by K. M. Szpara
Monster’s mouth opened wide and bit off both Daddy’s hands.
Daddy screamed and rolled around on the floor, hugging his arms to his chest.
Monster smiled with red teeth, and you smiled back.
But it was just a chapter ending, and the fairy tale went on. (You didn’t know how dark most fairy tales were, back when you were small.)
Daddy leaned in the doorway of your bedroom later. When he stayed outside the room, his hands came back. If he came inside the room, they disappeared, because Monster had bitten them off. He stopped hitting Mommy when you told him you would let Monster eat him all up if he didn’t.
(He didn’t, not really—he just made sure you didn’t see.)
You sat cross-legged on the floor playing Go-Fish with your favorite plush rabbit, Mr. Bunny. Monster watched from under the bed.
“I’m going to kill it,” Daddy said in his Normal Voice. “Your monster. I’m going kill all of them. Just you wait.”
“Go Fish,” you said to Mr. Bunny, but your hand quivered as you picked a card.
When Daddy walked away, you crawled under the bed and tugged Monster’s ear. “I don’t want Daddy to kill you.”
Monster pulled you close with one arm. “He can’t harm us in this world, Red. Don’t worry.”
You sniffed, relieved. “Can we dance, Monster?”
Monster smiled. “Whenever you wish.”
You bounced up and down with excitement, and pulled Monster by the hand into the ballroom. Under the bed was like a tent, full of space for your stuffed animals and toys. It even had a dance floor where Monster gave you lessons.
Monster took your hands and began to hum, a lullaby that had become your favorite music. You hummed along with Monster, your feet tapping to the beat.
You pulled Monster along to the music, spinning and dipping and leaping. Your feet hardly touched the ground. It was like the time Daddy took you to the amusement park and you got to ride the grown up roller-coaster, only a million billion times better. The music soared through you and you felt like you could fly.
The dance floor blurred around you, became an open glade full of trees and a bright sunny sky. It smelled like lilacs and cotton candy. You loved when Monster made it look like outside. You danced wildly, swept away in the movement and the music.
Letting go of Monster, you twirled faster and faster across the grass. You sprinted onto a fallen birch log and jumped into the air. Monster caught you and lifted you up, higher and higher until you thought you could peel the sky open with your fingertips.
The dance ended.
Monster set you down, back in the ballroom under your bed. You laughed, out of breath, and hugged Monster tight. “I love dancing!”
“It is something no one can ever take from you, Red,” Monster said.
(Daddy’s words were long forgotten by the time you went to bed.)
You don’t see Ashley after track practice on Friday. She texted you she’d meet you on the hill. You’re taking her to dinner (even if it’s just McDonald’s because you can’t afford much more) to celebrate the year you’ve been dating.
But she’s not there. Storm clouds roll in, a cold October wind kicking the trees into a gold-brown frenzy.
Your phone dings. Voicemail, although you don’t see any missed calls. You drop your duffel bag with your change of clothes and dial your voice mailbox to listen.
It’s Ashley’s voice.
“Red, it’s me—oh God, I don’t know what’s going on. There’s this—it’s huge, Red, some giant animal but it’s nothing—Jesus, let go of me!” Ashley’s screaming. “Let go! Help! It’s going for the woods—”
And the message stops. Your voicemail asks you in a monotone if you’d like to save, repeat, or delete the message.
You shove your phone in your pocket and run.
Someone—something—has kidnapped your girlfriend, and you’ve got to get her back.
For a moment you wish Monster was here. Monster could’ve carried you faster than you can run. You can’t swallow down the dry, crunchy fear that you won’t be able to help.
(Monster isn’t here. Monster never will be here again.)
Up ahead, the forest looms. It’s just the rumbling clouds, the lack of daylight. The woods aren’t some creepy, mystical landscape. You could get lost, sure. But your phone has GPS—your aunt insisted on it so you could always find your way home.
