Here There Are Monsters

by Amelinda Bérubé

  “I thought…did you want to talk about it? We don’t have to, but—”

  I shake my head, fold my arms. He returns my stare for a moment, at a loss, then glances back out the window at the giant police trailer filling half the driveway—their mobile headquarters, Officer Leduc explained. Beyond it, the road is lined with vans from the news stations. An ambulance waits off to one side, just in case. Police officers hurry back and forth, and cameramen and neighbors stand around in little knots. Ants milling around a nest.

  “Has this all been here since last night?”

  “Basically.” There, I sound sort of human again. “It’s kind of a circus.”

  “Do they need volunteers or anything? To help look?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know. They’ve got the helicopter, right? And the dogs.”

  He nods, sympathetic. There’s a long silence. Flash forward to what I can expect at school as that girl with the missing sister. No one will know what to say, including me. Count on Deirdre to ruin everything, leave me cut off, spreading awkward silence like a plague. I can practically hear her sniff of satisfaction. But William’s trying, at least. He’s here. He’s making a gesture. I kind of wish he hadn’t.

  “If there’s anything I can do, let me know,” he says finally. “I’m around, you know, if you want some company or anything. I’m…guessing you’re not going to be at Kevin’s tonight.”

  I shake my head again. I would rather be just about anywhere other than here. But my presence at the party would be either a total downer or inexcusably weird. I don’t need everyone watching me, waiting for me to fall apart. I definitely don’t need to fake my way through dealing with Kevin. “It’s not like he’s going to miss me.”

  My tone makes William’s eyebrows go up in surprise, though he covers it with an answering shrug. I’m off-balance, forgetting the rules. I shouldn’t have let that slip, and I fumble for a way to take it back. I can’t mess things up with William’s friends. My friends, I correct myself. But the idea feels angular and foreign in a way it didn’t yesterday. Like a stone in my mouth.

  “He’s your friend more than mine, is all,” I come up with after a too-long pause.

  “Well. You kind of intimidate him.”

  “That’s what Sophie said.” I sigh. “I don’t know. You manage to hang out with me without being a douchebag.”

  “Somehow.” His smile is brief, self-deprecating.

  “Look, forget I said anything, okay? I don’t mean to be bitchy.”

  “I think you’re allowed. And anyway, it’s Kevin. He kind of brings it on himself.”

  “Yeah. Well. Anyway, I’m sorry. I’m just…”

  “Don’t worry about it. Seriously.” There’s another silence. He passes the oven mitts from hand to hand for a moment before meeting my eyes again. “Well. I’ll get out of your hair. Text me, okay?”

  “Sure.” I try not to sound too relieved. “Thanks. I will.”

  “I hope they find her,” he says, retreating through the door.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  * * *

  They haul me upstairs out of hiding so the social worker can talk to all three of us together. To get a picture of the family situation, she says. To get an idea of why this happened. Janelle, as she introduces herself, is an ample, motherly-looking person, with a waterfall of black curls, bright red lipstick, and a soft, high voice. My mom looks cold and hard sitting beside her, eyes red-rimmed and haggard but her back poker-straight.

  “You said she was having some trouble, Sarah,” Janelle prompts. “Is that right?”

  Mom gives a tight little nod.

  “Could you tell me about that?”

  “She’s always had trouble making friends,” Mom says. “She and Skye were really close, and that was just…all she needed, I guess.”

  I study the carpet and refuse to respond.

  “She didn’t quite know how to connect with other kids. She was just so…lost in her own little world, really. And lately, well, Skye’s been making her own friends, and Deirdre…kind of felt like she’d been left behind.”

  I kick at the legs of my chair. I’m not listening. This is not my fault. My armor is forged from steel plates. Mom’s barbs bounce right off me.

  “Is that how you’d put it, Skye?”

  I mumble an indifferent response. Mom gives an aggrieved little huff, looks away out the window.

  “The learning resource staff at Hillcrest said you’d been in touch about seeking counseling for Deirdre.”

