The Well of the Golden Heart

By Julia Starling

The world is in trouble: the curtain of meaninglessness has engulfed it, and people live a life of dullness and suffering.

Isabella is a young princess who doesn’t fit in with her royal family. Her cruel mother throws her in the dungeon and declares that the princess has been sent to finishing school – indefinitely. Isabella starts digging her way out and finds a well. She dives in, and deep in the water she finds a half of a golden heart that fills her with energy and life: the antidote to the illness consuming the world. She sets on a quest to find the other half of the golden heart, and with the help of friends in the forest she gets close to her goal – when trouble hits. A wizard entraps her and aims to steal the golden heart for himself. He makes her forget who she is and keeps her in his castle engaged to marry him.

Will the owner of the other half of the golden heart succeed in waking up the princess from her stupor on time? Will the united golden heart liberate the world from the curtain of meaninglessness, or will the wizard succeed at keeping the populace entrapped?

The Well of the Golden Heart is a tale of self-discovery, finding true love and the perils that are found along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jun 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9781647508807

Julia Starling

Julia Starling is a medical doctor and psychotherapist. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she spent five years in the UK finishing her clinical studies and then moved to California to complete her psychotherapy training. She currently lives in Northern New Mexico, where she keeps a busy psychotherapy practice and writes her novels.

Book preview

About the Author

Julia Starling is a medical doctor and psychotherapist. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she spent five years in the UK finishing her clinical studies and then moved to California to complete her psychotherapy training. She currently lives in Northern New Mexico, where she keeps a busy psychotherapy practice and writes her novels.

Dedication

To Alexander Eulert, whose help and patient dedication kept me going.

Copyright Information ©

Julia Starling 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Starling, Julia

The Well of the Golden Heart

ISBN 9781647508531 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781647508807 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024901623

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Chapter 1

Nobody knows how it happened. Many developed theories, and desperate explanations to withstand the fear of the ominous phenomenon. But, in all reality, people were clueless.

The world had turned opaque. Nothing in it shined brightly, not even the twinkle of mischief in an intelligent child’s eye. A curtain of meaninglessness had enveloped the Earth, a filter so thick that the moon was pale even when pregnant, and the stars were scanty and always distant. The sun’s light was forced through the dense sift, rendering it devoid of its life-giving powers. Most plants, trees and shrubs had died a slow death, and the outdoor landscape was gradually replaced with rogue office plants, indoor specimens that had long ago adapted to darkness or inadequate lighting.

Everything looked gray and sterile. The air was constantly balmy, unforgivingly stale. There were no seasons, the weather was always the same, and there was no temperature difference between the indoors and the outdoors—were it not for the constant air conditioning, compulsorily on, in every residence and public building. It felt like being in captivity, transiting through the likes of hospital hallways, underground labs, or the sensation that people get when subjected to protracted underground transport: grimy, tired, dirty. There was no way out. Not even the wind would bring in renewal: it was hot and sticky; shy, tentative blows glued the particles together, in an incestuous pool of inescapable stagnation.

People’s skin was gray and opaque—it had lost all vigor and healthy glow. The wealthy afforded makeup that would conceal the extent of their decrepitude—and made them look like strange dolls—but the rest of the populace looked plain and quite lifeless.

To make matters worse, a horrifying epidemic had humanity by the throat: a black hole, invisible to the eye, but painfully felt, had begun growing in people’s chests. Everyone knew that they had one, no matter how hard they tried to deny it, no matter how forcefully they tried to fool themselves and others: it was always there, gnawing away at their happiness, making them fearful and emotionally unstable. It made people second-guess themselves, lose their faith in a greater power, and lose their way to their true destiny. It made intelligent adults behave immaturely and irresponsibly, looking for answers in absurd places, losing their common sense and sometimes their dignity, in their desperate attempts at filling the seemingly never-satisfied, bottomless hole.

The hole was furious and capricious, like the black holes known in Astrophysics; those mysterious, unfathomable vacuums of the expansive universe. But, instead of galaxy matter, it would eat up the first hint of warmth, any shred of an incipient glow, out of people’s bodies. It would sometimes force humans to focus on their heartbeat until they no longer wished to go on living, it would often make them prey to dread, to a deep fear of being by themselves, and to even a worse fear of being in silence. It would tug at people constantly and impede their development of a peaceful and healthy existence.

At first, nobody wanted to admit that they had developed the hole, to avoid being singled out and rejected by the rest. But, as the epidemics grew to the point that holes inside people’s chests were the norm rather than a curious rarity, people began looking for a cure, and started to demand relief from doctors and from those in power. The trouble was that doctors and authorities had also developed it, and had no idea how to treat it, no idea what had caused it.

In academic circles, it was noted—and kept away from common knowledge—that the holes first started to develop among those in the upper classes: it seemed like, the more money and worldly success somebody had amassed, the more prone they were to fall victim to the hole. But, as the once spacious Earth shrank to the size of a global village, the issues of the rich became what the lower classes eagerly aspired to; it was not long till the disease spread to all sectors of society, affecting every race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status.

