I heard my mom on the stairs, so I closed the book, wincing. I needed more time, but it wouldn’t be tonight. Mom opened my door to say good night, and I stood up to hug her. If she felt my heart pounding through my thin shirt, she didn’t say anything, and so neither did I.
Friday, February 28
When I peeked out the window early the next morning, there was no blanket of snow on the ground, but only a few glistening flakes clinging to the dead grass. Atlanta weather was a real heartbreaker. I got my leg on and went downstairs in my pajamas and fluffy robe for a glass of orange juice. Mom was working in the backyard, so I lugged myself outside to sit in a patio chair and join her. There was always so much to be done in the yard every fall, but last year Mom had been too overwhelmed to care about pulling dead flowers, freshening the mulch, and pruning bushes. Now that the worst of winter was hopefully over, she had a brief second chance to get it done. Everything dead had to be cut off and cleared away. If not, when spring came we wouldn’t have any blossoms.
Spring was the most beautiful season in Atlanta, but preparing for it was hard work. I was glad Mom felt strong enough to do it.
Besides, I wasn’t much of a morning person. I felt like my head had been swaddled in a thick cotton blanket, making it hard to think, maybe because there was too much to think about. I was glad Mom had gotten the day off to stay home with me. Her office friends had pooled their sick and vacation days to give to her, which not every company allows but hers did. They valued her.
I understood why.
I liked watching Mom putter around in the backyard, nothing burdening her except boring, everyday decisions. Boring, everyday decisions were a luxury we missed.
Spring wouldn’t be here for at least another month, so we still had mostly cold days, but the sun shone bright and warm. Mom attacked the dead flowers from last year with a vengeance. I saw a row of loose dirt. She must have planted some bulbs.
“Hey, Mom,” I called.
She straightened up, replacing her frown with a halfhearted smile, then grabbed the garden hose and soaked the bulbs she had just planted.
“Isn’t it too late to plant those?” I called. Bulbs had to be planted in fall, not a few weeks before spring.
She didn’t respond even though I knew she’d heard me. She concentrated on watering the dirt. I watched, and waited for her to say something.
In the cascade of water leaping from the hose, a rainbow shimmered. Above her, in our giant oak tree, still bare from winter, I saw a perfect, round bird’s nest from last spring. A family of baby birds had lived right in my backyard. I hadn’t even known they were there.
I closed my eyes for a moment and lifted my face to the morning sun. A bird sang in the distance, and dead leaves rustled in the breeze. I could hear a squirrel scamper across the dry grass by the fence.
I loved our backyard. I loved our little world.
Then Mom screamed, the noise followed by a hard thud. Something else was here with us.
I jumped up and lost my balance. Falling face forward onto the concrete patio, I scraped the palms of my hands. Hot tears gouged my eyes as I scrambled to get up. Then Mom screamed again. Another thud, then another. I grabbed the patio table, pulling myself up.
Moving fast, I found her around the corner by the shed. She raised the shovel over her head, then slammed it to the ground. I didn’t see any monsters. I didn’t see anything at all. Just Mom, a shovel, and the empty shed.
“Mom!” I yelled. “Stop! What’s wrong?”
She looked at me like her mind was somewhere far away. “It was a fuzzy caterpillar. They can sting.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, and my mind flooded with questions. Caterpillars didn’t appear here till summer, so something must have brought one from a warmer climate like a dog carries fleas. Which meant something had been hanging around in my backyard.
Mom wasn’t focusing on me; she seemed to be remembering something terrible.
I didn’t feel too good about any of this.
“But, Mom?” I said. “If you kill all the caterpillars, there won’t be any butterflies in the spring.”
She shook her head as she stared at the pulverized blob on the ground. She set the shovel in the shed and walked toward the house.
“That’s the price we have to pay,” she muttered.
A dull-colored cloud rolled over the sun as she walked back inside. I hated winter and wanted it to be over.
