The Heart Collector Read online

  Well, it had been a while…

  She was not young. Or beautiful. Or even rich, but needs must, and he lifted her skirts as she leant against the side of her curricle, wincing at the pitch of her passionate cries. Afterwards, she thanked him, pressing a silver coin into his palm with a wink.

  It was the most money he’d held in a while.

  Back at the manse, he stripped the stolen finery from his body and curled up in his nest of blankets, in a room that used to house a bed that was eight-foot-wide and piled with cushions and duvets. He cried a little, his self-pity tracking down his face inside salty tears. It wasn’t fair – he was promised a happy-ever-after. Had he not had trials enough? Had he not suffered enough, lost enough? For the love of all things, he’d just dipped his wick in a crone that looked like nothing so much as the witch from his old storybook. Surely that meant something?

  When he woke in the morning, he had his answer.

  Perhaps he had not suffered enough, or rather, not suffered the right way. All of his trials were mundane, petty trials. He obviously needed to suffer more, needed something meaty for destiny to get its teeth into and grant him his happy ending.

  He needed a witch. A real one. He needed a witch to curse him and then a princess would naturally come along and break the spell. He was a fool not to have seen it before. No one would rescue him as he was; he had no wicked stepmother to escape, no bullying siblings. He needed a sorceress, a haggard old crone who would take one look at him and hex him, jealous of his youth and beauty.

  Luckily, he knew just where to find such a creature.

  Whilst walking through the woods on his travels to steal clothes for the ball, Mulgreen had spotted a squat, dingy cottage hidden in the woods. He’d approached it, curious, and peered through a thick window smeared with decades of grime, to see a wizened old woman stirring a vast pot set on the hearth. Herbs and plants hung from the ceiling in thick clumps, books were piled haphazardly wherever there was space, rocks and stones littered the shelves between jars of unknowable substances, candles dripped unchecked on to the floor. When the crone turned, to reach for some ingredient, her pointed hat had fallen and a bush of grey hair sprung free, surrounding her head like a dandelion clock, and then he’d noticed the wart on her nose. Definitely a witch.

  As he made his way back through the woods, he pondered on the kind of curse he’d like best to receive. Nothing too uglifying, as that might repulse a princess, rather than incite her pity. Though princesses were supposed to be kind of heart, and able to see the truth of a matter. A true princess would fall in love with him for who he really was. Mulgreen had read a tale once where a young woman fell in love with an actual beast. It hadn’t surprised Mulgreen at all; women, though decorative, were also a little foolish. Despite it, he didn’t want to become a beast. Nor a swan, nor a donkey. He’d prefer to keep his current form, thank you very much.

  Perhaps he could be cursed to silence, as in the tale of the siren girl who wished to walk on the land. Then his best weapons – his face, and his body – would still be intact and he’d easily be able to lure a princess to kiss him. Or cursed into an enchanted sleep – that wouldn’t be intolerable either. Though he didn’t much like the thought of lying in a coffin, waiting for a princess to chance upon him. And he might not even get a coffin, he realized. What if the witch just popped him in her back bedroom, out of the way, or buried him in her pumpkin patch? No, he shuddered. Silence was his best bet. Now all he needed to do was decide how best to manipulate the witch into doing it…

  In all honesty, Mulgreen Grey’s singing voice was passable. It’s almost as much of a rarity to be truly tone-deaf as it is to be pitch perfect, and Mulgreen could, like the vast majority of people, sing well enough, given the right circumstances. The right song, the right amount of liquid courage, the right mood, and the right surroundings, all of which could add a little sparkle to an otherwise unremarkable voice. The woods provided none of these things, but because Mulgreen was the kind of man he was, grown from the kind of boy he’d been, he was under the impression his voice was as praiseworthy as his face.