Soon enough, rumors began to circulate about a magical cure: The Well of the Golden Heart. It was said that this enchanted well had the power to restore people’s chests to normality and give them the peace, contentment, and health that they so desperately yearned for. Large contingencies of soldiers were sent out on the quest to find this legendary well. For generations, nobody could claim, with either certainty or truth, that they had found the enchanted well. Factions developed and fought one another, each side claiming that they possessed the secret to the path that led to the miracle waters. But, in all reality, the well was nowhere to be found. And then Father Pompous came along.

The decorated priest, from the order of the Atheist Reform, claimed that he had personally come into contact with the well. He professed that he who possesses the gift of blind faith and follows his doctrine with no questions shall be rewarded with a visit to the Well of the Golden Heart. Father Pompous utilized all manner of tricks to make his skin glow brighter than the rest. He claimed that the well had granted him his unusual glow and that anyone coming in contact with the healing waters would eventually enjoy perpetual health, happiness, and beauty.

The priest was a handsome man, and many accepted his doctrine as fact. And it was easy to suspend disbelief when in his presence: he would charm the populace with his expensive tricks, comfortable church grounds, and attractive charisma. Thousands and then millions flocked to his temple, happy to stay in line for hours, just for a quick peek at the celebrity holy man. After all, he was the one who had once unified religion and made the world livable again. And now that he had also found the cure to humanity’s biggest enemy, the sky was the limit for this grown boy from Greedland.

Not so fast, said the queen to her most powerful subject.

Queen Desire had other plans. From a small village herself, she had risen to the very top of the coop—and she was not about to let anyone take her throne from under her.

Chapter 2

Queen Desire woke up to the temple’s bells. The sound was unfamiliar: it was the first morning, in more than thirty years, since the kingdom had been greeted with bells at dawn.

Your Highness, I whispered, your breakfast is ready.

The queen opened her eyes and saw the first rays of sunlight hit the statue by the mantelpiece; it was an image of Mercury stepping on a snake and sending a message up to the heavens. The marble was black, and the reflection cast a yellowy, semi-opaque glow around it.

Wake up the children, she ordered, as I helped my mistress get inside her white silk robe—which also looked yellow-tinged and matt. I will be there shortly. I politely dismissed myself. The queen walked up to the gothic window and looked down at her waking kingdom. The sky was still fighting darkness, and the stars above looked pale and far away. The moon was full, but its light was dim and subdued in brilliance. Everything out there was enveloped in a mantle of gloom-tinged ochre, like a windowless environment, filled with dreadful corridors, eerily lit by fluorescent bulbs. To the north, the church shined a little brighter, with its extra wattage. The first batch of followers lined up outside its doors, waiting for their dose of holy water to hold them over till their next visit. In all truth, they were consuming a placebo—but many swore that it made them partially relieved from the nasty symptoms of the chronic black hole that inhabited their chest.

The father must know what he’s doing, the queen said to herself. She took a deep breath, but the air was thick and humid: she did not feel refreshed. She brought her right hand to her chest, rubbing it gently as if attempting to soothe a lingering wound.

She stared at the horizon for a moment, pensive and longing: the pain in her chest intensified. She rushed to her night table, opened the drawer, and extracted a handful of pills, which she swallowed with both zest and resentment. She then walked to the vanity mirror, and briefly examined her face—but she did not like what she saw. Her skin, although still in her thirties, had lost its turgor; it was devoid of the healthy blush that makes a lady look radiant and beautiful. Instead, her face was dehydrated and pale, almost grayish, and a bit jaundiced from that strange lighting that had taken over the world, since the curtain of meaninglessness had cast its evil over the Earth’s atmosphere. Resigned to her misery, Queen Desire put on her makeup and headed down to the breakfast room.

Will His Highness come back for supper? I asked as I poured coffee into her gold-rimmed cup.

The queen looked tense. She detested having to expose her marital troubles to her servants. I don’t know, she replied rashly, next time, ask His Highness directly. That will be all. She waved for me to take my leave. I bowed my head and hurried back to the kitchen.

Where did Father go? Princess Isabella asked. She sat by her mother’s left, opposite her older sister. Isabella was the second in line to the throne, being Princess Trinidad’s youngest sister. She was beautiful and wise beyond her years. Her golden, silky, wavy hair was the envy of many a woman—especially her mother—for it was unusual to have such luscious hair in the era of the black hole, as the curtain of meaninglessness made everything dull and uninteresting.

Isabella, eat your food and mind your own business, replied the queen.

But—

You know better than talking out of turn, insisted the queen.

Isabella put her cup down. Fighting strong nerves, she went on, Father is never home anymore. I miss him. Maybe if you treated him nicer, he would stay with us!

The queen’s jaw tensed up, her nostrils widened and her eyes flashed threats of dark bathrooms and cold showers.

Isabella pressed on, Why do you keep us in the dark? We, as Father’s daughters, deserve to know what’s up with him.

That’s it,