Patient S, 11th birthday.
And there was Vi, smiling as she leaned in to blow out the candles of her favorite cake, the one Gran made just for her every year: angel food with strawberry-and-peach whipped cream filling.
“Vi,” Iris said softly. She sounded strangely far away.
“It’s me,” Vi said. “It’s been me all along.”
Her voice was high and airy, a balloon at the end of a string, floating up, up, up.
… 4, 3, 2, 1.
And then the world went black around her.
THE BOOK OF MONSTERS
By Violet Hildreth and Iris Whose Last Name We Don’t Know Illustrations by Eric Hildreth 1978
Dearest Iris, Do you remember when we thought you were the monster?
You, my secret sister.
My truest love.
My twin.
I used to picture us that way sometimes. Not just sisters, but twins, curled around each other in the darkness of the womb, then later, in the darkness of my room. Entangled, both of us unsure whose limbs were whose.
Shadow sisters.
Doppelg?ngers.
I loved you so much I thought my heart might explode.
Do you remember when I gave you lessons in being human?
Walk upright. Brush your hair. Wear your clothes right side out. This is how we tie our shoes. This is how we smile and say please and thank you.
As if I were an expert.
Learn to blend in, I told you.
I can help you.
I can save you.
And you did need saving. But not from yourself.
All along, you needed saving from me.
Lizzy
August 21, 2019
SKINK PUT ON a pot of coffee while I sat at the desk in the campground office reading The Book of Monsters. The pages sucked me in, sent me tumbling back through time.
Back to a time when I was a girl named Iris.
A stitched-together girl whom a strange old doctor （“Call me Gran, dear”） brought home and introduced to her grandchildren.
“Children, this is Iris. She’s going to be staying with us. Iris, these are my grandchildren, Violet and Eric.”
They were standing over a wounded rabbit, and I was terrified, but mostly at the way my heart ached with hope.
We are your family now, Gran told me. We’ve been waiting for you.
And the children taught me things.
All the normal things I’d forgotten how to do: how to dress and brush my hair and tie my shoes.
They taught me about Scooby-Doo and Captain Kangaroo. About Count Chocula cereal and candy that sizzled and exploded on my tongue. How to make lemonade and Kool-Aid by mixing powder with water. How to do Spirographs and box with plastic robots.
They played me records, Neil Diamond crooning out love songs, songs about loss.
They took me to the movies, to a secret clubhouse in the woods.
They taught me about monsters.
About how to spot one.
How to be one.
How to act human even when you are sure you’re a monster.
I turned the pages, revisiting all the old monsters. It felt a little like a forgotten family album; the figures were that familiar. There was the vampire, teeth dripping blood. And the werewolf, the full moon behind him almost as menacing as the monster himself.