“I’m going home,” I say instead. “When you’re ready to make plans for real, you let me know.”
Panic snaps at my heels the whole way back, with fury close behind. He’s not going to do it. He has to. This is the only way through. He’s putting us both in danger. Why can’t he see that? What’s it going to take?
And how could they do this, how could they put this all on him and take it so entirely out of my hands? I thump my fists uselessly against my thighs. Haven’t I cooperated? I need to make him understand. I need him back on my side. He is not hunkering down in his stone house and leaving me and my sister outside to face the monsters alone. I will not allow them to turn him against me.
In that version of the game, he doesn’t stand a chance.
Twenty-Two
My dreams drag me down a familiar street half obscured by blinding, howling snow. I know the footsteps crunching toward me. They’re not Deirdre’s.
But some rational part of my mind argues that it wasn’t snowing the last time I lay in wait for him. Which means it’s not the same; I don’t have to do it again. I can choose, I can change what happened. I cross the street, turn my back on the entrance to the bike path, and struggle homeward, hope a terrible staccato in my chest. But as I flounder through the snow, the houses on either side recede from me, perched on high hills, on the plunging sides of the ravine.
I’m on the bike path anyway, and he’s right behind me.
When I turn, bracing to face him, it’s not Tyler standing behind me in the snow. It’s William. Massaging his shoulder, reaching out a pleading hand. Behind him, the woods loom all in shadows, and one of the shadows breaks off, leans close, towering over us. Deirdre’s monster. Plunging the wicked point of an antler down toward us as I haul William out of the way—
I fling myself out of sleep and sit up in the dark, my hand flying to my chest where I could swear I felt the blow strike home. And something’s there. Something that tumbles into my lap, crumbling, leaving wet, gritty residue between my fingers.
I snap the light on. My lap is full of brittle gray clumps, some of them still held together with wet paper.
Drywall.
When I look up, the wall and ceiling are buckling, sagging, the paint blistering, cracks zigzagging through it under the onslaught of something pushing its way through. Even as I stare at it, another little shower patters down around me.
I scramble out of bed with a scream that I can’t seem to stop once it comes spilling out of me, a long, ringing noise that brings my parents running.
“Skye? Skye, what on earth—”
I huddle against Mom’s shoulder as they gape at the damage.
“What the hell?” Dad says.
“Don’t touch it!” I cry, but he’s already digging his fingers into one of the cracks, yanking crumbling chunks away.
“It’s soaking,” he says. “The drywall, the insulation, everything. What the hell—”
Then he uncovers the black roots knifing through the clear plastic layer between the drywall and the insulation. It’s strained and shiny under coils of wood trying to press their way through, little beads of water running down the inside of the surface. I shrink back from the sight, but I can’t look away. I knew it. It doesn’t matter that they wanted William to pay the price. If he doesn’t, they’re coming after me too. I told him.
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Dad says. “That doesn’t happen.”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t happen?” Mom’s voice rises dangerously. “Apparently it does!”
“No! Honestly, Sarah, this isn’t the way tree roots work! They follow water. They can’t live in concrete, there’s nothing to draw them into the house. I’d have noticed if there was water down here, you’d see the condensation on the plastic, or—”
“Oh, condensation? You mean like that?” Mom throws a hand out at the trickling drops. Her voice has an acid edge. “Did you even look? Or did you just slap drywall over the insulation and call it a day? This didn’t happen overnight, Brent! Tree roots don’t grow that fast!”
“No, they don’t! That’s what I mean. Can you trust me to know what I’m talking about for a second? For once?”
“How could you miss this?” Mom cries. “You said we didn’t need a home inspector! You said you had it covered! You said everything was fine!”
“It was!” Dad rakes his hands through his hair, staring up at the frozen tangle heaving against the plastic. “I don’t understand how this is possible! What tree could they even be coming from?”
