A Mother's Heart

A MOTHER’S HEART

I clutched onto my locket while being tossed back and forth by the wheels of the rickety old train. Bars of light flashed past me as we entered and exited a series of tunnels, heading to who knows where. There was no possible way to see outside of the train windows as they were coated in frost both inside and out; my breath did little to help the cause.

The freezing temperatures clung onto me as though it were embracing its dear child to death. I didn’t know where I was, only that it was cold, and I wasn’t alone. The chattering teeth of other people could be heard from the other sides of the walls to my cramped five by five foot room. The floor was cramped with wooden crates which I used as seating, trying to save my sorry behind from the frozen steel bottom.

My name is Amaline Wills, and I am a girl of about nineteen. The last thing I could remember was being pushed by my father off of a boat with my mother’s locket in hand as he screamed at me to hide. Where was I supposed to hide? We were in the middle of the gulf for a reason unbeknownst to me.

I turned the locket in my hand; it was silver and shaped like a heart. Not some cheesy, cliche heart-shaped necklace like the one you would see in some old movie, but shaped as the actual organ. My fingers closed around the locket and it grew warm, beating against my palm. It was no shock to me since it had been doing so since the day my mother gave it to me while on her deathbed.

The train suddenly went straight up, and I slammed back into the wall of my room, a crate following me. I blocked my face with my arms but it crushed me anyway, stealing the breath from my lungs. After a few minutes of struggling to free myself from the pin of the crate, the train leveled out and it fell away. The loud, unbearable sound of screeching brakes caused goosebumps to erupt over my entire body. And then we stopped.

After three weeks of constant movement, the stagnant feeling of being still suffocated me. I tried to keep my breaths quiet in order to hear what was happening, but to little effect. In the midst of my panic, footsteps began to echo throughout the train. Above me, a trapdoor swung down, missing my head by a hair's breadth. I looked up, squinting as my sight was taken by a blinding white.

“Get up here.” A man’s gruff voice demanded, and I felt firm hands wrap around my forearms and yank me upwards.

I groaned as the light completely enveloped me, splitting my head into two. Compared to the muted beams which sometimes peeked through the windows, this might as well have been the sun. Except, it was very cold. Absolutely freezing, in fact. I curled into a ball, shivering and whining until someone tossed a heavy blanket over me.

“Get her to the Chamber.” Another voice, this one more pleasant, commanded. “The Head wants to see her.”

I was picked up again and carried off by some stranger. My eyes had finally begun to adjust to the brightness, but they were forced to return to the shadows. However, I was able to catch a glimpse of the outside just before the wooden doors slammed shut: the mountains.

It was a long and winding walk through the damp and humid tunnels from the front door to the Chamber, and I didn’t have to take a single step. The man most likely chose not to trust me enough to use my own limbs, and he was correct to do so. The entire way, my eyes were searching for any way to escape. I mapped out the entire path from beginning to end, absorbing every detail from the color of the stones to the size of the candles lighting the caves.

We stopped in front of another door, this one red, and it swung open to welcome us inside. I was then dropped to the floor. My blanket fell over my head, and I was too scared to move.

“Amaline Wills. . . we finally meet.” A sinister, slimy voice tickled my ears.

I slowly revealed myself from underneath the blanket in order to glimpse the face of the voice. I nearly puked when I saw what it was. When they called it the “Head” they quite literally meant the head. It was just the head of a woman sitting on a platter in the middle of a table with a purple velvet cloth, smiling grotesquely at me with her rotting teeth.

“Who are you?” I forced myself to ask between gags.

“Me? You should know who I am, right, dearie?”

I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eyes, “I don’t know.”

Her lips rolled back in a snarl, “You can ask your mother, dearie. SHE will know who I am.”

“What does my mother have to do with you?” I asked, retreating back into my blanket.

“Why, she’s the one who made me into this!” She screeched.

“But how?” I asked, my throat constricting. “She couldn’t possibly do something so atrocious. She was just a florist!” I cried.

“HAH! A florist she says! What kind of florist can possess the Heart of Helix? Hm? Explain to me that, dearie!

My hand immediately went to the locket secured around my neck. Is that what this is? I thought. The Heart of Helix was the container of the cure to the illness which has been raging throughout the lands. Infected people dropped dead like flies in a blizzard and the ones who survived had their minds crumble away, basically turning them into statues. Their skin morphed into an ashen gray and their eyes turned silver as their sight was eaten away.

I touched the small heart-shaped locket and felt the pulsing heat in my fingers. There’s no way this can cure everyone. I realized, noticing how small it was. The heart was the same size as an acorn. I clenched my jaw, “What do you want with me?”

“I want your brain.” She smiled.

“Brain?”

“Yes, your smarts. Your mother was the keeper of the Heart and your father the most renowned doctor in the entire world! I want you to make me whole again.”

“You don’t want the cure?”

“Of course I want the cure, but I would like to feel my limbs again first.”

I finally looked to the man who had been carrying me, hoping that he would give me some courage to refuse despite knowing I would find none. He stared straight ahead, boring holes into the wall.

I remembered the face of my father, frantic as he pushed me into the sea. And the face of my mother, who smiled at me as though I were the most pitiful being to walk the earth. “Why are you like this?” I finally asked, regarding the head.

“It is none of your concern. All you need to know is that if you put my head back on my body, then you can get your freedom back. But if not, then it will be your head on this platter instead of mine.”

“Who will help you other than me?”

“I have a whole collection of people other than you. There are options.”

“Then ask them, because I won’t. If it truly was my mother who beheaded you, then there must’ve been some good reason for her to do so.”

“NO!” The head wailed, her shrieks filling the Chamber.

I covered my ears and jumped up, dashing to the door. The man made a quick grab for me, but I threw the blanket at him and continued sprinting. I turned down the hall and started to run up the tunnels. An alarm began to ring as I was halfway between the Chamber and the door.

It took another burst of energy to carry me to the door, where there were some people waiting. They stood to block the doorway, forcing me to come to a stop. My eyes jumped from place to place, searching for a way to get out. Then, an idea popped into my head.

I grabbed the Heart of Helix and held it up, announcing, “Behold! The cure for the illness we all know very well: The Medusa Disease. If you do not let me leave right this instant, then you can kiss any hope for a cure goodbye.” I growled, slipping the chain over my head and holding the locket high. The gleaming silver glowed even without the light of the outdoors.

They exchanged hesitant glances and eventually stepped aside, opening the doors. I walked through them, my hand still in the air and a nasty look on my face. No one tried to pursue me since I held something so precious.

The cold immediately clung to me. Snow was piled up to my knees and the mountain sloped downwards. As soon as I was several feet away from the doors, my legs propelled me forward. I didn’t know where to go, nor where I was. I only prayed that I would somehow find safety in this upside-down world as I ran straight for the sky.