Secrets of the Heart
Stupid Gabe. Stupid dirty house. Stupid unfair punishments. Kade kicks at a loose nail in the worn floorboards. He should be out with Lana at the Valentine’s Day dance, but his dumb brother just had to start another argument. It’s not like Gabe ever gets in trouble for his part in them, either. Why does mom only ever believe him? Is it because he’s younger? Because his face still has that round cherubic thing going on? Whatever the reason, the rest of his family is out to dinner and Kade is stuck cleaning out the disgusting attic like a loser.
“Ugh!” He punches the wall next to a rickety metal shelf and a small panel pops open. “What the hell?”
His house is an old one, passed down through his family for generations, so loose drywall is the least pressing repair, but this looks different, intentional. He peeks into the open cavern with help from his phone light and squints against the cloud of dust that wafts out. There’s a box. The wood is dark, stained a reddish brown, and shaped of a heart.
Kade pulls it out and carefully opens the lid. Inside are dozens of slips of paper, all yellowed at the edges but generally well preserved. He unfolds the top one and immediately recognizes his grandfather’s harsh scrawl from all the old birthday and Christmas cards. Kade has never known anyone else to write like he did. Every letter was uniform except one. Grandpa Liam’s Ns were always odd, almost-cursive and swirled at the bottom with a diagonal line across the middle.
'Your eyes are like the changing sky, blue that fades into darker night. Light blinks across them like shooting stars and, God, I wish love could be ours.’ Kade reads another. ‘I could lay myself down in your golden hair. No real gold is worth more, no sun shines as warmly, no beauty can compare.’ And another, ‘The way you scream for me is—’ Nope! No thanks, that’s enough of that.
He tosses the notes back in the box and shoves it away with gusto. It tips on its side and the rest of the slips topple out onto the dirty floor, but he can’t be bothered to care.
They’re love letters, or lust letters or something. Grandpa Liam never seemed like the romantic type, but clearly he was capable. Lana keeps saying he should be more romantic, but Kade has always figured he suffered from the classic Barrowman disposition. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all notoriously lacking in matters of the heart, but clearly that isn’t entirely true.
He picks up the closest fallen note. 'My dearest Nancy, your breath against my skin sparks me like the breath of life. It is with much sorrow that I confess you will not be with me past this night.’
Nancy isn’t his grandmother’s name. Her eyes aren’t blue and her hair has always been a chocolate brown. Maybe grandpa had an awful breakup before he met Nana? It’s odd to think that his grandfather could have dated other women. It’s wrong in that skin-deep itching kind of way, but also because his marriage to Nana Eliza was always so strong. Still, even Kade knows that young love doesn’t last. Three couples in his class broke up just last week. He is going to marry Lana, though. Well, as long as she doesn’t dump him for missing the dance.
He eyes the box again. Maybe he can find a few good lines to lay on her when she stops by later. Is it an invasion of privacy? Maybe, but grandpa has been gone for seven years. It’s not like he can do much about it. Kade grabs a handful of notes and skims through them with a half attentive eye.
After about twenty useless ones, his fingers brush against a bigger piece of paper. The texture is different, thin and crisp like it had more time out in the elements. He holds it up to the light. It’s a newspaper clipping.
Nancy Malloy, gone too soon
Valor High School’s Nancy Malloy (18) passed away on the evening of February 14, 1939. Police are still investigating the death, which has been called suspicious, and ask anyone with information to come forward. Nancy was a beloved member of the community and leaves behind her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Malloy.
Kade goes to Valor High, just like all of his family has for decades, and no one has ever mentioned a suspicious death. Sure, it was a long time ago, but what else happens in this good-for-nothing town? There is another newspaper clipping near the bottom of the box. With a bit more trepidation, he reads it.
One year since the tragic death of eighteen year-old:
Nancy Malloy was found murdered by Eros Lake on Valentine’s Day in 1939. Her body showed signs of suffocation, but no arrests have been made.
He sets the clippings down and takes a breath. The box is nearly empty now. All that’s left is one folded piece of paper and a hand-painted N on the inside, written with a curly tail and a cross through the middle. It’s a stupid, fleeting though, but Kade can’t help but wonder if the N stands for Nancy— if every N has stood for Nancy.
His hand hits the table and crunches one of the smaller notes, the lewd one that made him spill the box. As much as he doesn’t want to know, he can’t help but read it through. ‘The way you scream for me is like a siren song, but love, all songs must end. When yours went silent under my hand, I knew you would never sing again.’
Oh, God. With shaky hands, Kade picks up the last slip in the box. ‘Nancy, I will try to hide away my thoughts of you, but you will always be the first secret held in my heart.’
The words punch at his throat and leave him breathless. The first. The first, the first, the first.
Kade’s chest heaves with barely contained panic as he tears the whole panel off the wall. The wood splinters and slices his fingertips but the pain doesn’t register. Neither does the musty, rotting stench that follows. Kade sinks to his knees. The loose nail in the floorboard digs into his shin and his bloody fingers carve crescents into his palms.
There, on a hidden shelf tucked behind the wall, sit nine more heart-shaped boxes.