Shattered and Smeared

Rosa eased through the window-magic-portal-thing, glancing around the bedroom to be doubly sure it was clear. Chalk and char, this woman had expensive taste! Not that Rosa knew what she was looking at exactly, but dark wood and jewel tones had a way of implying money.

Her eyes immediately fell on the vanity across the room, covered in a hundred glass and crystal do-dads. That’s where she’d find it.

She glanced back at Andrick who stood in the grubby alley behind the deli fifty-seven blocks away. He leaned toward the window, skimming the room. She reached through, shoving against his perfect nose with her finger to back him up a step. 

“You need to get out of here,” she whispered. 

“I’ll keep a look out,” he hissed back, brushing her hand away and tossing his faded blue bangs. 

“No, you’ll leave.” She glared down at him. “If she shows up, I don’t want to worry about fighting you too.” 

Rosa didn’t regret saying it, though her chest pinched at the way his face flickered with hurt and apology. It wasn’t his fault the queen of nasty magic had stollen his heart—and no, that wasn’t a sweet way of saying he was in love with her. Rosa didn’t understand how it worked; it wasn’t literally his heart, but it also… was? All she knew was when her royal gaudy-ness was close, Andrick was hers to command, however unwilling he was. Which is why he needed to scram.

His jaw tightened. “You need me here to know if you find the right one.”  

Rosa snorted. He had a point. Sort of. Not that either of them had ever gone heart hunting before. And how would he know if she found his or someone else’s any better than she would? Did people recognize their own internal organs? Regardless, finding it would be faster than arguing.

“Fine. But stay out of sight,” she hissed, turning for the vanity. Her tattered ballet flats slipped silent across the cushy rug, only one of the floor board creaking beneath her weight. 

The giant oval mirror filled with her reflection. Her black bob cut was tangled and sticking out on the right, patches of ache on her cheeks and chin the only color in her complexion, oversized hoody smudged with soot and grime. Charcoal, she looked a wreck. Too bad her magic couldn’t do something useful, like get them a decent meal and a shower. 

Well, it could. If she was willing to steal things besides what had been stolen from them. And she wasn’t. Or… maybe. She could take just enough to get them by for a bit. After all, this lady was a nasty piece of trash, so she’d just be getting the same as she dealt out, right?

She blinked hard, pushing the thoughts aside. She wasn’t here for something as trivial as money. 

She skimmed the collection of cut glass containers, all different shapes and sizes, hesitant to touch at the risk of breaking something. It was a menagerie of gross; mysterious liquids swirling in some, pebbles or dice resting in another, something that looked kinda like spaghetti coiled in the one right beside her hand. Ew. 

They said your heart was as big as your fist—or was that the serving size of meat you were supposed to take?—so she inspected the larger containers along the back. Gross, grosser, and grossest wiggled inside the first few, giving her goosebumps.

But something pattered softly inside a crystal urn, tugging at her. She held her breath, carefully lifting the lid. 

It was smaller than she expected, and kind of translucent, as if it were made of smoke, or maybe a shadow of a real heart. Was this Andrick’s, or someone else’s? She carefully picked up the urn, reaching inside with one finger. She brushed against it, surprised at how much substance it had. 

A soft gasp came from outside the window. 

“Gotcha,” Rosa whispered, reaching for the crystal box in her hoody pocket so that the urn wouldn’t be missed. 

“Indeed,” a voice said behind her. 

Rosa looked up, a tall figure reflected in the mirror over her shoulder. 

She really did look like a queen, regal and beautiful, even with the scar at the edge of her mouth that hooked her lips up in a perpetual twisted smirk. “I’d be grateful if you’d put that down before you break something.”

Rosa turned, one hand still in her pocket, pulling the urn tight to her chest. “Or, I could just…not.” 

Chalk! She really wanted to come back with something snarky or clever. But words were hard to find when you were staring down somebody that could manipulate people like puppets and kept a personal collection of disgusting witchy ingredients on their bedroom vanity.

Rosa cleared her throat, her hand squeezing the piece of chalk she had tucked away after drawing the window. 

The woman’s eyes darkened. “Give me back the heart.” 

“Go suck a potato.” Dumb, but it got the point across. 

“Fine.” The woman’s perfect brow arched, one hand stretching toward Rosa’s window. 

A strangled cry echoed the ally. 

“Andrick!” She lurched toward the window, pausing as he stepped in front of it. 

His arms jerked, veins in his hands bulging as he took hold of the frame, face twisting as he fought against his own body. 

“Rosa, run!” he grit out through clenched teeth.

“Welcome back, Andrick.” The woman’s voice was syrup, overly sweet and cloying. “Seems the spell isn’t quite cured yet. I thought it might need another few days or so, but since you’re here, might as well move forward with things. Do come in.” 

If Andrick came through the window, there was no way he would get away again. But he was already halfway through, losing the fight, obeying even as sweat soaked his hair and shirt. 

Not sweat. Rain! That meant—

Something exploded on the table beside Rosa, glass and heat smashing across the side of her face. She screamed, shielding her head too late as she hit the floor, fighting to keep the urn safe against her. 

A sweet chuckle barely reached her through the ringing in her ears. She turned to glare up at the woman. 

The evil queen held out a hand, the twisted smirk even more demented now. 

But Rosa was focused on the boy in the window, now gasping for air, half in-half out. He’d stopped?

Rosa glanced at the queen, rage filling the woman’s beautiful face, then at the urn in her arms. The heart had slipped out, resting on Rosa’s chest. 

She didn’t stop to think. 

One hand chucked the urn at the woman’s face, the other cupped the heart and held it tight against her as she rolled, scampering and scraping across the floor. 