  Around a quarter mile from the witch’s cottage he began to sing, gently warming his voice up as he ran through all of his favourite songs. By the time the cottage was in sight, Mulgreen had slipped into a fantasy, imagining life after the curse. He rushed through the princess, and her falling in love with him – because that was a given, and dull for him – and skipped to the bit where she heard him sing for the first time, after the curse was broken and his voice was returned. He’d be in his bedroom at her palace – no, wait – he’d be in the gardens, enjoying the last of the summer sun. He’d tilt his head towards the last of the rays, gilding his fine cheekbones with the light, and a song would burst forth from him, a salutation of glory and gratitude. The princess would hear it, and, already giddily besotted with him, she’d begin to weep, silently, in awe of his voice. He’d be too caught in the song to know she was there, until the last of the notes began to die away, and then at some slight sound he’d spin round, and she’d say—

  “Do you mind?”

  Mulgreen was ripped from his fantasy by a gravelly voice, one that certainly did not belong to the sylph-like princess of his daydream. The owner of this voice was short, and stout, with leathered skin and hair like wire wool. And a wart on her nose, three dark hairs curling from it.

  The witch.

  Mulgreen knew his part. He’d returned to the woods every day for the past fortnight, looking for signs of weakness, things he could prod at that would raise her ire and guarantee him his curse. And he’d found one. At eleven every morning, a small herd of fallow deer wandered past her hovel. And every morning, the witch entered the clearing just beyond her overgrown garden, at ten minutes to eleven, and stood there, silently waiting, as the deer tripped past her, her hand outstretched as if to entice them over. One or two had even began to look curiously at her, to sniff the air, to pause and meet her gaze. It might have been touching, except Mully knew the witch was only trying to tame them so that one day she could grab one for some wicked sacrifice. It was the kind of thing her sort did in his books, and she wouldn’t appreciate being thwarted.

  So Mulgreen knew exactly what he was doing when he began tramping through the woods, singing as loudly as he could. The noise would frighten the deer away, the witch would be furious and sure to want to strip him of the cause of the ruckus – his voice.

  “I said, do you mind?” the witch repeated.

  “Good morrow, my good woman,” he trilled loudly, bowing low to her. “How are you this fine day?”

  The witch raised an eyebrow.

  Mulgreen widened his grin to show a few more teeth.

  “What do you do here?” she asked finally, her second brow rising to match its sister.

  “I was just wandering the woods, singing to myself.”

  “Why?”

  He hadn’t expected any questions, having assumed the haggard old crone would want to skip straight to the cursing. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Why are you wandering the woods singing? Do you have no job?”

  Mulgreen blinked. “I… That is to say… Well, you see, I’m—”

  “That’ll be a no then,” the witch said. She looked him up and down, and nodded, apparently satisfied with whatever she’d gleaned from the examination. “Anyway, do you mind keeping it down? There’s a herd of deer that pass this way every day, and I don’t want them scared off. I want them to keep coming around, and that’s unlikely while you’re exercising your dulcet tones.” She paused. “Exorcising, more like,” she added under her breath, grimacing.

  Mulgreen, perhaps wilfully, didn’t hear the last part. He stretched his grin to its maximum depth.

  “Perhaps I can help you, madam,” he bowed again. “Animals are soothed by the sound of music, are they not?”

  The witch looked at him. “Music, yes…” she said slowly.

  “Then allow me.” Mulgreen cleared his throat
, and began to sing once more. He closed his eyes to demonstrate how much the melody consumed him, which left him ignorant to the expression of disgust on the witch’s face.

  As Mulgreen warbled away, the witch’s spirits began to sink. Her beloved deer would never come so long as he was there, especially not while he was making that racket. And deer, once spooked, are apt to remember and not return. This idiot was ruining six months of hard-won trust between her and the herd. She’d spent weeks coaxing them closer and closer, teaching them she was not to be feared, that she wanted nothing more from them than just to have them visit her. She wished she could curse him, she wished she could take away his flat voice, and his ridiculous gesticulations, as though he was conducting an invisible orchestra.

  But she could not, because she wasn’t a witch at all.

  Mulgreen had, once again, taken something at face value, and this time he’d decided a harmless old woman, living alone in the woods, must therefore be a witch. In truth the woman had moved there after her children had grown up and left home, wanting to be a little closer to nature, away from the hustle and bustle of the town, and the meddling of her well-meaning, but clueless sons.

