The Last Monster

by Ginger Garrett

  I could feel its tiny heart beating under my fingers. It was strong. The bird refused to give up, even if the battle had already been decided.

  An ant crawled through its feathers and I picked it off, crushing it between my fingers, angry. Outside, a mother bird called, a sharp chirrup sound. The bird was so small, so fragile. It had never even flown and it wanted so badly to live.

  Golem and I sat together on my bed. Golem held the baby bird in his palm as I rested my hand in his, cupping mine around the bird to keep it warm. We kept vigil over it as the heartbeats slowed, then became irregular and soft…and then stopped.

  Forever.

  A star shot past my window, the darkest hours of the night still unfolding. I rested my head against Golem’s massive arm and went right to sleep.

  When I woke, I was lying in bed with the covers tucked neatly around me. Golem and his sparrow were gone.

  The sun rose in hot pink and orange colors above the dead landscape. Winter was lifting; out of the cold, dark earth, millions of forgotten seeds were breaking open. New life would finally rise through the darkness.

  The dawn illuminated the frost on my window. In it, Golem had etched a heart. I stood and used my finger to trace its outline. I remembered how when I had first seen him, I was repulsed by his appearance. Then I began to see his heart, and I realized that the heart was all that really mattered.

  I placed my hand over my chest, feeling my own heartbeat, hoping it would tell me whether I had changed in the right ways, whether I had finally made the right choices. It just kept its rhythm. Nothing had slowed it: not the tumor, not Entropion, not my own stupid fears and flaws and mistakes. Nothing had convinced it to stop beating.

  It was strong, and, maybe, so was I.

  Saturday, March 8

  Mom had gotten up to work on the house while I slept in. It looked a lot better. Big chunks of drywall were still missing, but at least all the broken things were picked up. We went out to eat fast food for lunch, which was unusual for us, but I think she wanted to get out of the house for a little while. We’d need to do a lot of work to get it looking good, and more work wasn’t what we needed right now.

  Alexis was at her track meet, so I couldn’t talk to her yet, but I was feeling a little better. Maybe telling the truth, as ugly and selfish as it sounded, had opened a wound that desperately needed air and light before it could heal. In the hospital, the nurses had always said sunlight was good medicine as they opened the curtains in my room every day. So maybe there was hope.

  I still wasn’t sure how I was going to coordinate hanging out with her and Candy, though. I owed Candy for the dress, even if it was free. Billy was right about one thing: sometimes sharing didn’t work.

  Late in the afternoon, after she had taken a long, hot shower, Mom pulled a box out of the freezer and rubbed the frost off with her palm to read the instructions. It was what she called “cooking from scratch.” She scratched off the frost and read the directions.

  I excused myself to get ready. I couldn’t eat anyway. My stomach was a mess from nerves. I didn’t tell Mom that Billy had canceled. I just said I wanted her to drive. She thought that was a good idea for a school dance with a date she hadn’t even met yet. I think she wanted to add “and one that you assaulted.” She had already set out all my stuff for tonight, plus some of her own cosmetics and a fragrance called Eternity. I wondered if anything would really change when I slipped into that dress and did my hair and makeup. All I knew was that once people saw me like that, there was no going back. I had to keep up the look. No one would want the other me. Was that why Entropion had spared my dress? Olympias had promised to destroy everything I held dear….Did that include my real self, the part of me that shone through my heart instead of the mirror?

  And was evolution always this terrifying?

  “Set out the plates anyway,” Mom said, waving toward the dining table. She had chewed her fingernails around the edges. I wished we had time to talk. She handed me two glasses. “You’re going to be beautiful. I can’t wait to see you come down those stairs.”

  She turned on the radio and moved her head to the rhythm of an old song. I watched her, a soft smile spreading on my face. We needed music in this house again.

  I knew what I had to do.

  I shut my bedroom door softly, then rested my forehead against the cold wood. Finally I made myself let go of the doorknob. I turned and faced the dress.