Mom shepherds me out of the room, not bothering to answer, and leads me upstairs. Dad’s voice drifts after us in escalating dismay. “Oh my God…oh my God…”
“You can sleep in Deirdre’s room for now. Is that okay?”
I shrug. It doesn’t matter. Deirdre’s not coming home on her own.
“You can sleep on the couch if you want. But…I have a feeling it’s going to take a while to fix this.” She sniffs. “And who knows how much money. What a nightmare. Sometimes it’s like something doesn’t even want us here. You know? Like—it’s trying to push us out, or swallow us up, or—”
“Do you think there’s something out there, Mom?” I whisper. She blinks in surprise, then takes a deep breath, forces a smile.
“No! No, of course not.” The smile slips. “Oh, Skye, honey, you must be having a terrible time if my nonsense is getting to you like that.”
“I just had a bad dream,” I mutter. I’ve never been the one with the runaway imagination, the one sitting up clutching the blankets.
She tucks me in, kisses my forehead. Her eyes are full of tears, though she blinks and turns quickly away, thinking I won’t see. Not because of the basement—because it should be Deirdre in this bed, needing reassurance in the middle of the night. The pillow smells like her, despite the fresh linens. It’s like wearing her clothes. I’m tempted to retreat to the couch after all, but I can’t bring myself to twist the knife.
My parents’ arguing voices echo up to me through the basement for a while, then drop to fierce whispers as they come back upstairs to their room. The door closes behind them. Above me, beyond the eaves, the stars wink in and out between shifting clouds. Cold clarity wells up in me as I watch them—a calm. The icy logic of the Queen of Swords, the narrow path, the cutting edge of what must be done.
I tried to push him out of the way. I tried to protect him. And he’s not cooperating. If he’s not going to act, I’ll have to make him. I have to make him see. I have to show him just how much there is to lose.
* * *
Outside, the night shifts and rattles in irregular sighs, like something breathing. I hurry across the lawn, my shadow a long-limbed giant in the light from the windows. I clutch the phone and the bundle of white cloth I yanked from my backpack in my coat pockets to keep my hands from feeling so empty. But my skin still buzzes with an icy, naked vulnerability. Without my sword, I’m insubstantial. Breakable. Prey. But I’m knocking on my enemy’s front door as a supplicant; it wouldn’t do to go armed. If I really wanted to make nice, I’d bring them something. But the way they were talking last time, I’m not sure anything less than blood would do.
At the edge of the yard, I pull the phone out and switch on the flashlight. The circle of white light shivering across the ground is almost worse than no light at all. The darkness seems thicker beyond it, and peering into it just makes my vision swim with ghostly sparks and pinwheels. I fumble through the long grass until I find a fallen branch and tie a scrap of the cloth around it with shaking fingers.
I edge across the threshold of the clearing, my flag of truce held out before me. My own monster’s glass eyes twinkle in the light, but it’s unmoved, leaning drunkenly in its corner. There’s no other sign of them. I step over Deirdre’s stone circles and wedge the flag upright between some rocks in the very middle, prop the phone agai
nst it so the light washes upward into the cedars. Deirdre would have some sort of gesture you’re supposed to make, some invocation.
“Hi,” I say. The word is flat, absurd. “It’s me.”
Silence. Something flutters over my head, but when I look up, it’s just one of the strips of cloth, twisting in the wind.
“Look, I need to talk to you. By, um, wood, stone, water, and bone. Are…are you around?”
The answer rises with the wind, a long hissing sigh that flutters in my ears.
Always.
I shrink back into a half crouch without meaning to, lifting my hands, but manage to stop myself short of curling them into fists. I have to be respectful. I have to be polite. I spread them wide instead, to show they’re empty, trying to look everywhere at once, into the shadows between every tree, searching for a glimpse of bone.
“Look, we need to talk. Please.”
Is she surrendering? The voices murmur speculatively. Has she had enough already? Disappointing, Queen of Swords.
“You know me better than that.” Giggles rain down on me. “I’m here to talk. That’s all. You’re asking too much from him. William. There’s no way he’ll go through with it.”
