Heartless

Once upon a time, there was a man who loved women, and women loved him back. One day he angered the wrong woman and was severely punished.

Once upon a time, there was a man who loved women. Especially beautiful women. And women loved him back. He was charming, attractive, intelligent, and wealthy. Every woman wanted him, and every man wanted to be him. His only downfall, however, was that he became bored of his women easily and often lost interest after they were completely, irrevocably in love with him. After the poor girl had proclaimed her love for him, he would take his leave and never come back again.

But one day, the man met a woman who was so beautiful he wondered if perhaps he would love her forever. He pursued her endlessly: sending her lush bouquets of exotic flowers, writing her melodic poetry, and declaring his eternal worship of her. Although she was a difficult target, after five months of his hounding her, she was finally charmed and suggested marriage. At that moment, just like with every other woman he had ever taken a fancy to, the man fell out of love utterly and ran away.

Unfortunately, this man had charmed the wrong woman. She was a witch in disguise and wanted revenge. So she looked through her big black book the Devil had given her and found a spell to remove a person’s heart and keep them alive for eternity. One night, when the moon was full, she spoke the magic words and carved his name into an old, dead tree.

The morning after, the man woke up and found his pulse was gone. His skin was ice cold and he felt a distinct emptiness inside of him. On top of it all�"and what worried him the most�"he was completely apathetic.

Ten years went by. The man was still handsome and charismatic as ever, women still were enchanted by him, and still he left them without a word and with a heart full of aching.

Twenty years went by. Every day he found himself in front of his mirror, mesmerized by what he saw. From the morning he woke up with the void in his chest, he hadn’t aged a day. A terrifying thought then struck him. What if this continued? Would he live forever? What would the people in the city think? They had already begun whispering about the oddity of his retained youth and word of a curse was slowly growing like a sapling in soil. So he decided to pack up everything he owned, which was quite a lot, and moved out of the city into the middle of a vast plain where he bought an old manor from an even older man. It was perfectly haunted and foreboding. No one would dare come near.

Fifty years went by. The man had become so depressed in his loneliness that he attempted to take his own life. He found a razor that he used to shave his face with when his hair still grew, ran himself a bath, and cut his wrists. Only no blood ran out and his wounds never healed.

One hundred years went by. The very witch who had taken out the man’s heart had died and in her place was her granddaughter. Unlike her grandmother and mother before her, the poor girl had no magical gift to speak of, except that she had an uncanny knack for finding lost objects. Her name was Cordelia, something she was not proud of. Since she was a baby, she’d heard of a man so evil he was born without a heart. He snuck into the city at night and charmed young women wandering on their own and took them back to his mansion in the middle of nowhere where he seized their hearts and kept them in a chest in the tallest tower. Cordelia was just as frightened as any other young girl who lived in her city and avoided being out after dark.

One night, after she was finished with her errands, Cordelia set out to the store around dusk, rushing around and paying quickly so that she’d be back home safely by sundown.

On the road back home, the bag in her hands ripped, spilling the contents onto the side-walk. Oranges and apples rolled out of her reach, the carton of eggs landed with a chorus of cracks, and the jug of milk spattered and poured out in its entirety. She cursed and bent down to save the remaining bit of milk and picked up the wet, sticky mess of the eggs in their carton. She shuffled down a few feet to pick up the bruised apple and squishy orange to be met with a cool, pale hand which had meant to pick up the orange for her.

Cordelia’s hand shot back reflexively, shocked at the unnaturally cold hand. She looked up and was met with a smile so modest and genuine in its beauty that she simply blinked at it. The eyes above the smile of pearly-white teeth were a shade of pale green like two marbles set in a smooth, tanned face. She stared and blinked and stared and blinked.

The man across from her picked up the fruit in his peculiar hand and stood, examining it. Cordelia slowly stood, brushing off her skirt self-consciously and looking downward. “Thank you,” she murmured, suddenly very aware of her own uncomplimentary voice.

He moved closer, picked up one of her fluttering hands and held it in his own, turned it over, and placed the orange on her palm. “You’re welcome,” he replied in a low, honey-coated voice.

Cordelia nodded and glanced upward at the man. He looked at her quizzically, his head tilted to one side. Her heart beat a mile a minute, her thoughts running through her mind even quicker. All the commotion in her body seemed to stop when she reached a halting conclusion. It’s him! He looks just like Grandma said! “Are you going to take my heart?” she asked before her mouth realized that particular thought had escaped.

The man looked even more puzzled, and then very sad. He cast his gaze downward and shook his head, his brown hair catching the last glow of the setting sun. “No.”

Cordelia’s brow wrinkled. “But you’re him, aren’t you?”

He let out a short, mirthless laugh. “I guess. I’m the man everyone says that lures young women to my house and takes out their hearts to see which one fits the hole in my chest.”

