*A/N* VERY rough draft. Criticism is appreciated.

Prologue The Village Stir                 There were whispers that were ringing around the town square. Old women formed little groups like school girls, their murmurs feverish and excited. Marva could see the lines on their faces struggling to stay serious. She wandered through, there and yet invisible, the loner, vaguely wondering if anybody was going to tell her what had happened to put Oppida in such chaos. Then she noticed that most of the clusters of old townsfolk had gathered around the doctor’s office. Some even peered through the windows.             Marva, her lip slightly twisted and head cocked to the side, strode in her floating sort of way up to the office. Her slight form fell into the crowd unnoticed, as always. She raised her head above the hunched gray backs of the mob and tried to see through the windows. One man told her to move aside, and his wife agreed. Marva didn’t say anything, just did as he asked.             A man about her age in a sheriff’s dark red uniform stepped out of the doctor’s building. He removed his hat and announced to the crowd that the doctor had deceased. A collective murmuring shook the group. The sheriff continued on to say that nobody knew his true, full name because of his advanced age, but may he rest in peace. Marva squinted at him. Her eyes widened a bit as she recognized him. They widened more when she recognized the fear that was abnormal inside the darkness of his eyes.                 The clusters of people meandered away, and Marva made her silent way up the stairs to the back of the sheriff.             “How did he die, Alexander?” she asked, her voice raspy and harsh from lack of use.             The man jumped and turned, his eyes wide momentarily. “Macy,” he breathed. “How did you--”             “I’m not Macy. Tell me what happened.”             Alexander’s eyes darted down, then up, then back down again. “Nobody knows how old he was, Macy--”             She took a step closer. “I know when you’re lying, Ander,” she whispered hoarsely.             Alexander took a step back. “He shot himself in the head,” he said solemnly, looking her steadily in the eye.             Marva didn’t gasp, or act shocked. Alexander opened his mouth and began to say something, but she didn’t let him finish, only ran. And as the wind rushed through her short, dark hair, she only thing she understood was that she had to know, she had to know everything.               Chapter One Mrs. Ogeniaw             Ander entered the house cautiously, jumped as the door creaked.             “Settle down, Og. He’s probably not even here,” the dark haired man behind him said.             “But he never leaves, Kale,” Ander hissed back. The man behind him chuckled.             “Just go in the house, Og.”             Ander did, but still just as hesitantly. He stepped gingerly across the creaky old floorboards, his hand on his pistol. Kale closed the door behind them, which only made him more nervous.             “I remember when I used to come here as a kid,” Kale said, his voice ringing out in the darkness. Ander smiled slightly.             “Yeah, me too. Always quiet. Never took his eyes off that jar, the one with the heart,” he said, relaxing a bit.             “The mysterious jar,” Kale chuckled. “Come on, let’s check the lab.”             Ander followed behind his partner, tense again, pistol at the ready. They maneuvered down a dark, steep stairwell, until they reached a door. Kale looked back at him.             “I’m going to knock, and if he doesn’t answer, I’ll kick it down,” he said intensely.             “Okay,” Ander said timidly, his heart racing at a thousand miles per hour.             Kale knocked, to no answer. “Ready?” he asked. “One, two, three!” The door fell with a crash and they both rushed into the room.             “We’re clear,” Kale said, once they had checked all the areas. Ander relaxed his gun and looked at the jar that sat beside the examining table.             “There it is,” he said, striding towards it. And then, before he knew what was happening, somebody was on him, wrapping arms around his chest and reaching for his raised gun. There were a few shouts and shoves and something falling to the ground with a thump, and then he was released, his gun no longer in his hand.             He whirled around and saw the old, shaking doctor, tears in his eyes, with the pistol pressed against his own temple. Ander shouted something, he wasn’t sure what, to try and make him stop. Kale’s gun was all the way across the room, and Kale himself seemed stuck to the spot.             “Don’t let him do it, Og,” Kale said.             “I can’t, Kale! I can’t!” Ander shouted back, whirling to face Kale. Then, he heard wheezing laughter. They both faced the old man, who smiled sadly and pulled the trigger.                          Ander sat on the porch of the former doctor’s building, running his hands through his dark hair. Kale sat down next to him.             “You all right, Og?”             “It was my gun,” Ander said.             “It wasn’t your fault,” Kale replied.             “Yes, it was, Kale!” Ander snapped. “I wasn’t ready.”             “Neither of us were!” Kale replied sharply. “We had checked the room and he wasn’t there! It wasn’t you.”             “Never mind,” Ander said, determinedly going silent. They both sat there, the quiet filling them up.             “I saw you talking to the new girl,” Kale said. “What was wrong with her?”             “Nothing,” Ander said stonily.             “She acted like she knew you,” Kale prompted, trying to catch Ander’s eye.             Ander paused before answering. “No, I’ve never met her in my life.”                         Marva stopped at the front door. She didn’t really want to knock, but she had to get answers. She took a deep breath and pushed her hair back behind her ear. She knocked on the door.             A voice said something muffled from behind the door. Then there was the yipping of dogs and the sounds of shuffling feet.             The door cracked and an old woman’s head peeked out. “What is it? Who are you?” she asked.             “Macy Aven,” Marva whispered. The old woman’s eyes widened.             “Please come in!” she said, opening the door wider.             Marva did, and nothing had changed since she had last been in the house. There was still old furniture, torn up by the dogs; her collection of owls, her same pots and pans. The woman beckoned for her to sit down.             “It’s wonderful to see you, Miss Aven. Have you spoken to my dear grandson lately?”             Marva struggled to smile. “No,” she lied, “I haven’t.”             “Well, he is with the law enforcement now,” the woman said proudly. She peered at Marva. “But you didn’t come to chat, did you?” she asked.             Marva swallowed and looked down at her feet. “Mrs. Ogeniaw,” she said, “I would like to know about the doctor.”             Mrs. Ogeniaw sat back in her chair. “An interesting man,” she said. “A dark story.”             Marva held back her desperation and waited patiently for her to tell the story.             “In the doctor’s lab there was a jar,” Mrs. Ogeniaw began. Marva straightened, at full attention. “In it contained a heart, a woman’s heart, from what is understood. He watched it each day for hours on end. When patients came in, he did his work but scarcely kept his eyes off it. They were calculating, observant, watchful. But in them too was something that only the most careful saw. The pain, the longing that resided in only the deepest depths of those stark green eyes.             Some wonder if he killed the bearer of the heart. Others think he loved the woman who held it. Some believe that she tore it from her chest and left it there, and that she still roams the land, heartless and cold. None are true, however.”             “Then what is true?” Marva burst in. Mrs. Ogeniaw smiled.             “I don’t know,” she said. She leaned forward. “Some things aren’t meant to be known, Macy,” she whispered. Marva watched her intensely as she leaned back into her chair again.             “I really must nap, Miss Aven. Goodbye; it really was nice to see you again.”             Marva strode out of the house quickly with no reply.