The Wayward Heart

Chapter 1
Chance Encounter

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Chapter Description: Daniel is on his way home when he collides with an emaciated woman. She gifts him with a silver ring, which Daniel finds has a strange magic within.

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Daniel’s mind wandered as he drove home from work. It had been another frustrating day at Imperial Holdings. A quasi-modern high rise, located on the outskirts of the city core in Boston, and the site of Daniel’s weekly toil. Reports to finish, questions to answer, helping bosses read reports because they were too lazy to learn how to interpret their own data. If that wasn’t tedious enough, the office politics had jumped up a notch. Vanessa was on the warpath, and had found an error in one of Daniel’s reports - just a transcription error, really, from when he had imported data from the server to the spreadsheet. Vanessa’s email about it though (CCing her boss and Daniel’s boss) had made it seem like this was a “constant problem”. Vanessa didn’t want Daniel’s job, as it was a lateral move for her. She just wanted to demonstrate her superiority, and always enjoyed pointing out the faults of others.

If that wasn’t enough, his coworker Cassandra at work had confided to Daniel that she’d found a boyfriend. He had cheered her on, but inside it hurt him. It shouldn’t, of course, as Daniel was in a long term relationship, engaged and living with his fiancé. But since the day Cassandra had walked into his work cubicle, he had desired her. She was short, abnormally short - barely five feet tall, petite and had the most beautiful brown eyes. When he made love to Rachel, his fiancé, he now thought of Cassandra. But she was over a decade his junior, a woman in her twenties with her life ahead of her, while Daniel’s 40th birthday was looming. The heart, or loins, want what they want, and so it was a bitter pill to swallow when Daniel knew Cassandra had moved on with life.

Not that there had been any actual chance for the two of them. They had office chemistry, but there had never been any elements of romance. But she knew about his unhappiness with Rachel, and that he’d been thinking of backing away. Daniel sighed aloud, pulling his Ford Focus onto Rowan drive, and checking his speed. The cops watched this stretch of road for speeders constantly, and it had been two tickets this year for Daniel. He had a habit of driving on autopilot. Setting the cruise control, he found himself returning to the vein of thought. To thinking of where he was, and of Rachel.

Rachel would be marriage number two for Daniel. His first wife, Elaine, was long gone from his life. They’d parted after the flames had died out, and never really belonged together in the first place. Daniel had been heartbroken by it, and spent several years alone on purpose, getting his feet again, focusing on his work. He’d met Rachel by chance while on vacation, and the two had fallen in love. But then, once they’d moved in together, Daniel had found the real woman. A neat freak who loved to have loads of possessions. Everything had it’s place, but only Rachel ever seemed to know what that place was. Daniel was not a messy sort of person, really, but he found it exhausting to constantly clean around a house full of things. It didn’t feel like his house to him, cluttered with knick knacks, decorative table fruits, pictures of ballerinas done in abstract, and photos of her family. There was very little “Daniel” in their apartment. Maybe that was his indication that he should leave. Would Rachel’s life really change, aside from her bank account, if Daniel wasn’t there?

He pulled his car into the apartment building lot, his mind still mulling and distracted. So it was that when the figure stumbled in front of his car, he almost ran it over. His mind snapped back to attention in time, barely, and he jammed on the brakes hard. The car slid to a halt, and the figure fell over. He thought it was a woman, but Daniel had only had a brief glance of her before she went down. Cursing, he put the car in park and jumped out, rushing to the front of the car in a panic.

There was a woman lying on the pavement, shaking and struggling to get up. It didn’t look like Daniel had hit her, but the shock of seeing an oncoming car must have knocked her over. She looked frail, dressed in a t-shirt that was hanging on her skinny body, and tights that were so loose that they might fall off. Her feet and hands were his first glance at her actual body - thin, almost skeletal. As she looked up at him, he saw that her face was gaunt. Dark brown eyes peered out of sunken cheeks, the contours of the skull under her face disturbingly visible. She looked like a cancer survivor, or a victim, though she still had shoulder length brown hair. She looked like a skeleton that had skinned someone and was wearing them like a tight fitting body suit. The woman coughed, and accepted Daniel’s hand to get up. He didn’t like the touch; it was like touching a corpse.

