Short Fiction · Chapter
Lost Hearts explained
In September 1811, orphan Stephen Elliott arrives at Aswarby Hall to live with his reclusive cousin, Mr.
What happens
In September 1811, orphan Stephen Elliott arrives at Aswarby Hall to live with his reclusive cousin, Mr. Abney, a scholar of pagan mysteries. Mr. Abney seems kindly but repeatedly asks Stephen's age, noting his birthday is nearly a year away. Stephen soon experiences unsettling dreams and sightings of ghostly children, a girl and a ragged boy with a gaping wound in his chest. On the night of March 24, 1812, Stephen hears strange cries and sees the spectral pair again. Rushing to Mr. Abney's study, he finds the door locked and hears a choked cry. After forcing entry, Mr. Abney is found dead with a lacerated wound exposing his heart. Papers reveal Abney had been murdering children to absorb their hearts for spiritual enlightenment, with Stephen intended as the final victim. The ghostly children are implied to have exacted vengeance.
Themes in this chapter
Supernatural and the Uncanny
Ghostly children with transparent hands and gaping wounds appear, and strange cries echo across the grounds, blurring the line between dream and reality.
Antiquarianism and the Past
Mr. Abney is deeply immersed in ancient texts, pagan mysteries, and the writings of Hermes Trismegistus, using them to justify his horrific experiments.
The Curse of Knowledge
Mr. Abney's pursuit of forbidden knowledge leads him to commit murder, ultimately resulting in his own violent death at the hands of his victims' spirits.
Decay and Mortality
The story culminates in Mr. Abney's gruesome death with a lacerated heart, and the ghostly children embody the decay and mortality of his victims.
Characters to notice
- Stephen Elliott
Orphan boy, twelve years old, who comes to live with his cousin Mr. Abney at Aswarby Hall.
- Mr. Abney
Reclusive scholar of pagan mysteries and owner of Aswarby Hall; secretly a murderer who kills children to absorb their hearts.
- Mrs. Bunch
Housekeeper at Aswarby Hall who befriends Stephen and makes him feel at home.
- Parkes
Staid servant who escorts Stephen to Mrs. Bunch's room upon his arrival.
Key passages
“The best means of effecting the required absorption is to remove the heart from the living subject, to reduce it to ashes, and to mingle them with about a pint of some red wine, preferably port.”
To absorb a person's essence, one must cut out their heart while they are alive, burn it to ash, and mix the ashes with red wine.
Mr. Abney's written instructions for his occult ritual, revealing the method of his murders.
“On the left side of his chest there opened a black and gaping rent; and there fell upon Stephen’s brain, rather than upon his ear, the impression of one of those hungry and desolate cries that he had heard resounding over the woods of Aswarby all that evening.”
The ghostly boy had a dark, open wound on his chest, and Stephen sensed a desperate, mournful cry that he had heard echoing across the estate.
Stephen's vision of the ghostly boy, whose wound and cry reveal him as one of Mr. Abney's victims.