Stories

The Devils Gambit

Stories, The Devils Gambit

Chapter Three

“Bart, wake up.” Shae yelled.

Nothing.

Impatient and driven by her panic, she pushed the door open. He was just as she had imagined, asleep on the roll, whiskey bottle leaking the last drops of its contents across the floor. Some of it had seeped into the mat where he was sleeping. She gave him a kick. Nothing so hard it would hurt, but hopefully enough to jolt him out of his self-inflicted coma.

His eyes opened, his drunken haze lingering.

“Bart, they’ve taken Ana.”

“Shae?” Sleep was still rolling around his mind. It bled across his tan face, and wrinkled in the crow’s feet that stalked the sides of his dark green eyes.

“They’ve taken Ana!”

The fog seemed to lift from him for a moment.

“Ana?”

Shae threw the piece of paper at him.

“Have you seen anything to do with this?”

Bart’s eyes focused and refocused as he tried to concentrate on the scrap of paper.

“Is this written in blood?”

“Bart!”

“I thought you were dead,” he said, standing. He wiped his face and tucked the paper into his pocket, kicked the whiskey bottle to the wall. Then he was moving, walking down the stairs into the Tavern. He took a bottle of booze off the shelf and swigged the bottle. Shae said nothing. She just followed. Looking away as he removed his shirt and replaced it with a cleaner one that was tucked under the bar. He took a glass off the shelf and poured some brandy into it, pushing it to her.

Shae downed it. She wasn’t much of a drinker, not really, but when Bart poured her one, she always took it. The familiar warmth was soothing.

He smoothed the piece of paper on the bar.

“They took Ana?”

“They killed all the animals.”

“Who have you got mixed up with this time?” he sighed.

Shae frowned.

“I was hunting out a cult, but that was months ago. I couldn’t find them.”

“Well, looks like they’ve found you.”

“They’ll regret that.”

“I don’t even know what I’m looking at here Shae,” He lifted it up to a shaft of light coming through the window above the Tavern door. “We don’t have any cults here.”

“Haven’t you heard anything? Whispers? These people didn’t just come through and murder everything on the farm without a single trace.”

Bart rubbed his head.

“There was something, but this was last month. This guy, scrawny fella, he was asking about you. Of course, no-one told him anything. The moon witch, he called you. He had this burn… on his right hand, seven prongs twisted. And in each of the spaces was a number. Three, Seven and Thirteen are the ones I remember. I told him to get out. His kind wasn’t welcome here. Creepy little man.”

“Can you draw it for me?”

Bart took a piece of paper from under the bar, sketched the image out with a piece of charcoal.

“What if you can’t find her?”

“I’ll find her.”

“It’s no lead.”

“I have one more to follow.”

Bart stared at the ceiling.

“Want me to come with you?”

Shae laughed.

“And have your blood on my hand’s too? Sophie would never forgive me.”

Bart’s face darkened.

“I thought you were dead.”

The Devils Gambit

Stories, The Devils Gambit

Chapter Two

Shae arrived at dawn, red sky spilling blood across the small cottage far off the beaten path. It was silent, so silent. Bear stopped at the gate, breathless. He wouldn’t go further, wouldn’t pass the boundary. Shae couldn’t waste the time to calm him. She pushed the gate and ran.

“Ana!” Panic was in her voice. She knew this was rash. Her training told her to scout the building, to scope the perimeter, but there wasn’t time. “Ana!”

No reply came, and as she approached the front door, broken at the hinges, her heart hammered.

To her left she noted the dead chickens. Not a single living bird had escaped the slaughter. No pigs sounded, no sheep or cows. Dead. She knew she didn’t need to see the bodies; the silence was enough.

Inside, the floor was slick, blood coating floorboards like carpet. She moved deeper, breath held. Her knife found its home in her hand.

“Ana?” She breathed her name, searched every room. The living room first, then the kitchen, finally both their bedrooms. Ana wasn’t there. She went back downstairs, frantic to find a clue, to the back door a note was pinned, inked in red, a single word, midnight.

It was a time. But where? She ripped the note from the door and headed back to Bear.

Bear was where she left him, distressed but fine. She stroked his nose and slipped a carrot from a side pocket, he refused to eat, lips nestling into her hand rather than the treat.