That was the wrong way to start. Snapping, rustling movement fills the darkness all around me, and the voices have a hungry edge when they speak again.
You’re getting soft, Queen of Swords, you’re not made of steel plates at all, are you? Shall we find out how soft you are?
“No, wait!” Long, pale shadows lurch into visibility all around me. Long twiggy limbs step out from between the trees, hands made of antler, bone, wood crossed over torsos wound with cloth or fur. This time there’s more than three. “Dammit, hear me out! Please!”
You came to us, Queen of Swords, you came to us unarmed, unarmored, now that was foolish, that’s not like you at all
“I’m cooperating!” I cry. “Listen, we can help each other out here. I know a way to get you what you want, all right? So I can get what I want. We all win. Come on!”
The monsters pause, looking at me sideways, considering. Interested?
“You can’t reach him, can you? Not up there on the hill. But I know how to get to him. I need you to help me. All he needs is a push in the right direction. Okay?”
Silence, broken only by the mutter of the wind, the creak and clack of the swaying creatures that ring in the clearing. Their smell creeps over me, wet and rotten. I swallow my rabbit-racing heart, swallow again.
“All I need is some time.” Here we are. I’m really doing this. I can’t turn back. I have no choice. “And…and something dead. Something messy. Can you manage that?”
Something leans invisibly closer, some presence that stands stooping over me, contemplating whether or not to pounce. Every stirring of the wind is its breath in my hair.
Will it work, you think this will work?
“I know it will. And…and if not, just…bring me more. Tomorrow night. He’ll get the message.” Just like I did. “I promise.”
Oh, that’s more like it, the voices purr, and I scrub my hands over the back of my neck to erase the feeling of the words crawling over my skin, unable to help myself. That’s so much more fun, so full of surprises, Queen of Swords
“Is it a deal or not?”
This was never a deal, it’s a game, the best game, you’re better at it than we thought
“Whatever! Are we on?”
Go home, Queen of Swords, you’ll find our contribution, yes, go give him a push, oh delicious, go give him a push, let’s see if you can give your puppy dog a taste for blood
The monsters give that same maddening bow and part to one side, leaving me a path out of the clearing. I snatch my phone from the ground and stalk past them. I won’t run. I won’t let them see my fear.
This has to work. This has to be the right thing to do. Someone tell me I’m not just fighting the inevitable, thrashing in the spider’s web, getting myself more tangled than ever.
* * *
When I push the back door open, waiting for me at the very edge of the pale wash of the porch light is the green reflective gleam of unblinking eyes. They don’t move. When I edge my way closer, rubber gloves creaking as I flex my fingers, a heap of gray-brown fur becomes visible against the night, a masked face.
Well. There we go. This is good. I can do this. It’s dead. It’s just meat, right? I can handle meat.
I shake out a black plastic garbage bag, as quietly as I can, and crouch over the raccoon, trying to shimmy the plastic around and underneath it. But it’s no good. There’s no avoiding it; if this is going to work, I have to lift it. I turn away, take a deep breath of clean, cold air, and then reluctantly slide my gloved hands under its front legs. Like I would have lifted Mog.
I was expecting it to be rigid. Isn’t that what happens to dead bodies? But it’s limp and soft—warm, even—in a horribly lifelike way. Not at all like meat. Meat is clean, anonymous, without history. But in the drooping head, the staring eyes, the slack little clawed hands, there’s a personhood. An absence. Which makes the faintest wet sound, the red-gray spill of intestines—a tangle my eye can’t help but follow—even worse.
I clench my teeth, focus on the unstained fur of its flank, ruffling a little in the wind, the fuzzy rounded triangle of its ear. I will not think about Mog. Nausea squirms through me, but I wall it off. It’s like the acid burn of aching muscles, the dizziness at the beginning of a run—it’s just one more messy trick your body pulls on you. I can ignore it.