  “She’s always been kind of explosive,” Dad puts in, “and we keep trying to get a handle on it, but—”

  “We?” Mom doesn’t raise her voice. Her mouth is a thin line.

  “Oh, Sarah, come on, don’t start.”

  “Who’s the one who always takes time for appointments? Who’s the one making the phone calls?”

  “We talked about this. Didn’t we talk about this? You’re the one with an office job, you’re the one with the flexibility—”

  “All right, let me jump in here,” Janelle interrupts. “Brent, what is it you do?”

  “Drywall.” He sighs. “With a buddy of mine.”

  “And Sarah?”

  “I’m a project manager,” she says stiffly. “For Cambria. It’s a tech start-up.”

  “So you’ve both been working some pretty intense hours, I guess.”

  “Hey,” Dad protests, “I’m home at four to be with the kids. Usually.”

  “Sometimes five,” Mom mutters, “sometimes six…”

  “Jesus, Sarah, they’re teenagers now. They can look after themselves. They don’t need me around to…”

  Dad’s words falter and sink under Mom’s arctic silence. He scrubs a hand over his face.

  “And how do you feel about that, Skye?”

  They all turn to look at me. I fold my arms.

  “Perfectly fine. I can look after myself.”

  Dad’s shoulders take on a defeated slouch, and Mom bristles all over again, glaring at me. I’m done with this. I shove my chair back and stalk from the kitchen. Behind me, Janelle goes on trying to play referee while they snipe at each other.

  My room is as much of a refuge as I’ve got: quiet and sunny, my plants filling one wall on the stand Dad built for me. But even here, there’s no escape. When I fling myself onto the bed and pull out my phone, there’s a million notifications, all about Deirdre. Sympathy. People asking if there’s anything they can do. Sophie has texted—OMG!!! Are you okay???—and I don’t know how to answer that, so I don’t. I scroll through the group chat about Kevin’s party instead. Who’s going as what. I hadn’t decided on a costume yet. I bet they’re too hip to do Halloween for real; it’s probably all ironic accessories. I was waiting to see what Sophie and Bethany were planning.

  Not that it matters now.

  I don’t bother to answer the knock at my door, so after a pause, the knock comes again.

  “Skye?” It’s not Mom. Janelle. “Would this be a good time to talk?”

  “Whatever.” It’s not like I have much choice. I don’t look up from my phone as she opens the door.

  “Wow,” she says. “You must have quite the green thumb.”

  “I guess.” I grew some beans from seed in third grade for science class, and ever since, I’ve been going nonstop, taking cuttings from every houseplant I could lay hands on. My collection is getting pretty impressive—a balancing act of height and texture, long trailing vines arranged just so, framing the others.

  “Orchids, even!” Janelle turns her smile on me like a searchlight, and I wince. “A client gave me one of these once, and I killed it stone dead. Is there a secret to it?”

  “Not really.” Does she think she’s being subtle? Get the sulky teenager talking. Get her to open up. Well, I can play along with that. “All yo
u have to do is soak them in a sinkful of water for half an hour every week. And then leave them alone.”

  “I thought you were supposed to keep them in a tray of water. So they had the humidity.”

  “No, they hate that. Like, they’re from the rain forest, but they grow in these little hollows in the trees, right? Places that fill up with water every now and again and then drain right out.”

  Outside my window, the door to the garage creaks open, slams shut. Mom stalks out to the sad, straggly patch of the garden under the apple tree with a shovel, stabs it into the ground.

  “Well, you obviously really know your plants. Do you garden with your mom?”

  “Sometimes. It’s pretty much the only thing we have in common.” I was her right-hand man in taming the masterful waterfalls of color she’d orchestrated at our old house. I know more botanical names than she does. She looks at garden magazines for the pictures. I like the Latin words. I found a website that shows you how to pronounce them, even. You can click a button and listen to measured female voices saying: abelia, stephanandra, galanthus, ludisia, araucaria, chamaedorea. They’re like an incantation.