I stayed outside because I didn’t know what to do. My life was changing but hers wasn’t, and I knew it was my fault. Maybe if I could explain what I was seeing and feeling and learning, she wouldn’t hate all the pain we had been through anymore. Because I could see now that pain isn’t a death, but a door. Everything beautiful has a violent birth: cocoons tear, seeds crack, babies come into the world with their mothers screaming and panting and sweating and people call it a miracle. All my pain, the grief of feeling so alone, the torture of feeling like a freak…maybe it had been not a death but a door. And who knew what was going to come through it? Doors work both ways, you know. I might find a whole new life, or a new life might come find me. And pain had been the only price. Was that really so bad? It was time to stop hating the past for tearing a giant hole in our lives. It was time to take a step into the dark passage and see where it led.
I had to try and tell her one more time about Xeno’s book and the monsters.
I heard the clangs and dings of Mom in the kitchen, setting out bowls and spoons for our breakfast. As I walked back into the house, something rustled in the bushes behind me and hissed for my attention. I had no idea what it was, and I didn’t want to know. Not right now. I kept moving. My mom was hurting and she needed me.
Inside the kitchen, I sat at the table, watching her. I wasn’t sure how to begin the conversation. As she set out the cereal and milk, I took a breath for courage and tried to decide what to say first. She began to pour the cereal for me but then stopped, holding the box in midair.
“The night you were born, I stayed awake all night long, just looking at you,” she said. I would find a way to tell her when she finished. “I was afraid that if I closed my eyes, if I even blinked, God would change his mind and ask for you back.” She set the box on the table and sat down, smiling at the memory. “You were just that perfect. I was sure God had made a mistake by giving me the most perfect baby ever.”
I grinned without even meaning to. I loved this story. She told it to me a lot.
A shadow passed over the sun and the kitchen lost all of its morning light. Her face darkened. “And then, when you got sick, we were back in the hospital, with you asleep and me afraid to close my eyes. One night, I heard a nurse tell another mother that it was time to let go.”
She droned on, like she wasn’t even aware I was in the room. This was a story she had never told. “The mom let out this wail, this howl like she was the one dying. I climbed into your bed while you were sleeping, and held on to you until my arms shook. I’ve never been so afraid in all my life.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but she blinked fast. She pushed the cereal box in front of me and wiped her eyes. I wanted to tell her it was all going to be okay, that maybe everything had happened so that I could become the Guardian and protect the abandoned creatures of the night, but all I could think of was that caterpillar she had just smashed.
“I don’t know how to protect you,” she whispered, her face pale. “All I want is for you to be happy, but this world is not a safe place.”
I reached my hand across the table and held hers. “It was never safe. We just didn’t know that before.” Taking a breath, I paused to tell her that I had found something better than being safe. “I can never be safe again. Because—”
She squeezed my hand and gave me a sharp look. “I know you’ve been depressed. But don’t talk like that. We’ll find a way. You will have a long, normal life, I promise.”
I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to settle for any kind of norma
l, because that meant I might never have anything better. I needed something more.
Mom stood and grabbed her empty cereal bowl. Putting it in the sink, she ran water over it even though she hadn’t used it. I think she was wrestling with big questions too, the kind of questions that have lots of easy answers but no great ones. I wanted to share my secret with her, but the answer, of course, was no. Or not now, which was almost the same thing.
We spent a quiet day together. She gave me some uninterrupted alone time in my room to work on homework, but I used most of the time to study the Bestiary. It wasn’t just monsters I had to understand; it was geography and history and science and medicine. I swear my skull hurt from the rapid expansion of brain cells. At least I was studying important subjects, and that could help my grades. I had always liked being an A student, but recently I had begun to understand that I needed to be an A student. Without a scholarship, college wasn’t going to happen for me.
Finally, we said an early goodnight at the top of the stairs. Mom went to run the water for a bath, a magazine tucked under her arm. She shut her bedroom door behind her; then I heard the bathroom door shut too. I had a two-door warning system.
