Heartgone
Angie Spoto
There once was a woman whose husband was a monster. He kept his claws hidden from the world and was well-loved in their village along the shore. Only his wife knew of the long gashes that gutted their pillows or the blood that clotted beneath his nails.
One day, when the husband was away, a starling alighted on the windowsill. A storm was driving in from across the sea. The wind tore at the trees, and the air was heavy. The woman saw the starling huddled against the glass, with its colourful feathers dull beneath the grey sky. She opened the window and invited the bird inside. It hopped into the warm house and sang her a song of a monster who had taken the heart from his body and kept it hidden outside himself. With his heart away, he would live forever. When the storm calmed to a misty drizzle, the woman opened the window, and the starling flew away. But she remembered the song.
When the husband returned, he found the hearth adorned with all the flowers of the season—with bright bracken and ivy vines, sea holly and foxglove. “What is this?” he asked, amused at the sight.
“I want to show my love for my husband’s heart,” the woman said.
He smiled. “That is not where my heart hides,” the husband said, extending his claws.
The next day, the husband went away again, and when he returned, he found the bedclothes embroidered with feathers patterned after all the birds of air and sea. “What is this?” he asked.
“I want to show my love for my husband’s heart,” the woman said.
He smiled. “That is not where my heart hides,” the husband said, clicking his claws.
The next day, the husband went away again. When he returned, he found the doorway draped in ribbons of velvet and silk, braided string and colourful cloth. “What is this?” he asked.
“I want,” she said, “to love my husband’s heart.”
He smiled, slicing one of the ribbons with a single claw. “This is not where my heart hides.”
“Then what can I do?” she said, taking his arm. “How will you ever know how much I love you?”
“You can never show love to my heart like this,” he said, looking at the hearth with its flowers, the bedclothes with its feathers, and the doorway with its ribbons. “My heart lives inside a bird that can never be caught and can never be slain. You will never find it, and I will live forever.”
When the husband went out the next day, the woman was afraid. She did not want a husband who would live forever. She flung open the window. She tore down the ribbons, dragged the bedclothes onto the floor, swept the flowers from the hearth. She made a nest of beautiful things, and she waited.
Eventually, a storm began to drive in from across the sea, and the starling returned. It saw the nest and settled there.
“I am looking for a bird that can never be caught and can never be slain,” she said to the starling. The starling fluffed up its feathers and sank its neck against its breast. Though the woman waited with her breath held, the bird sang no song.
When the storm cleared the starling fluttered up and flew from the window. The woman watched it with despair, but when she turned back to the nest, she saw an egg nestled among the beautiful things.
Just as her husband was returning home, as his body darkened the doorway, as the sound of his claws clicked across the floor, she took the egg into her hands and crushed it in her palms. Blood trailed between her fingers. Her husband fell down dead.
The next time a storm drove in across the sea, the woman waited for the starling with her own warm heart beating between her fingers.
Angie Spoto is an American fiction writer living in
Edinburgh. Her first two novels are gothic tales inspired by Scotland’s coast and folklore. Her debut novel “The Grief Nurse” imagines a world where the wealthy hire ‘grief nurses’ to take away their grief. The Grief Nurse was shortlisted for the First Novel Prize and The Bridge Awards Emerging Writer Award. Her second novel The Bone Diver, a gothic sapphic retelling of the legend of the selkies, was longlisted for The Saltires: Scotland's National Book Awards. Angie loves stories that are dark, surreal, strange and magical, and is inspired by writers like Ursula Le Guinn, Octavia Butler, Leonora Carrington, and Naomi Novik. She loves fairy tales, especially Scottish ones. She lives beside the shore with her husband and son. @angiespotowrite www.angiespoto.com
