The Harts

If anything was clear to those who lived in Zedoha, it was that the Harts were not the kind of people one would regard as normal.

They had arrived one night at number 72 of Oserien street -or at least that is what everybody assumed, for no one had seen them move in-, and by the next morning, in a two-block radius, everybody knew that there were new neighbours to be met.

Although they got along well with the whole neighbourhood, nobody fully knew them. It could be said that the only ones who had any certainty about the Harts were the Harts themselves.

Every morning, Mr Hart would leave the house at seven thirty and walked all the way to work. Or at least that is what all their neighbours assumed; otherwise, why would he be wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase so early? Mrs Hart was almost never seen outside their home. She was probably unemployed, or could afford a free lance job. The Harts were young, and everybody was sure that they had received a generous economic hand from their parents in order to get the house. But, being the Harts so lovely, nobody cared that much about such unimportant details.

In Zedoha, the Harts were a synonym for mystery. For this reason, it came as no surprise to see Mrs Hart with a baby in arms weeks after moving in, even if she had never been pregnant. According to what they had given out, their closest friends had suffered some sort of an accident, and their daughter, whose name was Jean, had been left to be guarded by the young couple. It was clear as crystal that the little child was no consanguineous relative of the Harts: while they had porcelain-like skin and brunette hair, Jean had flaming-red hair and round golden eyes, bright as coins.

The neighbours fell in love with Jean as fast as they had fallen for the Harts; and no one had the heart to inquire about the tragedy. Jean was brought up as a Hart, eyes always kept on her by every single Zedoha inhabitant, who could not resist her magnetic energy.

If anything was true about the Harts, that is the fact that they were surrounded by a cloud of unknowns. But, after Jean’s arrival, nobody else seemed to consider such trifles relevant anymore. As time went by, the Hart’s only mysterious feature was that they were no mysterious at all.

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