  The garden was where I was most at home with Mom. When she comes up for air between all-nighters at work, she throws herself into other projects. Dad is the muscle in our house, the one who builds and fixes things. Eventually. But it’s Mom who makes things happen. Most of the time, trying to help her with something, to be companionable, only slows her down. Her barely concealed impatience is sharp as any rebuke. Back at our old house, at least in the garden, there was space for me too.

  But it’s different here. Like everything else.

  “What about Deirdre?” Janelle says delicately. “What did you two have in common?”

  I scowl. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  She fingers the shiny leaves of the philodendron draped over the shelf. “You know, I’m the oldest of four sisters. I know exactly how big of a pain they can be. Even when you love them.”

  I look away. This is the part where I’m supposed to open up, I suppose. Spill my guts. Confess my sins. She’s trying to earn my trust, hoping I’ll reward her with information.

  “Did you ever wish you were an only child?” I ask, still looking at the wall.

  “I think everyone with siblings wishes that sometimes.”

  “But not everyone gets their wish.”

  She sits beside me on the bed.

  “You feel responsible for what happened.”

  “I should have been awake,” is all I say.

  “Are you often the one looking out for Deirdre?”

  “I’m the only one.” If that comes out a little more forcefully than I meant it to, well, that’s fine. It’s true. “I don’t understand why she’s like this. It’s like she can’t even see herself in the mirror. And people…used to talk about her all the time. At school.” They did more than talk. But I’m not going there.

  “It’s an awkward age,” Janelle offers. “Growing up is hard sometimes. I’m sure you had your own bumps in the road.”

  That’s one way of putting it. I hunch my shoulders against the thought.

  “Awkward. Whatever. She makes it awkward. She makes herself a target. She just…refuses to grow up. It makes no fucking sense; it’s like she’s doing it on purpose. How many times do you have to rescue somebody before they figure out how to save themselves?”

  I bite the sentence short. She’s getting to me.

  “Some things just take time,” Janelle says. “Right? Everything grows.”

  I don’t answer, and she sighs and stands.

  “Here’s my card,” she says. “You call me anytime you want to talk, okay? Anytime, and I really mean that.”

  I wait until she’s closed the door behind her, and then I shred the card into little pieces and throw it in the trash. That went pretty well, all things considered. I got through it. I didn’t let anything slip. I told her what she wanted to hear.

  So why do I feel like crying?

  Outside, Mom is still attacking the sad remains of the garden. I watch as she levers up sticky clumps of wet earth, turns them over. It refuses to even crumble, and she has to hack every shovelful apart. You could probably make pottery with it. She hasn’t bothered with it since a month after we arrived, when the rosebushes she planted withered in the clay and the deer cropped everything else—from the bee balm to the irises to the nasturtiums—right down to the ground, leaving only ragged bits of stem behind.

  Everything grows.

  Right. Not here it doesn’t.

  Three

  Four Years Ago

  The first time the Queen of Swords was truly tested was Halloween too—the first time we were allowed to go trick-or-treating on our own. I was twelve, Deirdre nine. And there was a blizzard, an actual, old-fashioned blizzard that started the night before. We saw it coming as wings of orange-white cloud stretching over the rooftops, blotting out the stars. The whole house shuddered as the wall of snow slammed past, a curtain lashing and howling across the street.

  Mom and Dad had promised us we could go trick-or-treating alone that year, though, and there was no way we were missing out. Deirdre and I were a united front, my stubborn folded arms the bedrock for her impassioned pleading. Our only concession was to wearing bulky snowsuits under our dresses. We made ungainly, marshmallowy queens that way, our bodices straining at the seams, but we still had our dramatic capes and our crowns: mine spiky aluminum foil sprayed with black, imitating iron; Deirdre’s painstakingly twisted out of Dad’s electrical wire.

  And my mittened hand could still hold a sword.

