Girl with fifteen hearts

Prologue

I have a heart for every soul I have ever morphed into.

Family members are all alike, at least this family is. They are all the same version of the same person. And I am them.

I exist only to show them their worst selves, their truest selves, whether they want to see it or not. To pick at their scabs and watch myself bleed with them, to scream at each other until our voices strain because of how badly they want me gone, because of how I badly I want them gone.

But I am part of them. They are whole, I am a fragment of their feelings. I only exist to torment them and I can feel every wretched thought they have.

***

Part one

I live a life of lies.

Only when I am alone, do I get to pretend I’m real. That my skin and cartilage belong to me. That this room was decorated by me according to my preferences.

And then she walks in, and I feel invisible strings pulling my limbs. What she does, I do. Only when she needs me do I get a shred of autonomy. But never complete control.

She asks me if I did something, and I have the freedom to answer her, shake my head or nod. But she copies my actions anyway, she leads and I follow.

There is no way out, I have tried, I have been here for fifteen generations.

***

It started with Freyja. She had hair like ropes of ivy and these dull eyes of terracotta. I heard her say she bought the house with her own money, a place where she could raise her daughter, Averie.

This was back when I barely existed. I couldn’t see or feel, only hear. But at least I wasn’t confined.

I was this house. Each ray of sunlight that peered through the stained glass windows, each shrieking step on the staircases, was me.

And then Averie grew up. The day she birthed her daughter, the same day Freyja passed away, and the day she bought my prison and hung it on the only free wall in her room was the day she doomed me.

Ilaria was born in that room, where I am now confined, the bedroom that now belongs to her, the owner of my next heart. The moment she let out her first cry Freyja uttered her last. Averie held her child, which she had pulled out of herself on her own, as her mother collapsed outside, and landed on a bed of lilies.

Averie’s horrified face as she held her daughter covered in familiar blood was the first thing I saw. Suddenly I had ceased to be abstract notes entwined in wind chimes, and instead, my body was pressed against the glass and weighed down by strands and strands of thick hair.

That was the day I received my first heart, which still contracts in my ribcage, trying to find an ounce of original blood.

But I have none.

***

Part two

Averie tries to talk to me. She looks just like her mother, they all do. She knew from the moment I appeared that I wasn’t a simple reflection.

 She was kind to me and told me stories about the outside world, what she had experienced, and what she hoped to achieve. She used to hold up Ilaria to my face and tell her that one day I would be hers.

But Ilaria hated me. She was scared and decided to lock me up and sleep in the guest bedroom. For years, the family grew like a willow tree. In a linear manner, and slowly. One girl per generation, and no more than two at a time. They all avoided this wing of the house.

I never met some of them, but I felt each of their passing.

Averie’s heart spread its chambers on my back,

Ilaria formed on my left hand’s palm,

Clementine’s sank deep into my stomach.

And so on, and so on. I feel them glow together, in a ghastly rhythm.

***

One day, the door opens.

A girl no older than fourteen stands there. Hair braided back flushed cheeks and holding a bobby pin. I know who she is, I felt her birth years ago, and when her mother passed, some of my features changed lightly to match hers.

She presses her hand against the glass, and my limb follows her lead.

‘It’s true.’ She says, but there is still a hint of a question in her tone, which allows me to nod in response.

‘Do you know my name?’

Verity. Until your death, it will be mine too.

I feel her shivers cut through my back.

She doesn’t lock me up like Ilaria, but she doesn’t treat me as a friend as Averie had.

Instead, she studies me. She insists on sleeping elsewhere, far away from me, but returns each day to question me.

‘What are you?’

‘How did you get here?’

‘Are there others out there like you?’

She was keen to find these answers. Dedicated all of her free time to uncover the truth, and it drove her mad.

Verity transformed into an awful woman. I watched her raise her daughter, trying to shape her into being flawless, and punishing her whenever it didn’t work.

The girl reminded me of Freyja. Back when I was free, I used to follow her around the house, transforming into the morning breeze when she was outside gardening, gazing through the numerous paintings scattered around the halls as she read.

This one slept in the same room as me, but only as self-inflicted punishment. What she felt, I felt. The screams she’d throw at me would make my rage bubble up inside me, at times I felt her fear first.

She hated herself but hated me most, she knew that everything I showed her was true. Maybe they’d all known it. Sweet Averie loved the reassurance that she was a good person, but Ilaria didn’t like being reminded she was a coward.

While she did, she knew that her line was one of twisted women.

***

Epilogue

The girl comes home one day. She doesn’t shut all windows and cover me up as usual but dumps her backpack before me.

‘Open it’, she says, and I reach beyond the glass. I struggle for a while; thanks to her I now only have one hand.

A diary, with a turquoise leather cover, I recognised it before opening it on the first page and seeing the owner’s name written out in elegant cursive.

Freyja’s diary.

‘She knew.’ The girl says. ‘She may have died before you materialised before you became a corporeal creature, but she knew that you existed.’

She ran her hand across the edge of the mirror. ‘Freyja didn’t buy this house, she inherited it. From distant relatives looking to get rid of it, of you. Every woman who lives here meets a premature death, leaving her descendants to deal with this curse, but no more.’

‘I won’t subject anyone else to this. Not strangers by selling the house, not my children who will feel forced to live here. You die with me.’

I nod, I understand. Maybe the end of this family will set me free once again.

I am a curse after all.