Two Hearts

My second heart is gold.

At least it used to be. Now, the delicate shell was peeled away in bits, only the weak, tarnished metal peeking through.

I wonder about my own shell all the time. I don’t think it’s gold, like my locket’s, but maybe it’s at least silver.

False silver.

That’s been brought into the water one too many times.

Does false gold rust when you go swimming? Or while taking a shower?

Does it rust while you’re being held by the neck underwater?

If it doesn’t, I definitely, most positively, do not have a false gold shell. Still, that second heart of mine’s got a bit of gold holding onto it—for dear life, may I add, but hey, it’s still there.

My first heart—my real heart, is probably red. I haven’t seen it...yet, but I’m guessing it’s not pretty. I've always been confused on why people say love comes from the heart when it can’t think, speak, see, or do anything close to what the brain can. Yeah, sure, the heart doesn't work without the brain, but I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone with my heart or my brain.

Mom always, always told me to think with my head, never the heart. Your red heart is far too weak to love someone as much as you love yourself, she’d snarled at me once. I was 15 when I watched, let them drag her off to wherever.

No salt escaped the sea in my eyes, not a single tear. She cried, though, oh yes she did. Mom cried. She didn’t cry because she’d miss me, or because she felt bad for herself that she was leaving her daughter alone in our sorry excuse for a home. Sadness isn’t scarlet hued and hot. I know tears don’t have color, but Mom made it easy for me to see the red in things.

I stare at my gold heart now, resting in my palm. I wrap my fist around that little locket so hard that I feel its springs crushing themselves at my will. Letting the sound of flowing morning water snake through my ears and ignite my brain, my eyelids fall over the thrashing seas. It calms the storm, but only until I know that my eyes must reopen to the lake.

The lake.

I see myself, but just the back part. My face is under the sickening murk, gasping for breath and receiving mouthfuls of dirt instead. The pressure on my neck would cause bruises, purple like plums, that wouldn’t go away for a long, long, while. I hope he felt sorry about giving me those.

Tell me where she is. Tell me where she is, Genelyn. He didn’t even ask me. Most of the others who’ve tried to kill me were much more polite. Still, I couldn't blame the guy; men are demanding creatures by nature, no changing ‘em. I’d know a thing or two about changing men. I’ve tried before, and based on his unsurprisingly impolite actions, I didn’t alter him at all, not one bit. A chuckle releases itself from my throat as the image of me and him blurs away, far away, until it is a distant memory once more. I open my fist to crushed gold and my own blood, the tarnished and the pure, polished metals indistinguishable from each other. I tromp down the muddied grass, towards our spot, and stare at the water.

Then, I sprinkle the locket where I once begged to breathe. I tell my second heart “it was nice to know you”, and watch the pieces of its false golden shell fall deeper, and deeper, the rusted bits fading along with its protector. The shell has nothing left to be brave for.

And neither do I.

Enough about lockets. I’m done with lockets; I’m bored of lockets; I hate lockets as of June 28th, 2438. I’d like to talk about keys now. I used to collect those babies. Obviously, when the old house was raided and burned, all the keys went along with it. I never did find out what they unlocked.

My mother was a Living Key. That means a couple of different things, one being that she always knew the answer to literally everything that anyone ever had to ponder. However, her key bent and rusted as time went on, and after a while, it could no longer fit in its lock.

Why else would she not have sensed the Valdians coming that day?

Or that I would let them take her?

Mom’s shell was far from gold. Hell, it was barely even false silver, and that says a lot for such a courageous lady. I hate to admit it, but my mother? She was brave. Never, in my 17 years, have I seen someone kick and scream and fight back as much as she did, and all to get free of a Valdian’s grasp. A Valdian! I’d’ve gladly taken her place. No, I don’t think I deserve it more.

But I’d give anything to steal the life that her red heart had always wished for. She doesn’t know how lucky she is, to have been taken to live like our ancestors did—provided with everything one could ever desire: spoiled with cakes, and riches...and cakes…

And of most utter importance, far away from humans.

As a civilized one should be.

I never understood why they sent for her, out of everyone in the Vault. Don’t know how a seamstress could ever catch the Valdian eye. As a matter of fact, I don’t know how anyone from the Vault could catch the eyes of those who deemed themselves gods. I had gone to the market the day after she was taken, and let me say, the blabber about Mom made thieving a lot trickier than usual. As I tucked a loaf of rye into my cloak, I overheard our neighbor going on about her usual gossip—only that day, I cared to listen in.

“Still can’t believe they took Carmen,” she’d said, clucking her tongue.

“I can,” her pig-eyed son, Leo, had replied with a snort. Fitting, for someone whose eyes looked like that. “Everyone knows she’s a Living Key. Valdians’ve been needing one since Mark went missing.” I remember twinging at his name: Mark, the only Living Key known to the Valdians before Mom. The Vault and I had admired him and his immense knowledge...before he sold himself out to the Valdians. Then he was gone from human life, taken, as my mother was, to the Valdian territory—wherever that was—to bathe and dine amongst presumed gods.

Why he’d ever leave such a place, I’ll never be quite sure. I tried to ask him when I found him on the East trail a year and a half ago, but Mark didn’t seem interested in catching up with his best friend.

Instead, he tried to drown me. I’m really not exactly decided on why, even to this day, but I’ve got some ideas.

Mom’s always been one to meddle in my business, so I wasn’t caught totally off guard when my best friend had grabbed me by the throat and, quite impolitely demanded,

“Tell me where she is. Tell me where she is, Genelyn.”

He had never once before called me Genelyn. Only Gen.