A Girl’s Heart is a Wretched Thing

A.D. Sui

CW: some body horror

Only eleven years of age and terribly lonely, I came upon a shadowy figure emerging from the fog. She looked down at me with eyes ready to burst with autumn rain and smiled with crooked, sharp teeth. When she didn’t smile, she was soft on the eyes, with translucent skin and pale cheeks

I called her Girl because I had no friends and desperately wanted one. I motioned for her to chase me as a game. She did so with unbridled glee. Then, when she caught me, she had me watch as she pried open her chest, rib by rib, like a blossoming flower. It didn’t bother her, and the pale skin gave way readily to the intrusion. Torn between horror and curiosity, I watched as she reached inside and tugged at a remarkably human heart.

When she held it out in her child-sized hand, the autumn rains broke above us, and rained down on both Girl and I. There we stood, me, Girl, and the lump of a heart, outstretched in her hand, beating to rhythm of the rain around us. Before I could say anything, a flash of lighting split the sky in two. By the time I was brave enough to pry my fingers from my eyes, Girl was gone, disappeared into the brush with her heart in hand.

#

Picking berries, setting snares for rabbits, I would see Girl often. One morning, while checking traps, she emerged from a small pond, her skin taut with the surface tension. I thought her a sprite, as she often came to me, skin glistening with moisture, smelling of the forest floor. In our brief encounters, our game repertoire grew, and now extended to chasing squirrels through the trees and hide-and-seek.

As she often did, Girl opened herself to me, rib by rib and held out her still beating heart. For once, possessed by the tranquil light of the morning, I took it from her hand. The lump sat neatly in my palm, warm and wet, bloodless, yet beating. Girl watched me with her pale, grey eyes. After a moment, a trickle of green broke away from the corner of her eyes and slid down her cheek. In that moment, Girl’s contours gave way, and she began to sag towards the ground like a melting heap of snow.

I lunged towards her, heart in hand and thrust it into her still wide-open chest. As if by magic, her whole body blossomed with life, and clear eyes peered into mine. She drew a breath. Moss and autumn leaves were all around us.

#

After my birthday, when winter first touched the forest lakes, I thought I wouldn’t see Girl until the thaw. But one day, after nearly a month of silence, her head poked through the thin sheet of ice. She smiled wide with her sharp, crooked teeth.

With clumsy, mitten-clad hands I held Girl’s heart, and it was warm and steaming under the faint afternoon light. I was about to tell Girl that she was a great comfort when some rustling behind me interrupted us. Girl plunged below water, and I spun around to meet the intruder. My mother yelled for me from the bush. She said we were leaving. I looked to the pond and Girl was nowhere to be seen, so I hid her heart in my pocket and followed my mother’s heavy footsteps through the snow.

#

I thought about Girl often that winter. First, with guilt and horror. Then, with fleeting longing and melancholy. By the time the holidays came the snow was so dense I didn’t dare venture outside. So, I placed the still-beating heart in a small box and stowed in beneath my bed. Then, when the spring came, mother and father stopped speaking to one another. Days would go by with heavy silence sitting between the three of us, until eventually, my mother and I moved out West. She said the schools were better out West. She said I’d have no issues making friends, not like here. She didn’t know about Girl.  

So, I packed Girl’s heart in my suitcase and left.

But mother way right about better schools and making friends. The schools were excellent, and the friends were chatty and bright. Then, came exams, and jobs, and parties, and studies, and more parties. I rarely checked on the box now, dust-covered and forgotten. Sometimes, I would take it out and wipe it with a wet cloth, and promise myself that I would venture out into the woods and return it. But summers gave way to autumn, and autumn disappeared into winter. And in the endless cycle of the seasons, Girl’s heart remained with me.

#

When mother passed, I drove out to the old country house to settle the will. On a crisp autumn morning I trekked alone through the forest. My memory wasn’t perfect, but I found the small pond where I saw Girl last, before I vanished into the rest of my life. I opened the tattered box and took the beating heart into my hand. It had grown translucent in the years, mirroring my own withered skin. I lowered the heart into the pond and took a step back.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I tried coming back, but I never made it.”

Two clear grey eyes peered at me from the pond. Below, the water split into a mouth, filled with broken, bloodied teeth. With a child-like hand, Girl snatched up the heart.

“Forgive me,” I said.

“Never,” the tooth filled mouth hissed, and Girl brought the heart to her mouth and tore into it like it were a slaughtered hare. “Never,” she hissed as she tore at her heart, over and over. And the corners of her eyes melted into the pond, and the teeth dissolved into nothing but foam. Yet, the voice, so human and frail kept whispering never never never until it too surrendered to the water, and Girl was gone.

March 8th, 2024

A.D.Sui is a Ukrainian-born, queer, and disabled science fiction writer. She holds a Ph.D. in Health Promotion and spends most of her time being a stuffy academic of all things digital. Her writing has appeared in Augur, Etherea Magazine, and others. When not writing convoluted papers that nobody will ever read, she’s tweeting into the void as @TheSuiWay or blogging onwww.thesuiway.com .  

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