Heart Strings and Hate Pigs

Etta pressed her face to the gap under the back wall and inhaled. Smoke. Beer. Hot fat. River mud. Wet wool. The North West Never Warm. Inside, monsters drank like the year owed them money and the money squealed.

Zofia held Etta’s collar so she would not crawl in. “Listen first.”

Etta whispered, “I am listening. I am also starving. Both can be true.”

A mug shattered. A cheer rose. Someone yelled, “Again!” like pain was a sport.

It really was the pub at the end of the world squatted by the Forth River, The Forth Pub a stubborn box with river damp in its bones. It was small, and it had only the basics: a public bar, an eating area, a kitchen, a toilet out back, and two tight rooms upstairs. In December, questions got you eaten.

A deep voice boomed, “Order!”

Krampus. Chains first, personality later. He had horns, a sack, and a job that began with punishment and ended with screaming.

Another voice answered, rough as a pot scrape, “We begin. We end it. We go home.”

Gryla. A giantess shaped like hunger. Her hands could hold a child like an apple.

A third voice cut in, calm as a blade on a stone. “Use the beam.”

Baba Yaga. Not the loudest. Not the biggest. The one who watched faces and kept score.

Zofia’s eyes narrowed. “They are starting.”

Etta bit her finger to stop a laugh. “Monsters love meetings. They love motions. They love saying motion carries.”

Inside, Baba Yaga spoke again. “The motion is simple. Destroy Christmas forever. No more songs. No more games. No more children who think light belongs to them.”

Someone barked approval.

A crisp voice snapped, “Finally.”

Perchta sat near the fire with a ledger and a pen, neat as a threat. The sort of monster who could ruin you for leaving crumbs.

A chorus of Kallikantzaroi chattered and argued about the word forever. Small goblins of misrule who could wreck a roof and then complain about the weather.

Krampus said, “Three parts. One spell. No mistakes.”

Something hit a table. Wet. Heavy.

Zofia breathed, “Pigs.”

Etta breathed back, delighted, “Hate pigs.”

A goblin squealed, “Pigs that hate Christmas. Pigs that trample gifts. Pigs that scream over carols until ears bleed.”

Gryla rumbled, pleased. “Good. Make it ugly.”

Baba Yaga said, “Second part. Heart strings. Stolen from humans. Fresh.”

Zofia’s stomach tightened. Heart strings were not poetry here. Monsters stole them like thieves stole purses. They reached into sleeping chests and pulled out thin red cords of care, and people still walked after, but they walked wrong.

Perchta said, “Third part is the beam. Touch wood. The anchor. Without it, the spell slides off the world.”

Krampus grinned. “Then Christmas turns into dread. Humans will wait for December like a toothache.”

Etta’s eyes shone in the dark. “We better stop them.”

Zofia whispered, “We stop the spell, we return the strings, and we do not die.”

Etta whispered, “That last part feels negotiable.”

Zofia ignored her and pictured the pub’s bones. The beam ran across the ceiling, blackwood, dark, polished by a century of anxious hands. Touch wood, people said, and felt safer for a second. There was one rule older than the monsters’ meeting. If a human touched the beam, monsters lost power. No magic. No violence. No claws. No teeth. No harm.

But only while the touch lasted. Let go, and it stopped at once.

Zofia said, “You hold the beam. No slipping. No jokes with your hands.”

Etta leaned closer. “I am very serious about hands.”

They slid along the wall to the staff door. It hung crooked, as if the pub got bored of straight. A Yule Cat sat on the threshold like a tax collector. It stared at their feet.

Etta froze. The cat’s eyes locked on her socks. Not her face. Her socks.

Zofia hissed, “Do not move.”

Etta whispered, “It wants my ankles.”

Zofia took off her own socks and laid them on the floor like an offering. “Trade.”

The cat sniffed, pushed them into a perfect pile with one paw, and looked away.

They slipped inside into the eating area. Small tables. Bent forks. A chalkboard that still read STEW like stew could save anyone. The bar noise rolled through the doorway in waves.

