Heart Murmurs (11 page)

****

My hands are shaking so wildly I press them together as I wade through the thick sea of folk, coming and going, like a true underground railroad.

It's more like a real railroad station, from the sheer number of… commuters? An old lady spins round and round, looking from tunnel to tunnel — unsure of which path to take.

My heart is torn as I hurry past, knowing I should stay to try and help her, but having no idea how.

A man leaps out of the shadows, startling me. I skid to a stop. He looks as if he's stepped directly out of the
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
— complete with cape and goggles. His steps are in no way unsure — he hurtles down a tunnel that has materialized from nothing into a blinding, white light.

I see him then — Morgan, disappearing through a tunnel that banks to the right. The flowers light up as he passes them, but he doesn't seem to notice. He's wearing his Civil War uniform, and its buttons shine brightly as he whisks past the strange luminescent foliage sprouting around him, growing impossibly out of sheer rock walls.

He passes the bizarre plants without a glance.

I hurry, lifting up my shift, wishing desperately for shoes. My teeth begin to chatter. I'm freezing.

A warm gust of air blasts the top of my head, cascading down, covering my body; I look up to find its source, but only hard, cold bedrock meets my gaze.

I walk faster and faster. My feet are no longer cold.

My eyes flash down in time to see a lace-up boot materialize and sprout around one foot and the next. A day shirt and skirt, circa Civil War, cover my goose-pimpled arms and legs and seem to grow from the heated, prickling skin on my neck and waist.

The flowers… laugh around my feet. An odd bouquet of sounds; spanning from guffaws to tinkling giggles. Fingers of fear squeeze my stomach and I bite the inside of my cheek.

The anxiety chatters my teeth and I grind my jaw together. “I must be crazy.”

A chorus of tiny voices around my feet echo, “I must be crazy.” Followed by another deluge of multi-pitched, trilling laughs.

I almost bail, and bolt back for the trapdoor, but I see a brightening in the gloom, about fifty feet ahead. Morgan stands in its backlight, looking like a shadow.

I sprint toward the opening and gasp in shock and awe.

One more step leaves the tunnel.

I'm in… a hospital. A very old, makeshift hospital. My eyes quickly evaluate the time and dress. A Civil War hospital.

Men are strewn around me on rickety beds, blown to bits in varying degrees, everywhere I look. Carnage on cots.

Amputations litter the ground like a house of horrors. There's a trough of arms and legs. A young man stoops down, picks it up, heading outside.

Women, nurses, scuttle back and forth, carrying water and clutching bandages. Every one of them is sweating and red-faced.

I wince and automatically duck at the sound of a cannonball erupting outside.

No one even spares me a glance. My eyebrows rise in confusion.

I step in front of a nurse. “Excuse me? Could you help me?”

Her eyes look momentarily confused, but she shakes her head and hurries past.

“I'm invisible.”

A woman bustles past me, and my mind flickers in recognition. I hurry behind, following the weaving path she cuts through the dead and dying.

I try to block out the human mayhem whizzing past my peripheral vision — but still see a severed arm, lying on a table, and shudder. I wrap my arms around myself. I whisk past their feet, down the center aisle of the hospital, the white footboards of their beds reminding me of tombstones.

The nurse pauses at a bedside; her expressive eyes cradle the dying man. “I'll be back soon to take your letter for home, Daniel. I promise.”

Is it her? Can it really be?

“Louisa!” A steely voice cuts through the hospital cacophony.

The woman turns, and I see her profile. It is her.

Louisa. May. Alcott.

My mind whirls. Yes, I read she was once a Civil War nurse.

“There is someone over here you need to see.” The doctor gives her a brusque nod.

She rushes to the soldier's bedside. The bottom of the bed is bathed in blood. It surrounds the young man's leg, pooling and congealing in thick puddles on the hospital sheets. Blackened and charred bits of flesh poke out from around his calf.

His calf.

My heart free falls. Adrenaline weakens my legs as my eyes flash to his face.

Morgan. Oh, please no, it's Morgan
.

My whispers chant in time with my heart's staccato beats. Their sounds are muffled, as if the hospital is somehow restraining their speech.

A doctor is whispering in Louisa's ear, but I could care less. My heart is breaking at this colossal unfairness. A flood of realizations drench my mind — I suddenly see the world through his blue-green eyes.

A world where standing up for truth is all that matters.

A world where petty rumors don't deserve a second thought.

My lips tremble but I force a smile.
A world without cell phones.

Tears race out of my eyes in a steady flow and I'm biting my lip, shaking my head.

I want to help him. Touch him. Save him!