  It was still perfect. The silver-gray threads winked at me in the late afternoon light.

  Was I supposed to get dressed and then do my makeup? Or the other way around? I had no clue. Part of me didn’t want to do anything at all. I looked down at my feet, willing one of them to take a small step forward. I wasn’t sure which would move first, the fake part of me or the real.

  A bright flash blinded me. I winced and started blinking to clear my vision. From under the bed a fierce white light blazed.

  Goose bumps spread over my skin, each of them a sharp protest. A thousand thoughts exploded inside my head.

  The book scooted out from under the bed, approaching in slow stutters across the carpet, just like on our first morning.

  I looked at the dress, and a wave of panic hit me, like I was being yanked out of a really good dream.

  “Entropion stole you!” I said. “And you can’t come back now. I already made up my mind.”

  There was a burst of light and a ripping noise, like fabric being torn. I was again momentarily blinded, as if someone had flashed a camera in my face.

  “I have made up my mind too,” said an unmistakably male voice.

  I rubbed my eyes fast. Who was talking? None of the monsters had talked. “The book was stolen. I checked under the bed.”

  “As it happens,” the voice said, “being stuck between worlds provides for an excellent hiding spot.”

  My vision cleared. The book was on the carpet, but it wasn’t glowing. Instead, the letters flowed into the air. I watched, transfixed, as black letters hovered around me, some of them grazing my hair, flattening little strands as they flew past. Then streams of gold and red and blue, every paint color I had seen in the book, poured out in shimmering rivers, circling the letters in curls.

  I reached out a finger to touch a letter hovering near my nose. It stung me.

  “Ow!” I said, and stuck my finger in my mouth. The letters softened their shapes as if they were melting, until I was looking at an inky black cloud surrounded by the rivers of color. It was like watching a painter assemble their paints before starting on a canvas. Then, with a noise like someone snapping their fingers, the ink and colors flew into an image that took shape and began to move.

  An old man made of moving pixels sat on my bed. I could see light between each of the dots as they moved. His hair was pure white, and long, almost as long as his beard, and he had a mustache so big and bushy it reached across each cheek to his ears.

  “Xeno?” I whispered. Only my gaze had moved; my body was still pinned against the door.

  He smiled. “You were expecting someone else?” His clear blue eyes sparkled. The pixels around the edge of his body were softer than the rest, more like smoke or mist, and a few drifted in my direction. I inhaled and caught the scent of pine and old books and the sea. “The world will go on without its monsters,” Xeno said, crossing his legs and smoothing his robe. “But, oh, my dear, how will it go on without the real you?”

  It was, I realized, the way I thought a father should smell. I smiled softly, staring at him in wonder.

  Then I suddenly remembered what night it was.

  “Do you not see that dress?” I blurted. “I’m starting over with a new me. You’re interrupting the most important night of my life!”

  He held up a hand to stop me from talking. “There is no time to thank me.”

  My mouth dropped open. I wanted to throw something at him, but he wasn’t really there, was he? I could still see the outline of my nightstand through the dots that made up his body.


  “I thought being the Guardian would help you to discover who you really are,” he said. “You would find all those wonderful seeds of the bizarre and beautiful, and grow into all you were meant to be. But you are afraid, Sofia, much more than anyone realized.”

  His words burned and I knew they were true. I also knew they didn’t matter anymore. “I’m not the Guardian now,” I said.

  Xeno’s face softened into a smile. “You will always be the Guardian. I’m not here to convince you of that.”

  “Then why are you here?” I asked. “I told you I’ve already made my decision.”

  “Because you do not understand the choice you are making,” he said. “Aristotle gave me more than one chance to choose the correct answer, and so I will do that for you.”

  “I’m just putting on a dress and going to a dance,” I said.

  “You do not understand what you are throwing away.” He looked out my window at the darkening sky. “And you do not understand what you are inviting in.”

  A cloud rolled over the moon.