She shivered and took a few steps backward, dropping the orange. “Please�"”

“I don’t do that. I’ve never killed anyone. Especially not a woman.”

He looked so miserable and sincere that Cordelia felt her guard lower slightly. “Then why does everyone say that?”

“Because one day, a long time ago, a woman gave her heart to me and I broke it. So she took mine. Literally.” His eyes met hers again. So there was no blood running through his veins, which would explain the freezing hand. Cordelia knew such a thing could be done, having heard of the spell from her grandmother when she was younger.

“How are you still alive?” Cordelia asked.

“She wanted me to suffer. And I have.” He sighed. “I hope she’s happy.”

“Do you know where it is?” She awkwardly crossed her arms. “Your…heart?”

He shook his head again, looking off down the road toward Cordelia’s house. “No idea. I’d love to find it.”

Her own heart ached for him. “They say I’m good at finding things.”

He regarded her with a quirked eyebrow. “Really?”

“I could maybe…” she paused, “help you find it.”

“You would help me?”

Cordelia nodded.

“Do you swear?”

“Cross my heart.”

 

When Cordelia got home, she searched for her grandmother’s big black book, finally finding it beneath the stairs. She flipped to the page on which a million years ago the Devil wrote a spell for taking out someone’s heart. In the spell she found that after its removal, the heart would have to inhabit something that had already died. She frowned and thought of anyone in the city who seemed zombie-like or had mysteriously been brought back to life. When she drew a blank, she pondered some more. Cordelia took a deep breath, lay her head down on her table, and promptly fell asleep.

When she woke, she found herself in the large manor in the middle of the plains. Cordelia quickly felt her pulse�"still there. She collected her thoughts and looked out the window�"jumping from that height would kill her. After an hour of arguing with herself, she plucked up her courage and slowly opened the door. She peeked out and made her way on tiptoe down the many stairs, coming to what seemed like the door to her freedom.

“Not so fast,” said a deep voice behind her.

She whipped around and braced herself against the door. “Please let me go.”

“You crossed your heart,” the heartless man explained. “You’re bound to your promise. When you find my heart, you may leave.”

He seemed genuine, and Cordelia knew the conditions of a promise. She decided his conditions were fair enough, and she did promise, so she set out from the manor with her mind firmly on finding the heart.

She found that every night her feet took her back to the manor in the plains where she pried a little more information out of the man. In a week she learned his age. In a month, his name. In the year that went by with her living at the manor in the plains, Cordelia had fallen in love with him and devoted her life to finding his heart in the hopes that one day he would love her as well.

Once at dinner, while the two spoke, he mentioned in passing the name of the blasted woman who put him in this position. Cordelia nearly choked. “What did you say her name was?”

“She’s long dead now,” he said sadly. “She was the only one who would know.”

Then a thought struck her like lightning. The tree! She bolted out of the manor and down into the city. She ran to her old home and to the gigantic fruit tree in her yard. Cordelia found an old axe in the shed and began hacking at the trunk like a madwoman. She was so engrossed in her work, she didn’t notice her heartless housemate had followed her home and was now watching her chop away at a tree that bore his name.

When the tree finally fell, Cordelia dropped the axe heavily, reached inside the hollow trunk, and pulled out a beating human heart. She stared at it for a long time until she felt his presence next to her.

“My heart,” he whispered. He reached out for it.

Cordelia looked up at him, her eyes aglow. After learning everything about him and coming to love him through his flaws, her own heart quickened at the thought of a future with the man she loved.

He picked up his heart and closed his fist around it. When he opened his hand, it was empty. Cordelia held his wrist and felt a weak pulse, his skin warm to the touch. He smiled with all the joy and ecstasy in the world and turned to her.

“Thank you,” he murmured, tears that had eluded him for ages coming to his eyes. “Thank you so much.”

Cordelia beamed up at him. “I�"” As she was about to profess her soul to him, his face contorted in pain. He sank to his knees, clutching his chest. She fell next to him, holding him upward.

“This body is too old,” he explained, using his last reserve of strength to cup her cheek. “I wish I could have loved you.”

Cordelia cried and protested, but in the end, the man she loved went cold once more, and his pulse gone forever.

Author's Note

This is something i put together for a literary fair. It's kind of short and choppy because it was restricted to 1000 words.

Reviews

[hhoosh]

Cute and enjoyable, but yes, it's a bit clunky.

I wonder if a "format" would actually be good for this kind of work? It's mixed with the light honesty of fairy-tale, yet you still aim for (negatively) ornate prose at certain point, and it just seems... weird.
Actually... it would probably be more fluent as a light-tale. Or even young adult. I think it was mostly the dropping of certain show-offey (which doesn't take much to qualify for this type of story) type words that really through this off.
But it was swell. I'd love to see an edited version, one where you're not restricted to any aspect.
Well done.