Their Monstrous Hearts

by Yigit Turhan

Genres: Occult & Supernatural; Magical Realism; Horror; Gothic

Synopsis

"A gothic, darkly alluring tale that will leave readers spellbound"—Dua Lipa, Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter

A haunting novel about the boundaries people will cross to keep their dreams alive.

A mysterious stranger shows up at Riccardo’s apartment with some news: his grandmother Perihan has died, and Riccardo has inherited her villa in Milan along with her famed butterfly collection.

The struggling writer is out of options. He’s hoping the change of scenery in Milan will inspire him, and maybe there will be some money to keep him afloat. But Perihan’s house isn’t as opulent as he remembers. The butterflies pinned in their glass cases seem more ominous than artful. Perihan’s group of mysterious old friends is constantly lurking. And there’s something wrong in the greenhouse.

As Riccardo explores the decrepit estate, he stumbles upon Perihan’s diary, which might hold the key to her mysterious death. Or at least give him the inspiration he needs to finish his manuscript.

But he might not survive long enough to write it.
 

Release date: April 8, 2025

Publisher: MIRA Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

PROLOGUE

Perihan gazed at the opulent villas lined up like precious pearls on a necklace, feeling overwhelmed by their excessive beauty. The sight was almost terrifying, reminiscent of the antique pearls adorning her own necklace. As the dark clouds were illuminated by a sudden flash of lightning, she shook off her thoughts and quickened her pace along the deserted road. The gentle raindrops on her tired face felt like an ominous sign. The unexpected gust of wind, unusual for a mild November afternoon, added to her unease.

On her seventieth birthday, Perihan had indulged in a day of shopping at Milan’s most luxurious stores. Despite her age, she possessed a strong physique, with firm knees, agile movements, and enough strength to carry her shopping bags from the stores to her home. The kind store managers at Cartier and Valentino had offered to send the packages to her address with a courier, but she declined, insisting she could manage on her own. Though she lacked a family to celebrate with, her small group of friends had arranged to gather at the villa, refusing to let her spend the evening alone. They had asked her to leave the house and return around seven o’clock. Glancing at her watch, Perihan realized she was already half an hour late.

Oh my… Licia must have already set the table, she thought as she turned the corner onto Via Marco de Marchi, where she resided. Just then, another lightning bolt flashed across the sky, and a large monarch butterfly appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Despite the heavy rain, Perihan could hear the faint flapping of its wings. The butterfly had bright orange and black stripes, with one wing decorated with symmetric white dots. It seemed to hover in midair.

“What a miracle,” Perihan exclaimed, a smile stretching across her wrinkled face. “It’s been years since I last saw this one…and on my birthday!” Hastily shifting the heavy bags onto her shoulder, she wiped the raindrops from her eyes with her long red nails and followed the butterfly. It fluttered around in circles for a few moments, before darting straight ahead. Despite the downpour, the orange-and-black wings moved swiftly. Overwhelmed with excitement, Perihan disregarded the red light—and almost got hit by an old Ford passing by. The driver, an unattractive man with numerous moles and few teeth, leaned out of the window and cursed at her in an Italian dialect she couldn’t understand. Unfazed by his behavior, Perihan remained focused on following the butterfly, which flew rapidly and ascended into the sky.

“I wonder where it disappeared to,” she mused with a melancholic expression on her face. The rain intensified, the drainage problems in the area turning the road into a pool of water. Perihan’s bare feet were drenched as the rain seeped through the open toes of her green python slingbacks.

“You’re blocking my view.” The unexpected comment startled her. She looked at the stranger, hoping to recognize a friendly face, but it was no one she knew. She turned to notice the growing crowd of people with their faces hidden behind their phone screens. She wondered if they were filming her. Lacking an umbrella, her meticulously coiffed hair now wet, her makeup smudged, and her silk skirt ruined by the muddy street, Perihan was struck by the crowd’s indifference. They shifted slightly to the right, attempting to remove her from their line of sight, all the while continuing to record whatever got their attention. Curious, Perihan turned around and was terrified by what she saw. In shock, she dropped her red shopping bags, causing more muddy water to splatter onto her skirt and completely destroying her shoes.

