I inhaled, holding my breath as she worked and talked. “I always watched your face when you crossed the finish line. I was jealous of how happy you were.” She cut and motioned for me to turn. I did. “It’s why I pushed you so hard, because I knew I would never get to feel anything like that. I loved running because it made me feel free and I never wanted the runs to end. But you? You weren’t like me. You weren’t running away from anything. You were running toward something. I guess that secretly, I hoped I would get to do that someday too.”
After two more cuts, she stood up. We grabbed hands and each took a few deep breaths. There was still so much to get caught up on, but I knew this: when we faced life together, it hurt less.
I turned toward the door.
She grabbed my arm. “Wait,” she said, then swiped off my bandana and gasped.
Alexis used her fingers to tousle the fringe on my head. “Wow. Just…wow.”
I giggled.
“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, waving her hands to make me stop. “I know I need a new word. But…wow!”
“Come on!” Mom yelled from downstairs. “You girls don’t want to miss the dance!”
Alexis pointed a finger at me to stay right where I was. She went to the top of the stairs and hollered sweetly down at my mom, “Down in a sec!” When she returned, she was all business. I closed my eyes as she fluffed and brushed and sprayed.
When we walked out of the bedroom, Alexis nudged me toward my mother’s room. Mom had the only full-length mirror in the house, fastened to the back of her bedroom door. Alexis leaned against the doorjamb and smiled. I took a deep breath and walked.
Everything led to this private moment between me and the mirror. The cold, familiar twist of fear snaked through my body. I had always hated the mirror because it reminded me that I was the odd girl out, and didn’t nature prove that the weak were only safe in a pack? Those who got separated were eaten alive. Olympias had made sure I understood that my only chance at a happy life was to hide my true self and go with the herd.
But she was wrong. The difference between humans and animals is that any human can become an alpha. Being pushed out of the pack isn’t a death sentence. It’s an invitation.
I opened the bedroom door and stepped inside, ready to look in the mirror with fresh eyes.
I had finally figured out what was worth standing alone for.
I can’t lie, though; at first glance I felt a tiny, familiar lurch of disappointment. I had wanted to see perfection. It was an old habit, I guess. But really, what is perfection?
Then that feeling was replaced slowly, sweetly, by a strange awe for this new creation. I reached one hand out and gently grazed my reflection with my fingertips. The cocoon had torn and here I was. There had never been anyone like me in a magazine or on a billboard. I had learned that the world is full of people who are both unusual and stunning, but they have to find the courage to see themselves with new eyes. Because when they do, when they see who they truly are, they catch a glimpse of what they might yet become. And the world needs a new generation that is unafraid to change.
Breathing quietly, I studied my reflection and listened as the din of old lies faded and the howl of the alpha began to rise. This was not who I had once so desperately wanted to be.
This was far better.
And then, yeah, I bent over at the waist, just a little, and wrote my name in the air with my butt. It totally worked.
Minutes later, at the top of the stairs, Alexis whispered for me to go first. I descended and waited for Mom to glance up. When she did, her mouth fell open, her eyes wide and unblinking.
Alexis’s mom turned to look up at us too, and froze.
I wanted to go back upstairs, but Alexis kept her hand on the small of my back. The tiniest of nudges told me I had to keep going. This was me, the real me, on display.
“Your dress,” Mom whispered.
I nodded. Sliced off at an angle, it deliberately exposed every inch of my prosthesis, and that was all that caught your eye…at first.
“Your hair,” she murmured.
I reached up and tried to smooth it a little. Alexis hissed at me. “Don’t you touch it!”
She had moussed it into white, spiky perfection. It resembled a medieval weapon.
Then Mom stood and screamed, “Your leg!”
I guess her brain had random disconnects too. She’d just realized that I had destroyed all the fake flesh.
I hurried down the last three steps before she could keel over or yell at me again.
“Mom, calm down! It’s only a fake leg anyway. You let them cut off my real one, remember?”
