The Heartless

A few days had passed before I could do much more than sleep as my body began the long and arduous healing process. The limited time that I spent awake drifted by in a monotonous sort of blur, my senses dulled by a combination of exhaustion and medicine. Frida seldom left the room unless Basil was around, which was admittedly quite often. Our conversations were largely one-sided, as Basil regaled me with various stories about Verdigris and its people and I merely listened through the fog in my brain and wondered how I could ever learn to put faces to all of the names that came out of his mouth. He would sit in the corner of the room and talk just to hear his own voice, as if he thought that silence would kill us both. When Frida had to leave to conduct business elsewhere in the commune, Basil would stay behind and take over for her, watching me like a hawk while I slept. He jokingly called it the true test of his skills as her apprentice, something Frida did not find particularly funny (she threatened to disown him should anything happen to me in her absence, and I could tell even in my disoriented state that she was not being facetious).

When he wasn’t hovering, Basil went about his daily business with an antsy sort of efficiency. He typically walked with the aid of a wooden cane, something I chose not to comment on. Sometimes he would tease me about it in a covertly self-deprecating sort of way, citing the fact that he carried me most of the way home as the cause for renewed pain and stiffness in his leg. He seemed more on edge than I remembered, though he still carried himself with the same poise and cheery demeanor as I recalled from our childhood.

One day, when Frida had deemed me well enough to move about on my own without passing out, Basil came into the room and prodded me awake with the tip of his cane.

“Hey, Sleepyhead,” he urged, chuckling when I grumbled and reluctantly opened my eyes. When I glared at him, he asked, “Take a walk with me?”

I begrudgingly accepted and pulled back the bedsheets; I was miffed at being awoken from my slumber, but I had not yet been outside and was willing to take any opportunity to leave. Stiffly, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up, stretching my arms as far as I could without tugging painfully on the stitches in my chest. We donned our cloaks (both of which had been thoroughly scrubbed and soaked several times to wash out the stains from my blood), and Basil led me down the hall and out the front door, into the chilly morning air. We stepped off the front porch and set off at a snail’s pace down the main dirt road that passed through the center of the commune. Verdigris was smaller than the Village of the Heartless, consisting of clusters of houses and communal structures orbiting a small town square with space for public gatherings and events. Basil took us a bit further down past the central meeting ground to where the road opened up into a large community garden. I meandered eagerly between the beds of potatoes, squash, carrots, and greens, Basil watching me with a bemused expression.

“I kind of miss gardening,” I thought aloud. “Hey, remember when I used to help my dad in the garden when we were kids?”

“I sure do,” Basil said with a sad, wistful smile that quickly began to falter.

Seemingly all at once, I could feel the years stretch out between us, raw and wide like a deep canyon.

“Basil, I really need to tell you something,” I said.

“Go right ahead.”

“It’s a long story,” I added. “Can we sit? I’m getting tired.”

“Of course.” Basil lowered himself down onto the edge of one of the raised garden beds and gestured for me to sit down beside him. I took my place next to him and brought my legs up to sit cross-legged.

“I think you deserve to know where I’ve been all these years,” I began, and Basil nodded for me to continue. I took a deep breath and told him everything, about how I ran westward from Swallow’s Point per my parents’ instructions until I reached the Village of the Heartless. I told him all about Bertrand and Petra, and Marley and the others, and leaving everything behind to return to the place we grew up. Basil listened intently, and I felt the guilt creeping up my spine.

“Do you want to know how I got this stab wound?” I asked.

Basil chuckled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“I killed King Brutus.”

Basil sputtered and nearly fell over, jabbing his cane into the dirt to steady himself.

“You what?”

“After I went back to Swallow’s Point, I snuck into the castle and confronted him. And I don’t think I was planning to, but I killed him. I barely even remember it.”

“Wow,” Basil whispered incredulously. “You’ve gotten gutsy since we were kids.”

“Basil, please listen to me,” I pleaded. “There’s something you should know.”

Basil’s expression hardened and he stared at me expectantly.

“Well?” he urged when I fell quiet, concern edging into his voice. “Out with it.”

I bit my lip and explained, “Your parents were killed, Basil. By the royal guard. Mine, too.”

I was expecting Basil to cry, or to deny it. But instead, a blank and empty expression crept onto his face and he just nodded and looked away, staring out into the garden. He was quiet for a while, and it felt a bit like I was intruding as I sat wordlessly beside him, fidgeting with the hem of my shirt and worrying my bottom lip.

“You know, I figured that was the case,” he whispered after a while. “But I don’t think I was ever prepared to hear confirmation of it out loud.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

Basil shook his head.

“Don’t be,” he said, and then stood up and walked back to the garden gate. He paused and looked back, waiting for me to get up and follow him. Somewhat stiffly, I uncrossed my legs and found my footing again before going after him, and we set off back toward Frida’s house without another word. Silence followed us all the way home, weighty and oppressive like low-hanging clouds. I realized I did not know how to comfort my best friend anymore—we were like two distant stars that had been flung from each other’s orbits, separated by a rift too wide to reach across.