Wind moans through the treetops, and it sounds like desperate voices. At the corner of your eye, you notice a ribbon of gray in the trees, but it’s not a cloud or a bird. It’s a hole, as if you’re staring at a movie screen and a patch of static ripples across the picture.
It hurts your eyes to stare at the hole. You look away, shaking, and as soon as you do, the memory blurs, fuzzily distorting until you aren’t sure what you were just looking at.
One thing’s always clear, though: Ashley.
You wipe your sweaty palms on your jeans and step into the woods. There, not a yard inside the dark treeshadow, you see a glimmer of color. A red thread—it matches Ashley’s favorite wool sweater. It’s caught on a branch and unravels deeper into the woods.
She came this way. You follow it as it twists and spins through trees, a wobbling path stretching into the heart of the forest.
You’re almost running now, so you can’t stop when the ground disappears.
It’s a long way down into the dark river below.
You were thirteen when Mom OD’d and your stepdad—fuck, why’d you ever call him Daddy?—left. At first you thought thank God he’s gone, but at night, you lay awake trying not to panic that he would come back.
(He’d spoken in his Normal Voice when you called him at work, hardly able to speak, because Mom wasn’t breathing. “What did you do to your mother, girl?”)
You had this aunt, some relative you’d only met once, who took you in. You moved to some backwards little town in the middle of nowhere. At least there were woods around, so much forested land you weren’t allowed to wander too close in case you stepped off the trail and got lost.
You didn’t care about the goddamn trees at first. Your mom was dead. You were stuck here. Friends were hard to come by for the new girl from the cities, the one who liked other girls and loved to dance by herself to music no one else had on their iPods.
“Why didn’t you protect her too?” you asked. Monster sat on the bed next to you, no longer as big as a house, fur darker, magenta and sleek, not the poof-ball you remembered as a kid. “You could have saved her! She’s all the family I had!”
Monster looked down. “She didn’t believe in us.”
“You’re supposed to be my friend, Monster. You should have saved her!”
Monster sat silently as you pummeled your fists against the thick fur until your knuckles hurt and your face burned from tears. Blaming your monster was better than blaming yourself. You hadn’t seen Mom shoot up in months. You’d thought she was getting better, that the support group meetings were working, that the new job with the nice guy she’d gone out for drinks with were helping, that your stepdad being gone more and more was returning the world to normal.
(Nice lies, weren’t they.)
“I’m sorry, Red,” Monster said, wiping sticky hair from your face with one claw. “There was nothing I could do.”
That’s the thing about monsters. They’re real—of course they’re real. But you have to accept that before they can come out of the shadows.
“Well, if you can’t do anything, then I don’t need you.” You were so angry you felt like you were about to explode. You hoped you would. POOF and done. Then you could stop hurting inside. “Go away, Monster.”
Monster flinched. “Red…”
“I said go away!” You shoved Monster as hard as you could, and Monster flew off the bed and slammed into the wall. Cracks rippled along the sheetrock. You didn’t care if your aunt saw the damage. “I don’t want to see you again.”
Monster’s head bowed and Monste
r’s whole body shrank until your monster disappeared altogether.
You flung yourself on the bed and screamed into the pillows.
You pull yourself from the river, shivering, hair plastered to your face. You’re not sure how far the current carried you. You’re good at track because it gives you an excuse to run, to move, to feel wind comb your hair—your legs are strong, and so are your lungs.
You’re still in the woods. Maybe this forest goes on forever. Except—there’s the thread of red wool, curling up from tangled deadwood and winding through the trees.
Ashley.
You brush mud from your hands and look up.
An immaculately dressed wolf sits on a sycamore branch, swinging his legs. His suit is rich burgundy, pinstriped with black. His fur is glossy gray, neatly combed, and he smiles as he hops down and offers you a courtly bow.
“Good evening,” says the wolf. “What brings you here?”