“This can’t be happening,” she screamed to the sky at the top of her lungs. Her knees trembled uncontrollably, left her unsure about taking another five steps to cross the road. Perihan noticed the cameras turning toward her in her peripheral vision, but she paid no mind to the desperation and terror that would eventually go viral on numerous social media networks in multiple countries. Her villa loomed in front of her, concealed by high walls covered with lush green bushes—now invaded by hundreds, if not thousands, of butterflies. They hovered over the garden, flapping their wings vigorously despite the pouring rain. The entire structure, partially visible through the bushes, seemed imprisoned within a butterfly sanctuary. When Perihan realized the creatures were all monarchs, each one so exquisite and valuable, she paused. Beauty had a threshold, and beyond it, it became a captivating terror, holding people’s attention hostage to fulfill its own needs. She propelled herself into the flooded road, heading for the garden gate. With 

what little strength remained after the ordeal, she pushed her way through the floral Art Nouveau door.

“Licia! Where are you?” she shouted upon entering the garden. Before closing the door behind her, she turned to scream at the onlookers, “Leave! The show’s over! This is my property!” Yet, the crowd remained unaffected, mesmerized by the extraordinary natural phenomenon unfolding before them.

Licia, Perihan’s housekeeper and closest friend of nearly forty years, looked like a ghost. Her complexion was drained of color, her wet hair clung to her face in disheveled patches, and her shoes were ruined by dark mud. She trembled as she spoke. “Perihan… We did our best, but…” Licia glanced quickly at their small group of friends, who observed the scene from the kitchen window on the first floor of the house. Perihan brushed Licia aside with the back of her hand and made her way toward the large greenhouse on the left side of the garden. Orange butterflies continued to emerge rapidly through a broken pane in its ceiling, swarming through the air. Looking up at the vortex of butterflies resembling a brewing tornado, Perihan felt a wave of dizziness. Her bony hand reached for the intricately detailed metal handle of the greenhouse door, but fear gripped her body. She hesitated, afraid to enter, yet knowing she had no other choice. Slowly, she pushed the door open, entered, and closed it behind her.

* * *

Licia tried to conceal her sobbing behind her hands. Should she follow Perihan into the greenhouse or return to the house? The rain cascaded like a waterfall, obstructing not only her movements but her thoughts as well. She compelled herself to decide, but the sudden outburst from within the greenhouse froze her in place.

“No… No… No!” Perihan’s voice echoed, growing louder with each repetition—until the world fell silent, save for the raindrops tapping against any surface they encountered. The darkness beneath the swarm of butterflies gradually gave way to a dull light as they departed from the house. Licia collapsed onto her knees and allowed herself to sink into the saturated garden soil, her tears mingling with the raindrops. Once the first monarch butterfly Perihan had witnessed a few moments earlier found its way to her villa, it hovered briefly over the garden before heading in the same direction as the others. When the last of the butterflies vanished, no trace of the miraculous event remained.

CHAPTER 1

Assuming every city had its own anatomy, twenty-year- old Riccardo lived alone in a part of Paris that could be best described as the city’s appendix: ready to explode at any moment and serving no purpose in the life of Parisians. Although it was a Sunday, Riccardo had set his alarm for seven in the morning and sat in front of his computer at half past seven to fill in the blank pages of his novel draft—that should have been submitted to his editor months ago. When he looked at the Garfield clock on the wall of this rundown rental house, he realized that he had been sitting in front of a blank screen for five straight hours.