  The sidewalks were knee-deep in snow. Hardly anyone else had braved it. The only sounds were our voices, the rasp of our snow pants, the whisper of the snow falling, falling, falling. But the jack-o-lanterns were golden islands on the doorsteps, beckoning us up the walks, and people emptied their bowls into our pillowcases, laughing at our determination, admiring our costumes, telling us not to get too cold.

  We made it all the way up the hill before people stopped answering their doors, before the porches and the windows went dark and cold. It was time to return; Halloween was well and truly over, our pillowcases so full we had to sling them over our shoulders as we headed home. We trudged through a playground, where a couple of teenaged shadows laughed and shouted on the monkey bars, back out onto the road. Deirdre kept glancing behind us into the dark.

  “I think they’re following us,” she muttered.

  “We should double back,” I whispered, thinking it was part of the game we’d been playing. We were seeking provisions for battle against the Snow Queen, and the citizens of the city, long besieged by winter, were overjoyed at our arrival, filling our coffers. “Come out behind them, set an ambush—”

  “No, for real,” she said. “Behind us.”

  “What, them?” The teenagers from the park were shambling through the snow at the top of the hill, silhouettes in the orange light. “Give me a break, Deir, they’re going home. Just like we are.”

  “They’re following us,” Deirdre insisted. “I heard them.”

  “They are not.” I quickened my pace, pulled ahead of her. “Come on, don’t be ridiculous. It’s not like they’re sneaking up on us or anything.”

  “I want to call Dad.” Her whine set my teeth on edge.

  “No.” If our parents caught wind of that kind of worry, they’d never let us do this again. The Queen of Swords would not be ruled by fear. “Come on, just walk.”

  She did. But she kept looking back, and irritation flared high in my throat. I didn’t bother to let her catch up. Why was she always like this? Why couldn’t she be bold and fearless just this once? Worse, the voices behind us intruded on my attention now, growing closer. I wouldn’t listen. I wouldn’t let Deirdre’s fear infect me.

  “Skye—!”

 
“Relax, would you?” I threw the words over my shoulder. “It’s not—”

  But then she cried out, and when I wheeled around, someone—some girl, no taller than me, anonymous in a jaunty ponytail and parka—had hold of the pillowcase, leaving Deirdre clinging desperately to the other end.

  “Give it here,” the girl said, the words casual, disdainful.

  “Let go,” Deirdre whimpered. “Skye, help me!”

  It wasn’t that I froze, that I couldn’t move, that my limbs wouldn’t obey me. I just didn’t react. I stood there, a few yards down the sidewalk, and calm wrapped me like a blanket. Deirdre was freaking out over nothing, as usual. It was fine. Everything was fine. My sword stayed point down in the snow, my pillowcase clutched in one hand between my knees. I watched. I just watched.

  “We’re bigger than you,” the other girl said, grabbing a handful of the pillowcase. “Come on.”

  “No,” Deirdre wailed, “that’s not fair! You can’t just take it. It’s mine!”

  “What are you going to do about it?” the first one demanded. “Are you going to cry? Are you going to call your daddy, princess?”

  “I’m a queen!” Deirdre’s voice rose a notch, and they laughed. “And my sister will hurt you! Skye, do something!”

  “Yeah, Skye, do something,” they echoed, mocking. Daring me to wade in and take them on.

  But I didn’t. I didn’t move.

  Together, they yanked the pillowcase back and forth like they were taking a toy from a dog, and Deirdre lost her grip and fell headlong into the snowbank. They retreated back up the hill as she floundered free, spitting snow, her crown askew. They didn’t even bother to run. Their laughter clattered back down to us. The snow was falling thicker now, shrouding them from sight, letting them disappear.

  That’s when it occurred to me that I should speak. That’s when it broke over me: fear. The knowledge that something bad had happened, shouldn’t have happened—that she’d been right.

  “Why didn’t you do something?” Deirdre cried, staggering upright. Snow clung to her hair in clumps. “How could you just stand there?”