The Children on the Hill(67)

Did everyone have a secret life?

Vi knew she did. Her secrets sat like stones in her chest, heavy and cold. But her secrets had never hurt anyone.

When she couldn’t avoid Gran, she told herself she was an actress playing a role. If Boris Karloff could play Frankenstein’s monster and Lon Chaney Jr. could play the Wolf Man, then surely Vi could play her old self—a slightly younger, more na?ve self. She practiced in front of the mirror in her room every morning, first thing when she woke up, while Iris was still sound asleep.

There is nothing wrong. My grandmother takes wonderful care of me and my brother, Eric, and my new sister, Iris. I have a clever mind and a strong heart.

The night before, Vi had given her report to Gran just like always. They sat in Gran’s home office, Gran sipping a gin and tonic, Neil Diamond on the little turntable—Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show. Vi was perched in the leather chair in the corner by the bookshelves holding the tonic and lime Gran had given her. Quinine was what gave tonic water its bitter taste and it was a medicine—it was used to treat malaria, a sickness you could get from mosquitoes.

Iris and Eric were in the living room watching The Six Million Dollar Man, and Vi wished she were out there with them instead.

She lifted the sweating glass in her hand and took another sip of the bitter tonic. “A regular day,” she reported, smiling, shrugging her shoulders a little, like an apology. Sorry that the truth was so boring. “We did some reading and math, then watched TV. Went for a walk in the woods. Read a bunch of comic books. Went over to the vegetable garden to get some tomatoes. Old Mac yelled at us for taking too many.”

Gran studied her for a long time without saying anything; then she asked, “Are you all right, Violet?”

“Of course. What do you mean? Nothing’s wrong.” Vi tried not to squirm, though she felt like a worm on a hook. Caught, caught, caught!

“You and Iris seem a little… tense,” Gran said, peering at Vi as she took out her cigarettes and lighter.

Vi shook her head. “Not really. We kind of had an argument, but it was stupid. Everything’s fine now.”

“An argument about what?” Gran wanted to know.

“Over a game we were playing. Like I said, it was dumb. We made up.”

And Gran looked at her like she could see right through whatever lies Vi might tell. Like maybe Vi wasn’t the actress she thought she was.

“What happened to your face?” Gran asked.

“Huh?”

“The bruise on your chin, Violet. The one I’ve been pretending not to notice for days now.”

Vi rubbed at her chin. “I… I fell down when I was out in the woods the other day.”

Gran had stared at Vi for a long time. After lighthing a cigarette, she’d taken a deep drag of it and blown the smoke in Vi’s direction.



* * *



“NONE OF THE monster stories have happy endings,” Iris said now, turning the page to the werewolf entry, breaking the silence at last. She flipped to the Invisible Man (Eric had drawn only a hat and glasses on that page).

Vi bit her lip, scrambling for something to say to make it all better. The God of Words was silent. Her head was full of a strange, humming static that was getting progressively louder. Another headache was coming on. She’d been getting so many of them lately. All the secrets piling up, creating a pressure that built and built until she felt like her head might actually explode.

“The monster can try to live among the humans, to act like a human even, but it never works, does it?” Iris asked as she closed the book and stood up. “People always find out the truth.” She was crying now, but her face didn’t look sad. Her face didn’t have any expression at all. It was like a wax mask, except for the tears flowing down her cheeks.

“You’re not a monster,” Vi said, standing. She reached out and touched Iris’s wet cheek. It was cold and pale, like white marble. Iris jerked back.

“Yes, I am.” Her voice was high and loud and strange. All wrong for Iris. “You saw the notes. Patient S was a monster Gran created. And I’m that monster.”

Vi’s chest felt tight, like she couldn’t breathe, like her heart might just stop beating. She was scared, more scared than she’d ever been. She stepped toward Iris. Her legs didn’t want to cooperate: They were all wobbly, as if they didn’t belong to her at all.

“Stay away from me,” Iris ordered. “You don’t know what I might do.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Vi said. “You won’t hurt me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do,” Vi said, putting her hands on Iris’s shoulders, looking her right in the eye. “I know you. I know the real you.”

But Vi wondered how much anyone could really know anyone else.

Had Vi really known Gran?

No. She’d only seen what Gran wanted her to see. One side.

“I know the truth,” Iris said. “The truth about monsters. I know because you taught me.”

Vi gripped Iris’s shoulders more tightly. “Stop it, Iris, please.”

Now Vi was crying—Vi, who never cried, who couldn’t remember the last time she felt this broken, outside or in. Her whole body throbbed, and her head was full of white noise and static. She let go of Iris, who seemed to waver through the watery lens of Vi’s tears, as if she might not be real at all.