“Are you all right? I didn’t see you until you walked in front of the car,” Daniel apologized.

The woman shivered, and looked into Daniel’s eyes. She was crying, he guessed from the pain of the fall.

“I’m all right. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Honestly, it’s not your fault,” she insisted. Her voice was shaky, weak sounding.

Daniel got the woman to her feet, but was doubtful she would walk far. She looked ready to fall over again. He wondered if she was fighting cancer, wasting away from the disease, and struggling to keep ahead of some treatment. Or was she anorexic, starving herself out of madness and some belief it would make her beautiful? He didn’t know, but he felt as if he should help. His workday was thrown out of his mind, forgotten for the current crisis.

“Do you need a ride somewhere? You seem shaky right now,” he offered.

The woman shook her head meaning no. Instead, she took a silver ring off of her hand, and to Daniel’s bewilderment, pressed it into his hand. It was cold to the touch.

“Please, take this. I don’t need it anymore, and I’ve caused you trouble. If you want to help me, take this from me,” the woman said, her voice trembling.

Daniel looked at the ring in his hand. It was made of silver, round and plain almost like a wedding band. There was some inscription on the inside, but he would need better light to read it. Looking up, he shook his head.

“I can’t take jewellery from you for almost hitting you with my car, miss. You don’t need to pay me for something that’s essentially my fault. I should have been paying more attention!”

The woman closed her hands around Daniel’s, and shook her head vehemently.

“No! I don’t want it anymore. If you want to help me, just agree to take it, all right?”

Daniel frowned, and then shrugged. What was the harm? This woman was so thin and frail, she might be delirious in hunger. He could take the ring, hold on to it, and give it back if she came looking for it. At this point he felt he needed to be done with the skeletal woman, and get home before this scene got stranger. His urge to help was shrinking rapidly, and the sickness she was under repulsed him.

“Fine, I’ll take it,” he said, still confused, growing anxious to be done with the interaction.

The woman smiled, as if in relief. Her teeth were not good, further sign she was sick, and she began to walk away from Daniel, almost stumbling as her sneakers struggled to slip off her emaciated feet. Daniel watched her go, then with a resigned shrug, pocketed the ring and got back in his car.

A few minutes later he was inside his apartment at last, slipping off his stiff work shoes. He changed into more comfortable clothes, a plain white t-shirt and relaxed fit jeans. Daniel had a report to finish off tonight, but that could wait until after dinner. Rachel would not be home until mid-evening; she was a nurse, and worked shifts that varied from week to week. Another notch against them working out, in the long run. Daniel was not a creature of habit, but their varying shifts made him feel like he had to wait around for her to come home before he could “get on” with the evening. He’d complained about it once, and Rachel had teased him, calling him the “dutiful househusband, waiting for his woman to come home.” She’d thought it funny. Daniel was less amused.

Emptying his pockets onto a small dish on his dresser, he paused as he saw the thin woman’s ring. Recalling the inscription, he tested the ring on his fingers. It was a small woman’s ring, at first glance, but he was surprised to find it fit onto his ring finger. He was not a small man - average height, around 5 feet 10, and not heavy. Shrugging, he left it on as he walked to the living room, intent on taking a better look at the curious “gift.”

Sitting on his couch, he looked around the living room. The coffee table had a few magazines on it, arranged neatly, and a central bowl of wax fruit on display. There was also a collection of marching animals, like something out of the Jungle Book, that went in a semi circle from one end of the table to the other. To his right a side table had a caddy for the TV remotes, and a decorative vase of vaguely African origin. On his left, three pictures were arranged in a neat formation. One of Rachel and Daniel together, another of Rachel’s parents, and a third of a sunset over a jungle. Rachel loved her decorations, but Daniel found them often frivolous and irritating. He wouldn’t choose to live like this, and all attempts to ask Rachel to reduce the “stuff” that covered every surface had always ended in fights.

