The Heart of the Place

By Thomas Kodnar

“See? It’s perfect.”

Daisy hadn’t seen. But she’d smiled, nodded, and said yes to their new home: a flat stacked on top of other flats, like the shoe box that happens to be on top in the store, never the right size, or the upmost box of matches in a heap of them, half-used up already, or the top blocks in a Jenga tower, which have furthest to fall. Daisy wanted a house -- theirs roof to bottom -- but houses are for doctors, for judges, for engineers and industrialists, for families. Daisy was a teacher, Bridget a research assistant. No houses to be had.

They’d put flowers in vases, they’d draped the floor in their favourite colours. They’d cleaned the windows as best they could, though some of the grime didn’t come off, some subtle substance like ancient dust that had become part of the fabric of things; essence of world, woven into glass. They’d done whatever they could to make the place look more lively, more inviting, more let’s-grow-old-together-here. And it was more lively now, more inviting; minus fifty instead of minus a hundred, a failing grade instead of a cause for expulsion. Suspension wasn’t an option.

See? It’s perfect. The words were there on the walls, were smeared across the ceiling in big moist letters, clinging like mould, dripping from the lampshade, paint made from the tears Daisy hadn’t cried. Daisy heard them every day, could hardly believe she’d really heard them that once, when Bridget had shown her the place. The perfect place she’d found, the perfect place she wanted Daisy to move into with her. Never in my life would I move in here, Daisy had said, this is not a perfect place, it’s a trap in a cage in a madhouse. Except of course she hadn’t said anything of the sort. She’d smiled, nodded, yes.

“All this place needs is a little heart.” Bridget, with one arm around Daisy’s shoulder and the other akimbo; Bridget, beaming around the living room, beaming at the run-down kitchen, beaming at Daisy. “And we have enough of that, don’t we, Daze?”

“We do.” Daisy, Daze, dazed into submission, smiling like she meant it. “We sure do.” And they did -- enough heart for three, for four, for a dozen. Enough heart to fill the world -- but not enough room to put it in; not enough money to bid on the future; not enough body for all the heart they had.

All the place needed was a little heart.

If only all the place needed were a little heart.

* * *

Bridget had hair like flickering bonfire and a personality to match: always dancing, burning for life. She was at her happiest when everything was happening at the same time, and she in the thick of it. What Daisy loved most about her was her smile. She had sunset on her head, sunlight in her mouth.

And Daisy, Bridget said, had sunup in her eyes, the clear blue of a spring morning sky. She was calm as the dawn and quiet as the moment just before it, and every one of her steps was so soft no eggshell would break under it. Daisy wore slippers and ribbons; Bridget wore boots and fishnets, and nothing whenever she could. Bridget would kick down doors while Daisy would knock, never too loudly.

Bridget would pick a flat without consulting Daisy, because Bridget was always sure of things, and Daisy would go along with it, because she was sure of nothing.

The living room was very cosy, which is to say tight; the bathroom unusually spacious, like Daisy’d said she wanted -- according to Bridget, though Daisy couldn’t remember saying any such thing. The showerhead had leaked when they had moved in, but now that they’d been living here for a couple of months, the showerhead still leaked. An odd stain on the bedroom wall oozed through the fresh layer of paint, and painting over it again did nothing; but the landlord insisted it wasn’t mould, so Bridget hung a picture of the two of them over it and called it a day. Daisy thought she could smell the stain, and hardly slept for it.

But what took the cake and made it rotten was the kitchen hole.

The living room shared its lack of space with the kitchen, which was old but perfectly serviceable (if you looked past the jammed cupboard under the sink and that one stove plate that heated up to the max regardless of what number you turned the knob to) and, Daisy had to admit, even pretty to an extent, with its white doors and faux marble countertops. That is, it would have been pretty, might have been could have been should have been pretty, if it weren’t for the gaping gap in the wall next to the ancient, grimy cooker hood. More shapeless than round, more presence of dread than absence of plaster and stone, it was the one feature not even Bridget could put lipstick on. What use the hole was supposed to have was anyone’s guess. It was wide enough to put a fist in, but Daisy thought that if she did, she’d die. It was dark inside; lighting it out with her phone, all Bridget saw was that it went on being dark for a bit. With her face close to it, Bridget said she felt a weak, unsteady draught of air, like little puttering breaths going out and in and out again. “Maybe an old ventilation system,” Bridget said. “Come up here and have a feel.” Daisy pretended she didn’t hear. The only thing she knew and wanted to know about that hole was this: she was not going to go anywhere near it. Whatever else it was, it was terrible. This eyesore’s eye was staring at them all the while that they were busy around other parts of the place; watched them clean the corners, watched them roll out the carpets, widened, chuckling, as they made love on the floor in the afternoons.