  So the woman could do nothing as Mulgreen sang and sang, whirling around, clasping leaves to his chest. Eventually she left him to it, moving wearily back to her cottage to make something for lunch.

  It took Mulgreen another half an hour to notice the witch, as he still thought of her, had vanished.

  He turned in a wide circle, smiling once more as he saw smoke curling out of the chimney. The plan was working, he realized. She’d gone to brew a poison to take his voice. Soon enough she’d return and offer him a drink to soothe his throat. And so it would begin.

  Fortified, Mulgreeen began to sing once more.

  Inside her cottage, the woman tucked two small balls of cotton in her ears and settled down to some home-made parsnip soup.

  Eventually, his throat raw from singing, Mulgreen looked again to the cottage. He frowned when he saw the chimney smoke still spiralling busily away on the wind – how long did it take to brew a potion? Then he remembered he was frowning and quickly relaxed his face; it wouldn’t do to develop wrinkles before he’d completed his plan. Or ever, if he could help it.

  Mulgreen decided to try to hurry things along a little, and approached the cottage. Peering through the window, he saw the witch sat reclined in a tatty old chair, a cat on her lap, her mouth wide open, apparently asleep. There was a cauldron, steam rising from it, hanging over a merrily cracking fire. Mully rapped on the window, sending the cat screeching across the room, its fur on end, and making the witch jump. Her expression fell when she saw who it was, and Mulgreen’s annoyance rose as he saw it.

  She tottered across the room and pushed the window open a fraction. “You’re still around then? What do you want?”

  “That, I expect,” he said without preamble, nodding towards the cauldron. “If you just want to pass it out, I’ll be on my way,” Mulgreen, tapping his foot to indicate how time sensitive his request was.

  For a moment the woman had no clue what to do. Who was this boy who thought he could help her with his terrible singing, before demanding some of her soup? Did she know him? Was she expecting him? She racked her brains; at her age sometimes things were forgotten – one brain could hardly contain the lifetime of things she’d seen and done, and hoped to yet see and do. Perhaps he was a friend of her granddaughter’s – yes, yes, that must be it. Perpetua had sent word she was hoping to visit later that day; obviously this was her latest boyfriend. He was certainly comely enough for Perpetua, even if good manners were lacking. One might even say entirely absent. Still, it was up to Perpetua who she stepped out with. And he’d obviously heard all about her old granny’s soup, otherwise why would he be so desperate for it?

  Happy that she’d solved the mystery, though concerned about her beloved granddaughter’s taste in men, the old woman made her way back to the cauldron and scooped some of the still-warm soup into a cup for the boy, passing it to him with a toothless grin.

  “You’re early,” she said.

  Ignoring her, Mulgreen looked at the concoction, shrugged, and upended the contents into his mouth, swallowing the lot in three gulps. It tasted remarkably like parsnip soup. He passed the cup back to the witch, then tested his voice.

  “La-la… How long does it take?” he asked the witch.

  “To what?”

  “To kick in,” Mulgreen said. “Obviously it hasn’t worked yet. So how long?”

  “Erm…” The woman was baffled. Whatever did he mean? She looked at the clock, and turned back to him. “You are here for Perpetua, aren’t you?”

  Mulgreen fought the urge to frown again. Perhaps Perpetua was the name of the potion. It sounded sinister enough. “Yes,” he said decisively.

  The woman looked back to her clock. “Not for a few hours yet,” she said. Perpetua was an apprentice blacksmith; she’d be working until sundown. “An hour after sundown,” she said. “Would you like to come in and wait?”

  “Gods, no thank you,” Mulgreen said. “I’ll go home.” And with that he strode off, leaving the woman gaping after him.

