Stranger's Heart

I sit in the dim parlor, waiting. The stiff horsehair cushions beneath me are a gaudy orange that nearly matches the peach of the drapes – both glaringly bright and sickeningly pale at once. The roses on the sampler in my hands weep in despair as I prick my finger yet again in my boredom. Across the room, the bright sunshine of the forbidden outdoors gleams tauntingly around the drapes. My eyes remain fixed on the dust motes sparkling in a sharp lance of light that pierces the gloom to land on the floor near my feet. Far in the distance, I can hear the sounds of people – voices shouting, the crunch of footsteps on the rough gravel paths, Cook yelling at someone out back in the garden. If only I could join them instead of being imprisoned in here.

I break free from the invisible tethers keeping me in my chair. I stride to the window and rip apart the curtains, eager to feel the warm sunlight on my pale face. Tipping my head back and closing my eyes, I pretend I am drawing salted sea breezes into greedy lungs. For a second, I allow myself to imagine that I am really there, back in Illadia, where freedom was real and not a concept, where a girl could run and play to her heart’s content, where I was not kept in a cage of pretty clothes and societal constraints.

“Isabelle,” my mother’s shrill voice pierces my fantasies, sending me tumbling back into the dismal parlor. “Bella, come away from the window. Don’t stand in the sun so much, you’ll freckle. Come. Sit. Your father will be here soon.”

I glance back, towards where my mother sits on the settee with my sister, both resplendent in their new silk gowns, a luxury in honor of my nineteenth birthday. My mother’s is lavender, while my sister’s is light pink and similar to the pale blue creation they forced me into earlier. What a rainbow we make. A bright-docile-perfectly-placid-lady-of-status rainbow. Inwardly, I cringe. But I relent and return to my spot on the chair, letting the thin drapes fall back across the window. I pick up my embroidery, heaving a (mostly) inaudible sigh as I attempt to make the Gallica roses look like the pretty flowers they are supposed to be. And so we wait.

I stand on the dock, attempting to hide my tears from my sisters. My luggage is strewn around me – countless trunks, bags and boxes packed with my great wealth of fine clothes and jewels, Illadian art, and – most precious of all – my friend’s gifts.

“This shouldn’t be such a surprise,” I attempt to scold them, “You knew I would have to go home eventually. My family is waiting for me.”

“ After twelve years, Bella, you expect us to just let you go without a fuss? Of course we’re sad. We are more your family than they are.”

“ I know, I know,” I say, hugging them back. “Don’t worry, I’ll write often. I’ll even come visit. But I have to go, the boat is leaving.”

I step away, giving them a watery smile. I’m touched: all ten of my schoolmates came, even Lyria, who hardly ever joined us on our wild adventures. Oh what great times we had, rampaging across the countryside on horseback, swimming in the ocean, taking picnics by the brook, and sneaking out for midnight meetings. They are the only family I have had since I was sent to live here. I will miss them.

Quickly, before my resolve breaks, I turn and step onto the boat. My luggage has already been taken to my cabin while I said goodbye, and now I can do nothing but watch as the boat slowly breaks away and leaves the mainland behind, my friends waving one last time from the shore.

Svaria. I haven’t been there since I was five years old. It is my home, my birthplace. And I don’t even remember it. What are the people like, the clothes, the food? I don’t even remember my family, who I have only heard from in letters. My friends have told me strange tales of a place where women must bow to men and hide indoors, but it can’t be my homeland. Can it? I sincerely hope my friends don’t know what they are talking about. But what if Svaria is like that? What will it take for me to fit in? Will I truly belong there? My heart tells me no. But I will try. For my family, I will try.

I played my part well. I let them confine me to this house and socialize only with the wealthier, higher-classed girls. I let them stuff me into fancy dresses with lace and frills, stick me in the parlor to embroider for hours on end, and make me subsist on airy foreign teas and luncheons held with stuffy old ladies. I pretended to enjoy my new life as a Svarian lady of status. I pretended to be as meek and lifeless as the thornless roses they loved so much. I pretended to be the perfectly trained girl they expected to receive from a twelve-year education at a foreign school. I showed them what they wanted to see.