I was the only one who found that even a little funny.
Mom was opening and closing her mouth like a fish that’s been yanked out of the river and thrown into a chest of ice.
“Anyway, it still works,” I said. I did a little jig to prove my point. She sank back onto the couch, shaking her head.
I took a deep breath, knowing that what I had to say next was the most important thing I might ever say to her. “I just can’t hide anymore. I can’t hide who I am. I don’t want to be afraid when I look in the mirror or when people look at me.”
“I don’t want you to be afraid,” she whispered, sitting forward on the couch. “All I ever wanted was for you to be happy.”
Neither of us moved.
“So…” Alexis came down the rest of the stairs. “Maybe we should go.”
Her mom stood and rested a hand on my mom’s shoulder.
“I’ve never seen you look more beautiful,” Mom said finally. Every word seemed to cost her something, as if a little piece of her ached as she said it, but the bigger part, the deeper part, kept pushing those words to the surface.
“I forgot one thing upstairs,” I said. “Be right back.”
I made it up there in record time. I was free, and free felt fast and light.
“Xeno?” The room was dark, the sun outside gone. The moon had claimed her place in the sky, a delicate silver crescent.
“Thank you,” I said. “For helping me choose something better. For helping me choose myself.”
Silence.
The book was open, but no words appeared. Maybe even philosophers struggled for words sometimes.
“If Entropion shows up tonight, what do I do?” I asked.
“Do I have to come up there?” Alexis yelled. “Let’s go!”
I stood closer to the book, speaking quickly but keeping my voice down. “Can the Guardian kill a monster if she has to?”
“Sofia, hurry up,” Mom called.
Xeno’s words came fast.
Entropion was made from fear, and fear does not die. But nature teaches us that even things that cannot die can still be done away with. For example, an apple cannot be killed. It can only be transformed, forced into another state of being.
“How do you transform an apple?” I asked.
It must become part of something or someone else.
“Like possession?” I said. “When a ghost takes over your body?”
Like digestion.
The problem with getting advice from a philosopher is that most of it doesn’t make sense. Plus I had a vague suspicion he was mocking me. But we’d deal with that later.
If I survived.
Alexis’s mom offered to drive. I said goodbye to Mom with one last hug. Alexis opened the front door. The night air took our breath away.
It was sharp and brittle, a mean-spirited cold, like winter was hanging on, forcing spring back into hiding. The full moon cast a ghostly pallor on our faces, making us look like corpses.
“Is it too cold?” Mom called from the doorway. She sounded hopeful, like maybe I wouldn’t go through with this.
I shook my head, not wanting to look her in the eye.
I sat in the backseat next to Alexis. My foot kept tapping the floor. What had Xeno meant by “digestion”? My heart beat too fast, and I willed it to keep time with my foot.
Alexis smiled at me.
If anything went wrong tonight…I groaned a little, and Alexis’s mom glanced at me in her rearview mirror.
“Just nervous,” I said to everyone.
Alexis laughed. “Don’t be nervous, Sofia. Enjoy it. Think of this as a finish line. I’ll be right beside you to cheer you on.”
She reached for my hand, and I let her take it. We clutched hands and nodded to one another; then she realized how sweaty and cold my palm was. She giggled and let go, wiping her hand on the seat between us.
We were still giggling when her mom made the final turn. We were almost there. White clouds huddled together in the sky, covering the moon. Floodlights lit the school entrance, and we saw police barricades set up around the perimeter. Uniformed police officers stood in front of the school, holding leashes.
Two German shepherds, one of them smaller than the other, paced in front of the main entrance. Everyone had to walk past these two animals to get inside.
“Whoa,” Alexis said. I looked at her, one eyebrow cocked. She shook her head. “It’s a different word entirely,” she insisted.
Her mom slowed the car and rolled down her window. “Since there have been reports of strange animal attacks recently,” she said, “the PTA voted to pay for extra security.”
