Here There Are Monsters

by Amelinda Bérubé

  Sometimes there aren’t any answers. Sure. But this isn’t one of them. The Queen of Swords makes a bad enemy. I will find a way out of the game they’re playing, the trap they think they’ve set for me. I will smash their bony faces in. I will make this stop.

  I glance up in the middle of thumping down the stairs and find I’m looking right at William, who’s standing outside the front door, one hand lifted to knock. I freeze, and we stand there staring at each other through the glass. Behind me, Mom is brokenly trying to comfort Dad, and their tearful voices drive me forward, outside, slamming the door to block them out. It works, mostly.

  William, shaken, looks at me in alarm. “Is there news?”

  “They’re calling off the search.”

  “Oh. Wow. I’m—oh my God. I’m really sorry.”

  I shrug, fold my arms. The silence stretches. His arms are folded too. He keeps a safe distance between us, but he watches me in obvious consternation. If he had a script prepared, this wasn’t in it.

  “Look,” William says eventually, “this is obviously a bad time. I should—”

  “No.” The word escapes more desperately than I meant it to. “Please. Please stay.”

  He doesn’t answer, just looks at me. But he doesn’t leave.

  “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.” The words are wooden, dead as leaves in my mouth. “For freaking out on you. On everyone.”

  He acknowledges this, the inadequacy of it, with a twist of his lips. “It’s Kev and Sophie you should apologize to. I mean, all you did to me was twist my arm.”

  “I don’t think they’d listen.”

  “That’s not really the point.”

  “Well. You’re listening. You’re here. I…I appreciate that.” He shrugs, studiously neutral, and I lift my chin. “I get that you don’t want to be friends with me anymore. That’s okay. That’s probably smart of you.”

  He shifts a little, as if he wants to say something, but instead he just looks out toward the road, then meets my eyes again. Still silent.

  “Listen. I’ll leave you alone forever after this if that’s what you want, but I…I need your help with something. Please.” He opens his mouth to reply, but I push forward. “I know, I know—I know I can’t ask you for anything after the other day—”

  “Are you going to tell me what that was, exactly?” he interrupts, a glow of anger in the words. “I mean, aside from fucking scary. Was that true, all that stuff you said?”

  I sink onto one of the garden stones, rest my head on my knees, and nod.

  “You get that we kind of have to tell someone. I mean, I convinced Kev and Sophie not to. It’s not like we have a ton of information. But that’s probably assault, what you were talking about. At least.”

  “Yeah. Probably. Do you know what he was like afterward? Tyler, I mean.” The words come marching out. “He was a mess. I didn’t need to defend Deirdre any more after that. He took over the job. Because I told him to.” He took it up, in fact, with a fervor that bordered on hysteria. I swallow. “But a little while later—people were saying—well, he was on a swim team. And he couldn’t even do laps anymore. He had these…total panic attacks anytime his face was in the water.”

  “Jesus—” William says, looking sickened.

  “He quit, obviously,” I continue in a heavy monotone. “He quit a lot of sports. People said that started happening, all of a sudden, any time he was out of breath.”

  “God, enough!” William holds his hands up in surrender, turns away from me and then back again, a helpless little circle. “Why would you tell me that? I mean, that’s a hell of a secret to keep, I get that, but—what the fuck, Skye? Why? You know I have to tell someone!”

  “What good do you think that would do?” I snap. “He never reported it. It was months ago. And what evidence is there, besides your say-so?”

  “I don’t know, okay? It’s the right thing to do!”

  “Sure it is.” Right. Because everything’s that simple. “Go ahead. You totally should. Just…not yet. Okay? Please. I had no choice. She’s my sister.”

  “That’s a pretty big fucking favor,” he says tightly. And then, “Look. I’ll give you a week, all right? A week. And if you haven’t said anything about it by then, I’m going to have to.”

  “That’s fair,” I say faintly. He sighs. “But that’s not what I need your help with.”

  “You—seriously? You can’t be serious.”