“Come on, love,” she whispered. “We’re going to talk to Bart.”

The horse was happy to leave, and Shae rode with a heavy heart. She was tired; she hadn’t slept in nearly two days because of Enzo’s antics. She should have just killed him, a game she’d let run for too long. It always felt so wasteful to kill for the sake of killing. Strange, perhaps, for a bounty hunter, but Shae had a code. Her code mattered little now, not with her sister in danger. Somehow this was connected. She knew it. The note in her hand crumpled in her fist. Bart would know what to do. He always did.

The Tavern was closed. Shae tied Bear round the back, and he drank greedily from the barrel of water Bart left out for the horses. He took the carrot now and chewed it enthusiastically. 

“I won’t be long, rest, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Shae looked up at the building. The doors were all locked. Bart would be on the second floor, sleeping in a room that was too small for any man. A roll mat instead of a bed would be his comfort. His wife would be at home, draped in all the finery he could afford. Bart didn’t love her. He wasn’t sure if he ever had, but he wouldn’t leave her either. So, on nights when he ran the bar, he slept above the Tavern. He worked every night now. Shae wondered if he’d ever be happy. Today was not the day for questions like that. His self pity would be an obstacle. 

Shae used Bear as a lift, leaping up to the second story with the ease of a trained burglar. She slipped the firm tip of her blade beneath the window and prised it open.

“Bart?” she called into the building.

No answer.

“Bart, I need you now,” she said. “You better not still be drunk.”

When still no reply came, she slid in through the window. It was a small room, but not the room Bart would sleep in. She’d stay here sometimes, her things still sat on the sides. It had been nearly three months, but he left them there, always assuming her return.

She did not hide her footsteps, but walked with purpose, till finally she came to the room that would be his. She knocked four times. His snoring was the only response.

The Devils Gambit

The Devils Gambit

Chapter One

The air was dank. Shae threw a log onto the fire. It crackled as moisture evaporated from the wood, leaving the scent of char thick in the air. Shae barely noticed. She was listening. She thought she’d lost them in the woods, but now she isn’t so sure; she can hear whispers. The first arrow misses her by a hairsbreadth. She rolled past the fire, grabbing her own bow.

“Enzo, you’re losing your touch!” She gloated. Shae often gloats. She has that way about her, a confidence that shines even when peril is at its highest. Some would call her brave. She knows she’s just lucky.

Bear was the name of her horse. He snorted loudly as Shae parried a second arrow with the moon-kissed silver dagger that never leaves her hip. Three low whistles and Bear charged off to her left. The unnamed assailant sneaking up behind her never saw him coming.

Shae laughed again. “Oh Enzo, where are you? Best stop this charade before someone gets hurt.”

Enzo knew the ambush was reckless. He’d told his patron to wait until Shae was asleep, then perhaps they’d have even odds, but they didn’t listen. ‘Now!’ They’d demanded, it had to be now, this hour. He’d lost count of the times she’d slipped through his fingers. She was a witch; of this, he was certain. Still, she was on the back foot, and he hoped that one of the three men encircling her would get lucky. That was all he needed: one lucky shot to land. Hope evaporated as Bear rounded on them, knocking each down, never slowing. The horse was a demon, or a ghost. None saw him coming. By the time they were on their feet, Shae had taken to the horse’s back. Enzo lined up a final shot before residing himself to another failure. As he took aim, ready to fire, the moonlight failed, ducking behind a thick sheet of cloud. Only the firelight remained. Captivated, he watched the shadow of the woman take down his three men, all giants compared to her, all tiny as they lay defeated on the floor. He didn’t wait for her to find him. When the last man fell, he ran. Shae did not follow. He knew she wouldn’t, she never did. He feared the day she found him first. Perhaps she would come in the daylight, brandishing nothing but her hands and that haunting smile. Perhaps she would never come at all. She would take him in his dreams. A knife slipped between the fears he had concocted for himself. It didn’t matter. This was the last time, he vowed. The last time he’d take a bounty on the witch of the Western Rise.

Shae buried the men and placed markers on their graves. ‘Fools,’ she thought, as she gathered up the coin from their pouches. Then she froze. Nothing scared Shae, not a knife to her throat or the pull of a fierce ocean, but now she was afraid. In one of the coin pouches there was a necklace, a crescent moon, crafted from moon-silver. The necklace was unique, forged many years passed by her father. He had made only two, and one hung around her neck. This belonged to Ana, her sister. She had never seen her without it.