Sometimes at night, Daisy thought she heard a scuffling and scuttering, as of tiny taloned feet traipsing in the walls. She would put on her slippers and go look up at the hole, but all she ever saw was darkness.

* * *

All Daisy’s students loved Daisy, except for one or two, or maybe more when she wasn’t around, for how would she know? The students’ parents liked her, too, but then many of them knew nothing of Bridget. Most people loved Bridge and tolerated Daze, but she doubted the parents would feel the same way; they’d fear their kids’ teacher’s friend, and stop tolerating their kids’ teacher. It was a Catholic elementary school, and if Daisy were forced to explain how she’d ended up there, all she could say would be, smile, nod, say yes.

Daisy loved her students right back, more than she could say. If she should ever have to choose between them and Bridget, she didn’t know what she would do; except of course she did, in her secret heart of hearts, and she could only hope that no such choice ever need be made.

One of Daisy’s favourite children was also called Daisy. She liked to think that sharing a name had nothing to do with her fondness for the girl, but then she liked to think a lot of things, only she wasn’t very apt at deluding herself. Once during class, when they were drawing pictures of their mommies and daddies, little Daisy pointed her little nose up at big Daisy and asked, “Miss Daisy, do you have any children?”

Daisy smiled; nodded; and said, “Yes, dear. I have you.”

That day Daisy had the afternoon off, and went home when her kids did. A cluster of little ones scurried around her all the way down the staircase and through the front doors, and she almost felt like she was floating on them as on a vital, laughing wave in some friendly, familiar sea. The feeling was a warm envelope around her heart -- until, stepping outside, she saw Bridget stand there in the courtyard, arms crossed coquettishly, half-grin lupine. The envelope burned to a crisp, leaving a scorched clump of coal. Daisy nearly fainted. Imagined the wave carrying her off, imagined herself drowning. She rushed towards Bridget, barely watching where she was going, stepping on a little foot or two.

“What are you doing here?”

“Come to pick you up.” Still grinning like a devil, either not seeing or not understanding. “For years I’ve been listening to you talk about those kids of yours, and this morning I thought it was high time I saw them for myself. Those them?”

To Daisy’s horror, those were them. Little Daisy, and so many others, having stopped outside the door and watching, wide-eyed and scandalised, their teacher talking to this strange woman with fiery hair and freckled skin.

Wearing her brave smile the way Bridget wore lipstick, Daisy said to the children, “Go on now, go home. Your mommies and daddies are waiting for you to show them the pretty pictures you made -- ”

“Aw, what’chu been drawing today?” Bridget asked, and bent her knees to look as the children, little Daisy chief among them, raised their pictures towards her.

Daisy stood frozen. Daisy stood smiling bravely, digging her fingernails into her palms, until Bridget was done feigning admiration. She wanted to tell the kids to get going again, but if she opened her mouth her smile would fall off.

Half an hour later in Bridget’s car, she still hadn’t said a word.

“Daze? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

* * *

A month in, the place was almost nice. It looked like Bridget a lot, and smelled like her, too. The furniture was dark wood shaded red, the flowerpots were clay. The leaky showerhead had a pink silken scrunchie wrapped around its neck like a flowery bowtie. The paintings on the walls were excited. There were traces of Daisy, too, and that was good, that was all Daisy needed. She wasn’t sure she had much more to offer.

The living room windows admitted the evening sun, and sitting on the couch or on the rug before bed, with a mug of cocoa in her hand and maybe a glass of Brandy in Bridget’s, Daisy came quite close to feeling at home. The kitchen hole watched them, but Daisy had learned not to look back at it. When she did, she barely saw it: she had made it mere absence after all.