You’ve never been scared of monsters. And since this isn’t a fairy tale, you have nothing to fear from a big bad wolf in the woods.
“My girlfriend was kidnapped,” you say. “I’m going to get her back.”
The wolf rubs a claw along the lapel of his suit. Some undefined light source gleams off the polished nails. “Are you, now?”
You fold your arms. “And no asshole in a cheap suit is going to stop me, either.”
“Do you like it?” The wolf smiles wider. “It was tailor-made. I made him sew it for me before I ate him.”
You’re not going to take this bullshit. You nurse the anger like a personal white dwarf star; maybe one day it will cool with nothing to fuel it, but now? Now it’s dense and bright and hot. “Get out of my way.”
The wolf glides around you and you turn to follow his gaze. “You must pay my toll to pass,” says the wolf.
You bet he doesn’t take plastic, and your wallet’s pretty empty as it is. What if he demands riddles or magic or games you can’t win? You throw at him the only thing you hope might work.
“I’ll pay you with a secret,” you say.
The wolf’s eyes glint like sequins. “And what kind of secret is worth safe passage into our land?”
You clench your hands to stop them trembling. This is a bad idea. But what else do you have? You can’t bring yourself to dance again, even with another monster. “It’s a secret I’ve never told anyone.”
The wolf’s ears prick towards you. “No one?”
“Ever.” You swallow hard. “Aren’t monsters supposed to like secrets?”
“The one I love is made from secrets and shadow,” the wolf says. “But what will you do if I do not like this secret?”
“Suck it up and deal,” you snap before you think better of it. You brace yourself, ready to run or fight back if the wolf attacks you.
But the wolf only throws back his head and howls with laughter. “I think I will like whatever you share with me,” the wolf says, smoothing his lapel again. “Very well. A secret for your safe passage.”
He leans close until you smell the river and hot sand and summer air after a rainstorm in his fur.
Words stick like toothpicks in your throat. You don’t want this secret and you don’t want anyone to ever know, but you already made a deal.
You take a deep breath, then whisper in the wolf’s ear.
Once upon a time, when you just started sixth grade, the cool girls cornered you and your best friend Terra by the lockers. Your heartbeat jumped, because you had a crush on Vanessa, the clique leader, and now she was speaking to you.
“Hey, Red. Want to hang out this weekend? I’m having a party Friday.”
She knew you existed. You blushed. “Yeah! I mean, I’d like—”
“Assuming,” Vanessa went on, “you’re not going to go on about ‘monsters’ again like a two year old. Terra says that’s all you ever talk about.”
You glanced at Terra. You’d told her about Monster, about dancing, and she hung on every word; you’d told her she could find a monster of her own, too, so she wouldn’t be scared all the time.
Vanessa tossed her hair. “Well? Is it true?”
You shrugged, looking at the floor. If you told the truth, Vanessa would mock you forever. You didn’t want school to be hell for another year in a row. “There’s no such thing as monsters.”
Vanessa leaned close. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Monsters aren’t real,” you said again, not expecting it to be that hard. “It’s just a bunch of bullshit for little kids.”
Vanessa smirked. “Obviously.”
Terra’s mouth hung open, shock in her eyes, but you ignored her and followed Vanessa and the other girls instead.
A week later, Terra’s family moved out of state unexpectedly, and you never saw her again. You never knew if she found her monster.
(Maybe she believed you that monsters aren’t real.)
The wolf sighs and half-shuts his eyes. “You carry so much pain in your heart.”
You shake your head, face burning, and remember where you are. You wish you could forget the shame of that secret as easily. “Let me pass.”
“I can do more than that,” the wolf says. “I know where your lady love has been taken.”
You stare hard at the wolf, trying to tell if he’s lying. His bright eyes and brighter teeth give nothing away. “Where’s that?”
“Ah,” he says with a smile. “Answers must be paid for.”
“What do you want in return for telling me?”