He left the TV off for the moment, and taking the ring off his finger, looked at it carefully. The inscription inside was in an engraver’s cursive, and ran around the inside of the band.

Your hearts desire shall be granted for as long as the ring is yours.

A decidedly strange inscription for a ring. It was, to Daniel’s eye, a wedding band of some kind, for it lacked the kind of fanciful decoration he would expect in a fashion ring. What kind of partner would write such a message to their betrothed? As he held the ring in his hand, leaning back on the couch, he wondered. What kind of hearts desire could have been meant? Graduation ring? Maybe a cheeky partner, being overly poetic? Magic ring? None of them really fit, and the source of the ring made him shiver, and consider another possibility. Had someone given her the ring as a source of strength against her disease? Had her giving the ring up been a sign she was giving up? That was a chilling thought, and Daniel decided he should put the ring down, tuck it away until he could find out what to do with it.

As he walked back down the hall to the bedroom, he paused. There was a sharp, almost painful sensation growing over his groin as he walked, and it grew worse even as she stopped. Daniel cried out in pain, doubling over and falling to his knees on the carpet in the hall. It was like someone had grabbed his balls very, very hard and was squeezing on them tighter and tighter. He cried out in pain, and dropped the ring on the floor. He noticed, through the haze of rising agony, that the ring was trembling, vibrating and clattering in place on the floor. Then he threw up, and fell into blackness.

Daniel dreamed.

He was on a porch, or perhaps a dock, for it was both. A wide river, fast moving, flowed past the dock, and surrounding it were thick woods, falling off only as the thick maples and elms approached the shore. Behind him was a small log cabin, old and somewhat dilapidated in appearance. He had no impression of familiarity about the scene. At the end of the dock sat a man, feet in the water, dressed in jeans only. He was not strong looking, but thin and gaunt, and his hair was long and white. He appeared to be fishing.

Slowly Daniel approached him, and was there in a moment, moving from place to place the way one does in dreams. He was that the man was wizened with age and years. He had a long, straggly beard, white like the thinning hair upon his head, and one eye was covered in cataracts. The other was a pale, almost milky blue. He was pale skinned, and spots of age could be seen across his flesh. The fishing pole he used was old, a large rod and reel finished in wood, with slightly rusted metal fastenings. He cranked the reel a little, and produced a tinny sounding wheeze of aged metal.

The man looked up at Daniel.

“So, a new owner for the ring I see. Sheila found someone to give it to, and you accepted. What’s your name, young man?” said the old man. His voice was full of breath, old bust somehow comforting.

“Daniel,” he answered, truthfully. Like in all dreams, his thought was slow, dull, and hard to fashion. He sat down beside the old man.

“Well Daniel, the ring is yours now, until you give it to another. It has a power, a very great power. The power to make a wish come true,” the old man advised. He turned to his fishing once more.

“A wish? Are you kidding?” replied Daniel. “And who are you?”

The old man toyed with the reel for a moment, and only the noise of the rusty rod and the gurgling river greeted Daniel’s dream ears. It was the kind of dream that one who has woken would describe as ‘vivid’, for noise and sensation were present, and sharp. At last the old man replied.

“I am Fisher, if you must have a name to call me Daniel. No, it is not my real name. Names are dangerous, and even in dreams I have learned not to give them out. And I am not kidding. That ring is not what it appears to be at all, and it is dangerous, exceedingly dangerous. It has already set in motion your wish, your hearts desire.”

Daniel stood, growing hot with anger.

“This is making no sense, Fisher. Magic isn’t real!”

Fisher ignored the rising anger, and did not turn from his angling. He spoke, and as he did, the sound of the river seemed to fade away, and Daniel felt almost like he was falling.

“Magic is real Daniel, and it is people like me who keep it hidden, and keep it from hurting the world again. Once magic lay everywhere for people to find, and they brought ruin to mankind with it. For magic was not designed for our uses. It is stolen power, secrets of how the world works.”

Daniel fell off the dock, but not into water. He was falling into darkness, and the dock vanished into the inky dark as he fell. But the voice of Fisher stayed with him, close.