One such evening, Bridget flashed Daisy that grin of hers, and asked, “Heart enough?”

Daisy lowered her gaze; thought for a moment. She tried to laugh or giggle. It came out a moan. When she tried to nod, it became a shrug instead.

Daisy usually woke up first, but the next morning, her eyes opened to an empty bed. At first she thought she must have overslept and jolted up from the pillow (it was a Saturday and she didn’t have anywhere to be, but she didn’t like sleeping in); then she noticed how soft and grey the light was, how quiet the air.

She put on her robe and went to the living room. Bridget wasn’t there, but the coffee in the can was still warm, and a note propped up against Daisy’s favourite mug. Had to hop out to the lab. Sorry for not telling you yesterday, forgot all about it until this morning! Enjoy your coffee, I’ll be home soon. :)

Daisy smiled lamely, frowning at the same time, but she didn’t really mind. In a way, she was glad. She could not remember the last time she’d had an easy morning to herself. She poured the coffee and turned on the little portable radio they kept on the kitchen counter. It was playing The Shirelles. Tiptoe-dancing and muttering the lyrics under her breath, Daisy went to fetch her children’s latest homework. Easy mornings are for pleasant work, her mother used to say, and there was little as pleasing to Daisy as gauging her students’ progress, which was ever remarkable.

She sat on the rug, spread the exercise books around her in a fan, and put down her cup at a safe distance. She let her hand hover over the books, moving it this way and that, trying to make up her mind when she knew her mind was really already decided -- she’d begin with little Daisy’s homework, of course -- when suddenly, something strange happened: the radio buzzed, fizzed, and died … and a muffled, breathy sound filled the silence. Daisy froze. The sound was like a throaty moan.

She jumped, turned -- but there was no one there. The radio clicked; Bonnie Tyler was on the air now. Had it caught interference? Was that all the moan had been? Daisy didn’t think so. It had sounded very present; very much inside.

Daisy lifted her eyes to the hole in the kitchen wall.

She had to look about the apartment for a while in search of the stepladder, for Bridget had used it last. She finally found it behind the bedroom door, carried it back to the kitchen, and hesitated. She had been decided never to get anywhere near that hole …

But she had to know.

She climbed to the uppermost step with great care (or maybe just great reluctance), then stood up there a moment, staring at the hole and gathering herself. After one last deep breath, she stretched her neck to get closer to the hole.

The hole’s breath was deep, too -- not an echo of hers in its darkest recesses, but a response.

Daisy gasped; the ladder wiggled below her, and her hand shot out to hold onto the cooker hood. When the ladder stood stable underneath her again, she withdrew the hand, put it over her heart, and swallowed, staring into the hole.

But she was being a silly goose. Scared of air going through walls; as though she’d never heard wind howling in eaves, whistling through slits in a fence, popping around window frames. This hole was not nice to look at, and it had no business being there in the first place, and it probably wasn’t ideal that air should make its way through the house and find an exit here -- and yet, it was certainly nothing to be afraid of, as of some spectral apparition spied from the corner of the eye. And perhaps she had imagined it, anyway. Perhaps she had only imagined it.

Daisy nodded, and listened.

There it was again -- intake, soft and hoarse; exhale, deeper, almost relieved. She hadn’t imagined it, and neither had Bridget: that kiss of air, that brush of wind … it breathed. The hole was breathing. Daisy tilted her head, put her ear as close as she dared --

I count.

Daisy recoiled, shrieking.

The next thing she knew, she was supine on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling and straining to catch her breath. She felt sore and sweaty, her back stiff. She picked herself up with some effort, then the ladder, which had fallen over too, then stood there, eyes lowered; listening.

It had been her imagination, after all. Must have been. Bridget’s talk of ventilation had meddled with her mind. The radio must have snatched more interference from the air, and Daisy’s ear, expecting something to come from the hole, had snatched the interference right back again and displaced it …

All the homework was graded by the time Bridget returned. After a kiss and a good long look at Daisy, Bridget asked if everything was okay. “You look a bit shaken.”

