I am poison.
I am, I said.
I come from the electricity in the air, captured lightning in a bottle.
From a rabbit shot and brought back to life again.
I come from the loneliness of rain dripping down a windowpane, a little girl looking out from it, wishing for a friend, a sister she could share everything with.
I come from the Templeton family: a long line of drunks, imbeciles, and inferior specimens of humanity.
I come from the voices of the old gods and the new ones. The voice of Neil Diamond, full of the crackles and skips from Gran’s old albums. I am Brother Love. I am every monster in the old black-and-white movies. I am the mice in the killing jars and the one who puts them inside those jars; I am the cotton ball soaked in chloroform. I am the squeak of metal wheels the mice run on, going round and round, round and round.
Wheel of life. Wheel of creation.
Wheel of going nowhere fast, stuck in a cage.
And me, I know about cages and locks.
And I know how to be freed.
I come from the Hillside Inn.
From the dark room in B West where I was held down to a bed with leather straps, given 150 volts right in the head; shocked to death, then brought back to life again.
You’ve got a strong heart, Violet Hildreth.
I have been to the other side.
I have been there and back again.
Do you remember? Do you remember?
Oh yes, I remember. I remember all of the things my grandmother taught me. The lies she told. The invented life she gave me: with imaginary parents who never existed, a car crash that never happened, a brother who wasn’t really my brother, who was a stranger.
She taught me the parts of the body from the tiniest cell to the largest organ （the skin）。 She taught me to memorize the scientific names for the things we see every day: for the maple tree at the edge of the yard （Acer saccharum）， for the mouse （Mus musculus）， for juniper （Juniperus communis）。
She taught me to draw medicine into a needle, to make a surgical incision, to stitch a wound.
She taught me how to make a killing jar.
To put a sick creature out of its misery.
To be the God of Rodents.
To hold my head up high.
You’re special, Violet Hildreth.
She taught me how to live among the humans, a monster hiding in plain sight.
THE BOOK OF MONSTERS
By Violet Hildreth and Iris Whose Last Name We Don’t Know Illustrations by Eric Hildreth 1978
HOW TO KILL MONSTERS
Vampire: Stake through the heart Werewolf: Silver bullet
Fairy/goblin: Bind it in iron Demon: Holy water, crucifix, exorcism Ghost: Cast a circle and send it on to the next world If you don’t know the type, there are other things you can try.
Fire will almost always kill a monster, and so will chopping off its head.
Sometimes it’s as simple as saying the creature’s name backward.
There are as many ways to kill monsters as there are monsters.
Vi
July 28, 1978
THE GODS WERE roaring, screaming in her ears. Their voices like thunder, like waves crashing. Car crash voices. Sounds made of broken glass and screams.
She tried to scream, but when she opened her mouth, no sound came out.
Everything she knew, or thought she knew, was a lie. A carefully painted backdrop that pulled away to reveal a vast nothingness.