  “When I first discovered monsters, I thought everyone would be as thrilled as I. I had much to learn about the human heart. Olympias used fear to destroy courage, and suspicion replaced hope. People forgot what they were capable of.”

  He shook his head, as if lost in memories. “And then you became the Guardian. You were so very different from the others. You are one of the extraordinary ones, and yet you hate yourself for that. You want to hide what makes you different. You are ashamed. Olympias worried that you would become her greatest enemy, and then she realized the truth: you could be her most powerful ally. Everyone’s eyes are upon you right now. If you conform, the others will follow.” I got the feeling he was talking about more than just the kids at school.

  A bitter taste rose in the back of my throat. His words burned like matches held too long. Maybe that was what real truth felt like. I swallowed hard, trying to push the pain away.

  “Olympias wants me to fit in,” I said, my voice hoarse. “It’s better than killing me.”

  Then it hit me.

  Candy’s sudden interest in me; the disappearance of Dr. Capistrano, the only adult who knew my secrets and could help me; the loss of Alexis, the best friend who had loved my real self; the shredding of my old track jersey. Nothing was left but a gray dress that hid all my imperfections, every feature that made me different. Olympias didn’t care what I saw in the mirror after tonight, as long as I didn’t see the real me. She was afraid of who I really was. So was I.

  Xeno glanced at the dress on the bed between us.

  My cheeks grew hot, as if I was guilty of something.

  He pointed to the dress. “If this is who you want to be, put it on. Just understand the choice you are making.” His chin quivered. “You are the only one who can decide who you will be.”

  I had to know the truth about one thing, but I needed time to think too. “The other Guardians, the ones in the past?” I asked. “I bet they were afraid sometimes. They didn’t always like who they were or what they looked like. No one is perfect.”

  “Of course.”

  “And you let Claire out of being the Guardian.”

  Xeno sighed, and a little puff of pixels floated from his mouth. “Of all my daughters, you were the only one who had already faced death, and it held no fear for you. I thought that meant you would be safe from Olympias. I thought you might become the most powerful Guardian of all. But I was wrong! You, Sofia, do not fear death. You are terrified of life.”

  I sank down to the floor. His words had finally burned through me and I was as light as ash.

  Everything Xeno said was awful and true. I had always been the odd girl out, and hated myself for that. I thought I was the sparrow that no one cared about.

  Xeno crossed the room and held the dress out to me. I couldn’t lift my arms. I didn’t want the dress anymore. I shook my head and a teardrop landed on my thigh.

  “Then become who you were born to be!” he yelled. I gasped and looked up. The edges of Xeno’s body burst into a white flame. A mist rose from his feet, and he dissolved into a swirling cloud; the book fluttered open to draw the funnel into its pages.

  The book closed and all went dark.

  The dress rested on the floor at my feet.

  I thought of Golem and his little brown bird. He needed me. The weak and the forgotten and the ugly, they needed me, the real me. Whatever it cost. One person had to be alive to see and love the forgotten things in this world, the sparrows and the monsters and the freaks. They mattered, even if I couldn’t always explain why.

  My fingers rested against my prosthesis. They ran back and forth over the uneven bite mark as I sat still, staring at my legs, thinking. I knew how much tonight meant to my mom. It was a new beginning for us both.

  My index finger dug into the wound. Without thinking, I ripped off a piece of the fake flesh. It was soft and rubbery. The metal frame underneath it was hard and shiny and beautiful in a strange way. I stared at it, mesmerized; then my fingers began to frantically pick off the fake stuff.

  I shuddered, trying to catch a deep breath, and realized that pieces of fake flesh were all over my carpet.

  You should hurry. You have a dance to go to, Cinderella.

  I laughed out loud, but I didn’t know if that was my conscience or Xeno speaking to me inside my head.

  “But…” Words failed me. I looked at the metal of my leg. Why had I done that? It was like my body knew something my brain didn’t.