Shae did not stamp the fire. She did not roll her sleeping mat, or take the half roasted rabbit from the spit. She took to Bear before the moon had emerged from the passing cloud, and in a haze of dust, she headed home.

THE OWL WITH THE HEART OF A MOUSE

Stories, The Owl with the Heart of a Mouse

Chapter One

Jessica traced her finger through the air, chasing dust motes floating across sun-bleached Garfield toys that cluttered the window ledge. The taste of home clashed with the vacuum of the room, which was whitewashed and sterile. Beyond the window the city moved, a never slowing beast that refused to relent for a moment, even one like this, where a heart was breaking.

“Terminal.”

The word lingered in the air like old spice, it tasted twice as bitter as it passed over her tongue. Her father placed a hand on her shoulder, a soothing attempt that did nothing to mitigate the agony, he wasn’t mum after-all.

Down the ward, babies screamed. This was the only room available, so Jessica’s mother was tucked away just off the maternity ward. A poetic appointment, since this was the same room where Jessica herself had been born. She’d cried then too, she supposed. Now all she could do to stop the tears was grasp her fingers around the thin triad of sheets and squeeze, till circulation halted in her fingertips, and the pain offered her a place to steady her head.

Her mother was asleep. She was always asleep now; she had been for weeks. When she’d wake, lucidity was ephemeral, a vapour, to be clutched at as it sailed away. She’d call for Jessica, sometimes, but think Jessica should be a baby, because of all the crying down the ward. It was confusing, and Jessica did not understand. There was so little she understood, and everything was changing so quickly.

“It’s okay to cry, sweetheart,” her father said, whilst Doctor Diggory busied his gaze away, for privacy.

“I’m eleven. I can be strong,” Jessica managed, whilst the pain strangulated her to the point of choking. She felt the sickness in her stomach. It rose with every word, but she kept it pushed down. That’s what a big girl does, she thought. So she breathed through the pain, like the lady in her mother’s yoga videos.

“Can she come home with us at least?” she asked. Both father and daughter looked at the doctor, who turned and shook his head.

“I don’t think it would be wise.”

That feeling of sickness came back, full force, and Jessica had to stand. She knew what it felt like to watch her entire world break. She’d seen it before, four years earlier, when her father left. Things had been better since then. She had two birthdays, and double Christmas. Sometimes her mother and father would even laugh when they were together now, and she could see that even though it hurt, life had become happier. But this wasn’t the same. Life wouldn’t get happier. There was a chasm opening inside her and she knew nothing would fill the space where her heart was breaking. She’d have one birthday, and one Christmas, and neither would mean anything because the one person she loved more than anything in the universe would be gone.

Terminal.

Jessica turned, and before she knew it she was running from the ward down alternating corridors until one finally opened to the world outside. Sound crashed down on her from a chorus of angry drivers, who were all late for something completely irrelevant. She wanted to scream at them.

“You ok dear?” an old man asked. His cigarette was wagging from the corner of his mouth and his cane shook under the strain of his hand, trying desperately to support him.

Jessica shook her head, and before he could say another word, she was running again, straight over the roundabout and across the road opposite, car tires screeched as they tried to avoid her.

Now she was outside, the air seemed even harder to swallow; it stung her throat as she tried to gulp it down. Thick city air, not like her hometown.

She wished she could go home. That she’d wake up in the flat, off the road opposite the old Oak, where a swing hung. She wished that her mother would be there and take her in her arms, knowing who she was. No tubes, no medicine, just love.

But she wasn’t there. She was in the middle of a city park, and it made her feel small and lonely.

The more she felt small and lonely, the smaller and lonelier she seemed to become, until finally she wasn’t a little girl standing in the middle of a park, but a little mouse. And when she’d cry, she could only squeak. So, she squeaked, and she squeaked, as tiny tears the size of pin tops fell from her eyes.