It was all a lie.

For on the inside I was a writhing, shrieking creature – a furry, fanged beast with savage claws and a long scaly tail. The type of tail perfect for wrapping around someone’s throat and strangling the stuffy, dusty, boring life right out of them. I was a creature with a wild heart struggling against irons chains cast by a wealthy society, hoping for the chance weakness in an invisible link that would allow me to shatter them forever. I was a creature screeching at the top of my very large lungs to be free, free, FREE.

But no one heard me. No one saw me. For four years, they took the perfect lie of my docile façade and swallowed it whole. Or perhaps I was just good at hiding my true feelings. I never let them see the real me, for fear of being an outcast. They wanted me to fit in, so I would not give them the grief of having a daughter who was inexplicably different. I would not burden them with this. Here, my wild heart is a stranger’s heart.

Footsteps outside the door draw my mind back from the stratospheric heights to which it has soared. I straighten, appearing eager to meet my father. A Svarian daily tradition: the ladies of the house must be waiting to greet the patriarch as soon as he arrives home. The door swings open to reveal my father, his severe face unexpectedly excited, dressed in a fine black suit, the hair graying slightly at the temples. He has dressed up as well. I suppose it is not every day that a girl comes of age.

But then he drops the bombshell that will shatter me beyond repair.

“My dear Isabella!” he says. “Congratulate me, for I have found you a husband!”

What?!?

“He is extremely wealthy, very handsome, and a fine business man as well. His father has been my friend for several years, but I’m afraid you haven’t met him yet. Bella?”

I haven’t said anything.

“Bella, aren’t you happy? Come now, thank me for finding you the perfect husband!”

Automatically, I smile and respond, pretending to be happy. This is what he was so excited about? My mind is blank all through our evening meal. My sister is the only one who notices anything wrong, shooting me anxious glances. My pretense must be slipping.

After dinner, I escape as quickly as possible to my room, closing the door on my sister’s anxious face. Slowly, I wade through my shock to the great glass windows on the far side of my room, overlooking the distant fields. I hear a timid knock on the door, and my sister’s whispering voice, “traditional… …should have expected… …okay?” but her words elude me in my foggy consciousness.

My friend Vallita fell in love once. Oh, we all made fun of her for it, teasing her about her romantic dreams, but she was the eldest of all of us and was interested in other things. In the end, she was luckiest of us all. I once asked what her parents would think of him.

“Listen, girl,” she told me. “You live life by your own rules. Don’t let anyone else tell what to do or how to be. You marry whom you love, no matter what everybody else thinks of them. That is what is important.”

The next year, she married the boy.

In the end, she was probably the smartest of us all, too.

I should have listened. Abruptly, I am angry. Who are these people to tell me whom to marry? In the two years I have struggled to live a peaceful life here, no one mentioned the fact that my marriage would be arranged. I was raised a stranger, and will stay a stranger. I cannot stay here – cannot bear much more being taken away from me. How naïve I was to think that I could last fettered in this nightmare.

I open my window, letting the cool night breeze soak into my skin and dry the tears of rage that I can’t remember crying. Moonlight seeps into my skin, the cold white fire stoking a frenzied inferno within me, fed by my anger, rage and despair. I am angry for all that has been taken from me, the life I could have had if I had followed my stranger’s heart. I despair at what my life has become, and what I must do now.

Within me, the ragged beast stirs, as if hearing a sound. The sound of a key clicking in the locks of my great iron chains, and then the clink of those chains falling free from the limbs they have fettered for too long. Slowly, I change into my forbidden Illadian breeches and start to pack. I don’t care how long it takes or if I have to swim the ocean myself, I’m going back to Illadia. I’ll think of a plan later. For now, I’m going home. The furry, toothy monster within me sits up, cracking an evil grin of anticipation. Soon, I think.

Soon I will be free.