“Please don't let this be his fate. Please.” My eyes gaze up toward the heavens, barely visible through the soot-darkened hospital windows, entreating a God I know must be close. Closely observing this kind of human chaos and suffering.

I step toward the bed, my hands fluttering uselessly.

Louisa begins to cry, cradling his hand in her own.

She dips a rag in water, wetting his brow. Morgan's eyes bat open.

He smiles, his most devastating one. “I know you.”

She chokes, “But I never knew of you. I swear it, my brother.”

“Yes. I'm his bastard.” A sad smile twists his lips; finishing what was left of my heart. It stammers under my hand, clutching my chest.

Louisa's eyes jam shut and she gives her head a fervent shake. “You- cannot-die. It is not fair. You've sacrificed so much.”

His eyes grow dim. “Louisa — please, if you can love me even a little, there is something I must ask.”

“Anything, brother, name it.”

“A nurse was injured, in the same battalion as I. Her name is Madelon. Please find her, tend to her as if it were me. My time is coming to a close — my soul is draining out. I feel it pouring onto the sheets.”

“No! It is unacceptable.” Louisa's voice is high with panic.

I am pacing, sobbing, trying vainly to touch Morgan. My hands pass through his body as if I'm merely smoke.

Louisa's face upturns in pure anguish. She brings his shaking hand to her lips, kissing it tenderly. “I have lost Beth, I will not lose another. Not while I still draw breath.” Suddenly her eyebrows rise in a revelation. “There may be a way.”

Morgan seems to have passed out. His eyes have drifted shut.

“Jonathon, help me with this one.”

A burly aide hurries to her side. “Yes, Miss Louisa.”

He lifts Morgan into his arms like a child. He's huge, over six foot five.

“Hurry. Follow me.”

I watch in awe as Louisa leads him out the back door, toward the woods… to where?

And we're running. The sound of cannon fire rips so close my ears are ringing.

And the dead. The dead are so numerous — it's as if a graveyard has vomited up its occupants in a geyser of corpses.

The whispers catch and weep, rising to a shrill trill I've never heard before. They stutter, as if catching their breath.

I trip, and look down.

Beside me, on the ground, is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. Her long, delicate fingers clutch a flask. I choke down a sob.

Madelon? I know it's her.

“Louisa!” I call to her back in desperation.

Louisa stops dead, cocking her head.
She heard me.

“Louisa, turn around!”

She turns, finally seeing the girl on the ground. The girl's heart is barely beating, just visible through a blown-open hole in her chest.

My heart pangs, a deep, painful throb. “Oh…”

And I'm certain.

It wasn't a murdered, homeless girl. That was just a story Beth concocted.

I feel the pull toward her, as if my heart fights to escape my foreign chest. A magnet pulled toward its true home. To leave me lifeless and resurrect the beauty that lies before me.

I stagger and my sight is dimming and spinning like a merry-go-round. I fight it, knowing I have to make it back. Follow them.

Louisa hoists the girl into her arms.

She turns to the burly aide. “You may go now. I will handle this.”

He eyes her suspiciously and deposits Morgan on the ground beside her. He turns, jogging back toward the hospital.

After he's out of sight, Louisa lifts up a stump. Inside are letters.

She reaches into her pocket and shoves a slip of paper into the worn-out hole and slams it down.

She lays Madelon on the ground beside Morgan.

Louisa paces, staring anxiously at his motionless form at her feet.

Her lips move as if she's counting. She squares her shoulders and hurries to the hole. She peers down. I slip in behind her to peek over her shoulder… and I see… Beth.

At the bottom — staring up.

“Oh, sister. You must help these two.” Louisa's voice is pleading, shaking.

Beth looks terrified. Her fingers trace a black butterfly marking on her forearm like a worry stone. “Louisa, it's against the rules. You know that!” It's beginning to ripple; fading and darkening, fading and darkening.

“He is our brother!” She roars, like a lioness. “Papa's love child. Abandoned, poor. Never cared for. Take him Beth. From your letters, your doctors might save him where you are.”

Beth bites her lip. “What about her?” Her eyes are utterly mortified, staring at Madelon's open chest wound.

“Remember your special girl? The one with the fading heart? The council deems she shall pass anyway. Her injuries are too severe.”

Beth's face dawns in comprehension, the flush on it immediately draining to ghostly white. She nods. She steps forward, whimpering.

Louisa eases them down the hole, dangling them by their arms. Beth has quickly summoned others, photograph-folk. Several shiny, see-through men form a basket with their arms, and Louisa drops their limp bodies, one by one.

Another cold realization mangles my heart, and I gasp. I vaguely register Louisa turning, searching for the sound. Her head cocks at the sound of my voice.