Alone in my room, I grabbed the book for more studying. Mom could never, ever know about its existence. She had enough to handle. Normal girls didn’t talk to dead men or give first aid to nature’s nightmares. At least Golem was sweet. Maybe I would ask Xeno if I could just be the Guardian for Golem. I flipped through the book. Some of these monsters were terrifying; plus, they ate people. I also wanted to ask Xeno why there wasn’t an entry for Bigfoot or the chupacabra. Did that mean they weren’t real monsters or that no Guardian had ever treated one? It would be incredible, I thought, if I got to add a page of my own to this book.
As I turned another page, a horrid smell hooked me by the nose. On instinct, I dropped the book and threw one hand over my face to shield it from the stench.
It smelled like fish. Dead fish. Dead, rotting, stinking fish.
My room suddenly grew cold, and tiny goose bumps popped up along my arms. I exhaled slowly, trying to control my breathing and stop myself from gulping in the putrid air. White mist floated out from between my fingers, like I was breathing outside in winter.
Something wet began to slither up my calves toward my stomach. A slimy, barrel-shaped tentacle, heavy and cold, smashed against my chest, pinning me to the bed. In the moonlight, I watched another tentacle wave. It crept across my chest like a snake and struck my forehead. I couldn’t move.
Little bursts of light danced in my vision. The tentacle on my chest had cut off my air. The book lay on the floor, glowing green and urgent, but I couldn’t reach it.
A wet scraping sound, like a sack of wet clothes being dragged across my floor, broke the silence. A face emerged from the darkness and loomed over mine. It hissed softly, watching me. The monster had almond-shaped eyes with pupils that opened wide and black against its stark white eyeballs. It didn’t have control of them, though. Each eye roved independently around the room and spun whenever the monster hissed. I didn’t get the feeling this monster was anything like Golem.
I tried to turn my head. The monster smelled like it had digested something awful and dead, something that might come back up right in my face.
Thousands of scales overlapped along its skin. When it turned its head to look out my window, I saw gills along its neck, and a mouth like a fish’s, with two thick pieces of rubbery cartilage for lips, which opened and closed silently. Dead leaves clung to its body. This must have been what was in the garden this morning, and I had ignored it. Now it was mad.
The monster turned its head back to me, lips opening again, revealing row after row of tiny white triangles, each with a jagged edge. The teeth looked like they were made for tearing meat away from bone. A low giggle escaped from its open mouth as its eyes spun like loose marbles.
It was going to eat me.
Xeno would know what to do. I had to reach the book. I tried to move my right arm, but the monster pinned me tight. It looked me up and down, as if trying to decide where to start eating first. All I could do was wiggle the fingers on my left hand. I struggled to move my thighs, to dislodge the monster, but they were trapped. Had I survived cancer just to be eaten by a filthy monster with wonky eyes?
Its mouth opened, teeth emerged, and, whipping around, the monster sank them into my prosthesis. The teeth ripped through the fake skin and then scraped against the metal rod inside.
The monster snapped its head back up in a snarl of protest. I took my chance and slid to the floor. Reaching fast, I grabbed the book. It had flipped open to the blank page, glowing bright white. The words burned black.
TELL IT YOU HAVE A CUCUMBER.
“That makes no sense!” I said.
The monster tensed its muscles, preparing to pounce, its teeth like tombstones in the moonlight.
“I have a cucumber,” I whispered.
It stopped.
Settling back on its haunches, if you could call them that, the creature cocked its head like a puppy, a wide grin splitting its face. Clear juice dripped from the monster’s teeth. I got a good look at the whole of it. The creature had the body of a hairy man, or gorilla maybe, and a bunch of tentacles that braided together to function as arms and legs, or released and went off in different directions, like a remarkable combination of fish and man and loose marbles.
“Rrreowr?” it asked, the sound lilting up at the end like a question.
The book glowed so bright I could read the words out of the corner of my eye.
