragile and precious, he was called Charles the Mad and Charles the Well-Beloved. That’s not the kind of love I want, even if it does sit on a designer sofa.
I look around me. The kitchen floor is covered with feathers. There’s a bloody handprint on the freezer door.
You can’t say that’s not exciting.
I grab the disinfectant.
It’s dark outside and every house on the street is glowing like a planet. Every house, that is, apart from the Drurys’ at number 143. Their semi-detached is a black hole. I’m not one for gossip but last month I heard they’d opted for a joint heart replacement, after it emerged that Mrs Drury had been somewhat unfaithful. They thought it would be romantic to go under the knife together, and wake up with two new hearts. French Angelfish hearts, to be precise. They’d picked them out together, genetically modified to beat as one. I gather a fistful of feathers. Love doesn’t work like that. Love needs the dominant one to take the lead. Couples have tried to have their hearts replaced simultaneously before, even lying side by side on an operating table, falling asleep while holding hands, but they’ve all woken up and looked at each other and not known who it is they are looking at. Their hearts simply not in it anymore. I haven’t seen the Drurys in weeks, though I spied their daughter packing her car with suitcases at the crack of dawn on Tuesday. She’s one of those awful New Age newbie arsehole who have made a pact to focus on their own well-being. To never settle down with anyone, lest they get their hearts smashed to pieces. They blame the older generations for turning the world into a loveless place. They say they can make it on their own, that they don’t need other halves. They wear badges that say things like ‘No Love, No Problems.’
As though life can be that simple.
Not that it’s safe having a youthful, perfect heart, anyway. Wandering the streets all shiny and new. We’ve all heard the rumours about small, remote villages that have been ransacked overnight by groups of expert thieves. Whole pockets of civilisation that have had their hearts wrenched out of their chests to sell on the black market. Some say that these villagers keep on living. Wandering, listless. Unable to love. Unable to die. Homes of heartless quiet. The closest we get here is jealous lovers turning to murder. But that’s nothing new. Then there are the swingers: couples who want to swap hearts with other couples. Just for fun. But why bother to go out and find someone else, when you can mould what you already have?
I hang up my rubber gloves and stroke the heart case.
The swan heart purrs.
Cora’s still sleeping in the next room. Her head wound is healing nicely, her chest a gaping hole with a pump firmly attached. I still need to unpack her open suitcase, though most of the garments are strewn across the carpet like human feathers. Like the times we’d hastily undress and fling our clothes across the floor.
What animals we were back then. Biting each other’s lips.
How vicious. How unpredictable.
I inject Cora with a fresh dose of anaesthetic, tuck her in, kiss her forehead, and tell her another story.
Once upon a time, a girl’s father married a witch.
The witch turned her six brothers into swans, and they flew away.
Worried she would also be turned into a swan, the young girl packed her suitcase and hid in the deep forest, where the sunlight rarely visited, and there were many eyes looking out at her from the bodies of trees.
There, one of the swan brothers found her. Flapping his wings, he told his sister that she had the power to save them because her heart was so good. He said, if she sewed six tunics made of flowers, they would put them on and turn back into humans. He said it was a secret spell, and she wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone until the tunics were finished. He said, if she did, the spell wouldn’t work.
So the girl collected as many flowers as she could and began to sew.
She sewed sitting in a tree so the wolves couldn’t get her.
But the world is a dark place, full of many kinds of wolves.
A group of men, out hunting, found the strange girl sewing flowers and asked her what she was doing. She couldn’t speak, so she smiled, but that wasn’t enough. She threw them her bracelet, which they caught, but that wasn’t enough either. So, she took off her clothes and dropped them to the floor, in the hope they would see her good heart shining out of her chest.
Then they smiled back, and climbed up the tree, and decided to take her home.
She was taken to the young king of a neighbouring realm. He looked at this silent girl with her good heart, and bought her immediately.
She married him without speaking a word.
The king’s mother was angry about the marriage, because no woman was good enough for her only son.
For the next few years, this new queen continued to sew flower tunics without speaking. But the task was taking a long time because her mother-in-law destroyed every tunic out of spite, and she could only sew during the spring and summer months, for during the autumn all the flowers died.
‘That silent girl is full of secrets,’ the mother-in-law muttered. ‘My heart is stronger than hers will ever be.’
When the silent queen gave birth to a child, the mother-in-law stole it and ordered that it be killed and baked in a pie. She smeared blood on the queen’s mouth and told her son that his bride had eaten their daughter.
‘Did you do it?’ he asked his wife.
She shook her head but said nothing.
Crying, she went back to sewing tunics made of flowers, and the mother-in-law kept burning them, one by one.
When the silent queen gave birth to her second child, the same thing happened. The mother-in-law smeared blood across the queen’s mouth and ordered the baby be killed.
‘Did you do it?’ the king asked.
The queen shook her head but said nothing at all.