“He doesn't love me. It's only because I have her heart.”

“No, that isn't true.” His voice startles me, and I whirl to see Morgan — the one from my time. My eyes quickly drop to his leg. I sigh in relief — it's healed. I never thought I would be this happy to see it.

But pain seizes my chest, coloring over the relief. “It is true. You want me, because I'm all that's left of her.”

His eyes are wide, afraid. More afraid than I've ever seen them. “No — please, Mia, I swear!”

Thud-Thud-Thud-Thud
. Atrial fib. World tilting. Eyes closing.

I don't hear the rest.

 

Heart Inside, Out

 

My ears whoosh and churn with the sound of my gurgling heartbeat. The pain cracks open the darkness like an invisible crow bar to my chest. I squint, allowing my eyes to open.

The light begins as a pinprick and grows much too fast. The light is painful, the aching in my chest is painful. A rush of memories floods my head.
My life is too
insanely
painful.

Tears seep out the corner of my eyes in a long continuous trickle, and I sob. That's when I notice her — Beth. Across the room, fiddling with something in the hospital closet.

“Oh, Mia.”

She spins around. Her face looks as crumpled as mine feels. She rushes to sit on the bed, grabs my hand and nestles it between hers.

“
I'm so sorry
you had to find out. You were never supposed to find out.”

“You — you're—”

“Old.” Beth's eyes are so, so sad. And they indeed look as if they've seen and absorbed over one hundred years of hurting.

“W-where are my mom and dad?” I stifle my hiccup.

“They're down at the cafeteria; we've been doing shifts, waiting for you to come back to us.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Two days.”

My door opens. Morgan's face twists in… agony. That's the only word that'll fit.

I spit out a new torrent of catching sobs. I can't help it. It
hurts
to look at him. My chest is killing me. It
hurts
to cry.

He crosses the room in two seconds, grasping my other hand without permission. He tries to put it against his lips.

I wrench it out of his grasp. “Get out of here. I can't stand to look at you. You're a liar. How could you make me… make me—”

“Mia, please. Just listen to me.”

He presses his lips together and squeezes his eyes shut.

He keeps them closed as a vein pulses on his forehead. “Please, please, Beth. Leave us. Before her parents return. Go fetch them — might you take the long way?”

He finally opens them and they bore into me. My gut contracts as if I've been kicked. His bright blue eyes sparkle with tears.

Beth gives him a sad smile, and his hand a quick squeeze. “Of course, brother.”

She walks backwards toward the door. “I love you, Mia.”

I swallow. “I know. I do too, Bethy.”

I slowly allow my eyes to drag up to meet Morgan's gaze. I wince. Staring at him is like staring into the sunrise. It's bright, beautiful, and acutely painful.

“Mia, let me explain.”

I nod, not trusting my voice. I force out the words, and they break with the catch in my throat. “I — I shouldn't let you. You don't deserve it.”

“I probably don't. But I'm not leaving without a fight. I found out awhile ago. All the clues, your newfound talents, liking foods you once hated… And, I'll admit — it's why I was so rude to you in the beginning.”

I nod, trying
not
to like the warmth of his hand. His fingers stroke mine in hard, soothing circles.

“But once I got to
know
you…” His mouth opens, struggling. “You're brave and honest and beautiful and — I love you, Milady, I can't help myself. And I hate myself for it. It's too soon, and disrespectful to… her. But I do. Respect be deuced.”

“Really?”

His eyes fire with hope. “Really.”

“Can — can you explain all of this to me?”

“Yes, but we need time, love. Your parents will be here any moment. I don't want to have to stop once I start.”

I thought about that. Once he starts telling his tale — neither of us will be able to stop. Till all the secrets are out.

I nod.

“They're going to be livid — and I'll probably be summoned, but I don't care. I'm willing to take the risk to be with you.”

I swallow the oversized granite ball which is crushing my voice-box. “What are you talking about? Who are they? What risk?”

“Later, your parents will be here any second. This thing, with your heart. It's happened to other people — getting their memories.”

“Really?”

He nods fervently. “I used the internet.”

The sheepish look on his face makes me burst out laughing. “
You
used a search engine? Wow! I am impressed.”

His eyebrows pinch together. “A what?”

I laugh even harder. “Never mind. I'll explain later. “

He laughs in return.

My parents burst through the door. “Oh, our Mia.”

My father takes notice of our hands intertwined, and his lips press into a thin white line.

Morgan squares his shoulders, and squeezes my hand harder.

Father turns his attention to me. “Darling, how do you feel?”

I give Morgan a quick look. “Okay now.”