  Mulgreen toyed with several thoughts on what to do with his voice during these final hours of having it. There were a great many things he wanted to say to a great many people. He wanted to find all the women from the assembly and tell them they were harridans, harpies, and as soon as he’d married a princess they’d regret it. Then he realized if he married a princess, he might well become a king one day, and he resolved to behead everyone who’d wronged him. His former classmates, all the maids who’d locked themselves in the broom cupboard when they’d heard him approaching. Perhaps even his own feckless father. And the witch, for certain.

  As sundown approached, he watched it, measuring its descent degree by degree. He lit no candles, allowing the room to dim and chill around him. Expectation burned in his belly as he waited for the last shades of pink and orange to fade from the sky.

  “Finally,” he said. Then, “Shit.”

  The latter echoed around the empty room, mocking him with its sound.

  Mulgreen Grey frowned once more, and this time he did nothing to wipe the expression from his face.

  In the woods, Perpetua Ravenscroft was making her way towards her beloved grandmother’s cottage for an evening of gossip and good food. Work at the smithy was hard, but rewarding, and Perpetua – especially close to her granny – was looking forward to spending some time with her. Earlier that day Perpetua had used her break to fashion a small iron charm as a gift for her grandmother to wear, and she was excited to give it to her. The charm, hung from a thick leather thong, was a small circle with a crude tree inside. And it was more than just a gift from a devoted granddaughter. As well as that, it was imbued with magic, to keep her safe, far as she was from the main village. There were wolves in the woods sometimes; why, last year there had even been a scarlet varulv terrorizing the village. And that was aside from the ne’er-do-well men that might try to harm an old woman.

  For the old woman might not be a witch, but Perpetua was. A very skilled one at that.

  Perpetua and her granny embraced at the door, the older woman ushering her granddaughter into the house, seating her pride of place in front of the fire. The old woman knew it was wrong to play favourites, but despite it Perpetua was hers. Nothing daunted Perpetua, there was no obstacle too great for her to try to overcome, no task too onerous that she wouldn’t see it through. She was as tough as the iron she worked with all day in the smithy, but she was kind too.

  Like Mulgreen, Perpetua had been a child of exceptional beauty. But unlike him, her parents had never singled her out for special treatment on account of it. If Perpetua snatched a toy from a sibling, she got the sharp end of her mother’s tongue and was told to make an apology. If Perpetua tried to cheat during games she received a scolding from her father, and was sent to bed without pudding. Even after it became apparent she wa
s a powerful young witchling, her parents treated her no differently from her sister and brother. They rewarded kindness, hard work, empathy and honesty. And so Perpetua, now aged eighteen, had grown up kind, hardworking, empathetic and honest.

  She also had a devil of a temper, which her granny swore came from her mother’s side.

  The old woman bought Perpetua the last of the parsnip soup to warm her while she prepared their real supper of sausages and tomatoes, handing it to the girl after she’d shucked off her shoes and shawl. Perpetua took it gratefully, swigged it down in three mighty gulps, then rose and padded over to stand with the old woman as she cooked.

  She passed her granny ingredients as she asked for them: a little rosemary to add to the butter the sausages were frying in, a little basil to bring out the flavour of the tomatoes. Salt, pepper, paprika, plucked and pinched. The two women worked well together, creating a kind of spell between them, for there is magic in cookery, a special kind of alchemy where one thing becomes another as heat and flavour and pressure is applied.

  They ate their sausages and tomatoes with hunks of fresh bread and butter, eating with their hands, licking juices from their fingers, wiping bread around their plates to soak up the last of the meal. When they were done, Perpetua gathered up the plates, washed her sticky hands, made them a cup of tea, and then gave her grandmother the gift she’d made her.

  “It’s beautiful,” the old woman said, bending her head so Perpetua could put it on her. “I love it. What does it do?”

  Perpetua barked out a laugh. “What makes you think it does anything?” she said innocently. “Perhaps it’s just a pretty trinket for my beloved granny.”

  Granny’s response was short, and a little risqué, and the two women laughed.

  “It’s a charm,” Perpetua said when they’d calmed again. “For protection. Against beasts and bad weather and men.”

  At that, the old woman remembered the strange young man who’d come around earlier. “Your fellow was here,” she said suddenly.