“So, you’ve all been ...” I let my voice trail off.
“Snagged,”said someone.
“Taken,” said another.
“Used,” said a third.
I leaned forward. “How does it happen?” I asked. “What do theydo?”
“You have to tell your story first,” said a motherly woman. “That’s the way it works.”
Nodding of heads. Murmured agreement.
“All right,” I said, and took a deep breath. I told them what had happened to bring me here from my village—the edited version, without my sweaty, imaginary tanglings in the sheets, although they probably knew all about those anyway. There was a knowingness in their gazes that wasn’t entirely comfortable.
“You live in hishouse?” said someone.
“Yes,” I said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You poor thing,” said the elderly lady, and everyone shook their heads in sympathy, exchanging significant glances. But was I imagining it, or was there a touch of envy in their gazes also?
“So, you still have it?” asked Basil.
They all looked at me intently.
“Have what?”
“Yourheart, of course,” said the older lady. “How much is missing?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t think any of it ismissing, exactly. It’s more, sort of, caught up. Like a fish on a hook.”
They leaned back and sighed. The youth with dirty clothes spoke up unexpectedly.
“I wish I had a piece of mine left! Just a piece! To mop the rest of me up with, like a scrap of bread mops up gravy!”
“There, there, Nat,” said the motherly woman, handing him a handkerchief. Not a frilled, lacy affair like the one the rich lady had, but a proper cotton handkerchief big enough for a nose like mine. He blew his, loudly.
“Thank you, Em,” he said, and seemed to brace himself to tell his story. “I were buying fruit,” he said. “The carriage stopped, and the pretty lady called me over. She looked like sunshine.”
Sunshine? I wondered if it had been Clarissa, with her golden mane of hair.
“What happened?” I asked.
“She called me into her carriage,” said Nat, “and then reached right in and popped out my heart, like we pop peas from their pods. She wrapped it in a handkerchief and put it away somewhere. Worst thing was, Iwantedto give it to her. And I told her me mam were waiting for me, and she said she wouldn’t be more’n a minute. Said she didn’t usually let children into her nice carriage, but that I was a special boy. She put me out after that, but I came after her. Walked all the way to the city. I would have followed her anywhere.”
“Were you in love with her?” I asked.
“No,” he said, looking at me as if I was mad. “She was pretty, that’s all, and smelled good. Me own mam did nothing but scold me and pinch my ear.” His mouth twisted as if he were about to cry. “I’d give anything to be back with her now, though.”
“There, there,” said the motherly lady again—Em. “You sit quiet for a while.”
This was news to me. I had always assumed that all the sorceresses’ victims fell in love with them, but it was more insidious than that—it seemed there were other ways they couldsnagtheir victims.
“Tell them about yours, Em,” Nat sniffed.
“They only took a piece of mine,” said Em. I got the feeling that these were stories they had all told many times. There was a comfortable rhythm to them, despite their gruesome content.
“Just a piece!” said a middle-aged man with a protruding belly. “Lucky!”