Chapter Two

By the time Jessica had stopped squeaking, rain clouds had gathered, and night was setting in. All at once raindrops big as footballs threatened to drown the little mouse, so she ran from the pavement into the flowerbed nearby, taking shelter beneath an evergreen that smelt of petrichor and summers spent. Another smell caught her tiny mouse nose—oak—like the tree outside her flat. She sniffed it in, and sighed a huge mouse sigh, longing for home.


Far above her little mouse eyes, on a low branch, on that very oak tree, an owl the size of winter’s moon had landed. A ghostly apparition, terrifying and beautiful in equal measure.

“Hello little mouse,” it whispered, followed by a drawn-out hoot that cut the night, and drove needles of terror through the little mouse girl.

She poked her tiny mouse head out from under the bush. With eyes wide, she squeaked.

“Are you going to eat me?” It seemed like a normal question to ask an owl when you were a mouse. Being eaten didn’t seem like such a terrible outcome, Jessica thought, as she was sodden, cold, and full of such sorrow.

The owl swooped from the branch and landed before her, a great snowy thing with spherical amber eyes and a beetle-black beak. It moved closer to the little mouse, bent low, and surveyed her with its looming stare.

“And, suppose I am?” it asked, eyes glaring at the little mouse.

Jessica squeaked a little squeak and buried her face in her little mouse paws.

The owl hooted again.

“And suppose I was just going to eat your heart,” it continued.

She sniffed, “My heart?”

“Hearts are delicious, you see.”

Jessica took pause for a moment. She touched her little mouse heart; it was racing beneath her chest in terror. When it stopped racing, she knew it would ache all the same as it had before, perhaps twice as much for the reprieve of fear, or even five times as much for her being so small.

“You can have it. If you wish it.”

“You would give me your heart, little mouse?”

“I have no need of it. For you see, mister owl, it has broken. And I don’t want it.”

“You don’t want it?” the owl questioned, with a doubtful pondering in his wispy voice.

“No, all it does is ache.”

“If I eat it, you will feel no sorrow,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“You will feel no heartache.”

“Yes.”

“You will feel no joy.”
 The little mouse paused again. Tiny beady eyes shimmering in the pale night light.

“Joy?”

“Yes, little mouse. No joy. For to be heartless is to feel nothing at all.”

Jessica slumped down into a small heap, the world wearing heavy on her shoulders.

“Suppose I could feel joy one last time? As a keepsake. And then you could take my heart away and eat it, before the Doctors do.” 
 The owl stepped closer.

“Where would you go, for your final keepsake of joy?” he asked.

“Home, before Mum was sick.”

The owl stepped forward, and extended a clawed foot in the mouse’s direction. She squealed in terror and closed her eyes, but nothing happened. Soon she peered through little paws and saw the owl’s outstretched leg.

“We’ll go for a ride, little mouse.”

 Jessica stepped forwards, and wrapped her little mouse paws around the ankle of the great moon-like owl, that shimmered in the nightlight like an angel. In moments they were rising from the ground, great gusts of cool air and droplets of rainwater sprinkled around them, spread to the winds like pearl flecks.

If Jessica could hold her eyes open, she would have thought them beautiful. But she was holding on too tightly, too afraid of letting go. In a moment of time spent, they were gone, flying far above the city

“Look little mouse,” the owl said.

Jessica squinted, paws tingling with fear, little mouse pads sweating. She wrapped her little mouse tail around the owl’s talon to steady herself.

“Do you see?”

Jessica could see a great many things: towering buildings of the grey city that seemed to have long had all colour washed away, and large green spaces cultivated as countryside which were nothing more than illusions of clean air.

The owl took them higher and higher until she could no longer make out the roads or the buildings or the parks. Until they were just lines and dots on a map of the earth below.

“See what?” the little mouse asked, wiping a rogue tear from her eye.

“How even the greatest, most insurmountable things can become smaller, given a different perspective.”

Jessica nodded, though she didn’t really think she understood.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Far, far away from here.” the owl hooted, and on through the night they flew until they came to a village, which was small and smelt like oak.

They landed by a tree where a swing hung.

Jessica held her breath as she stepped from the owl’s outstretched leg. Her eyes were bleary from tears, and she struggled to balance from the excitement.

“Am I, home?” she asked, for she dared not guess at the answer. Hope had crushed her before.

The owl nodded.

“One last day. As you wished,” he whispered. 
 The owl sounded sad, though Jessica did not know why.

