THE LAST STRAW, Ruby’s home, was up ahead. The area looked much different than it had when Swishy first visited. Everything was sunbright and glorious, far unlike the gothic manor that he first approached on night one in Straw City. Things had livened up despite the devilry behind its changes. The next sight reinforced his conflicted feelings.
A wishwillow—first one, then several more, all circling Ruby’s home.
Birds darted over and under and through the trees, dropping stray branches and leaves in the proximate vicinity. Once the organic matter drew closely enough to the wishwillows, they were absorbed into its overall structure. As the trees were regaining their materials, their luster augmented in equal proportion. The trees became bigger and brighter as they settled into their foundations.
For as traumatized as the wishwillows were from their magical kidnapping—flown away with their roots wriggling toward the ground—the trees now had achieved a level of comfort. The trees’ spirits, having found root in solid ground again, had calmed. Re-planting had gone well, better than the plants expected.
Swishy was conflicted. He didn’t want them to hurt but hated that the woods hadn’t rejected foreign soil. A little whining from the wishwillows, a peevish protest here or there would’ve made him feel better. But the wishwillows now belonged to The High Chasm, joining Ruby’s massive establishment and relying on its stores of power.
The boy reminded himself that he did good, that the ecosystem’s health was his doing, not Ruby’s.
“So eager to take credit. Is credit really that important?” Ruby. She stood upon her broom with a hand on her hip, a dimpled smirk taunting the boy. Her escorts swam around her with their serpentine prowess, her blackened trinity of DEATH-TYRANNY-ENVY—though now the ENVY part started to drift away, doing its own thing.
That dreaded E word started to gravitate toward Swishy, disappearing into the ground only to resurface around his ankles, his waist, his chest and shoulders and neck and head.
The scarecrow flinched from the sticky presence but it didn’t hurt him or feel like anything.
There were no changes, something that he suspected was the point. That it was he, now, who was jealous of Ruby.
“I like credit, that’s not a crime. Not like you stealing from me.”
“Ah, so these are your possessions.”
“They’re my loved ones.”
“I don’t believe envy has anything to do with love.”
ENVY vibrated, its curses laughing at Swishy.
The boy ignored it, though beads of soul sweat trickled from his gourd.
“Well boy, I’m happy to see you—for once. Thank you for taking that burden off my shoulders. Babysitters are always appreciated.” She looked at ENVY. “Hang with him. Take your time. Think of Swishy as the fun uncle.”
The envy curses cackled in Swishy’s face, his ‘ear’, and then swam inside his gourd from eye to mouth and from mouth to the other eye.
Swishy dealt with Myst before and refused to be affected by this level of darkness.
Nevertheless, his blackwheat crinkled within. He was resilient, yes, but never impervious. Vulnerability would forever be his lot.
The witch decided to twist the rake on his propensity for hurt. A wicked gleam sparked across her gaze. Her smile was like a child who’d tasted its first ice cream.
She snapped a finger in the air, releasing a visible sound wave for many meters around. The audio was crisp and sharp and multiple.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
The sound didn’t echo. It broadcasted. It replayed.
Ruby and Switch exchanged looks, her mischief gazing into his worry. She put her arm down and the snap sounds disappeared.
A rustling from a nearby wishwillow, accompanied by a great presence.
A silhouette? A wrathraven? A wrathraven FLOCK?
The boy was nervous, nervous, nervous.
And then the presence clarified. Immense power but a small package.
Then the snitchtalon came out of the wishwillow, its talons clinging to a straw heart, four colors, a patchwork of every wheat Swishy’s emotions had grown. The stabbing pangs assaulted his spirit from the bird’s rough handling, its purposeful digging and scratching.
The High Chasm’s heart, Swishy’s first. It didn’t say anything. The core only suffered its erratic beats. There was gasping, panting, and a series of whimpers.
Ruby raised her hand.
The bird dropped the heart into it.
Dark vines wiggled from the wrinkles in the heart, slapping against Ruby’s forearm as they stretched down her body. Their tips hardened, puncturing the ground. These were roots, a sick version of it. For now, the chasm heart was connected to the tree, feeding it.