  I got this weird feeling that Xeno was smiling, watching me. Instinct made me reach for the phone Mom had left in my room, without even knowing what I was going to say. I punched in the old familiar numbers.

  “Hello?” Alexis answered, breathless.

  “It’s me,” I said. She was silent, and I didn’t know how to continue. I guessed she hadn’t checked caller ID.

  “Sorry, I was busy changing,” she said. “I thought you were someone else.”

  “That was the problem. I wanted to be anyone else,” I said, then paused. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Um…,” she said, “okay.”

  Closing my eyes, I prayed I was doing the right thing. “Listen, I know we need to talk more,” I said, the idea forming in my mind even while I spoke. I needed something, but if I went looking, Mom would get suspicious. “But first…can you come over right now? And…bring scissors?”

  Alexis and her mom arrived fifteen minutes later. When Mom opened the front door, Alexis hesitated, looking at the ground and chewing her lip. My mom immediately pulled her into the house and into a big bear hug.

  They hugged for a while. I had to clear my throat a few times at the top of the stairs for Mom to let Alexis go. Alexis looked up at me and frowned.

  “You’re not even dressed yet!”

  “You look amazing!” I said at the same time.

  We both broke into big grins.

  She was wearing a fitted pink dress that made her muscles pop and her boobs look huge. I tried not to stare, but I hadn’t known she had boobs. Since illness had interrupted puberty, Mom said I had to wait for the Boob Fairy to visit. With my luck, the fairy would be eaten by a monster.

  “Come up and help me, okay?” I asked.

  Mom and Alexis’s mom wandered over to the couch and sat down, talking like they were afraid of running out of oxygen before they said everything.

  “Don’t take too long,” Mom called up to us. “I am so excited to see you in that dress!”

  Alexis carried a cute beaded purse up the stairs with her. Once we were in my room, she opened it, pulled out the scissors, and held them out to me. I reached for them, but she didn’t let go.

  “Not yet,” she said. “First you have to tell me what you’re going to do.”

  I smiled, my hand on top of hers. The metal of the scissors winked at us.

  “I’m not going to hurt myself, but you just need to trust me right now, okay?”

  She considered that
for a minute and then released her grip. I took the scissors and held them.

  There would be no turning back.

  Ever.

  I took the blade’s edge and lowered it to the prosthesis, then looked up at Alexis. Our eyes met and she nodded. Somehow, she knew. Best friends are like that. A little lump formed in my throat; I was so grateful to have her with me for this.

  Working fast, we cut and pulled and picked all the fake flesh away from the leg, revealing the metal skeleton underneath. Alexis ran and got a washcloth from the bathroom and rubbed the metal down, removing the last bits of flesh material.

  I stared at my leg, transfixed. “Now the dress,” Alexis said. She grabbed it while I shimmied out of my shirt and skirt.

  “Oh my gosh!” Alexis yelled, seeing the price tag.

  “Candy,” I muttered.

  “Say no more,” she replied. She snipped it off and the tag fluttered to the floor. “Good riddance,” she said. Next she handed me the dress. I slipped it on and smoothed it down.

  “Wow” was all she could say. I think she meant it in a good way this time. She set the scissors down on the nightstand.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  I grabbed the hem of the dress, so long and lovely, the perfect length to disguise what made me feel different from everyone else. I looked at Alexis. Her eyes went wide.

  People were going to see. They were going to stare at me, just like she was doing now. I narrowed my eyes at her to tell her I was ready.

  Alexis gave me a serious nod.

  “I’ll do it,” she said. Taking the scissors back, she approached me and knelt down. Grabbing the hem, she stopped and looked back up.

  “You want to know a secret?” she asked.

  I nodded, too nervous to speak.

  “When we ran together, I was always jealous of you,” she said.

  I frowned. “Why? You’re a better runner.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said. “But I never had to fight for it. I knew I would finish every race. You had to fight for each one.” She plunged the scissors into the fabric and cut.