“In old days, the words of power were found, and studied, and thrust into words and commands to suit mankind. It was clumsy, crude, like smashing square pegs into round holes. The magic would warp, slip through our fingers, and bite us back. Few, very few of us are ever born with the right insight to shape magic the way its meant to be used. I am one of those, a wizard.”

Daniel was panicking, the fall seemed to be going faster, and he wondered if he would die when he hit bottom.

“That ring is a spell, though it may look like a ring to you. It latches onto a new person, and finds their greatest desire, and gives it to them. Gives it to them in a way they never intended, and would never want. It is a curse. And the longer you possess it, the more chance there is that new desires enter your heart, and the ring grants more, until your life is in ruins around your wayward heart.”

Daniel felt something against his cheek. He wasn’t falling any longer. The dream was falling apart around him, his mind slowly dragging itself back to consciousness. In his twilight state between dream and waking, he heard Fisher’s voice, now distant, dreamlike.

“We will talk again. Perhaps you will have the strength to bring the spell to me, and rid the world of this curse.”

And the voice was gone. Daniel opened his eyes, slowly, and the dream began to haze over, his waking mind struggling to hold onto fragments. What he dreamed about? An old man fishing? Spells? Magic? How did he end up here, laying on the carpet, in the hallway. Nearby him, on the ground, was the silver ring. Memory returned. The pain in his crotch, the agony. But there was no pain now, and he didn’t have any good reason to continue lying on the floor, so he sat up. Instantly, without doubt, he knew there was something very wrong.

For one, his hair. Daniel’s brown hair was always in a very easy to manage, professional haircut. But he could feel the weight of hair on his head, and saw it tumble down in front of his face. It was long, and wavy. The second was his shirt. It hung on him, oversized as if he was a child dressing in his parents clothing. Looking down he confirmed this; the plain white t-shirt was so big, he would look right down the neck hole and see his chest. And there, to his shock, was the third indication that something bizarre had happened. On his chest, clear of his curly brown chest hair, smooth skinned, were a pair of breasts. No pornographic, jiggling globes, but petite, perfect breasts with soft brown nipples.

Daniel jumped to his feet, and found his jeans comically huge, sliding right down his legs and pooling on the ground. He fell over again, caught up in the jeans, and kicked them off, noticing his smooth legs, the subtle thickness of his hips and thighs. His t-shirt hung just low enough at the moment to cover up his groin, but the memory of the pain returned. Men’s penises didn’t ‘feel’ much when they weren’t sporting an erection, but the absence of it was suddenly acute. Instead he felt something else between his thighs, a strange sensation as his mind digested the presence of a different anatomical attribute. Trembling, he reached out his hand, noting how small and slender it looked, his hairless arms. He pulled the t-shirt up.

He was a woman. And that was a pussy.

Daniel struggled to his feet, and was in the bathroom in moments. Clicking on the lights, he stared into the mirror reflection, and wondered who the hell the cute little woman was looking back at him. She was small, this woman, maybe 5 feet tall at most. Her hair was a beautiful chestnut brown, dark brown like Daniel’s own hair. This could be his little sister, after all. Her face was smooth, attractive and had the blush of youth, a twenty-something who might be attending college. Where Daniel’s eyes had been a blue, this cute little woman’s eyes were a chocolate brown, and immediately Daniel was reminded of Cassandra at work.

“My heart’s desire,” said Daniel, said the girl.

With a chill, Daniel remembered a snatch of his dream. The ring had done this to him, to her, and given Daniel the desire strongest within his/her heart. Cassandra. His co-worker he lusted after, the woman he wanted to be with, to possess for his own. It had made Daniel into the object of his desire, and in an effect, given her wanted she wanted. Daniel backed against the door jam to the bathroom, shaking her hear, long wavy brown hair falling into her eyes.

“No no no no no,” she panted.

On her ring finger, the silver ring appeared, unnoticed. It was hers now, after all, and until she gave it away, her hearts desire would be granted.

 

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