Daisy smiled, nodded, and said she was fine, thanks.

* * *

One of the best days in Daisy’s life -- if not the best -- had been the first school outing with her class. They had taken a bus into the woods, and spent hours collecting leaves and chestnuts, cones and rocks, identifying trees and imagining tracks, looking for fairies and hidden treasure. The kids had taken to it all like ducks to water, as Daisy had known they would. If they were ducks, she was a fish, the forest her ocean.

As a child herself, she had been taken to the woods by her own mother, who seemed to know everything about the plants and animals there. “That’s hawthorn,” she would say, pointing, “and that’s juniper. This here is dogwood. See that hole there in the earth? That’s been dug by a vole -- we might see it if we wait long enough and are really, really quiet, but it’s not very likely. Do you hear that? That’s a barn owl -- we’re lucky to be hearing it, it’ll be asleep soon …” Daisy was fascinated; to her mother, however, it all seemed a matter of course, almost trivial, as though dogwood and voles and owls were as much part of everyday life as shopping for groceries, or going to bed.

Except for one thing; which, when her mother showed it to Daisy, she picked up with great care, spoke of in hushed tones, as though it were a great secret, a fabulous mystery. To Daisy it looked unremarkable, even ugly, somewhat like a foul cherry.

Daisy scrunched up her nose at it. “It looks dead.”

“Oh, but it’s very alive. This, Daisy,” her mother said, smiling, twirling the thing by its short stem between her fingers, “is the heart of the woods. Without such, there are no woods.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a seed. An alder seed, to be exact. There are many other kinds all over the floor. Do you see? The trees drop them, and more trees grow from them. It’s how a single tree becomes a grove, and a grove a forest. It’s how life makes more life, and how a planet becomes a world.”

Now Daisy stared in wonder. “It’s so small.”

“Many great things are small. You’re small, compared to me, yet you’re the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Daisy blushed. “As great as that seed?”

“Certainly. You’re my heart, darling Daisy. Without you, there’s no me.”

* * *

Her hair getting wet from the leaky showerhead: the hole was on her mind. Bridget’s warmth folding onto her in bed: the hole. At school, teaching the children to add up numbers: it stayed, relentless, on her mind.

Reading a book, Daisy would turn her head to look up at the hole -- sometimes only to realise she was in the wrong room, or not even at home. Having her cocoa on the rug, Daisy would fail to answer Bridget’s questions; she didn’t hear them: her ears were with the silence in her back, trying to catch another moan, another whisper. Closing her eyes at night, Daisy would see the hole, and open them again.

Silly goose, silly goose, she would scold herself again and again. Surely you were imagining things. Don’t be a diddy now. But again and again her mind would wander to the hole, and wonder what it was, and what had spoken to her from inside it. She remembered that she had felt like it was watching her from the very beginning, that it was an eye looking at her even through walls; now she knew better: not an eye -- a mouth. It breathed; and it talked. Daisy just hadn’t listened properly.

But of course she knew better than better, knew best: it was neither an eye, nor a mouth, nor anything; it did not look, nor breath nor speak; it was a hole, a flaw in the wall, no more and no less. So when, the next time Bridget was out of the house for a good long while, Daisy climbed the ladder once again, it was only to confirm what she already knew.

With bated breath and a hand on her chest, Daisy counted to three, then leaned in and listened.

Dear Daisy … dearest Miss Daisy …

She recoiled with a gasp, but this time she had been prepared and did not fall, did not faint. Her teeth chattered and her eyelids fluttered, but she stayed right up there on the topmost step, gathered her courage, and moved closer again.

“H -- Hello?”

There was no answer … except maybe a dull, faint thump, followed by another, and another -- but that might have been nothing but the beating of her own heart in her ears, or a pipe rumbling in the walls, or the showerhead in the bathroom dripping, dripping, dripping. But this time she was certain -- now, she would have been a silly goose to deny what was so plain and clear: the hole in the wall had spoken; and a flow of air was brushing against her cheeks even as she stood there waiting for the voice to speak again …

“Daze?”