“I’ve decided to let this little guy have some air. Breathe, friend. Breathe. Be in the world for a moment before you return to your shell. Air and sun are perfectly good things. Try not to struggle so much. Calm, calm, and keep a rhythm, like dancing almost. Shall I teach you to dance?” She twirled once, then twice.
ENVY, it constricted Swishy’s gourd. The rind was strong but he could feel his solidity caving in from the pressure. He knew that there were stress fractures in his head, his runny pulp leaking inside him. His inner gourd felt to him like a damp cavern.
“I see you don’t want me to have this—but I see even more that you want everything for yourself. You’re not as pure as you pretend to be. Surely you won’t mind if I take this heart for a spin. You’ve given others way. What’s one more? Yes, Ruby too will have a turn.”
“I can’t imagine you as anything other than heartless.”
That’s right! Znitchy echoed, sitting atop Swishy’s head.
“My, my, your cruelty is showing. Don’t you know I put my heart into everything? Now, we’re simply putting yours to use. My heart has brought this civilization this far. Yours will take us the rest of the way.”
Ruby stared into the heart as a fogginess shrouded it. The beats were calm, subdued.
“It’s matching my pulse. It’s…it’s mine.”
She tittered.
Znitchy leaned forward. He didn’t have aggressive speech this time. Only a surprising insight. She’s right…she’s making it hers.
“Is it hurting?” Swishy asked Znitchy, hoping that it did.
It seems okay. We still don’t want her to have to but it’s fine.
The conflicted feelings clouded Swishy once more.
ENVY coasted around the rest of Swishy’s body, exploring him, growing familiar.
Ruby bounced the heart in her hands. “We’re hanging out. Trendy titas deserve fun too.”
“You don’t even deserve a sunny day.”
Ah! The heart shrieked, shriveling, as Ruby snatched squeezed it hard, forcing a retraction of its roots.
”I suppose straw boys go sour too.”
[Adieu]—faster, farther, her spell bolstered by The High Chasm heart.
(…)
Ruby had vanished but Swishy’s friends were almost there.
The boy counted the approach of panicked souls, of the confused Trey and Sling-ravens.
As the Clayborne approached, Swishy carefully eyed the environment. The High Chasm had sorted itself, one side featuring civilization, a revamped Straw City populated with scarecrows. And the other side was shadowed and curse-stricken, an abundance of homeless scarecrows seeking color. But the whole tree settlement, both the sane and the shadowed, shared common worries. The souls murmured, humming their unease. With The High Chasm heart removed from the tree, their nervousness took over.
It gave them anxiety to be heartless, even if Ruby was right there, even if they had placed their trust in her.
But she was gone, temporarily, warping to who-knows-where.
Even the golden wishwillows and black everytrees swayed upon their roots, shuffling, fidgeting, seeking their steadying core.
“Trey!” Swishy waved him down.
But Trey held his hand up in a halting gesture. He was walking now. Something was on his mind, an experiment brewing.
“She ain’t here anymore,” Trey said out loud. “That heart is hers. She wants this one. But maybe she’ll give you guys the next!” The Clayborne knew he was playing with fire. He made slow progress, sticking close to his guardian Sling-ravens.
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The hum of souls raised their frequency, their tension.
“She’s your queen. I’m sure she’ll put it back.”
Swishy tuned into the soulscape, expanding his sight. The nearest scarecrows in the Straw City metropolis conversed amongst themselves, telling each other that this was only a trial, that they’d have a heart again, that their homes would last. And the cursed scarecrows only shrieked through their hastily formed mouths. Their movements and attempted speech sounded like a mixture of straw and wood crushed underfoot.
Trey kept going.
“Heaven, that’s what she wished for right?”
Trey pointed to the skies, the forming islands, the [Postcard] intent that now gave those shadowy rocks color, texture, and life. “But it’s up there, though. Maybe she’s sharing the heart with them. If you want it again, I guess you can go up there and see.”
More disturbance, more anxiety, and the first souls now spiked in panic.
“I’m no preacher or nothing but I’m a child of God. I know only the basics. That up above, there’s a Heaven, and we’ll reach it if we’re allowed that grace. Down below, there’s just Cearth. But this place is magical too. There’s growth and blessings. There’s community. And you can see the heaven. Isn’t it beautiful? If heaven is up there, you’ll get your shot one day…”
Trey then smirked.