*

“Jessica. Jessica? Where are you?” Her mother’s voice called from the window of the flat, and Jessica, forgetting she was a mouse, and that she felt so small, sprang from the ground a little girl once more. She ran to below the window.

“I’m down here mum, I wanted to swing!”

Her mother shot her a disapproving look, but on seeing her daughter, she softened.

“Did you want a push?”

“Yes!”
 When her mother had climbed the stairs down from the flat, Jessica assaulted her with a cuddle. She breathed in her rose scented skin, the mild coconut shampoo, and a scent that runs even deeper. A scent that cannot be described because it was just simply her. It was mum.

“What’s that for love?”

“Being the best mum,” Jessica whispered.

Fighting back tears, determined not to waste a moment, she grabbed her mother’s hand, running for the swing.

“I want to go over the top this time, mum!”

“All the way over? So you might fall into the sky?” her mother asked teasingly.

“All the way!” Jessica said again.


The day passed like that, moment upon moment, and Jessica stored every second up in her heart, like a piggy bank, till it was ready to explode. They rode bikes to the shops and brought ice-cream by the pier. Jessica told her mum about her latest maths quiz, which she had barely remembered before, but now wanted to impart to her, along with every second of her life. She told her about friends that teased her, about the way her father didn’t make macaroni and cheese the same way she did, and it was worse for it. She asked her mother to plait her hair, to sing with her, to dance with her. She cooked with her, trying all the while to absorb every second. To memorise every cadence in her mother’s voice and every scent note of her skin.

When the moon was high, and she was being tucked into bed, her mother asked if she wanted a story, and even though she had told her she was too old for them, Jessica agreed, not wanting to miss a moment. She listened to three chapters before she felt her mother’s warm kiss on her forehead, and the swaddle of cosy sheets. And despite how hard she fought to not let the day end, it did, as days always do.

“I love you, little mouse.” She whispered.

And Jessica knew it was true.

When Jessica opened her eyes, it was to the face of a celestial owl, with stars in its eyes and a beetle-black beak.

“Where’s mum?” she asked. Her little mouse paws fumbled to get out from the giant swamp of bedsheets, for the swaddling had been for a girl, and she was once again so tiny.

The owl hooted low and extended its leg. “In the hospital,” it sighed.

Jessica climbed onto the talon.

“You told me I would feel joy,” she whispered, clutching her heart. “But all I feel is great sorrow.”

The owl moved its face close to the mouse, as though it was sharing a great secret. And Jessica, though her heart was breaking, once again listened.

“There is no great sorrow, without great joy, little one. And whilst you may feel as though you are breaking, it is only because of the extent to which you are loved.”

“But it doesn’t ease the pain.”

“No.”

“Then what use is a heart? You might as well eat it.”

The owl surprised her then, as it chuckled, and flew from the window into the sky.

The cold air whipped at Jessica’s fur, and she wrapped her tail about the noble bird once more, eyes closed.

“Open your eyes, little mouse.”

She did, just in time to see them loop around the swing set and come over the top, until there was nothing between her and the open sky but stardust and dreams. They flew higher and higher until all light below faded away and the cold winter’s night cradled them both.

“Is this heaven?” she asked, breath stolen by the chill of the air, and the beauty of the halo of stars that seemed to burn into both her eyes and her soul.

“Yes,” said the owl.

Jessica squeaked, and tightened her grip.

“I don’t want her to die,” she murmured, as though it was a secret.

The owl knew, in that moment, that his heart was breaking too.

“I know, little mouse.”

“Can we not go back?”

The owl hooted low, and came about, so the moon was their baring and the night appeared to stretch out for eternity.

I“We can never go backwards, little mouse.”

 Jessica watched as country side morphed into the city, and she knew that something was changing inside her. What had once seemed vast and overbearing stretched out into a scrapbook of life. They flew through the city, passed apartments and houses, all with families, and people, some happy, some not, but all doing their best to survive. Jessica was hit with the overwhelming realisation that this was life. That it was good days and bad days, and heartaches and laughter. And as much as she wanted to separate the two, she couldn’t. Because to live without a heart was to live without the very thing that made living bearable. Love.

“Can you take me back to the hospital?” She whispered.

