The young woman clutched her chest and struggled to hobble along the stone street. Many passed her, but few noticed. They were not alone in their indifference. She too could barely sense the flow of people on either side of her. She felt as though she were a hailstone in a storm, bouncing along the ground haphazardly looking for a place to land. They barely acknowledged her as she crumpled to the stones below her feet. Had you studied her fall, you would have noticed intention. Her hands wrapped around an uneven rock jutting above the rest.
She studied the stone’s texture and shape. She remained expressionless, almost as if she had been cut from the same rock. A stream started from some distant place in the earth, in her soul. The tears fought to the surface and trickled over her earthen cheeks. She was aged but not old. Something had stricken her beyond the natural. Only when the hand curled over her shoulder did she notice anyone in particular in the throng of townspeople. It was a gentle woman with flowing white hair and a genuine smile. Her hand followed the younger woman’s jawline to cup her chin and lift her face.
“How have you landed here, young one?”
The younger woman opened her eyes a little wider. The older woman breathed more gentle words.
“What has become of you? I know your countenance betrays your youth. What has hold of you, dear girl?”
She stammered to start, as if her speech were recently learned. “It is my, my… it is my own problem, but thank you.”
“Hmmm,” the woman smirked a small, knowing smile. “Have you made deals with the dark?”
Slowly the girls pressed her chin into the old woman’s hand then lifted again to signal a humble yes.
“Did you strike a deal with the devil on the hill?” The woman knew the look, the walk, the hopelessness.
The tattered face lifted and dropped again.
“She never gives out of pure concern, there is always an iniquitous claw she buries in you. How has she vexed you, dear one?”
“She hears us.” Fear was still able to furrow the young woman’s brow.
“She can’t do a thing else to you, dear.” The woman offered a hand to lift her.
A hobbled, patient walk led them to a small cottage near the market district and into the home of the older woman. Alistra, as she was called, had introduced herself to the young woman, Francesca. Slowly the young woman regained a voice she hadn’t used for months. Francesca recalled how, from a broken heart, she sought the help from the medium on the hill. The witch, as most people called her, had a way of dealing with most everything.
“My heart was broken, truly, deeply disfigured by a love who left too soon.” She managed another tear.
“Yes, dear. It is difficult to navigate, and often leads us to places where our shadow should never be cast.”
“The medium promised to help. She said that I could offer my heart to her in exchange for a heart of stone. She said it would be unfeeling, unshaken, and impenetrable.”
Alistra thought, “this woman has been in a trance. Her soul is waking up in spite of her failing heart.”
Francesca lamented, “As my strength drained from me, she told me to return to her. She said I was suffering from the effects of a stone heart. She said if I gave her my thoughts as well, to safeguard and clasp inside a ruby locket, it might stifle my fears. I resisted. She opened the door and bid me to leave with haste. As I stepped past her, she whispered, ‘Your heart is turning, ever hardening, and soon will be solid stone. There will be no chambers to carry life to your veins. Solid! Now, flee stone-hearted one and mourn for your short little life.’”
The young girl’s exasperated tale spoke of her desperation. She had made a fatal decision and now had to slowly watch the darkness overtake her.
A kind, slowly kindled warmth grew into a smile over Alistra’s deeply textured face. She knew something Francesca surely did not. “There is a man and woman who live just inside the wood. The trail along the cobblestones by the wood carver’s shop will take us there. They can help you.”
There was little left of hope, even less of courage in Francesca’s failing heart. Still, her eye mustered a second of a sparkle.
“Rest, dear, in the morning we will pay them a visit.” Alistra opened a door and motioned for her to use the guest room of her quaint cottage. Though Francesca’s heart waned, everything in this little cottage seemed warm and welcoming. The welcome continued in the morning as she woke to the scent of fresh bread.
“Good morning, dear one. Come have breakfast and tea.”
“Good morning, ma’am.” Francesca hadn’t spoken those words in months. Good? Every morning had been waking to the fear of dying.
After a delightful breakfast and a tea so warm it seemed to penetrate the stone heart, they readied for a hike into the wood. It wasn’t a long walk, but any distance seemed out of reach lately.
“This couple, a man and wife?”
“Yes, oh yes, married longer than even they can remember.”
“It must be nice, you know, to… have companionship, especially in a lonely wood.” Francesca hesitated only because she didn’t know anything about Alistra’s family. It seemed she had none.
“It is a gift beyond all compare, certainly. I’m glad to have it, always.” Her smile seemed juxtaposed to reality. She seemed very much alone.
The path wound through a cavernous display of tree branches. It was lovely, almost a natural corridor in a big castle somewhere. Francesca found an ounce of hope in simply forgetting her predicament for a moment. The path, through thick underbrush was dotted with the lush colors of early spring flowers.
The cobblestone path turned to sand and opened into a courtyard. There, a stone building with two floors rose above the damp forest floor. Every doorway and window was arched. It was simple and yet lovely.
A small wrap of knuckles on the door brought a distant, muffled thump of footsteps upstairs. Then a quick opening of the shutters. A beaming smile and quick waving of hands flashed between the opening. They were welcome here, seemingly without question. That briefly comforted Francesca, until she remembered how warmly the witch had invited her into her home.
Smiles and bright eyes of an antique couple appeared as the door opened. Francesca guessed they hadn’t seen a person except each other in a few seasons. The truth is, this couple had seen more people yesterday than Francesca has seen since her vexing from the devil on the hill.
