“IT’S ME, ISN’T it?” Iris said when she looked up at last. Her eyes were glazed over, pupils huge and sparkling, as if they weren’t even her eyes at all but the eyes of a doll or a stuffed animal. “I’m Patient S.”
Vi nodded.
“I did these things?” Her voice shook. She looked down at her hands as if they weren’t her own. “I killed my parents? My sister?”
Sister. She’d had an actual flesh-and-blood sister. A sister she’d killed.
“What Gran and Dr. Hutchins did to you… it’s…” Vi struggled for the right words.
Wrong? Criminal?
Outside, they heard a howl.
They both froze, eyes locked.
Another howl.
“Crap,” Vi said. The Monster Club call. “I’ll get him to go away.” She went to her window and opened it. Eric was down there in the yard holding a flashlight. He’d decided to come out of his room after all.
“Not now,” Vi called down.
“But it’s time,” he yelled up.
Shit. The monster hunt. She had forgotten all about the damn monster hunt.
“We can’t,” she said.
“What do you mean? What about the Ghoul? It’s the full moon,” Eric reminded her. “This is our chance.”
“We can’t,” she repeated.
“I did what you told me to do last night. I got in trouble for you!” He glared up at her.
Behind her, Iris stood. She went to the closet, got a dark hooded sweatshirt. “We should go,” she said, a girl on autopilot, speaking and moving like a sleepwalker.
“No. We don’t have to. Not tonight,” Vi said.
“But Eric’s waiting.”
Vi tried to argue, tried to stop her, but Iris was on her way downstairs and out the door and then it was too late.
* * *
THE MOON WAS a bright orange-red, hanging low and huge in the sky.
It was a damp, cold night—too cold for July. Vi shivered despite her sweatshirt. She wanted to go home. To take Iris home and talk about everything, make a plan for what they should do next.
Eric was telling them that he’d found some footprints down by the creek: footprints that definitely weren’t theirs. “I think it’s the Ghoul. When I saw him, he had these big boots that looked like they had fur on them. Like animal skin.”
He was leading them through the woods, followed by Vi and then Iris last. Vi kept turning back to look at her, but Iris’s eyes wouldn’t meet hers. They were focused on the ground.
Crunch, crunch, crunch went their feet through old leaves, twigs. They stumbled and shuffled their way forward, crushing ferns, tripping over roots and stones.
Eric was swinging the light, scanning, always lighting the way up ahead to make sure it was safe, that the Ghoul wasn’t there, waiting for them with sharp teeth and claws.
They heard the creek before they saw it, and soon they were right by the bank. In the spring it ran deeper and faster, but at this time of year it was barely a foot in the deepest places. Some years it stopped running altogether by midsummer.
The water was black and sparkling under the beam from Eric’s flashlight.
He looked down, shone the beam around in the mud along the edge until he found the strange footprints. “See, they’re not ours. These come from boots with a smooth sole. It’s the Ghoul.”
Vi stepped forward to look at the prints. They were too big to be Gran’s. Too small for Old Mac. Who else would come back here?
Eric looked up, shone his light in Vi’s face, blinding her. She put her hand up to shield her eyes.
“Eric!” she scolded. “Quit it.”
He pointed the beam of light all around her, scanning the trees. “Where’s Iris?”
Vi turned to look. “She was right here just a second ago.”
But now she was gone.
Eric’s eyes got huge. “Do you think…” He lowered his voice. “Do you think the Ghoul got her?”
“Iris?” Vi called.
Nothing.
Only the sound of the creek.
“We’ve got to find her,” Vi said.
Eric nodded, still sweeping the area around him with the light. “Iris?” he called, voice squeaky and soft.
They held still, listening.
Vi heard a cracking sound, a branch breaking, from over her right shoulder.
“This way,” she said, moving in the direction of the sound. She called out to Iris again, shouting as loud as she could. The trees got thick and closer together as they moved deeper into the woods. She felt everything closing in around her, like a hand tightening its grip.
She heard someone running up ahead.
What if that isn’t Iris? she wondered. What if they were really chasing Eric’s Ghoul? What if they were heading right into a trap?
She remembered his drawing: the pale face, dark eyes, and black hood.
She pictured those dark eyes staring back at her, black as a starless night sky.
Up ahead, she caught sight of a shadow moving through the trees.
“Iris?” she called.
A branch snapped. Then another.
A grunting cry from up ahead.
“It’s not her,” Eric said from just behind her. “It’s the Ghoul!”
He was moving the flashlight through the trees, but Vi didn’t see anything at all.
Then the light caught on a pale face with a dark hood.
Eric yelped.
But this was no ghoul.
It was a girl in a black hooded sweatshirt. Vi’s sweatshirt. Vi’s twin. Iris was standing beside a tree, a ghostly white paper birch.
“Iris,” Vi called. “What are you doing?”
“Go away,” Iris said, her voice a twisted snarl. “Leave me alone.”
“No,” Vi said, moving closer, stepping slowly.
And Iris leaned down, picked up a baseball-sized rock, and threw it at Vi.
She was so surprised, she didn’t have time to duck, and the rock caught her on the chin, sending her reeling, her jaw exploding with pain. She fell back on the ground.
“I said, leave me alone!” Iris screamed.
Eric hurried to Vi, dropped to his knees. “Vi?” he said, voice high and squeaky. “You’re bleeding, Vi! Oh, crap. Crap.”
“I’m okay,” she said, sitting up, rubbing at her chin. The rock had barely grazed her. An inch or two up and it might have broken her jaw, cracked her teeth. She got back on her feet, brushing past Eric and moving toward Iris, who was crouched down now, hands wrapped around her knees. And the sounds she was making—deep-throated growls and sobs—were more animal than human. Vi took a slow step forward, hands limp at her sides, trying to look as unthreatening as possible.
“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