Eliza and Her Monsters(33)

“Damien’s already bisexual, my Damien-Amity ship sank back in August when LadyConstellation said it was never going to happen, and Damien makes eyes at Rory ALL THE TIME. And even if there weren’t legitimate reasons,” she goes on, “being gay doesn’t make them different people. They’re still the same characters. Stop whining.”

I love it when they get in arguments like this. Canon vs. fanon, how they think the story should go, how they think it should end, which characters are the best, which places they’d want to live in. It’s like reading the comments without ever seeing the trolls—instant reader feedback from people who actually like the comic and are active in its fandom.

Wallace comes back with the books and boxes me in again. I put my back to the wall and sink down, pulling my feet up onto the seat. My toes brush Wallace’s thigh. I start to scoot them back when his hand comes down and rests over my shoelaces. The heat from his palm shoots up my ankle, my leg, makes my stomach turn to water. He doesn’t look at my foot when he does it, just like he didn’t look back at me when he took my hand at Halloween. When he releases my foot a moment later, it’s like touching it wasn’t even a big deal in the first place. He’s already back to reading the Children of Hypnos book. Cole and Chandra don’t realize anything has happened. No one else realizes anything has happened. Wallace doesn’t even act like he does.

Just me. This tight feeling in my chest is only me.



Sato stood behind her. He held out his hand, as always, and as always, Amity didn’t shake it. Nocturnians didn’t shake hands; meeting someone’s eye was considered a more than adequate greeting. Sato knew this, of course, and smiled as he lowered his hand.

“Is there someone like me out there?” she asked.

Sato sat across from her, back straight, hands on his legs. He wore Alliance white and green, with the colonel’s gold sword pinned to either shoulder. “I’m honestly surprised it took you so long to ask.”

“Are the stories true? Is he out there murdering and enslaving people with the Scarecrow’s power, and I’m the only one who can stop him?”

Sato took another second to collect himself, then said, “As far as we know, there are no other creatures like the Scarecrow and the Watcher on Orcus. You and Faust are two of a kind. You’ve seen the Watcher’s healing capabilities. It’s an unconscious thing, like breathing, and in the years we’ve been studying Faust, we haven’t found a limit to it. Our best theory, gathered from the Nocturnian stories and from an informant of ours, says only the hosts can mortally wound each other.”





Monstrous Sea Private Message


10:11 p.m. 9 - Dec - 16

rainmaker: I never knew these books were about depression.

MirkerLurker: ??

rainmaker: Children of Hypnos. I just started the second one.

MirkerLurker: They’re about depression? I guess it’s been longer than I thought since the last time I read them.

rainmaker: The whole thing is about Emery dealing with her depression. All the dreamhunters are depressed—they live short lives and they don’t sleep and they spend all their time killing other people’s nightmares because their dedication to their job is all they have. Klaus is your favorite character, right? He’s the most depressed of them all.

MirkerLurker: Oh. Yeah, wow, I never realized. Is that a bad thing? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to recommend a bunch of books about depression to you.

rainmaker: I like them a lot, actually. All the other books I’ve read about depression take place in present day, and they end with the main character deciding whether or not to commit suicide. I like these. It’s like with Monstrous Sea. That’s about feeling like you’re in the wrong place, and fighting forces you can’t stop, and how there are monsters out in the world, but usually the worst monsters live inside us. I like stories like that because they’re not so obvious. There’s more to like about them than what they have to teach you. You know?

rainmaker: Sorry. I didn’t mean to get all deep right there.

MirkerLurker: No, it’s okay! You think way harder about stories than I do.

rainmaker: What do you read them for?

MirkerLurker: The characters, I guess. I thought the characters were the reason anyone read Monstrous Sea.

rainmaker: You mean like, shipping?

MirkerLurker: No, not shipping—shipping’s great, and I do it all the time, but I mean . . . the characters themselves. The struggles they have to go through, and when you really love them, how much they affect you. When the characters are good, they make you care about everything else. That’s why I draw them. It probably sounds dumb, but they’re like real people to me. And this will probably sound worse, but sometimes I like them better than real people. I can empathize with characters. Real people are harder.

rainmaker: Real people don’t have concise character arcs.

MirkerLurker: Yes, exactly.

rainmaker: I like the characters, but I like what the story means too. I like how everything comes together. Characters and meaning.

MirkerLurker: You must be a pretty big fan of endings, then. Everything getting wrapped up together.

rainmaker: Haha, good ones, sure. Please tell me Children of Hypnos has a good ending.

MirkerLurker: Um.





CHAPTER 19