On the sideboard sat a sack that moved, faintly, like it breathed. Zofia stepped close. Red cords pressed against the fabric. Each cord had a bead tied on, scratched with tiny marks: a gate, a bend in the river, a boat, an initial. Local. Recent. Fresh stolen heart strings. From humans nearby. From farms up the road. From kids who would wake up empty.

Etta reached.

Zofia caught her wrist. “Beam first,” and Etta nodded, running into the public bar like she owned the place.

Silence hit the room for one clean beat. Then the room found its noise again.

Krampus stood by the counter with a chair leg in his hand. Gryla hunched by the fireplace, eyes on the door. Baba Yaga perched on a table as if she had always lived there. Perchta sat with her ledger, pen poised. The Kallikantzaroi bounced on stools and argued about who got to say second.

Krampus tilted his head. “Children.”

Etta pointed up. “I need to borrow that beam.”

Krampus laughed. “No.”

Etta did not negotiate. She climbed a chair, climbed the bar, and slapped her palm on the beam.

The air clicked.

Krampus swung the chair leg at her. Nothing happened. The chair leg stopped mid-air like it had hit thick glass. Krampus blinked.

Etta grinned, hand flat on the wood. “Sorry. You are on mute.”

Gryla lunged and her claws cut air, then stalled, and she snarled as if her own body had betrayed her.

Baba Yaga laughed once. “Useful rule.”

Perchta’s eyes sharpened. “No climbing on furniture.”

Etta said, “Write me up.”

While Etta touched the beam, the monsters could not attack, but they could watch, and they could wait her out.

Zofia moved like time mattered, because it did. She ran back to the eating area, grabbed the sack of heart strings, and felt it tug, not physically, but deeper, like a thousand thin lines pulling toward homes across paddocks and wet forest. She hauled the sack into the bar.

Perchta stood at once. “Do not drag that. It will tangle.”

Zofia said, “Good.”

Perchta’s mouth tightened. “Untidy.”

Zofia said, “I am about to offend you on purpose,” and she dumped the sack on the floor. Red cords spilled out in a bright mess.

Perchta inhaled like she had been slapped.

Zofia pointed at the mess. “Fix it.”

Perchta took one step, then stopped, eyes flicking to Etta’s hand on the beam.

“While the human touches the wood,” Baba Yaga said, amused, “you cannot do much, Perchta.”

Perchta hissed, “I can still think.”

Zofia said, “Then think. You do not serve Krampus. You serve order. Those strings in his sack mean knots, tears, waste, and you hate waste.”

Krampus snarled, powerless and furious. “I heard that.”

Zofia said, “Good.”

Outside, a squeal rose from the yard. Metal rattled. The animal trailer rocked. The hate pigs. The monsters had brought them in on a truck, as even doom needed transport in North West Tasmania.

Gryla rumbled, “Bring them in.”

A Kallikantzaros darted for the door, then stopped dead at the threshold, like it had forgotten how doors worked.

Baba Yaga said, “We cannot use the pigs while the beam is held.”

Krampus stared at Etta’s hand like he wanted to bite it off, so he tried a different weapon. Words.

“Little girl,” he said to Etta, voice soft, “your hand will cramp. Your skin will slip. You cannot hold forever.”

Etta’s arm trembled. Bone and stubbornness. Sweat on her palm.

Krampus continued, “When you let go, I will take your clever friend first.”

Zofia kept her voice calm because calm made thinking easier. “He is right about one part. You cannot hold forever.”

Etta said, “I can hold until I am one hundred.”

Zofia said, “We only need minutes.”

She grabbed a bundle of heart strings and looped it around the beam, right below Etta’s palm, and tied a knot that would make a scout master nod. Tight. Plain. Certain. The cords shuddered.

Zofia spoke to the beam, not because wood needed manners, but because words focused intent. “These were stolen. Send them back.”

The cords pulled hard. They wanted home.

Etta hissed, “Zo, that is pulling my arm out.”

Zofia said, “Hold. I am nearly done.”

Then Zofia ran.