Daisy jumped, and the ladder teetered beneath her -- then Bridget’s hands were there, clasping it, holding it still.

“Thank you,” Daisy said.

Bridget stared at her. “What are you doing?”

“Oh -- oh, I was … I was just …” She gestured feebly at the hole.

“Yeah,” Bridget said, “we should really get that fixed. Come down to me, will you?”

Daisy did. “You’re back already?”

“What, should I’ve stayed away longer?” Bridget was grinning -- until she saw something in Daisy’s face that wiped the grin right off of hers. “You sure you’re okay? You have that look about you again.”

“What look?”

“Like you can’t make up your mind whether to be scared or sad. Also, I think you can let go of the ladder now.”

Daisy hadn’t realised she’d been clutching it. She tore her hand away as from a hot stove plate.

Nervous laughter bubbled from Bridget’s mouth, only to die as abruptly as it began. “Daisy, sweetie, what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. No, Bridge, I mean it,” for Bridget had drawn close and cast out her arms like a net, “I don’t need a hug. I don’t need anything, I’m fine.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, I can’t help that, can I?”

“Yes, you can. You can tell me what’s going on.”

Daisy had backed up all the way to the refrigerator. Avoiding Bridget’s gaze, she said, “You’d think me crazy.”

“I already think you’re crazy, sweetie. Nothing you might say could convince me you’re any more sane than I am. So, spit it. I love you and I want to know. Come -- come -- let’s sit on the carpet. Good. Now shoot.”

Daisy knew she probably shouldn’t, but she felt too dizzy to resist -- and she wanted to share. Wanted Bridget to know, so she could tell her what a silly goose she was being, that she was imagining things, that the hole was just a hole and could not see, or breathe, or speak …

What Bridget said instead was, “Oh, Daze. Oh! I’m so relieved!”

And she went for that hug after all, and wrapped her arms around Daisy so tight it hurt.

“You -- ” Daisy could hardly speak, and not just for the pain. “You’re relieved?”

Bridget held her at arms’ length and looked her straight in the eyes. “Are you kidding me? Of course I am. I thought you were angry with me for some reason.”

“I -- I’m not angry -- ”

“Yes, I know that now. So, that thing talks to you? That’s weird.”

“You believe me?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Fuck, Daze, that hole has been freaking me out ever since we moved here, too. I’ve been meaning to say something for a while now, but I didn’t know what to say, so I just talked about other things instead. I haven’t heard it speak, to be honest, but I do want it closed, only I worry that the landlord’s gonna make it so we have to pay for it, and I can’t guess what it might or mightn’t cost …”

Daisy’s tongue cast about her dry mouth, testing words to say, not landing on the right ones. In the end she settled for, “What are we supposed to do now?”

“I guess it’s best if you ignore the hole until we’ve found a solution.”

“But … but … I don’t know if I can.” I don’t know if I want to.

“Just focus on other things. Your work. You love your work. You love your kids, don’t you, so focus on that. That thing in the wall can hardly speak to you if you don’t listen to it, now, can it?”

* * *

Daisy’s mother was dead. She lay buried in the earth in an alder casket. The tombstone read GONE TOO SOON, and truer words had never been carved, in Daisy’s opinion.

The gravesite was pretty, shaded by elder and juniper and a large willow tree; if Daisy squinted her eyes just right, she could almost believe her mother was still in the woods with her, showing her the secret ways of the world.

Daisy visited regularly, to change the flowers and light a candle; but never to pick fallen leaves or seeds off the grave, for she knew her mother would’ve liked them there. From time to time, when she felt lost or sad, she came here not to tidy up, but to imagine her mother there with her, stroking her hair, holding her, telling her about owls and voles and foxes. She would ask her mother the questions whose answers kept evading her, and sometimes, just sometimes, she felt that she went away wiser than before.

But on the subject of the hole in the kitchen wall, not only was her mother silent, but Daisy didn’t even know how to properly begin telling her about it; how to frame a question, or how to explain what the matter was. So she just stood there for a while, smelling a promise of rain on the air, staring at the tombstone. GONE TOO SOON, she read over and over, and nodded to herself, and practiced saying, “It’s fine. It’s fine.” But of course it wasn’t fine, and she wished her mother were there to help, for aside from her and Bridget and her children at school, she didn’t really have anyone else. She couldn’t very well go to her father for advice, since he was no longer speaking to her.