  “I can’t explain this to you, okay?” My voice is fraying. That’s fine. That’s great. “There’s something I have to do. I don’t want to. I don’t have a choice. It’s the same thing all over again. She always does this to me. And I mean, if you hate me now, that’s fine, you’re supposed to. But I really, really need your help. I wouldn’t ask if I weren’t desperate, all right? I don’t have a choice. I don’t—”

  His hand on my arm startles me, a brief, warm, awkward clasp, quickly withdrawn. He sits beside me.

  “I don’t hate you,” he says.

  “Oh,” I manage. And then I burst into tears. I do it right on cue, my face hidden against my knees. I cry for Deirdre, I cry for my family, I cry for all my awful manipulative bullshit.

  It’s so easy. And I don’t have a choice.

  * * *

  All I have to tell them is that William came by. That we talked. That we’re going for a walk tomorrow, after school.

  “I can do that, right?” I plead, and Mom hesitates, but Dad shrugs, brokenly, all resistance gone.

  “Sure,” he says. “Fine. Take your phone with you, is all.”

  “Brent,” Mom protests, but he’s already disappeared down the hall. She rubs her eyes, gives a little huff of a sigh. “You tell us when you’re going to be home. Got that? If you’re thirty seconds late, I will call the police back here so fast—”

  “I won’t be.”

  Even now I’m still the reliable one, the one they trust. After that, all I have to do is smuggle my backpack and the sword out to the garage. And then I wait.

  Twenty

  Maybe they’ve managed to do something to the time, out there. It funnels by so slowly. Piece by piece, the circus packs up and rolls out of our driveway, leaving nothing but churned-up gravel. In my room, I stalk through steps and combinations, whipping my fists and feet out at invisible enemies. Upstairs, Mom and Dad are arguing again. “It’s my job,” Mom yells at one point.

  The hours tick past through a restless night into a thin gray day with stray bits of snow fluttering from the sky. Mom rattles away on the computer at the kitchen table, intense and hollow in the wash of light from the screen; at the opposite end of the house, Dad stays slumped in bed in front of the TV. Neither of them look up when I pass. It’s like the house has fractured into three separate worlds, with splintered edges that cut when they collide.

  Four o’clock snails past. Five o’clock. Maybe William changed his mind, maybe he’s not coming. I could hardly blame him. I could just leave, say I’m meeting him somewhere. Would they buy that?

  But finally, there’s a knock on the door. William stands looking warily at me, hands in his coat pockets. I shout up the stairs to let my parents know I’m leaving, that I’ll be back by eight. I hurry out into the leaden evening without waiting for a response, pulling the door closed.

  “It’ll be dark soon,” I mutter.

  “Not that soon. Why? I thought you said we were just going—”

  “It doesn’t matter. Come on.”

  I lead him around the garage to the back door, where I shoulder the backpack. He raises his eyebrows at the sword in my hand, but doesn’t comment. He falls into step beside me as we crunch down the driveway. When I glance at him, his face is closed and worried, and he’s looking anywhere but at me. The house recedes behind us. With the windows all lit up, it’s easy to tell they’re empty. No one’s watching.

>   I veer off the road into the tall brown grass of the empty lot.

  “What exactly are we doing?” William asks finally.

  “Not we. I. There’s something I have to do.” I stop in the shadow of the castle. It looms over us, craggy, inert. “You wait here. But sit down, so they can’t see you from the house.”

  “Okay, what?” He steps back, frowning. “Just a minute.”

  “I’m not going far,” I insist. “I promise. I’ll just be over there. See? In those trees. Just wait for me. Please?”

  “I—no! What the hell? Skye—!”

  “I’ll be fine. Really. I just need a couple of hours to myself, okay? Out here. I won’t go anywhere. I’ll be in earshot. I’ll call over every now and again to prove it. Please, William.”

  “I’ll go with you,” he says firmly, but I shake my head.