She pulled closer to the barricade, but a police officer held up his hand.
The dogs paced and panted, watching us.
The smaller shepherd was probably a female. She tilted her head back and sniffed the air to read my scent. She did not blink. Or bark. She just held my gaze, and something in my soul understood.
It was a warning.
The police officer was explaining to Alexis’s mom that only students and faculty were allowed past this checkpoint.
Alexis’s mom hesitated, but the officer nodded at her warmly. “Ma’am, I have a daughter in there too. Nothing is going to hurt those kids on my watch.”
With that, Alexis and I got out of the car and walked in. In the bustle and confusion of the unexpected drop-off, I forgot about my appearance.
The disco ball and dimmed lights disoriented me for a moment, and Alexis grabbed my arm to steady me. People were staring. Slowly, one by one, everyone on the dance floor stopped moving. Friend nudged friend, and girl whispered to boy, until every set of eyes was glued to me. Only the boy taking our tickets didn’t seem to notice me; he was too busy staring at Alexis’s boobs.
I took my first step forward.
Everyone looked different tonight, not just me, and they all looked nervous. Change wasn’t easy for any of us. As people caught sight of me, they stared, eyes wide, a few of them actually letting their jaws drop open.
And then I understood.
Xeno hadn’t chosen me. My peers had. They sensed I was different and pushed me outside the protective circle of our little herd, but my mistake—and maybe theirs—had been assuming that my difference was a weakness. I was suddenly thankful for the heartbreak. I might never have become this strong. For a split second, I pitied everyone who had stayed in the circle, protected and popular. Maybe one day they would discover this same strength, if they could endure the loneliness that comes before the understanding.
Music boomed all around us, sending vibrations through my whole body. I made my way over to the punch bowl, with Alexis behind me. Walking on heels took a ton of concentration because my center of gravity shifted forward slightly. I wouldn’t feel so triumphant if I face-planted on the floor. A couple of guys moved to get out of our way, one of them looking at my leg, the other looking at Alexis’s chest.
A cluster of girls surrounded the refreshment table, their backs to us.
“So I was at my grandmother’s and I wanted some milk, but she was out, right? So I went home and opened my fridge and there was no milk! I was like, noooo! And my mom just said, ‘Sorry, we’re out.’ I was so sad, I was about to cry. Really. That’s how bad I wanted a drink of milk. Because on this diet, liquids are all I can have.” Candy gestured to the cup of punch she was holding and sighed.
“Uh, Candy…,” the other girls murmured. They must not have seen me enter, but they saw me now. Alexis grabbed my hand protectively. Everyone stared, mouths open. Candy put her hands on her hips, ready to scold them for not taking her problem more seriously, but first she glanced back to see what had distracted them.
She looked at my leg. The disco ball spun over us, reflecting little circles of light that washed over their heads. Candy’s face morphed from confusion to disgust to anger.
I dropped Alexis’s hand. I wasn’t going to hide anymore, not from myself and not from Candy.
“Do you know how expensive that dress was?” she hissed. “Is this how you show your gratitude? By turning this into some kind of joke? Who’s going to want to see a picture of that?” She gestured at my dress, or my leg, or maybe both.
“Candy, let me explain,” I said.
“What happened?” Natalie asked breathlessly. “I mean, to your leg?”
“Everyone knew it was fake,” I said with a shrug, keeping my eyes on Candy. Her face was a swirling vortex of anger.
Several football players, including Matt, swaggered up to us. Candy handed Matt her punch and he drank it in one gulp. I guessed he was her date.
“Her leg looks like a vegetable peeler,” Matt whispered to his friends, but we all heard it.
Natalie’s face brightened. “Ohmygosh, my mom just got one of those automatic ones. It can shred a carrot, like, really fast.”
Billy saw me from across the gym. He was alone, wearing a dark shirt and nice khakis with a belt, his hair combed back neatly. He looked scrubbed and fresh and nervous.