“Once you make it through this purgatory.”
Raw panic.
The ground shaking, a Cearthquake commencing.
“Trey, come on!”
The Clayborne stumbled from the rumbling ground but the Sling-ravens picked him up again, taking him to Swishy. During his flight, shadows spread outward—even upward. Shadows that once used to lay upon the ground now flared upward like flames. Both the new Straw City and the dark, chaotic wilds were kindred in a shared fate, their shadows running out of control as they waited for Ruby to return The High Chasm’s heart.
“Why did you do that?” Swishy called out, now grabbing Trey’s hand.
Trey lifted him upward and a Sling-raven positioned underneath Swishy, giving the scarecrow a ride.
“Why not?” Trey shrugged. “Ruby is a tough cookie. We have to do whatever we can to throw her off.”
“Okay.”
“More than okay. Look!”
The dark flames were a wildfire now, blackness marching through Ruby’s garden, lapping against her home. The curses joined each other, using each other as stepping stones to achieve greater heights, to attain the HEAVEN islands that floated above them. Meanwhile, the sky islands were in mid-transformation. The boys watched them from up close, growing nature, primitive buildings, and the sprouts of Ruby’s favorite flowers.
Swishy didn’t get what was so special. What would Straw City get up here that they didn’t already have down below?
They were so close to Heaven—and though Swishy didn’t understand the appeal he mourned for the curses’ desperation.
“It’s sad, being tugged along the way they are.”
“True…sad that they think they can make it to Heaven like that.”
“What’s Heaven, Trey?”
“There’s a long answer to that, but let’s just say this isn’t it.”
“But why?”
“For one, you have to die first to get there for real.”
“Oh…that’s scary Trey.”
“Death is scary. That’s part of what Heaven is for.”
Swishy gazed at the tragic civilization below. “It’s crazy how much a soul needs. And Ruby really is their answer. My heart goes out to them…”
“Yeah…” Trey said. “But many of the curses have been with her since The Stormcellar. They’re older than her and they’re supposed to be wiser. You can feel sorry for sorrow. But you can’t feel sorry for everyone who sorrows. Never underestimate the harmful things we do to ourselves—or the things we refuse to do for ourselves.”
Swishy wasn’t sure he understood, but he nodded his head. Swishy had gone through many bouts of blackness but had stayed mostly good through it, at least it comforted him to think so.
“So where’s Ruby? Do you see her soul with that straw magic of yours?
“I don’t know.”
“But you will, huh?”
“Yeah, I’m working on it!”
Swishy had gone meditative, his blue soul eyes flattening into the resemblance of still water. He’d entered a trance, sifting through the chaos of souls to find Ruby’s.
Her unmistakable soul signature had indeed traveled far, reappearing within the chest of a giant, of the arachnid Myst. He sensed the heat of Ruby flying through Myst’s insides, searching for the heart. It was a game of hot-cold, hot-cold, blindly traversing the murkiness until she detected her core.
When Swishy left his trance, Znitchy confirmed his findings too, starting to drift in the anticipated route.
“Trey! I found her! We gotta go back!”
“Back where?”
“Myst.”
Trey pulled him into the [Zlide].
“What part? Like by the legs?”
“The chest.”
Trey smiled.
“Don’t be like that, Trey.”
“Be like what?”
“Like that.”
“Say no more.” Trey’s grin stretched for miles.
Poof! Not a literal sound as the [Zlide] began, just the feeling that Swishy got as he and the birds were vacuumed into a sparking gate.
(…)
Trey’s [Zlide], while useful, wasn’t heart-powered.
The man had many talents—but he was just a man, no match for Ruby at the peak of her prowess.
But they optimized their route to speed things along: a [Zlide] to a Sling-raven, who then tossed Swishy to the next Sling-raven, who then tossed Swishy onward to the third. After the third bird caught him, Trey waited in the nearest foothold—a branch, a building, a High Chasm hollow—with an open [Zlide].
Flashy, efficient. But too long for Swishy’s liking, given that Ruby was already giving Myst hell.
Swishy tried to stay calm. Znitchy was a distraction, though, standing on the gourd stem, trembling in rage.
