The Children on the Hill(10)

Me and my once-upon-a-time sister.





THE BOOK OF MONSTERS


Violet Hildreth and Iris Whose Last Name We Don’t Know Illustrations by Eric Hildreth 1978

Monsters are real. They’re all around us, whether we can see them or not.

There are two main types of monsters.

The first type know they’re monsters. They may not be happy with it. They may loathe what they are, but there’s no denying their monster selves. They’re in monster form all of the time and are often hideous and scary and people run screaming when they see them.

The second, more dangerous type may not even understand that they’re monsters. They can pass as human. They hide in plain sight. They can be charismatic, like vampires. They can be tricksters who change form like werewolves and shapeshifters. This is the far more dangerous type of monster because there could be one next to you right now, one sleeping in your house even, and you might not know it.





Vi

May 8, 1978




VI HELD HER breath as she recognized the footsteps in the hall. Gran always wore low clunky heels, her doctor’s shoes. As soon as she got home, she’d take them off and replace them with slippers.

Then she heard Gran say, “This way. That’s right. Come in.”

Someone was with her.

Most likely Old Mac with his gun. He’d come to take the rabbit back and Gran wasn’t going to stop him.

He’d kill it after all. Vi imagined how pleased he’d be, licking his toady little lips, smiling. Won’t be eating any more of my lettuces, will you now, you little devil?

She stood frozen for a moment, still clutching the wires, then shoved them and the battery under the table. The rabbit hopped forward atop the kitchen table, heading toward the edge, and Eric grabbed it.

“Violet? Eric?” Gran called from the hall.

“Ow!” Eric yelped, jerking his hand away. “He bit me!”

With all the wild animals he’d rescued, he’d never been bitten.

“Crap,” Vi said. “Let me see.”

Eric held out his hand. The bite was small, barely bleeding. “Do you think I’ll get rabies?”

“Maybe,” Vi said. “Twenty-one shots in the stomach.”

His eyes got huge and he looked like he might start crying again.

“But I doubt this little guy’s got rabies,” Vi said, giving the bunny a stroke on the head.

“My lovelies?” Gran called. “Where are you?”

It was no use hiding.

“In the kitchen,” Vi called. “Eric brought home a baby rabbit. It’s hurt, and we’re trying to fix it up.”

There was mumbling—Gran, talking in a low voice.

“We won’t let them take you,” Eric whispered to the rabbit, leaning over it protectively. “Old Mac will have to shoot me first.”

A minute later Gran appeared in the kitchen, dressed in her day-off clothes: a tan cotton pantsuit with a wide belt that made her look like she was going on safari—all that was missing was the pith helmet. She had a green scarf tied jauntily around her neck; Gran loved her scarves. She held a cigarette. Her gray hair, curled and held in place with Aqua Net, made a frizzy halo around her head. Her fuzzy yellow slippers, which she called her house shoes, were on her feet. “All right. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

“Vi saved it!” Eric said. “Old Mac shot it, but Vi brought it back to life! You should have been here, Gran. You should have seen.”

Gran stepped closer, looked at Vi with her eyes narrowed through the haze of cigarette smoke. “Is that so?”

Vi laughed. “Not really. We thought it might be dead at first, but it was just stunned. In shock. I’m more worried about Eric. The rabbit bit him.”

Gran came over and inspected the bite. While she looked at it, Vi threw Eric a warning glance: Don’t say another word. This is our secret: yours, mine, and the bunny’s.

She kicked the battery farther under the table.

“It doesn’t look too bad to me. We’ll get it cleaned up and bandaged,” Gran said. “Give you an antibiotic just in case.”

Then she peered down at the rabbit on the table. With sure hands, she probed at the wound on its haunch. “There’s a gash and a burn from the gunshot. She’ll need a few stitches.”

“It’s a girl?” Eric asked.

“Most definitely,” Gran said.

“Do I get to keep her?” he asked.

Gran gave him a tender smile. “For the time being.”

“If we let her go, Mac will kill her,” Eric said, eyes filling with tears again.

“We won’t let that happen,” Gran promised, giving Eric’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.

Then she looked past Eric, over to the doorway. “You can come closer if you’d like,” she said.

Vi turned and saw a girl standing at the entrance to the kitchen. She looked to be about Vi’s age, maybe a little younger. Hard to tell for sure because of the shape she was in. She had bruises on her face and arms. She was so pale Vi could see the blue veins under her skin. She was wearing light-blue hospital pajamas—drawstring pants and one of those awful smocks that tied in the back. Her brown hair was pulled into a messy ponytail and covered up with a blaze-orange knit cap—something a hunter would wear. She had on a pair of dirty sneakers that were way too big, and Vi was sure she’d seen Old Mac wearing those same sneakers out in the garden.