“If only I could find the opening line… I know what comes after that,” he repeated to himself without taking his eyes off the screen. He ignored the rumbling in his stomach, found an old Portishead album on Spotify, and placed his AirPods in his ears. He tried to place letters and sentences on the white page for another half hour, but when he got no results, he shut the laptop with a sudden movement and got up, wobbling as he stood. Even his chair was unstable, with one leg shorter than the others. Today didn’t seem like a productive day. He walked into his mousetrap-size kitchen and opened the small refrigerator. A chunk of mold-covered cheese was waiting alone in the cold, under the dim light of the fridge. Since there was nothing else to eat, Riccardo took the cheese out and placed it on the counter. He tried to remove the moldy parts with a blunt knife, but he couldn’t count on the remaining piece to quell his hunger. After throwing both the moldy and the remaining pieces into the trash can, he opened one of the kitchen drawers and found a pack of cigarettes.

I must finish this book no matter what. It’s the only way out of this rundown apartment, he thought as he lit his cigarette with the fire from the gas stovetop. He took a big puff of smoke and let himself enjoy the loud music in his ears. Heading back to the living room, Riccardo grabbed his laptop and went to the sofa instead of sitting on the chair. He tried to flick the ashes of his cigarette into the ashtray, where dozens of butts were lying on top of each other, but instead he scattered them on the unopened bills on the coffee table. Although he was aware that he would not be able to pay his debts, he opened one of the bills, both out of curiosity and to kill time.

“Electricity… Let’s see. One hundred and seventy euros, and two weeks overdue…” He threw it to the floor and opened another one. “Gas… I don’t cook at home, and it’s always freezing in here… Yet, guess what? One hundred euros…” Riccardo could not hear his own mumbling due to the Portishead song blaring in his ears. He kept opening more bills and found everything was either overdue or urgent, if not both, from gas to the annual subscription fee of the modest library twenty minutes away from the apartment to the red-letter notice from his internet provider to the monthly fee of the gym which he thought he had canceled long ago. Panic arose in him; he needed to find the opening line of his novel. He craved another puff from his cigarette, but the fire had gone out. He was too lazy to go back to the kitchen and had no matches on the table. He reached out for the big ashtray to check if there was a lighter somewhere hidden under the cigarette butts, but as he moved the ceramic object, he saw a salmon-pink envelope with his name on it, written in letters as thin as the threads of a spiderweb. “It’s definitely not a love letter…” he said as he took it in his hands and tore it open. Inside was a crumpled piece of paper, carelessly torn from an old notebook. On it, a shaky handwriting read If you’re looking for free accommodation, that’s what streets are for. Or, for someone like you, animal shelters would be just fine too. Either you pay me the three months overdue rent tomorrow, or I’ll be back with the police. Theodore.

Riccardo reread the note and placed his unlit cigarette behind his ear. He slowly rolled the note, stood up, went to the kitchen, and turned on the stove. Instead of lighting the cigarette directly with the flames, he fed the rolled-up paper to the fire and, once it caught, used that to light up his cigarette. While fighting the panic taking over his whole body, he threw the flaming note into the sink and turned the tap on.

Riccardo felt trapped. Life was expecting too much from a twenty-year-old who had not heard from his family in years, who had been forced 

 to live alone almost his entire life. He dumped the butt into the sink, filled a glass with tap water, and as he brought it to his lips, Portishead suddenly stopped singing. The transformation of the music to a ringtone startled Riccardo and caused him to drop the glass onto the floor. It shattered into a thousand pieces.

“Damn it! Where did I leave the phone?” he shouted and started searching for his cell back in the living room. When he finally found it, the name on the screen sent goose bumps down his spine. It was his literary agent, Louis.

“Hey, Louis, what’s up?” Riccardo answered.

“Riccardo, you know why I’m calling. You can skip the chit chat. I already know you can’t keep a promise, but I do need an answer. When are you sending me the synopsis and the first few chapters of your draft?” Louis’s voice was controlled but had a nasty edge, ready to explode. He enunciated each word very slowly, as if he were requesting something from a toddler and had to make sure he was well understood.