I push the body over, roll it onto the plastic, briefly exposing the wreckage of its belly and a terrible smell. I will not, will not throw up. I reel back, wait for it to dissipate. And then I gather the ends of the bag, heft it, its slack, soft contents bumping against my leg.
The walk up the hill has never been longer. The bag is heavy as I hold it out in front of me, but I’m not slinging it over my shoulder. My hands are hot and sweaty in the rubber gloves.
William’s house is dark, other than a light on over the garage. I stand there, trembling, for a long minute, trying to will myself back into motion, into doing what I came to do. I keep to the shadows, at the edge of the circle of light, and set my burden down on the sandy cut stones of the front walk, tug at the plastic until the body comes tumbling out with a spatter of fluid.
I do gag at that, at the mushrooming smell, and stagger back with my face pressed against my arm. Once I’ve forced the wall back up, I edge close enough again to grab one foot, roll the raccoon over so the ragged chasm of its body gapes wetly open. Above me, the windows are still empty and sightless.
Then I snatch the plastic bag and run—like a criminal, like a scavenger—back into the dark.
At home, I bury the plastic, the gore-smeared gloves, in the garbage. I strip down to my underwear, pitch my clothes—though they’re unstained, I think—into the wash, splash soap into the machine with a shaking hand, set the water as hot as it will go. And then I scrub my hands at the sink, over and over, trying to erase the smell of rubber. Eventually, I have to crawl back into Deirdre’s bed, afraid the running water will wake my parents. I lie there staring up at the sky through the window, but the stars are hidden again behind a blank, flat wall of cloud, a shade paler with the beginnings of dawn. The iron certainty that’s been driving me has turned brittle and flaky, a shell between me and what I’ve just done.
I should have known better than to trust that certainty. I should have remembered that it doesn’t last.
I turn away from the window, pull the blankets up around my ears. This isn’t the same; it’s not that big a deal. It’s just a raccoon. It was already dead. I moved it, is all. It won’t hurt anyone. All it will do to William is freak him out. That’s all I need it to do.
* * *
When the knock comes at the door, I let Mom run to answer it, waiting rigid in the rock
ing chair by the window, where I was staring out at the woods. It might not be him. It’s probably not him. It could be the police, or a neighbor. But Mom’s uncertain call drifts up to me from the foyer, and I take a deep breath, fighting the dizzy, premature swoop of hope in my stomach. Did it work? It has to have worked.
But it’s not William waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. It’s Sophie, flipping her hair over her shoulder, golden hoop earrings swinging, her polished lips pressed into a grim line.
“Hi,” I say carefully, but she obviously hasn’t come here to build bridges. Even in front of my mom, her expression is distant and pitiless.
“We need to talk,” she says.
Mom, looking back and forth between us, clears her throat.
“Well. I’ll just give you girls a minute, then.” She retreats up the stairs, into the kitchen. I watch her go, unable to return the death stare Sophie’s giving me any longer.
“Come on.” Sophie pulls the door open. Reluctantly, I kick my shoes on and follow her outside. She nods toward the empty lot. “Over there.”
The wind lifts pieces of her hair off her shoulders as I follow her through the tall grass. Pinpricks of rain scatter across my face. I hug myself, wishing I’d brought my coat. The sky hangs low and sullen over the cedars behind the dirt pile. In the shelter of the hill, Sophie finally turns to face me.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you guys,” she says, “but you need to stay the fuck away from William.”
I close my eyes. Stay away from William. If only.
“It’s none of your business,” I manage.
“When my best friend’s in pieces? I’d say that’s my business. I went over this morning and he’d been crying, Skye.”
Hope unfurls after all, a coil of nausea and uncertainty. I’m getting through to him, then. I must be. And he can’t have told Sophie what’s going on. I give her my best Queen of Swords look, turn my face to stone.
“Why are you assuming that has anything to do with me?”
The look she gives me could cut glass.
Here There Are Monsters Page 19