“Are you chanting kill?”
Kill-kill-kill to be exact.
“Okay.”
Don’t judge me, fuck that bitch.
“I don’t judge…not much.”
Znitchy chanted, at the very least lowering the volume of his war cry.
A warp, then bird tosses, then more warps, all while the grubby hands of wraiths stretched to freakish lengths toward Swishy.
“What the heck?” Trey yelled as he electrified a phantom. “Do they not let up?”
“You’re the one who stressed them!”
“And I’d do it again!”
Swishy hugged his rake to his chest as he exchanged hands.
It was a shame it had to be this way. Everything he saw, everything made from his heart, was beautiful. The boy passed along many series of windows and doors set into the trees, gold-straw planters lighting the sills. There were entire neighborhoods of airborne yurts and ground-level huts. There were scarecrows and snitchtalons and other anonymous shadows that otherwise could’ve lived good lives if not for the existential terror of heartlessness.
A core, a core—they’d kill for one. And so they greedily eyed Swishy as he plunged downward.
Blackness, a comforting and silky one. There was soft dark smoke too, a thinness akin to incense. Myst’s aura. He made out her body parts, too, still a hybrid giant. Humanoid torso with her slender arms and hands paired with the thorax and legs of a spider. She delightedly gasped as she spotted the free-falling Swishy and the bird-riding Trey.
“My champions! Of course, you’d return.”
“We’re here!”
“Great! I needed an exterminator.” She was staring into her spidery belly, eyes darting as if chasing a fly, the evil invader that ran amok.
The scarecrow tucked his wings back for maximum aerodynamics and plunged into Myst’s chest, tufts of vapor puffing from his entrance.
Trey dove in next.
“Tickles,” Myst said as he entered.
Swishy didn’t have to look to know Trey was blushing. He shook his head and then looked for Ruby.
The first thing that took Swishy aback was Myst’s softness. Her insides were a see-through veil. He witnessed the world through the shaded window of Myst’s body but could tell that her anatomy was in flux. An amorphous cloudiness pulsed around him in unpredictable currents. It was chaos. Nonsense. A…
“A smokescreen!”
“You’re a sharp little straw!”
Myst rearranged her internal shadowscape to disorient Ruby.
Swishy followed the dark currents, hoping to goal keep the heart.
Myst was rearranging herself, moving the heart from out of Ruby’s reach. But every time she did, Ruby activated another [Adieu], anticipating the organ shifting, getting closer to claiming that heart each time, soon getting only a fraction of a second off.
“Trey!” Swishy called.
A [Zlide] opened right above him, Trey pulling him in.
And through these warps, they set after Ruby’s [Adieu] ones. Now that they were in a contained area, it didn’t matter that Trey didn’t have a superpowered warp. While they were inside a [Zlide] realm, Trey had a proposition.
“Wanna go away for a bit?”
“Huh?” Swishy was sad and hurt.
“Not you, idiot. That one!” Trey tapped at Swishy’s stem where Znitchy resided.
Oh no! Not when I’ve been reborn!
The runt flew away but Trey’s finger glowed.
[Heart String].
The little bird unraveled from one soul thread, re-spooling, twisting back around Trey’s finger and then rejoining his aura.
“Wait, why’d you do that?”
“Now that we’re here, Ruby doesn’t need the Znitchy compass. Besides, that runt can’t fight anyway.”
”Right.”
When they left the [Zlide], Ruby was only meters ahead, soaring on her broom, edging away from hexed traps. Myst had left a spree of landmines in Ruby’s path, floating nodes of compressed DOOM. There were clouds of NIGHTMARE. There were dewy mists of a near-invisible MALAISE.
But Ruby steered with confidence and care. And when she was unsure, her trademark element saw her through. “Barrier,” Ruby said, raising the heart over her head. Wind swirled from the heart’s radius and surrounded Ruby, warding the attacks. As the barrier worked its gale within Myst, tearing through her veil-like darkness, the plucked High Chasm heart beat like hummingbird wings.
The boy clutched his chest.
“You okay?” Trey placed a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s the heart, Ruby’s going hard on it.”
Trey grimaced. “She sickens me.”