She sprinted out the front door into the yard, and cold hit her face, and the river smell rose, and wet grass shone under moonlight. The truck sat crooked. The trailer rocked with rage. Zofia popped the latch and jumped back.

The first pig hit the mud already running, hooves churning. Its eyes caught moonlight like broken mirrors. The second and third followed, bodies low, moving with purpose that had nothing to do with being livestock. They charged her.

Zofia did not run straight. She ran crooked, toward the pub door, because the pub was the only safe zone. The pigs followed, hooves tearing mud. Zofia dove inside.

The pigs hit the threshold, and the moment they crossed into the bar the change hit them. Their hate did not vanish, but it lost its spell bite, and they became pigs with rage, not pigs with magic. They skidded on spilled beer, slammed into stools, and began destroying whatever was closest, because pigs are honest about their feelings.

Perchta shrieked, “Not the chairs!”

Etta laughed, still touching the beam. “Now it is a proper pub.”

Krampus leaned close to Etta, eyes bright. “Let go.”

Etta did something eccentric and brave and very Etta. She licked the beam.

Zofia stared for half a second.

Etta said, mouth still on wood, “It tastes like old decisions,” and her grip reset, palm flat, no slip.

Zofia turned back to the strings. The heart strings began to reel out on their own. Thin red lines sliding across floorboards, out under doors, through cracks, toward the dark. They were going home. Each cord snapped tight and vanished, like it had been pulled through the world.

Baba Yaga’s smile faded. “Clever.”

Perchta saw the cords move and finally understood what Zofia had done. Not a theft. A return. “You are giving them back,” Perchta said, almost angry, almost relieved.

Zofia said, “Yes.”

Perchta’s jaw worked. Her pen hand trembled. Habit fought conscience in her face, and Zofia saw it, and she kept quiet, because sometimes silence was the lever. Perchta picked up the loose cords and held them up so they would not snag. She did not touch the beam. She did not break Etta’s hold. She simply managed the flow, like a clerk who had decided the file belonged to the right person.

The last heart string vanished. The room changed, not with glow, with absence. The monsters had planned to power their spell with stolen human heart. Zofia had removed the fuel.

Krampus lifted his chair leg again, testing the air. He could not strike while Etta touched the beam, and even if she let go the spell was dead, because the heart strings were gone and the hate pigs were only pigs. Krampus realised it before anyone else. His shoulders dropped.

Zofia looked at him. “You cannot destroy Christmas without stealing what makes humans care.”

Krampus’s voice went quiet. “Christmas makes children brave.”

Etta said, beam-hugging, “Yes.”

Krampus said, “That is the problem.”

Zofia said, “Then stop trying to destroy Christmas, we will always be here.”

Outside, dawn pressed at the windows. North West grey crept in. The wind shifted. The river kept moving, because rivers had better priorities than monsters.

Baba Yaga hopped down from the table. “It’s nearly dawn. Gotta Go. Bye.”

The monsters began to thin, uneasy and empty-handed, as if they had been outvoted by timber and two girls with bad ideas that worked.

Etta’s arm shook harder.

Zofia stepped close and spoke low. “Ten seconds more.”

Etta nodded, teeth clenched.

Zofia counted under her breath. When she hit ten, she put her hand over Etta’s wrist and steadied it. “Now.”

Etta lifted her palm from the beam.

The effect stopped at once. The monsters could have attacked. They did not. Etta’s legs wobbled. Zofia caught her elbow, and they stood in the wreckage, spilled beer, broken stools, three sleeping pigs and breathed.

Krampus paused at the door and glanced back, as if he wanted to say something decent and hated himself for wanting it. He said, “Next year.”

Zofia said, “Next year, bring your own heart.”

Etta waved. “And bring better pigs.”

On Christmas morning, across Forth and Devonport and the wet paddocks inland, people woke with something back in their chests that they could not name. They touched wood on door frames without knowing why. They laughed too loud and got away with it.

And in a small pub by the river, three pigs slept under a table, snoring like they had never heard of Christmas and did not care.

F.S.F.