  “No. No! Just wait here. Don’t follow me, and don’t spy on me. This is…this is personal. Private. It’s between me and my sister. I don’t want to get into it. It’s just something I have to do. Okay?”

  He peers at me for a moment, then swipes his hands over his hair and sighs.

  “This is bullshit,” he says, but sits on a gray piece of fallen log, clasps his hands, bouncing his heels unhappily.

  “Tell me about it. I’ll be back in a bit. I promise. Don’t follow me.”

  He spreads his hands in an all right, all right gesture and pulls out his phone. I push past him through the grass, casting a glance over my shoulder to make sure, but he’s hunched over the screen, not looking at me. I hurry around the back of the castle, through the cedars, and kneel beside the tumbled remains of the creature I was making, slinging the backpack to the ground.

  “Okay, this is where I’ll be,” I call over my shoulder. “I’m not far, see?”

  “Whatever,” William calls back, plainly annoyed, but cooperating. At least for now. I let my breath out and get to work.

  It takes some experimenting, but the wire turns out to be perfect; it works much better than the cloth to bind the pieces together. I use the pliers to twist the loose ends into little spirals, a touch Deirdre would approve of.

  “Skye?” William calls.

  “Still here,” I return, not looking up.

  After a few tries, I even manage to get the whole thing to stand upright, balancing on large stone feet. Threading wire through the skull lets me fasten it in place at the top. It sags to one side, but it stays.

  By the time I toss the wire into my bag again, trying to think of what else I could add, daylight is seeping away, the bones turned faint and luminous, the trees silhouetted against the sky.

  An all-too-familiar skeletal face stares out at me from among the trunks, hanging ghostly above a swath of white cloth.

  I scramble away from it, fumbling in the grass for my sword, and it hobbles after me, spreading pointed antler-hands wide in a low bow.

  We underestimated you. The voices teem with pure delight. Oh we did not give you enough credit, Queen of Swords, how magnificent you are, more stern and pointy than we ever thought

  “Thanks,” I say cautiously, remembering just in time to keep my voice down. “This is…going to work for you, then?”

  Oh yes. Oh yessss. We know him of old. Poor jester, poor lovesick puppy, give him here, serve him up, give him to us, call him over, call

  “What?” The world takes a sickening plunge sideways as I figure out what they’re talking about. “No. Oh no. No! That wasn’t part of the deal!”

  You promised to pay, they hiss. We told you there would be payment, we warned you, and you’ve brought us sssssuch a nice gift, oh yes, we’ve longed to feast on the bones of William Wright

  “No! Shut up!” The voices twine around me, giggling, though I toss my head and shrug and swat at the air, trying to shake them off. “That’s not fair. That’s not why he’s here!”

  So then we can keep you instead, they purr. In the twilight, the leaning shape of the monster looms closer, bony hands reaching out to tap my sword mockingly, a sound that echoes, wood on bone. This is the payment we demand, and if you won’t pay, you lose, and we keep you forever, we keep the Queen of Swords for always

  “No! Stay back!” It comes out a squeak. I have to warn William. I have to tell him to run. But when I turn to shout over my shoulder, my lips already forming his name, he’s right there. A shadow crouched frozen among the shadows of the trees, one hand holding up a rock, ready to throw it. He meets my eyes, his face pale and horrified.

  “Goddammit—!” I stumble backward, grab his coat, pull him behind me, keeping the sword up. The monster shambles after us a few paces, its hands outstretched, head turned to look at us from one bottomless eye socket.

  “What the fuck!” William wheezes, his voice cracking. “What the fuck, Skye, what is that thing?”

  “Shut up and stay behind me,” I tell him.

  Here you are, the voices bubble. We know YOU hiding on the hilltop in your stone fortress, you think you’re so safe, you think you can take and take and TAKE. You’ll be sorry you crossed paths with the Queen of Swords, she’s the enemy of invaders everywhere

  “What?” William yelps. “What do you—what did I take? I didn’t do anything!”

  “Leave him alone.” My voice wobbles. I make it stern. “This has nothing to do with him!”