They pressed on after Ruby. The witch glanced at them and huffed, returning her attention to Myst.
“It’s only a matter of time, dear Myst. A matter of a decimal.”
“Math doesn’t matter here, only that you leave me.”
“Why would I? We’re sisters.”
“I love the convenience with which you claim that.”
“So you deny me?”
“Whole-heartedly.”
“You mean heartlessly.” Ruby’s tone flattened. Staking a claim in another’s body was a specialty of hers, one that she was most serious about.
[Adieu].
Ruby warped repeatedly after the heart—this time not reaching for it after the warp, but focusing on maintaining a teleport rhythm, a heightening tempo to better cling to Myst’s tempo, her patterns of moving her heart.
Trey kept up, straining hard. It wasn’t long before he started appearing to Swishy as an emptying cup, Trey’s soul waning, only filling his body halfway.
“Not so fast,” Swishy reached out but Trey swatted his hand away.
“I can do it. It’s why I’m here!”
[Adieu] and [Zlide], the spells alternating, Ruby always one beat ahead in the heart chase and with the utmost ease. But Trey had kept them close. After the next set of warps, the situation changed.
Glowing. A lone star in the melancholic shades native to Myst.
“There it is…” Ruby said with a drooling tone.
She warped.
Before Trey used a spell, Swishy charged his rake with gold.
“I know where’s going now, it’s fine, I see it, I see it.”
Trey relaxed, slumping his shoulders, hanging with sweat and fatigue from a Sling-raven’s talons.
Now, as Swishy stoked his light, the remaining two Sling-ravens tossed Swishy in alternative arcs toward the shining little heart. These were hard throws, momentum-building ones, and when Ruby’s portal released her before the heart, that greedy hand reaching toward that which belonged to Myst—
Swishy was launched.
[SUNBRIGHT DRILL]—He twisted at Ruby in tight spirals, a bullet and tornado all in one. Despite the motion, he saw Ruby clearly. Shock set into her face as a child caught at the cookie jar, one heart already in hand as she reached for another.
“You dumb woman, how much do you need!”
The shock disappeared, replaced by the cockiest grin.
“Everything, boy.”
She gave him an open-handed gesture, making no move to defend herself. But now her hands were empty, The High Chasm’s heart slinking into a portal, a dimensional pocket for Ruby’s later use.
A spear of light flashed across Myst’s interior.
“Sorry, Myst.” Swishy said, “I hope I don’t hurt you.”
“Life hurts. Have at it.” Her giggling encouraged him.
The scarecrow thrust his lighthouse of a rake at Ruby.
“Protect me,” Ruby said.
Portals opened before her, six portals to match the six wrathraven wings that disappeared her into its folds. Swishy slammed his rake into the feathers, drilling and drilling, but the feathers devoured the light. Through a gap in the defense, Swishy saw Ruby inside.
A seventh portal presented itself in her skirt, a pocket. She calmly reached into it, plucking straw from the heart she’d made off with. She flicked wheat strands into the wings with a calm, petting zoo demeanor.
“Feed, my darling. Accept my gift, my heart.”
The manipulation sickened Swishy.
Each wing grew larger. An explosion of plumage covered Swishy, casting him into a downy curtain, pushing him and his attack away.
The boy pressed hard, growing fibers in his shoulders and forearms, pushing the rake with his enhanced fortitude.
But no straw-grown force could surpass the will of starved curses who’d had their first taste of a heart. Ruby upped the offerings, switching from strands to nuggets. She tossed chunks and chunks into the portal.
“Take this heart, whatever, whatever. There’s plenty more. Protect me, protect me, and punish this fake boy.”
The light, divine as it was, began to ebb.
Myst’s shroud was set back into place.
The boy found himself within the pitch, holding a rake of dead straw.
The incessant ruffling of the wrathraven wings continued. Ruby fed them, turning them bigger and bigger and bigger. “Oops, out of straw,” Ruby lied, closing the remains of that glowing heart inside her portal pocket. “But there’s plenty right here.”
The wings wrested themselves from the rake.
“Oh boy,” Swishy said, gawking at his dimmed weapon.
“How many times do I have to tell you? You’re not a boy. You’re not anything.”