Daisy closed her eyes and took a breath.

It smelled a bit like the woods here, too.

Back home, Daisy took a shower, then stood in front of the bathroom mirror, thinking. The sound of the leaking showerhead drilled its way into her head, drip for drip for drip. At first she welcomed it, hoping it might banish the hole from her mind. After a while, though, hope went away; after a while, the two seemed to be one: the thought of the hole and the sound of the water building, falling, landing, drip … now, after a while, it made her angry. And she decided to do something about it.

By the time Bridget came home, the showerhead was no longer dripping. Not that Bridget noticed. Nor did Daisy say anything about it. She had gone at the shower with screwdrivers and pliers and no idea what to do, had taken things apart and cleaned parts here and there and put things back together, hoping for the best. She was well aware that she might just as easily have made things much worse than they had been, instead of happening to fix the problem, and she did not want to have that conversation with Bridget.

But she had fixed it. She had taken care of it.

And afterwards, the hole had not seemed so bad anymore.

* * *

The children in Daisy’s class acted very much according to conventional expectation. Most of the girls -- little Daisy especially -- were quiet and very neat and tidy, painted within the margins, wrote with the occasional loop and swirl even when all they knew were block letters. Some of the boys, now, were wild and loud, liked to run in the hallways and push each other out of the way, spat in the yard, pulled at girls’ hair and called people names. Daisy didn’t mind too much. It gave her something to do. Cruel boys were something she remembered all too well from her own childhood. Protecting the other kids -- the kind of kid she herself had been -- from the cruel boys, and showing the cruel boys a better way, had been one of her incentives to become a teacher.

“Trollop!”

Daisy couldn’t imagine where Freddie might have heard that word -- wouldn’t a drunken father choose another synonym? -- but he had taken to it like a dog to a bone: once uttered, he couldn’t stop repeating it, no matter how often and vigorously Daisy reprimanded him. He seemed determined to go on until he’d let every single girl in class know that, to him, she was a trollop. When one of the girls came crying to her during recess, Daisy said, “I will deal with him. Until then, ignore him. Can you do that for me? Show him that his words don’t hurt you by pretending that you can’t even hear him. And tell the other girls to do the same, okay?”

For the rest of the day and half the next, Daisy paid close attention to Freddie and the girls he talked to, watched and listened, but did not interfere, and she found that the girls were doing exactly as she asked them: they ignored him beautifully, turning their shoulders on him and acting like he wasn’t there, so much so that even when he jumped into their midst and grabbed at their skirts, all they did was tear themselves loose, move a little ways away, and continue with their play as though nothing had happened.

So in the final moments of class that day, Daisy brought out a surprise: a big bag filled with chocolate bonbons. She showed it to the class, who oohed and aahed adequately, then proceeded to hand out three bonbons apiece -- per girl. Whenever she walked past a boy’s desk, she stopped for the briefest of moments with her hand in the bag -- then walked on until she reached the next girl. After she had been through the entire classroom once, she went another round, handing seconds to the girls and, again, nothing to the boys.

Back at the top of the class, she looked out on the beaming faces of the girls and the crestfallen miens of the boys. “I want you to understand that this is not a punishment,” she lied to the boys. “What has happened here is that the girls get rewarded for doing the right thing -- they paid no mind whatsoever to a classmate who could think of nothing better to do than use a bad word, over and over again, to try and hurt those he should be treating as friends. I have decided not to take anything from that classmate in question -- I am merely not giving him something good, because he has acted in a way that makes him undeserving of a treat.” (She saw that Freddie was crying silently, and did as she’d taught the girls to do.) “As for why none of the boys get a treat: well, none of you boys have been put in this ugly situation in the first place, and so you were not forced to show strength and bravery, and so you have nothing to be rewarded for. So next time one of your mates is mean to a girl, perhaps you should choose to be strong and brave, step in and tell that mate to stop, because what he’s doing is cruel and wrong, and perhaps then you’ll be rewarded too …”

Daisy had an idea.