A scream and a crash filled the room. Rosa dove, hitting Andrick square in the torso, both of them tumbling out of the window, smashing into trashcans and hitting the concrete hard. 

Rosa didn’t pause, shoving herself up out of the disgusting puddles that now filled the alley, clutching Andrick’s heart to her chest as she turned back to the window, the queen lunging across the room. Rosa smashed her soggy sleeve against the brick, smearing across the chalk runes she had drawn, scrubbing as hard as she could. 

The window disappeared.  

Rosa stared at the wall in front of her, trying to slow down her breathing before she hyperventilated, her heart racing an erratic double time. No, some of the beats weren’t hers. 

She looked down, the little ghosty heart thrumming in her hand. She turned. 

Andrick lay on his back, arms sprawled out, eyes closed, rain splattering his pale face as his chest rose and fell with half breaths.

“No,” Rosa whispered, pain cutting into her knees as she crashed to the ground beside him, her empty hand fluttering uselessly over him. “Andrick. Andrick, please be okay. I promise I won’t make you watch anymore stupid chick flicks, just please—”

“Yes, you will.” His voice was strangled, his half open eyes filled with fear and pain, but a fake smile tightened across his face. 

A single sob ripped out of her before she tightened it back down. 

“Your face,” he mumbled, the smile disappearing. 

“I’ll be fine,” she said, angling her head so that he wouldn’t see whatever mess of imbedded glass and burns were there. She wiped her free hand on her pants, trying to clean it off as best she could, then carefully cupped the heart in both hands, lowering it onto Andrick’s chest. 

It sat there, thumping a staggered rhythm at odds with his strangled breathing.

“How… How do I put it back?” she grumbled, guarding to make sure it didn’t roll off of him into the filth, her own heart speeding up again. She barely knew how to work her own magic. How did she undo someone else’s? “Is there like, a secret word or something? Do I just push it back in?”

“Please, don’t,” Andrick croaked, eye’s falling shut.

“I was kidding.” She tried to chuckle, but both of them barely managed a half smile. She held her hands over his heart to keep it from getting rained on, panic swelling as she realized it was colder than before. “I—”

“Rosa?” 

She spun, scooping Andrick’s heart back into her hands and clutching it to her chest again. The deli owner stomped toward them down the alley, rain darkening his white apron. 

“Imari, hey! How’s it going? Sorry, we didn’t mean to make such a racket, we just—” 

“Hush,” Imari commanded, kneeling down on the other side of Andrick, checking his pulse and eyeing Rosa’s cupped hands. He locked eyes with her. “You need a vessel.”

“What?” 

“For his heart,” Imari said quickly. “The vessel is what keeps it captive, but it’s also what preserves it. You need something to put it in.”

Rosa’s mouth fell open, and she stared at the middle aged deli owner for a full two seconds before snapping back to reality—if that’s what you could call this messed up day they were living. She dug into her hoody for the crystal box Andrick had given her earlier. 

Half of it came out. The other half tinkled inside her pocket in pieces. 

“Oh, no,” she said almost casually, save for the wobble in her voice, chest screwing tighter. 

Imari cussed, tearing off his apron and tucking it carefully under Andrick’s head. He took a deep breath. “You need to put it in something that will protect it. The longer you wait, the weaker he’ll get.” 

“But I don’t have another crystal box, and the urn—”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Imari broke in, drawing runes Rosa didn’t recognize on Andrick’s chest with his finger. “You have to find a vessel. Anything!”

Rosa leapt up, dashing down the alley and shoving through the front door of Imari’s deli, crashing into the counter and stretching across, popping an empty soda cup from the dispenser and tipping the translucent little heart into it. She snatched a plastic lid from next to the soda machine, her hands shaking as she used her piece of chalk to scribble a protection rune onto it before clicking it on, clutching the red and white cup carefully against her as she jogged back outside and down the alley. 

Imari looked up as she neared, eyeing the soda cup with surprise before shrugging and turning back to Andrick. “He should level out now. We’ll give him a minute before we get out of this rain.” 

Rosa knelt on the other side of Andrick, watching his chest rise and fall more consistently, each breath deeper than the last. She reached out, brushing his wet bangs off his forehead, the feeling in her face coming back with a burning vengeance that she was too tired to acknowledge. 

“Imari,” she toyed with Andrick’s bangs again. “You knew what to do.” 

Cold rain soaked slowly to her scalp, the tiny thrumming inside in the cup somehow comforting, calming her scattered brain. She looked up into Imari’s dark face, seeing a stranger instead of the deli owner she had known for years. “You don’t have to tell me how you knew. Just tell me how to fix this.” 

Imari sighed, dragging a hand across his bald head. “I don’t know how to fix it.” 

The sob building in Rosa’s chest nearly exploded out of her, but she grappled against it, holding it in. She was the protagonist of this story, the one who was supposed to win the day, defeat the queen of darkness, and save the dude in distress. Yet, she had barely gotten them out, and had broken the box somewhere along the way. The evil queen was only fifty-seven blocks away, madder than ever. And now, here she sat, in the rain, holding her best friend’s heart in a soda cup. 

The tiny patter inside the paper cup thumped lighting between her hands. She couldn’t just give up. 

“Okay. Then we’ll hide so she can’t find us. ‘Til Andrick is stronger and we can figure out our next step.” 

“That cup won’t last long,” Imari sighed. “Maybe a week. And transferring it to a third vessel isn’t an option.” 

Rosa’s mouth went dry. “I… I can’t give up. I can’t let him die.” 

“I didn’t say you should.” Imari looked up, his gaze locking with hers. Was that anger in his eyes? Or something else? “I might know some people who can help. But it won’t come cheap.”

“I don’t have any money.”

Imari glanced at the chalk on the wall, the remnants of her portal window. “I didn’t say they’d want money.”