The Heartless

“What do you mean I can’t come?!”

With a weary sigh, I straightened up and cracked my back. Petra was staring at me incredulously, shovel held slack at her side.

“What?” I asked, wincing at the tension in my muscles as I wiped sweat from my brow. Summer had gone, but the noon sun was still blazing hot.

Petra gaped. “You’re being serious, aren’t you? You’re really not going to let me come!”

I dug my shovel back into the soil. “Don’t take it personally.”

“How can I not take it personally? I thought we were a duo now!” A despondent tone snuck its way into Petra’s voice. “You’re just going to go away and leave me here?”

Stunned, I turned my head to look at her. She hadn’t moved, and there was a pained look in her eyes. Betrayal.

“This is something I have to do for myself. And besides,” I went back to work, “I don’t know what’s going to happen when I get there, what might happen if the wrong people recognize me. You don’t need to be put at risk like that; I couldn’t justify it.”

Petra threw her shovel at the ground. “Stop treating me like a baby! You always do this, dancing around all these stories about your hometown as if I can’t handle the truth!”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Petra, I just—Look, can we just drop it? We have work to be doing.”

“Fine.” Petra picked her shovel back up and stomped away to the other side of the field.

I spent the next two weeks preparing for my journey, gathering supplies and settling final debts with the neighbors—there was no telling when I’d be back, or if I would be back, for that matter. Late one afternoon, Marley beckoned me into her shop from down the road.

“Ace, would you come here for a minute?” she called. “I need help with something.”

When I stepped inside, the memory of seven years washed comfortably over me like the warm scent of fresh wood. Every time I came back to the shop, I was wistfully reminded of those early days when Marley would patiently teach me how to shoot, never wavering even when I wasn’t very good at it, and even when I almost broke her window with my still-unsteady aim. Back then, I only came up to Marley’s shoulder; now, I stood nearly a whole head taller than her, her dark hair having begun to fade to grey and crinkles forming at the corners of her still-steadfast eyes.

“Wait here,” Marley ordered, jarring me out of my nostalgic stupor. She disappeared into the back room and returned a moment later holding a brand new bow. “I initially started drawing up designs for this when I heard you were training Petra in archery. I was going to wait to give it to you until later, but when I found out you were leaving on your big trip, I knew I couldn’t wait.” Marley smiled wistfully, the wrinkles around her eyes deepening, and held the bow out for me.

I gaped at her, my hands hovering over the smooth surface. “Wait, this is—It’s for me?”

She chuckled. “Yes, Ace, it’s for you.”

Carefully, I took the bow into my hands and gently ran my hands along its limbs. It was supple under my fingers, but sturdy, likely made of— “Is this white oak?”

Marley nodded. “I know it’s not the fanciest on the market, but I cut some limbs from that oak tree by the gates that you’re always sitting in. You’ve always seemed like the sentimental type.”

“No, yeah— Thank you, this is an incredible gift. I don’t know how I can repay you for all you’ve taught me.”

Marley leaned in, a resolute glimmer in her eye.

“How about you come back alive?”

Strangely, no nightmares plagued me the before I was set to depart for my hometown. I dreamt only of the far-away taste of warm apple pies fresh out of the oven in the fall, the wild berries Basil and I used to pick off the bushes at the edge of the woods behind our houses in the summer. It had been seven years, but I could still taste the crisp, sweet juices as if it had only been yesterday. I wondered if that was what nostalgia tasted like, or if nostalgia was more like the metallic taste of when I used to chew my lip until it bled, a nervous tic I had developed while on the run, constantly afraid of meeting the same fate as Basil.

The morning I chose to leave, I instructed Petra to meet me by the gates at sunrise. As I packed my things to go, Bertrand stood planted firmly in the middle of the room, watching me with that conflicted look on his face, like a small part of him wanted to stop me. That day and those leading up to it had been a different kind of tense than I was used to, like instead of dancing around each other out of anger we were dancing around the heart-to-heart people like us weren’t made to have, even if we wanted or needed to.

“Well,” I announced with an unwelcome uncertainty, tucking my old bow under my arm and straightening up in front of the door, “that’s everything.”

Bertrand opened his mouth and closed it again several times before he finally admitted, “I think this is a bad idea.”

Ah, there it is, I thought. “I disagree,” I replied. “I have to do this, for me.”

“I think you’re going to only end up getting hurt in the end.” Bertrand’s mouth twitched with a distant sort of sadness, almost imperceptibly beneath his mustache. “But I cannot stop you, and I will not try. I am only warning you.”

I nodded. “If that’s the case, then it seems there’s nothing left to be said,” I said curtly, swallowing the thousand apologies that threatened to bubble up out of my chest, and turned to go.

Bertrand took a hasty step forward. “Ace, I need to apologize—”

“Save it,” I shot back. I looked over my shoulder at him one last time, my hand resting on the doorknob. Against my wishes, I felt the hard edges of my expression soften into a sad smile. “If we apologize to each other now, then I won’t have any reason to come back.”

Before Bertrand could say anything more, I walked out the door and did not look back.

Petra was waiting under the oak tree when I arrived, hands shoved deep into the pockets of her too-short trousers and a dismal expression on her face.

“Are you sure I can’t come with you?” she asked hopefully as I approached.

I shook my head. “This has to be a solo mission, Petra. Besides, someone needs to stay behind and look after everyone for me.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“I can’t say. But, here, I want you to have this.” I pulled my old bow out of the crook of my arm and held it out to Petra.

Petra sniffled, wiping her sleeve across her eyes.

“For me?” she whispered in disbelief. “You really mean it?”

I nodded firmly and bent down so we were at eye level. “I’m entrusting you to keep everyone out of trouble, okay, Petra? That means you, too.”

“Right,” Petra managed to choke out before the tears started to flow.

“Come on, now, don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” I murmured. “I’m coming back, yeah? You just need to hold down the fort until then. We’re a team, got it?”

Petra nodded and stifled a sob before throwing her arms around my torso. She pressed her face into my chest, and her hands clenching into fists in the back of my shirt underneath my cloak.

“You know you’re the closest thing to family I have, right?”

“I know,” I whispered, returning the embrace. We stayed like that for a minute, until Petra’s tears dried up and she finally released her vice grip on my shirt. I straightened up and headed toward the gate, willing myself not to get emotional. With one leg over the side of the fence, I turned back and said, “I’m counting on you to stay out of trouble, okay?”

Though her eyes were still red and puffy, Petra grinned with determination and threw a hand to her forehead in mock salute.

“And I’m counting on you to come back in one piece. We’ll be waiting,” she resolved.

“I know you will.” I swung my other leg over the fence and began marching resolutely eastward. I did not look back at the Village, not once, not even when the last lofty branches of the oak tree had disappeared from view, for fear that I’d be unable to stop myself from running back.