“I’m working on it. I woke up at seven this morning,” Riccardo responded defensively.

Louis interrupted. “To finish it? Or were you only starting? I hope you realize these are two different concepts. Everyone believed you were a rare talent. I’ll give you that. There’s no doubt you are talented. The award you won in that short story competition is a big deal for France, and you’re the youngest talent to ever win it. Otherwise, no one gives free advances to anyone, Riccardo. There have been such high expectations for your first novel. We’ve sold it without even submitting the complete manuscript. But this does not mean we get to keep the money if you don’t submit the work…”

Riccardo had already spent the small advance he had received, though he avoided sharing this detail with Louis. “I just need more time!” he protested.

“Time? Months have passed. There is no time left,” Louis said with a raised voice.

“Haven’t you ever heard of writer’s block? I keep staring at this blank page every morning. Besides, why didn’t they accept those chapters I sent months ago? Have you asked them that?”

“You don’t have writer’s block. Get that out of your head! Nobody was excited by the boring pages you sent. The character was ordinary, the catalyst banal, and there was nothing interesting, no moments to get people excited and talking. How do I put it? There was no…life to what you wrote!” Louis was shouting now; his initial kindness had turned into ashes.

“You are my agent. You have to help me,” Riccardo pleaded weakly.

“Only you can help yourself. You must go out and live. Get lost in the flow of life,

 let life happen to you, good or bad! Tell that story. When was the last time you interacted with people? You never go out, Riccardo…” Louis lowered his voice and continued, “You have one week. Send me the synopsis of something that will thrill these people, or we will both be in deep trouble.” Then he hung up.

Riccardo took out his earbuds and thought about what Louis had said. He hadn’t seen anyone for about a month; he got up very early every morning and sat in front of the screen without writing a single word. Maybe his agent was right. He had to get out and live his life, even though he had no idea where to start. He was lost in this train of thought when a knock on the door distracted him. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He walked toward the door with hesitant steps.

 

CHAPTER 2

Riccardo looked through the peephole to see who was on the other side. He caught a glimpse of a tall skinny man wrapped in an old navy coat. The man seemed to be lost deep in thought, his right hand slowly scratching his chin while his eyes were fixed on the old doormat. As Riccardo was not expecting any guests, he thought the man had perhaps knocked on the wrong door and would leave if Ric­cardo stood silent on the other side, holding his breath. Could he be someone sent by the landlord to collect the overdue rent? he wondered, but then remembered how the landlord himself would come banging on the door when he really wanted the money. It had happened a couple of times in the past year, and Riccardo had always felt embarrassed at how the situation must have looked to his neighbors, who loved watching these scenes through their own little peepholes.

When the man knocked on the door once more, Riccardo let go of his deep breath. There was no way of avoiding this unexpected guest; whether meant for someone else in the building or specifically for Riccardo, he was going to have to interact with him. He looked through the peephole again to better evaluate the man’s physical attributes. Due to the fish-eye nature of the lens, the man’s head looked huge compared to his thin frame. His face, framed by thinning hair tied loosely behind his head, was very close to the door now. Suddenly, the man looked directly into the peephole with bloodshot eyes and said, “I know you’re in there. Will you please open the door?”

Riccardo, startled by the sound of his voice, answered, “Who is it?”

“My name is Maurizio. I have to talk to you.”

“I don’t know any Maurizio,” Riccardo snapped back defensively. He crossed his arms as he brought his right ear closer to the door. Mentally, he scanned through his twenty years of life—of which the first three brought back no memories, the following seven were all blurry, and anything after the age of ten included minimum social interaction. He’d spent years locked away in a boarding school, far away from home.

“It’s about your grandmother, Perihan.”

The name of Riccardo’s grandmother was the magic word that relaxed Riccardo’s crossed arms, moved him away from the door, and got him to open it just enough to break the barrier between him and this mysterious man, who apparently had come with news from a world Riccardo had long forgotten.

