Chapter 37 The Monster
The Monster
The gunshot split the air like glass, the force of the bullet throwing Eva’s body into the monster, where she crumpled like a rag doll, heavy and warm. The whine in the monster’s ears stole every sound but the pounding of its own heartbeat.
Birds exploded from the canopy overhead.
So many feathers.
So much life.
For several seconds, the shock of it stole the monster’s breath, and it lay there, stunned. When it set its hands on Eva’s waist, something warm and wet slicked between its fingers. The tang of iron filled its nose.
“Eva?” it whispered as it blinked very slowly, finding it hard to arrange its thoughts.
Then everything rushed in all at once. With a gasp, the monster gripping the fabric of Eva’s shirt and rolled her over, confusion melting into fear as it realized what she’d done by jumping between Arthur and the bullet.
“I-I didn’t mean…”
The monster’s gaze snapped to where Lenny stood frozen, staring at them. He stammered, his voice breaking.
The sound that came from the monster wasn’t human at all but the furious cry of an animal. “Go,” it seethed.
Lenny stepped back, startled. He looked suddenly younger. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
The monster roared. “GO!”
And Lenny did, stumbling into the woods. The monster held Eva close, searching with trembling fingers for where the bullet had lodged itself in her flesh, like a seed planted in soil. Red bloomed from the wound in her side, flowing too fast and covering both of them in blood.
Her blood.
“Eva?” the monster whispered, feathering a panicked touch to her cheek. Her color was fading, a deathly pallor swallowing the rosy hue of sun-touched skin. “Wake up,” it pleaded weakly, cradling the back of her neck to prevent her head from lolling.
Salt burned the corners of its eyes. Strange, how tears could hurt sometimes.
With a little sob, the monster repositioned Eva on the grass and pressed both palms to the wound in her side. The gentle pressure made Eva convulse, her eyes slitting open.
She moaned.
“I’m sorry.” The monster couldn’t tell where its panic ended and Arthur’s began.
The level of terror coursing through their shared being was so violent it made the monster nauseous.
“I’m so sorry. But you’ve got to stay awake for me.
” It scrubbed under its eyes, clearing the blurriness away, tasting salt. “You have to stay.”
Eva’s lips parted, but no sound came out. The monster stripped off Arthur’s shirt and balled it up, then pressed it to her wound. “Come on, Freckles,” it choked out.
The monster had never prayed before. What was a creature like it supposed to do with God, anyway?
But it firmly believed that if anyone should curry divine favor, it was Arthur’s bee girl.
A plea kept beating in the monster’s head, finding release the way Arthur did with his tapping.
Not her, not her. It was an ancient rhythm full of pain. Not her, not her, PLEASE.
It reached into the dark of its mind as a sob tightened in its throat. But Arthur wasn’t there.
“Please,” the monster whispered as it bowed over her bleeding body. This wasn’t supposed to happen. All it had wanted was to protect Arthur, but this would break him.
Not her, not her. The monster’s plea fell in sync with its pulse. It had never wanted their bee girl to become another one of Arthur’s scars.
The forest seemed to mirror the sounds of Eva’s body: the river’s rush like her blood, the beat of life underground like the thump of her heart, and the rustling wind like the gasp on her lips.
Tears striped down Arthur’s cheeks. Even trapped inside his own mind, Arthur was nothing but heart, and the monster could do nothing to stop the pain when the same slide of grief was pulling it down too, a tar pit of panic drawing it lower with every passing second.
When Eva’s breaths became a wheeze, the monster broke.
This couldn’t be happening. They couldn’t lose her!
But they already were.
The hard reality made a bout of nauseating fear roll over the monster. This was why it kept Arthur numb, because feeling this was agony. A love like theirs shouldn’t end in loss like this!
But that’s what all love stories did.
A sob ratcheted the tightness in the monster’s chest. Had it made things worse? It wanted to be a balm, but maybe it had simply become another burden for Arthur to carry.
He would never forgive the monster if it let Eva die.
The monster wouldn’t forgive itself either.
Eva twitched a little gasp beneath the pressure of the monster’s touch.
She looked so delicate, so unlike herself.
She was usually a force of nature. Now she was a greenhouse.
A whole world trapped in glass bones far too fragile to keep her safe.
Not even her uncanny ability to heal could pull her back from a wound this deep.
Her skin was graying fast, her hairline drenched in sweat.
I can help you.
The voice startled the monster, drawing its gaze to where the spirit of the wood stood nearby. How long had she been there?
You can save her, devil, the spirit said. If you heed my instructions.
The monster’s jaws snapped. “How?” They were running out of time, and it could do nothing to help her! It was a creature of death, born to take. Not to heal.
We bring my son back. The spirit’s leaves rippled, her tone cool and firm. For good, this time.
The words dropped a pit into the monster’s stomach. “Arthur needs me,” it rasped.
But a whisper of doubt moved through the body they shared, and suddenly… the monster wasn’t sure that was true. It helped Arthur survive, but even it knew there was a difference between survival and truly living. Arthur wanted to live. He wanted to feel.
The monster was useless to Eva. It could feel her life draining out. Eva needed a champion, someone soft and brave enough to face grief even when it hurt.
She needed Arthur.
“Okay,” it whispered. “What do I do?”
First, promise to tell the bees that I am gone.
“Fine,” the monster snapped. “I’ll tell them anything you want. Just help me save her!”
The spirit nodded, as though she had expected this reaction. She extended a hand covered in delicate aspen leaves. In the place where a palm might be, she held out the chunks of honeycomb Eva had broken off from the wild hive.
Eat.
The monster frowned. “I can’t just give it to her?”
She’s spent a lifetime drinking tea from these flowers. It won’t be enough.
“Fine.” The monster wiped the sweat off Arthur’s upper lip. Push me out, little death-touch, it silently pleaded as it took the honeycomb from the spirit.
There will be a cost, the spirit of the wood said in warning as the monster brought the bit of comb to Arthur’s lips.
“There always is,” it whispered, squeezing its eyes shut in surrender.
And suddenly the monster understood that it had been wrong, all along. It was never meant to prevent Arthur from feeling all the pain in his world. It was meant to stand by him. To witness. To weep. It was meant to be for him what Jack and Izzy and Eva had been.
It couldn’t put its own fear of pain in front of Arthur’s heart anymore. The monster knew Arthur’s every desire. It knew what the bee girl meant to him, and so it knew that the price didn’t matter. Arthur would pay it every time, to save her.
The monster plopped the honeycomb onto its tongue, and bit down.