Chapter Three

They arrived on the window ledge looking in to the hospital room. Garfield hugged the glass, faded colours turned out to the world like an echo of an ebbing life. Jessica knew not long remained. She didn’t know how she knew; it was a knowledge that comes in a moment of intangible understanding.

“Will you come in with me?” she asked.

“Of course.”
 They slipped in through the window, though Jessica wasn’t quite certain how the owl made it inside. They landed on the bed.
  Jessica climbed up the bed till her little mouse paws could cradle her mother’s face, and she squeaked. It was just after 8 o’clock, but they had already turned the room for rest. No-one would be in to check on her for another hour.

Her mother opened her eyes.

“Little mouse…” Her voice was raspy from sleeping so long. It caught on all the wrong notes. “How did you get so small, little mouse?” She picked Jessica up in her hands and kissed her on the head.

“I don’t know? You left me. And you didn’t know me anymore. You thought I was a baby,” she whispered, voice cracking underneath the weight of emotion. “I couldn’t take it, so I ran, and then… I cried, and the more I cried, the smaller I seemed to become and now, now, I think I’m stuck.”

Jessica noticed her mother no longer looked sick, a warm glow filled her cheeks, and a restfulness had settled on her. Her mother swung her legs out of the bed and placed Jessica in the chair by the window, stroking her tiny head delicately.

“The sky is beautiful tonight, don’t you think?”

Jessica nodded.

“Have you been on an adventure?”

Jessica nodded again, afraid to speak, like words could shatter the moment.

“Tell me about it, love.”

“I went over the swing set.”

“Did you?” she asked, delighted.

“You were right. If you go over, you fall right into the sky.”

Her mother smiled, and poked her belly, tickling her till she couldn’t help but giggle. “Did you, did you fall into the sky, sweet one?”

“Yes.”
 Her mother’s eyes turned to the great white owl standing on the bed, and his wings ruffled, abashed.

“I suppose you took her, papa?”

Jessica looked at the owl now, whose once lamp-like eyes, with a menacing stare, seemed to soften. And the realisation of who he was dawned on her.

“She needed a friend,” the owl said.

Jessica gasped.

“Grandpa? You were going to eat my heart!”

On that word, her mother picked her up and rubbed her nose into her chest.

“Hearts are delicious, don’t you know?” she laughed, and Jessica laughed too, because she supposed they would be. And as she and her mother laughed together, she felt a little less small, and a little less like the weight of the world might crush her, until once again she was a little girl, cradled in the arms of love.

Her mother pulled her tightly to her side, and they sat on the bed.

“Stay,” Jessica whispered, once laughter had eased, and the gentle hand of sadness took hold of her and squeezed.

“You know I can’t, baby.”

“It isn’t fair.”

“No, it isn’t.”

The owl let out a low, mournful sound, and time seemed to hang across the ward. Hospital machines silenced; all rounds froze. And for just a moment, the city relented, when a heart was breaking.

“It’s time, my love,” the owl said to Jessica’s mother. And Jessica clung to her side all the harder.

Her mother gently unlaced her hands.

“Do you know why a heart breaks?” her mother asked, as she kneeled in front of the little girl.

“Because it hurts.”

“So we can take a piece with us when we go. Grandpa took a piece of mine, many years ago. And now, I’ll take a piece of yours, and you’ll take a piece of mine. And by the end, we’re all just puzzles of love. Mixed up and beautiful. And we keep going darling. We keep loving. You promise me that.”

Jessica cried, and choked up the words, “I promise.”

Jessica’s father received the call at 9 o’clock. He had been worried sick, searching for his daughter for hours, but when he walked into the wardroom that now contained nothing but an empty bed and his daughter, all frustration and anger vanished.

His daughter was asleep in the chair by the window, two snowy feathers grasped in her hand. He looked out the window at the night sky in wonder at the silhouette of two birds flying across the silver moon.

Jessica did not stir when he lifted her, and she slept soundly that night on the car ride home, where she dreamed of the swing-set so very far away. In this dream she was no longer a girl, but flew like an owl with the heart of a mouse.

The End

The owl with the heart of a mouse is a fictional story written by Giselle Phillips 2022. It belongs to me (Giselle Phillips) and is subject to UK copyright law, please do not redistribute or copy without permission from the author.