Heart of Gold

[June 27, 1283]

Before I was even alive, I loved you. That is what I was made to do. 

I am, to be blunt, her replacement. I am more than a lucky token, like soldiers of the past would’ve received. I am her gift of sorrow and desperate wishes, her love brought to life. I am a handkerchief to soak your tears, a friend to give you the hugs she cannot. And though compared to other living things, I am sorely lacking, I wish upon my heart of gold that I could tell you the depths of my love. One needs not a beating heart for such emotion, and I hope that I can show this to you despite my limitations. 

Tonight, I watch you scribble with an intensity you’ve never displayed before. It’s as if you’re possessed—knuckles white and the force of your fingers bending the cheap ballpoint. A thousand crumpled drafts form a mountain at your feet, and as your restless feet shuffle and bounce, you crush dozens of declarations of love, of hate, of secrets, and of lost dreams. 

Dearest Sera,

Today is the 673rd day since the war began. The 500th day since I left. Do you count the days too?

Sending my love,

Dearest Sera,

There are rumors the warlock we’re fighting has the ability to twist people’s minds. His people call him the Man of Dreams. People say he drove the late prime minister mad and that he’s behind the riots and coups. They say he only needs a person’s name to walk into their dreams. But don’t worry—no one knows me. 

Sending my love,

Dearest Sera,

The war camps are a mess. People are disappearing left and right—desertion, assassination, and hundreds of unreported deaths. The old commanders have disappeared or died. The soldiers have disappeared or died. Our armies now consist of undead hordes and the few commanders callous enough to drive the rotten waves forward. 

Do they still send the fallen home? I feel like the mountain of corpses waiting to be revived just keeps growing. 

Sending my love,

I tap your ankle, but you don’t seem to notice. So I climb the mountain of crumpled letters, slipping here, bracing as the pile collapses there, until I reach your knee. From there I grab the edge of the desk and haul myself up. 

Dearest Sera,

I don’t know what to do. I can’t even send letters to you. You think I’m dead.

Sending my love,

You drop the pen and tear the words off your notebook—it was the last page. You exhale. Stare at the empty covers and the inkblots. 

I tug on your sleeve. 

You finally notice me and examine my animated body curiously: a round head, a handkerchief skirt, and four stubby limbs all cut from the same mahogany red muslin. “Oh. Hello.” You look so dumbfounded, it makes me wonder if you forgot you brought me to life mere hours ago. 

I hold one of your fingers between the two ends of my arms, pulling you away from the pen. Stop writing. 

There was a time when you lived for these letters. You wrote pages and pages each day and dreamed of her replies. But now you agonize over it. You think too much. You only hurt yourself. 

I pull your finger with all my strength, but you don’t understand. Between two fingers you pick me up, move me aside, and reach for the pen again. 

I push away the pen, shake my head. 

“You don’t want me to write? Why?”

I totter to the edge of the table, stretching out one arm to touch your heart. 

“I know. It hurts. But…” You shove away from the table. The paper mountain beneath you collapses. “I can’t even send these. Why the hell am I writing this?” 

I offer my arms, and you wrap me in a hug. “Thanks. I just really miss talking to Sera.” You reach for the notebook again and curse when you remember there are no pages left. “I need… paper. Newspaper.” 

You find some rolled up in a drawer. The headline reads: CHURCH DEFILED BY ANTI-NECROMANCY GRAFFITI. Slowly, it dawns on you. 

Dearest Sera,

If you see my name in the news, know this: I’m alive. I’ll be home soon.

Sending my love,

[June 28, 1283]

In the hour before dawn, you bring me to the ruin of a library. Before, those slabs of limestone shone brilliant white. The doorway held a beautiful frieze. Then, when the army still consisted of the living, hundreds of soldiers had chipped off bits of the frieze as souvenirs. Now, there is rubble and ash. You reach into a pocket and withdraw a handful of gold hearts—each 10 grams of pure gold—and toss it into the wreckage like one might feed bread to geese. 

I know you haven’t forgotten the old dream. That one day, you and Sera would save enough to buy a storefront on Main Street. It would be a toy shop, but without shelves or glass cases. Instead, there would be dozens of little friends running on hearts of gold. Customers could greet the doorknocker as they entered. Sera would sew behind the counter. You’d take care of the toys. Some days, you’d buy fresh flowers and decorate the apartment above the shop and Sera would laugh at your silly antics. In your dreams, your whole world was encompassed by this little storefront and the apartment above it.

The day they realized your terrible power, they lined your friends up against athe wall. Bang bang bang.  Their bodies tossed aside like dirt. Your name tossed aside like dirt. They said you were one of them now: unknown, nameless—safe. And then they showed you all the gold the country had to offer. They said it was all yours—yours to raise a new army. They said that with you, they would quickly win the war. And you thought, I am the richest woman in the world.

“Wake,” you command, and the marble figures—boars and dragons and knights on horseback—stir. Hearts fuse to marble. They break away from their stone setting. 

“My name is Kata Merlo,” you say, brown eyes cast in frosted gold. “Spread the news.”

The creatures shamble away. Three knights take rough-hewn spears and hack away at the walls of the library. Limestone sparkles as it shatters. I see letters forming.

You leave the library. By the time you reach camp, the sun is shining, so you head straight for the morgue, where the undead have already begun bringing you wagons piled high with corpses. The day is spent sewing gold hearts into the cavities of where the old ones once beat. 

A heart is more than ten grams of gold. A heart is will and passion. A heart calls forth the best in people. It carries dreams and tries its best to let one live long enough to achieve those dreams. It searches for other good hearts to keep one company. I wonder if those gold hearts rattle around in the hollow chests of the undead, bouncing off the walls and trying to escape. I wonder if they ever warm, or if they just stay cold.

Yet how can I say that? I am so small, I can’t hold an entire heart. You had to bite off a corner and feed it into my stuffing like I was a baby bird. If I am less than undead, and the undead cannot compare to a living being, then what am I worth? Do my hugs even give you warmth?

Today, you lean over these putrid corpses as they stir. Hands dripping gore, a distant look in your eyes, you whisper to each, “You shall fight for none but I.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

This is just an excerpt; contact me if you want to read the rest!