“Iris,” Vi said, making her voice low and soothing, trying to keep all the panic she was feeling out of it. “It’s okay. We want to help you.”
Iris stood, and Vi saw she had another rock in her hand. She stepped toward Vi.
“Iris, I—”
Iris swung at Vi, but Vi caught her arm, pushed it back, twisted it until Iris let out a cry of pain and dropped the rock.
Vi was bigger, stronger, but Iris was fueled by a mad rage. She thrust back, surprising Vi with her strength, nearly knocking her off-balance.
The two of them struggled in a strange dance.
“Stop it!” Eric screamed, skittering beside them helplessly, shining his light on their faces, in their eyes. “Please, stop it!”
Vi was holding her ground, but then Iris gave her another hard shove, and Vi slammed her heel against a root and toppled to the ground, with Iris still clinging to her.
The fall knocked the wind out of her, and she felt a searing pain where she’d landed on something hard and sharp.
When she could take in a breath at last, she groaned in agony.
Iris had her wrists pinned. Eric was shining his light in Vi’s eyes, and when she looked up, Iris seemed to be glowing, to have a halo around her.
“You know what I am,” Iris said, her breath coming in hot bursts, chugging like a locomotive.
Vi kicked up with her legs and hips, ignoring the pain in her back and ribs. She flipped Iris and pinned her.
Put her own face right down in front of Iris’s, their lips nearly touching.
“You’re my sister,” Vi said.
THE BOOK OF MONSTERS
By Violet Hildreth and Iris Whose Last Name We Don’t Know Illustrations by Eric Hildreth 1978
Here’s why the world needs monsters: Because they are us and we are them.
Don’t we all have a little monster hiding inside us? A little darkness we don’t want people to see? The shadow self. The little voice that tells you to go ahead and eat that last cookie, or the whole plate of them, maybe.
And doesn’t it feel good when you lose it, really lose it and rip things up, punch a hole in the wall, smash a bunch of bottles to smithereens?
That’s your monster self coming out.
The world needs monsters.
And monsters need us.
Lizzy
August 20, 2019
I SHOVED THE BOOK of Monsters and the Lauren doll into my backpack. I circled the upper floor of the tower, gun in hand, listening to whoever was climbing the steps coming closer as I frantically searched for a way to escape, a secret door or a ladder. But there was nothing. No way out but the spiral metal staircase, up which someone was coming. I went to the edge and looked over—could I jump? No, too high. There was no way I’d survive it in one piece. And the face of the tower was too smooth to clamber down. I circled around again, desperate.
I thought of the mice running on wheels down in Gran’s basement laboratory, how sad and futile it had seemed, those poor animals running in endless circles, never getting anywhere.
Knowing I was trapped, I stopped walking in useless circles, crouched down with my back against the wall, gun pointed at the shadow coming up now through the opening in the floor.
I held my breath.
Would it be her?
My sister.
My monster.
My long-ago twin.
Or would it be Rattling Jane, a figure strung together from bits of trash and bone, the little pieces jangling together like wind chimes as she walked?