Thief of Hearts by Bridget Essex

Author:Bridget Essex [Essex, Bridget]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-10-27T06:00:00+00:00

---

I was angry at her. I had every right to be angry at her. I had given so much of myself to Merle, had told her some of my secret stories.

I’d been vulnerable with her, and yet I knew nothing about her. Nothing. She disappeared into the night when I asked a simple question…

I paced the confines of the tower and stared, foul-tempered and morose, at the gray skies that did not yield me my freezing rain shower. It was the only sort of weather that would befit my mood.

I didn't open or shut the windows for my birds that morning, not until an entire retinue of blackbirds began to bang against the glass together, sharp beaks making an incessant rat-a-tat-tat that I could not ignore.

Frustrated, I threw up the sash with violence, and the glass splintered but did not break, though the crack was ugly, like a tear across silk.

I touched it, mouth in a little “o” of astonishment at what I'd done, and I was rewarded with a small cut for my pains, a blossom of red against my skin. The slash of crimson was so bright in the dullness of the tower; I stared down at it for a long moment, spellbound.

That afternoon, I read a fairy tale, one I hadn't remembered, teasing out the words with longing, trying to make them last for as long as I could to while away the time.

The fairy tale was about a little girl who lived with her mother in a ramshackle house. Every night, she turned into a wolf so that she could hunt far and wide across the countryside to bring back a dinner for her mother, as they were very poor. The story ended sadly, the wolf girl mistaken for a real wolf and shot through the heart with a huntsman's arrow.

I closed the book with a resounding thud and tossed it against the headboard.

I couldn't stomach a sad story today.

Is this how it would always be? Shut up in a fabled tower. A woman, clothed in secrecy, my only visitor. One meal a day. A constant hope and prayer for rain to wash the wear of time from me?

I was so melancholy, unreachable even to myself. I forgot that I had been saved from death, forgot my earlier joy at Merle's presence. She had left so abruptly, breaking the spell she'd woven tight as a net about my form.

I wanted freedom more than I could understand.

I watched the sun move over the sky and felt nothing at all.

As sunset drew near, I picked up the copy of Fair Folk Stories, still lying where I’d thrown it, and I let the covers of the book fall open at random in my lap. I peered down in the dying light.

"What would I give to be human again!" cried the little blackbird girl. "Ah, my very soul cries out for it…"

"Hello," said Merle, her voice a whisper in my ear, soft as a kiss.

I didn't look up from my reading, though my back stiffened of its own accord, and I held the book a little tighter.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.