Through the narrow space between the door and the wall, Riccardo could better see Maurizio’s face. He was probably in his early fifties; his skin wrinkled but wrapped around his head so tight, one could make out the shape of his skull underneath. His olive-green bloodshot eyes spoke of sleepless nights, while his plump lips looked like they had been recently stung by a bee.

“How do you know Perihan?” Riccardo asked, avoiding the word grandmother.

“Can I come in?” Maurizio checked both sides of the corridor with a worried look on his tired face. His restless attitude hinted at confidential information he wanted to share with Riccardo.

Riccardo wanted to end this interaction as quickly as possible, but he thought it would take much longer if they kept going back and forth like this. He gave up, opened the door wide, and showed Maurizio inside.

When Maurizio entered the small studio, Riccardo knew he was taken aback by the chaos. The messy apartment gave the false impression that Riccardo was moving out. There were big boxes right behind the sofa with random objects thrown in them, enough crumpled papers on the floor to burn the whole building down in seconds if they ever caught on fire, a big lump of worn clothes on the sofa waiting to be hung up, and a very subtle smell of foul cheese. It seemed as if there could be movers coming in any second to take away every object while Riccardo packed the crumpled clothes into his suitcase.

“Can I sit?” Maurizio pointed at the wooden chair by the table. Riccardo nodded, crossing his arms again in silent defense.

As soon as he sat down, Maurizio made a move to check the inner pocket of his navy coat, and that was when Riccardo noticed the serious burn marks on his right arm. There were patches of shiny skin that

 seemed to be stretched so thin in some spots that the skin looked translucent. Riccardo shuddered at the sight. “Can’t help but ask…what happened to your arm?”

The question seemed to catch Maurizio off guard. He first looked at Riccardo, then to his right arm. Embarrassed, or simply bothered by this detail of his physical attributes, he pushed the sleeve of his jacket down to his wrist to cover the burns. “Nothing.”

“It definitely looks like something…”

“It was such a long time ago, I have no memory of it anymore,” Maurizio said, pulling a yellow envelope out of his inner pocket. He unfolded and read briefly what was written on its back before concentrating all his attention on Riccardo. “Your grandmother is dead, and she left you a collection of butterflies—”

Riccardo’s initial response was a burst of laughter. “A collection of what?”

Maurizio slapped both of his legs to push himself up from the chair. He took a few steps toward Riccardo, whose laughter had already died down. Their faces were so close, they would look like a couple about to kiss if their body language were not so tense.

“A collection of butterflies,” Maurizio repeated, the words punctuated by his heavy breath, smelling like cigarettes and bubble gum.

“Look, I’m sorry she’s dead. I’m grateful she left me some dead insects, but I haven’t heard from her in years, and we’ve had no relationship for a long time. I was expelled from home at a very young age. My only memories of Perihan are from my childhood—and let me tell you, these are all blurry pieces of flashbacks. So thank you very much, but you shouldn’t have bothered to come all the way here to break this news,” Riccardo said. He hadn’t expected to feel any anger toward a dead woman, but the whole situation seemed like a bad joke to him. No matter how desperate his current living conditions were, a collection of butterflies would not help. He walked to the door, which was still unlocked, opened it wide, then showed Maurizio the corridor.

“I can’t leave without you.”

“Do you want me to call the police, then?”

“They can escort us both out, then. Your doorman wasn’t optimistic about your future here,” Maurizio said, hinting at the collection of overdue bills on the table behind them.

“Leave now.”

“I told you, I can’t leave without you. Her funeral is tomorrow. She wanted you to be there.”

“She hasn’t talked to me in years! She hasn’t called, written, visited, searched… She hasn’t shown any sign of interest! Honestly, I don’t even know if she was still living in the same house!” Riccardo’s shouting had attracted the interest of his next-door neighbor, who tapped on the plaster and voiced some sort of grumpy complaint, ...