“… and that’s the bell.”

The hole seemed expectant. As though it had known, the moment the idea had come to Daisy, that she was thinking about it; and doubting herself about it; and rushed home with the sole intent of testing her idea before Bridget came.

She held up a chocolate bonbon for the hole to see.

“You can have this,” she said, “if you’ll stop scaring me. And you can have more, if you’ll be good. I don’t want to be afraid of you. I don’t want you on my mind all the time. I can’t fix you the same way I fixed the shower, it’s not that easy with you, I know … but I can take care of you. I promise I will. If … if you really do count … I will take care of you.”

She unwrapped the bonbon; placed it in the hole with shaking fingers; felt the brush of air stroking her hand. She left the room in a hurry, and sat on the bed for a while.

When she heard Bridget at the door, she scudded back to the kitchen to check. The chocolate was gone. She stared in wonder, heart beating fast but lighter than it had been in a long time.

And it seemed to her that she could hear the hole beat out the same rhythm.

* * *

The days felt longer now; the nights more pleasant. When Daisy smiled, it felt like sunbeams tickling her face. When she nodded, it was all-encompassing affirmation, a salute to every thing, a welcoming of world. When she said yes, she meant it: yes! gladly! A new fire burned within her, a light like never-ending morning.

Bridget noticed something had changed. “Have you started day-drinking or something? Taking any medication I should know about? Are you micro-dosing LSD, Daze? Because babe, it’s not fair not to share.”

Daisy laughed and laughed about Bridget’s guesses. “I’m just happy. Can’t I be happy?”

“Sure, sure, I’m glad you’re happy …”

But Bridget would continue to look at her askance; and for a while it even seemed as though Daisy’s newfound joy would have to come at the expense of Bridget’s own, long-burning flame. (Weren’t you happy before? was the question Daisy knew Bridget didn’t dare ask.) After a couple or two of vital, sunny months though, Bridget had come to terms with Daisy’s new outlook on life, and now they laughed together, said yes together, and the future had never looked so bright. Lying on the living room floor wrapped in towels doused in cold water one summer afternoon, Daisy, drowsy with pleasure, said, “You were right.”

Bridget, half-asleep next to her, chuckled. “About what?”

“About this place. It’s perfect.”

She’d fed the hole this morning. It was very pleased with her care, and had had only nice things to say to her as of late.

Daisy’s eyes sank shut.

She awoke to the sound of Bridget grunting with effort. Her eyes fluttered open still directed at the hole -- and found Bridget beneath it. She was dressed in a coverall, surrounded by pails of different sizes and various kinds of tools, and struggling with the stepladder.

Daisy pushed herself up on her elbows. “What are you doing?”

Bridget grinned viciously. “You got me thinking. This place is perfect, yes -- or could be, if it weren’t for that darned thing up there. So I went out and got some stuff, and now I’m gonna do something about it.”

Daisy’s body went numb. “You’re what?”

“I’m gonna deal with this. I’m gonna close it once and for all, and then our little paradise will be complete.”

The towels, long-warmed up by summer and Daisy’s own heat, suddenly felt like coats of ice. She shot up from the floor, frostbit, and said, “No.”

Bridget laughed; stopped when Daisy didn’t. “You’re serious.”

“I -- yes. I am.”

Bridget seemed very unsure of herself -- or of Daisy. “But you hate that thing. You’re scared of it.”

“It … not anymore. I’m not scared of it anymore.”

“Okay … well, that’s good. But it hardly changes anything, does it? The damn thing’s ugly. It needs closing, and needs it bad. I don’t know about you -- apparently -- but I don’t want a hole in my wall.”

She turned her back on Daisy to continue fumbling with the ladder. Panic sharpened Daisy’s ears. And it wasn’t just her own panic. It was the hole’s. She heard it beating loud and clear, as fast as her own heart.

“Bridge, you can’t.”

“I can and I will.” Bridget finally had the ladder figured out.

“You mustn’t.”

“Oh, I believe I must.” She put a foot on the bottom-most step.

Stop her!