GET THE CUCUMBER.
“My mother is up here,” I protested. “I’m not leaving her alone.”
GET THE CUCUMBER.
Did we even have one? I tried to remember what I had seen in the fridge.
NOW.
I struggled to stand. My real knee felt like jelly.
“Please, please let us have a cucumber,” I whispered. I made it to the bedroom door, expecting to be pounced on and eaten at any moment. When I turned back, the monster was crouched on my bed, waiting. It seemed very happy.
The house was dark and no light was visible under my mom’s door, but I heard water running in her bathroom. I made my way down the stairs in the darkness, cautiously testing each step. I could not trip or stumble. Mom might hear and come out of her room to check on me, and the monster would devour her. Whatever this thing was, I didn’t like it.
I thought back to the girl in the hospital, her nightgown stained in blood. What had happened to her? Did she not have a cucumber? Why hadn’t Xeno mentioned that produce would be involved? And why did I always have more questions than answers?
I made it to the fridge, breathing heavily. I grasped the cold metal handle and pulled. White light flooded over me like I was at the gates of heaven. I reached for the vegetable drawer with trembling hands, holding my breath.
A cucumber sat on a bed of wilted lettuce.
I was never so happy to see a vegetable in all my life. I took it out and held it above my head in triumph. “Yes!”
A growl floated down from my room. I shut the fridge quietly and quickly started my way back up. The fridge light had blinded me. I worked my way slowly up the stairs. I heard the radio playing from behind Mom’s door and the water still running.
I opened my bedroom door to see the monster bouncing up and down on my bed. It seemed to like the spring action of the mattress.
It snatched the cucumber from my hands and cradled it like a baby. Then the monster lifted it and bit one end off. It stopped every few bites and held the cucumber up to the light, clicking its teeth in delight before resuming. While it ate, I noticed a fishhook embedded in its lower lip. The wound was swollen and oozy. It was infected. The poor thing had been in pain when I refused to help this morning.
I remembered when I was about five or six and went on a field trip to the lake with my summer day care. A little boy had gotten a fishhook caught in his finger when he was playing near
the shore. Our teacher called the park rangers for help. I could still recall exactly what the guy had to do to remove it. When you’re a little kid, scary medical procedures sear themselves into your brain.
I moved slowly, trying not to disturb the monster. It didn’t have a lot of the cucumber left. In my dresser I kept my jewelry-making tools, a leftover from craft days at the hospital. I pulled out a pair of wire clippers and promised myself I wouldn’t hurl if this got nasty.
As I approached the monster, its eyes swirled faster, watching me. It hugged the cucumber tightly and growled.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I don’t want your cucumber.” I pointed to my lip and then to its lip.
The monster uncurled one tentacle, reaching up to touch the hook. It whimpered.
“I can take that out,” I said. I pantomimed how I would pull it free, leaving out the part with the contorted face of anguish.
The monster looked at the cucumber sadly, then set it on the bed and nodded.
It had already tried to eat me, and it was not going to like what I had to do, but the wound looked bad. I knew how dangerous infected wounds were, and how they made doctors really nervous. If I didn’t help, the monster might get sick or die.
I just wished I understood why that was a bad thing. This monster didn’t seem to have any redeeming qualities.
Lifting the clippers, I reached for its lip. The monster’s eyes stopped swirling and came to rest on mine. Beneath the thin green flesh, I could now see a blue heart beating inside its chest, shooting blood through the abdomen in messy squirts.
The creature’s lip felt like cold rubber. Rust had begun to eat through the hook, so I hoped the next part would work. I snipped off the eye end of the hook—the end where the fishing line had been tied to it. The barbed end was still inside the lip.
I pushed with one hand and held the lip taut with the other. The monster cried as it squirmed, but I forced the barbed end of the hook all the way through and out the other side. Because I’d made the top a clean edge, the rest of the metal slipped through the hole smoothly.
The Last Monster Page 10