“Your help, lady knight.”
You realize in sudden panic that you’ve lost sight of the telltale thread. There’s nothing caught any longer among the branches.
If Monster were here now, Monster would know where to go, like the day Monster carried you out of the woods. (You can’t let yourself miss your monster. It’s always better to stay angry.)
“Enough,” you tell the wolf. “If you help me get my girlfriend back and let us get out of here, I’ll help you in return. Okay?”
The wolf bows. “Very well.”
“Where’s Ashley?”
“The Hall,” the wolf says. “Our home.”
“Who took her there?”
“Kin,” says the wolf. “At the bidding of the new king.”
The wolf grabs your elbow and tugs you sideways, off the path. You yank your arm free, about to curse him out, when he points at where you were standing.
“Look.”
There’s a hole in the air where you were. It’s the size of a baseball and there’s nothing on the other side. Not darkness, really, but an absence of anything that sends shooting pain up your neck and behind your eyes.
You retreat, bumping into the wolf. “I saw…” The recollection is still fuzzy. You frown and concentrate. “There was one by the woods in my world.”
The wolf snaps off a branch as thick as his arm, then pokes it through the hole. The branch disappears and the hole grows a half inch wider. It sits there, ragged edges flapping as if in a soft breeze. Up above you see more holes poking through the endless twilight-lit treetops.
You hug yourself. “What are they?”
The wolf sighs. “Emptiness. Entropy. An end. That is what the king is doing—he is destroying our world. And yours.”
They aren’t separate. You asked Monster about this, once. They co-exist beside each other, overlapping and easily crossed if you believe you can. Yours is not a nice world. But it’s still yours, and Ashley’s, and your aunt’s. The world of monsters is just as important. Without one, the other can’t exist.
You hunch your shoulders. Your stepdad left holes in your life you don’t know how to sew shut. Your mom’s death. The loss of your dance. You tried to dance again, after you and Ashley were dating for a few weeks, but as soon as you struck a pose and Ashley turned on a CD, your muscles locked and you started shaking. Monster isn’t here. You curled up on Ashley’s bed and hid your head under the pillows, refusing to move even though she promised she wouldn’t ask you to dance with h
er again. You didn’t have words to tell her it wasn’t her fault.
You can’t freeze up again. You won’t lose her the way you lost Terra or Monster.
“Show me where the Hall is,” you tell the wolf.
He offers his arm and you loop your elbow through his.
The forest grows darker as you walk alongside the big, not-so-bad wolf. He gracefully dodges the holes that appear faster among the treetops and in the ground, eating away the world.
“Who’s this king?” you ask. You try not to clutch the wolf’s arm harder than necessary. You’ve already asked how far the Hall is. The wolf said it was as far as it needed to be, and no more.
“A man self-titled so,” says the wolf. “He beguiled his way into the Hall; he spoke with such charm and smooth words, we let him join us. Many lost travelers may find their way in. Perhaps not all leave again.” His teeth gleam. “But he brought a weapon with him. It is a small knife made of all the words that have ever been used to harm another. It is power unlike any we can match.” The wolf points at a hole, but you don’t look at it too long. “With each cut, the false king destroys pieces of our world and our kin.”
“You can’t kick him out?” You want to run, to drag the wolf along behind you. Ashley can’t wait, not if there is a wicked king holding her prisoner.
The wolf’s ears droop. “The ones who tried are no more. The queen is…gone. He will not stop, lady knight.”
And the wolf thinks you can help? Shit. The angry part of you wants to blow it off, take Ashley and go home, let the monsters deal with it. Isn’t that what they’re for? Monster lived under your bed and protected you. But the guilty part of you knows it wasn’t Monster’s fault you were hurt when your mom died. Monster would do anything for you, but there are some things even monsters can’t fix.
And you sent Monster away.
Right in front of you, huge arched doors shimmer into sight.
“Welcome to our home,” says the wolf.