His eyes met mine and he didn’t look away. He didn’t just see the leg, or the dress, or the hair…he saw me. A warm, bright joy surged from my heart into a smile.
He pushed his way through the crowd. Candy noticed him and smiled too, maybe because he looked so good. Matt watched her, then glared at Billy. When Billy lightly touched Candy’s arm to nudge her out of the way, Matt shoved him on the shoulder.
“Not tonight, okay?” Billy said, raising his hands like a shield.
Matt pushed him again, but Billy stepped back just in time, causing Matt to trip and ram an eighth grader in the back. The eighth grader turned, punch running down his chin onto his shirt. He shoved Matt into Billy. In a flash, it looked like a swirling mass of fists and hair and legs.
Everyone was yelling, but a shrill scream pierced my ears. I whipped my head around, searching for the sound. No one else heard it. Sweat beaded my upper lip.
Candy was hyperventilating, glancing wide-eyed between the pile of boys and me. “I can’t believe you ruined that dress,” she said. “After everything I did for you.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, backing away. I needed to find out where that sound had come from. What if Entropion was here and he attacked the wrong person? “I appreciate your help, but that wasn’t the real me.”
“That was the whole point,” Candy said.
Mr. Reeves ran up and called for more teachers. They separated the boys, and I tried to make my exit. Strange new vibrations moved up both my legs. Something heavy was moving through the hallway outside, coming closer. I cut across the dance floor through the couples. Candy and Alexis shouted at me, but I didn’t turn around.
I burst through the gym doors and looked in either direction, listening for the sound again. Two teachers and one security guard stood in the hallway. I turned to the left.
“That hallway is closed,” one of them called to me.
“Just need a bathroom!” I hollered back. “Gotta adjust my leg.”
Neither knew how to respond to that in a politically correct way. They didn’t try to stop me.
Around the corner, I paused to listen, but all I could hear was the pounding of my heart.
A low moan, like the sound of an injured animal, rose from somewhere deep within the school.
I closed my eyes and strained to hear wit
h everything inside me, everything that had gone into creating this last monster: my heart, my mind, my fears. I wanted to face Entropion at last.
He was in the library.
An officer was down.
I opened the main door to the library, but Entropion was already dragging his victim out the door on the opposite side of the room. The body disappeared through the door, two limp hands dragging across the floor. I heard the wet thud of the body being dropped. Carefully, I made my way to the door and glanced out of the windows built into the top.
In the hallway, only the emergency lights were on. The little bulbs gave a flickering, unreliable light, casting strange moving shadows. I stepped out of the library and looked in either direction.
The dog was on her side, panting and whimpering. Blood seeped out from underneath her body.
A thick, musky odor hung in the air. I took a deep breath anyway. I could see the dark shadow of Entropion looming.
A low, soft laugh echoed in the darkness as the air around me turned bone-numbingly cold, like a door to a giant freezer had been opened. Olympias stood before me while her body separated in two, dividing down the middle like curtains being pulled apart.
And there was Entropion. Blood froze in my veins. He looked like a giant serpent with a misshapen human head. He had no lips, only thick pink gums mottled with blood, like the mouth of a great white shark. His arms and legs were short and scaled, like a crocodile’s, with clawed hands and feet. It was as if someone had tried to create a monster, taking the worst parts of every creature imaginable and setting them at odd angles. Then I remembered that that someone was me. He was all that I had feared, the misshapen, the broken, and the scarred.
Vomit crept up the back of my throat. My vision dissolved at the edges; the sight of him disoriented me, like I was looking at a face inside a kaleidoscope. His eyes were the eyes of a wolf, bright yellow with a hollow black center that glowed with rage when he looked at my dress. In the flickering shadows I saw rows of shiny white teeth as he growled. I fled back inside the library and shoved the door closed.
The Last Monster Page 21