  We know him of old. There’s a grinding, snapping sound from deeper in the woods, like gnashing teeth. Thief in a long line of thieves, give him to us, his blood runs so hot, so delicious, give him to ussss

  “He’s harmless! Leave him alone!”

  Harmless. HARMLESS. Nothing is HARMLESS, Queen of Swords, least of all William Wright, and you owe us a gift, you owe us payment

  “I could give you something else,” William tosses out.

  “Shut up!” I hiss. William pushes past me, stands in front of the monster, looking up at it.

  Oh delicious, the voices chortle. The creature reaches out to trace his cheek with the point of one antler. He flinches away from it, bumping into me. Delicious, go on, go on

  “Would that help?” he demands, his voice quaking. “Would you let us go, if I gave you something else instead?”

  Well, let’s see, they muse. The monster leans over him, twitching, like it’s barely reined in. How harmless are you, puppy dog? Do you have teeth? If you’re harmless, then you’re prey, you’re a rabbit, you’re blood and meat and guts. Do you bite?

  “I—” William chokes on a response. “I—”

  We’ll let you show us, the voices sigh magnanimously, we’ll let you prove it, after all you’re not the only William Wright now, are you? You can do it instead

  “What?” William says. In bewilderment and dawning horror.

  You’ve wanted to prove you have teeth for a long time now, poor puppy, here’s your chance to show your teeth, sink your teeth into William Wright, you’re not the only one, if you have teeth, you can do that

  “What do you mean? You want me to kill him? That’s not—”

  Oh poor puppy, poor frightened puppy, let’s start with blood, that should be easy, use your teeth

  “No, wait!”

  Either bring us his blood or we take more than yours, puppy. Which will it be?

  “But I can’t just—”

  Are you harmless, William Wright? The antler draws back, held high like a knife, pointing down at him. Are you prey?

  “He’ll do it!” I shout, shoving my way in front of him again. “Back off!”

  Manners, Queen of Swords, manners please, remember your royal ETIQUETTE. The last word clatters down around us like little bones. Let your jester speak for himself, let’s hear it, let’s hear him say it

  William is a gray-faced shadow behind me. His gaze skitters over to mine before returning to the monster.

  “Sure,” he says faintly. “Fin
e.”

  Do you know the words, puppy, did she teach you to speak the words? Say the words, now, say it

  He looks at me with fresh panic, but I’m already hissing them at him. “By wood, stone, water, and bone. Wood, stone, water, bone. Just say it!”

  He parrots them after me, and the monster gives a little shiver of delight or hunger as the voices cackle around us.

  “Can we get back to the point?” I demand. “I made my guide, didn’t I? Does it work for you or not?”

  So close so close, the blood your jester fetches can pay for the guide, he volunteered, didn’t he? Blood of William Wright for a living guide. Aren’t we merciful, aren’t we kind?

  I grit my teeth. “How much blood are we talking about?”

  Bring your hands together, make a bowl of your hands, that’s it, that should do, don’t you think, aren’t we generous?

  I keep my eyes on the monster, not wanting to see William’s reaction. “All right, great, and then?”

  The voices drop to a coy, knowing mutter.

  For the key and the bell, Queen of Swords, you know what the price is, you know what we want now, you’ve already been down that path after all, so let’s see if you’ll go back, let’s see how far you’ll go

  I want to refuse to understand, insist I have no idea what they mean. But there’s no point. I know the path they’re talking about. There’s only one. And I won’t go there again. I can’t.

  “No.” The sword wavers in my hands. “No way.”

  It’s not much farther, they return sweetly. You can go a little farther, let’s see how far you’ll go, you decide, Queen of Swords, you decide if you’ll pay the price. You’ll make your choice.

  “Too goddamn right I will.” I throw my bag over my shoulder and grab William’s sleeve, pull him back with me toward the gap in the cedars.

  You decide, Queen of Swords. The monster’s long skull is a pale shadow receding into the trees. We can wait.

  Part Three

  Skye