Because we know every monster has a motivation, a driving force. Every monster has a HUNGER, a need it must satisfy. Do you remember our lessons?
What do I do to the girls?
I SAVE them.
I save them because… because… because…
Because I could not save you.
Each time I transform a girl, it’s YOU I’m saving.
You, my sister.
My brave hunter of monsters.
My other half.
My missing piece.
Come find me.
Come home.
I’ll be waiting.
“Do you know what she means?” Skink asked, pointing at the page. “Where home is?”
I blinked down at the page, the world around me flickering and wavering, the past and the present entwined. The past I’d been running so hard from, yet chasing after, for all these years.
“The Inn,” I told him. “She’s gone back to the Hillside Inn.”
“Wait,” he said, eyes wide. “The Hillside Inn? From The Helping Hand of God?”
I nodded.
“Holy shit! That’s why the name Hildreth sounded so familiar. You two are from there? You were like… that crazy doctor’s experiments? No way!”
I stood, my legs shaky.
And just like that, the die was cast.
I was going back to the place where both the monster and I were created.
I was going home.
The Helping Hand of God: The True Story of the Hillside Inn By Julia Tetreault, Dark Passages Press, 1980
From the files of Dr. Helen Hildreth
Patient S files
The process I have outlined and perfected in the Mayflower Project is a unique combination of medications, ECT, hypnosis, cold water therapy, and sensory deprivation.
When done correctly, as with Patient S, the subject is wiped clean of memories, of any sense of his or her past self.
But the final and most crucial step, the key to making it all work, is to stop the patient’s heart with either an electric shock or a high dose of seizure-inducing medication.
Then the heart must be started again by the practitioner, either by electrical or manual means.
This process of dying and being brought back to life is ancient. There are stories in every culture of the travelers who have made this journey. It is the most profound physical and symbolic act of transformation a human body can endure.
While the subject may be brought back by a defibrillator or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, my own preferred method is open-chest cardiac massage. I place the heart on my left palm, which is held open and flat. With my right hand on the anterior surface of the organ, I squeeze at 100 beats per minute. The heart must remain horizontal.
When the heart begins to beat on its own in my hands, I replace it in the cavity of the chest.
It is a moment of, dare I say, transcendence, for both the subject and myself.
I have given this person a new life. A new beginning.
Dr. Hutchins says it is a bit like playing God.
But I don’t entirely agree with that assessment.
I tell him, “It is like being the helping hand of God.”
The Monster
August 21, 2019
I COME FROM THE belly of the snake. The dark side of the moon. From my grandmother’s gin still: juniper berries, coriander, orrisroot. I leave a bitter taste on your tongue.