Was it her own voice in her head? Was it the hole speaking? Daisy couldn’t tell. All she knew was that the voice was right. Bridget needed to be stopped.

The crash wasn’t as loud as Daisy would have expected, though the mayhem was considerable. Pails were rolling everywhere. One’s lid had come off, and a trail of white paint smeared itself across the floor, like a giant snail’s track. The radio had fallen off the counter, turned itself on; it was emitting static.

The ladder lay on the floor. It had spilled Bridget onto the rug. She lay there in the sunlight as though she had never gotten up. The trickle of red around her head was even more striking than the crescent of white paint, and for a moment Daisy feared the worst. But then she saw Bridget was breathing. She heard the hole breathing, too.

Nothing was lost. All hearts were beating, and they could yet beat as one.

* * *

Little Daisy asking, “Do you have any children?”

A sunny day at school; the classroom’s windows open wide to admit the cheerful light, the fresh breeze. The children drawing their mommies and daddies, perfect pictures of picture-perfect families.

Miss Daisy, warm and soft and happy: “Yes, dear. I have you.”

Little Daisy frowning; snorting, full of a child’s blatant, unselfconscious contempt; explaining the self-evident: “We don’t count. I meant babies of your own, at home. With your husband.”

The light suddenly harsh, painful; the breeze too cold, shivery; the classroom walls too close, the windows holes to jump out of, avenues of flight.

Daisy loved all her children. Even when they were cruel, as children sometimes are.

We don’t count …

* * *

This is the heart of the woods, Daisy … You’re my heart, Daisy … This place … this place …

“This place is perfect, Bridge.”

Bridget hadn’t woken up yet, but that was alright; it was easier to tell her things while she was asleep. The cut on her temple had stopped bleeding, and her breath was going smoothly -- at one with the hole’s breath, which came as no surprise to Daisy. Daisy had arranged Bridget’s body in a more comfortable position, on the rug on the floor where they had spent so many hours, whiling the days away. She looked as peaceful there as ever.

“You were right from the beginning. It took me a while to see it. I’m sorry I pretended -- I shouldn’t have lied, no one ever should, but I guess I couldn’t help myself. Then again, my lying, and lying, and lying again is exactly what led us here. And I’m so happy to be here now. With you. In our place.”

A breath of air; a rumbling, and a beating. Daisy looked to the hole. It wouldn’t be long now. She nodded encouragement to the hole, which responded in kind: we count …

“One, two, three,” Daisy said, and giggled, then turned back to Bridget. “This place is home. And this up there … it’s not a mouth at all, Bridge, nor an eye. Without it, there is no place. Without it, there is no me, Bridge, and no us … not an eye, not a mouth, but -- a heart.”

Scuttle scuttle; clickety-clack; a rasping and a scraping, a shy and careful flutter from within the heart in the wall: Daisy, sitting next to Bridget, watched as thin, long branches emerged from the hole, naked tendrils that probed the air and tested their hold on the wall. They found the place to be to their liking, and rapidly spread in all directions, all around and over the hanging cupboards and across the kitchen counter, casting themselves out, unfurling and lengthening -- flourishing, thriving, as leaves sprouted from buds and needles grew like fine tender hairs. The branches wove a beautiful tapestry on the walls, and then a carpet as they extended across the floor. Daisy was beaming all the while, but solemnly -- happier than ever, but more aware than ever of her responsibility.

“This place is more than home,” Daisy said as the searching branches reached Bridget and, ever so careful, touched her, climbed her, crisscrossed all over her and wrapped themselves around her. “This place is alive, and up there is where its heart beats. It needs me. It needs you, too. It needs us in different ways. But it needs us, Bridge. I love you.”

Daisy heard the branches whisper and the leaves sigh, heard the heart and her own cooing and babbling with pleasure, heard her own mother’s voice in her head, and felt a strange warmth and a rare, thorny joy. There was still enough of Bridget visible through the branches to look at her and see how beautiful she was, to know how much she loved her; and, smiling, Daisy lay down next to her, embraced her. The branches and vines, the leaves and the needles, found Daisy’s body, too, and delighted in it. Soon the three of them were one again.

“I love you so, so much.”