“Welcome, dear one. Do come in, we are delighted to have you in our home.”
Francesca turned to thank her gracious guide and new friend, Alistra, yet she was gone. A vapor in the sun, where had she vanished to? And why would this couple oblige her visit without the company of the one this couple actually knew?
“I’m happy (there was that word again, a second time in as many days!), happy to be in your home.” She was frankly terrified to leave the sunlight, afraid she would simply cool to a stone. Yet there was warmth in the smiles of these two. Smiles upon smiles! With the crescendo of wrinkles, it looked as though these two people could smile enough for twelve!
“You are not…” The man blurted, the woman finished “not alone, young one.”
Not alone? That seemed impossible.
“We went to the woman on the hill too. By the way, dear, you can call me Leaf and this is Jediah.” They pointed Francesca deeper into the cottage. As she walked toward the open living area, light shards glittered across the room.
“Have a seat, deary.” Jediah still smiled, the wrinkles amplifying his warmth.
Leaf and Jediah would explain that they too had gone to see the witch. They were hoping to save their son in his fall into deep sickness. They exchanged their sight for his return to health. She said that she would extend his life if they exchanged their ability to see.
Francesca strained to see the eyes of the couple, and they sensed her question. “Oh yes, dear, of course. We can see you just fine.”
“What, happened… to…” Francesca stuttered to ask the impossible question, “to your son? Was he saved?”
“Ah, tricky that one. Our dear son passed three days later. We rushed to the witch, stumbling in our failing sight.” Jediah’s eyes wandered up and to his right, fighting back tears. “She said, in her evil derision, that she never promised a number of days.”
“I’m so sorry, what a despicable monstrous beast that one.” Francesca knew all too well.
“She held no power to help our son. We heard in her voice a weaving of lies and deceits.” Leaf shared a knowing glance with Jediah.
“And your eyes?”
“Yes, deary. When we realized she had no power to heal our son, we realized she had no power to vex us. Her only power is that of lies.”
Francesca held her hand to her chest. “My heart, but I feel it, the icy fingers of the devil clutching around it.”
“Yes, dear, you feel what you believe.” Leaf explained, “The weaver of untruth cast a spell whose power was the mind of the deceived. Don’t believe yourself weak, though. It takes a strong mind to believe a strong spell enough to see it come alive.”
With that, an unusually strong and warm beat drummed in Francesca’s chest. “I’m…”
“You’re not dying unless you want to believe the lie to your very grave.” For the first time, Leaf’s arms opened for an embrace. As Francesca fell into the embrace, everything warmed, the sun, the embrace, her heart.
“Why is it you wandered to the witch? What was your misfortune and her worthless promise?” Jediah motioned for her to sit.
“I lost my love. Kristof ran off after an argument in the spring. I wanted nothing more than to know his heart.” The tears, now warmer than ever, turned loose. “He left and never returned. I waited, oh how I wanted and waited.”
Leaf and Jediah exchanged empathetic eyes.
“I went to her, because I heard the stories whispered in the marketplace. She said she could not return him to her, but that she could steel my resolve and make the unknowing bearable. She offered to take away the pain, but then told me that the price was a heart of stone. When she could mine nothing else from me, she vexed me, so I thought, with a stone heart.” Francesca grew warmer as the lie disintegrated in the sunlight.
“The truth is an elixir like no other, dear girl.” Leaf placed her open palm on Francesca’s knee and stared in her eyes deeper than the lie.
“There is someone I want you to meet. We adopted another son into our family and out of the grip of that awful witch.” Leaf spoke warmth into the room.
Francesca looked at the doorway expectantly, partly because she longed to see someone who brought some joy to replace a long grief for this precious couple.
“You’ll have to come back to him, dear, he is still recovering. His heart seems more broken than your own.” They stood and leaf grabbed her hand to lead her into the back room, full of sunlight. As her eyes adjusted, Francesca could see a man laying on a sick bed. His head covered in a cool cloth.
“How is it this one is sick?” Francesca wished he was well as she was becoming.
“He too believed a lie. For him, it was a lie about his heart too. The promised turned to vexing, not a heart of stone but a heart of cold glass.” She stepped closer to her newfound son. “He went to the devil on the hill to gain courage.” Leaf grabbed his hand and looked with blushing joy to her husband, who seemed instantly riddled with wonder.
“It seemed…” every word now that Leaf spoke turned to fire that melted the layers of stone around Francesca’s hardened heart. “He wanted a heart of such transparency that…” Leaf checked the wet cloth on her son’s head, “that would let his most cherished love, see…”
Leaf lifted the cloth as Francesca stepped closer.
“Would let her see his heart, intentions, his love.” The cloth removed, Leaf stepped away from blocking a warm beam of light. Her son seemed to stir. As the beam of light landed upon his face, the rock around Francesca’s heart caught fire and turned to molten memory.
“Kristof!” She fell to the floor beside him and grabbed his hand. “Kristof!!”
The exclamation seemed to echo in the chambers of his heart and reverberate. “Kristof, my love!”
The sound of a thousand shards of glass lies falling to the earth and shattering thrust his eyes open.
“Francesca!” His lower lip trembled as the sun warmed them both to life, to love.
Copyright Jimmy Sadler, 2011