Page 8 of A Mastery of Monsters

Me and Bailey are suffocating each other.

Her house isn’t helping. It’s tiny on purpose.

She had it built to be two hundred square feet.

A hundred on the main floor that houses the kitchen, a micro-sized bathroom, and the small living area, and then another hundred in the two loft areas—one which makes up my bedroom and the other hers.

Except it’s all open. The only interior door is to the bathroom.

As I sit in my “room,” I can see her across the house in her own, typing something on her laptop. We say nothing to each other.

It’s been like this since Jules went missing last Sunday.

I could go outside. The tiny house community is on a few acres of land.

But I don’t want to be outside right now.

Not alone. The landscape is pretty much flat farmland as far as you can see, not many places for the spawn of Satan rabbit to hide, but still.

I keep looking over my shoulder for it, but it hasn’t appeared again.

So now I have to be here with Bailey.

I stare at my phone again. I’ve been doing it a lot in the last week.

I look at the text that I sent to Jules about a weird animal coming after me.

I didn’t know how else to word it without seeming completely unhinged.

Part of me hoped he would text back knowing about some random animal species that I didn’t.

Or suggest I hallucinated the whole thing, which I could get behind with some encouragement.

But he hadn’t responded.

He’d left.

I grip the phone in my hand and think about throwing it over the ledge of the loft.

It’s tempting, but Dad wouldn’t get me a new one.

Instead, I reach for the letter I found in Jules’s stuff.

The university packed up everything he had, and me and Bailey went and got it.

I tore through it all, looking for any sort of clue, and this is the only one I have.

Something from these people called the society for something-something, a long name that I’ve never heard of and couldn’t find on Google, saying they can help Jules with his “current circumstances.” It was sent in February.

He never mentioned anything like this to me.

And if it was junk mail, why would he keep it?

I set the letter on my bed, and when I look up, Bailey is staring at me. She gives me a small smile. I look down.

I sigh when I hear the creaking sound of her moving. She walks from her loft to mine, pausing to sit on the top step leading into my area.

“Hey,” she says, playing with the rings on her fingers. “You don’t have work today? I thought you always do Saturday mornings.”

“No.” I do. I just decided not to go when I woke up.

“Heard from Jules?”

“No.” I bite the inside of my cheek.

“I’m sure he’ll—”

“He wouldn’t have done this. He wouldn’t have left without telling me. He wouldn’t not text me. He wouldn’t drop out of school.”

He wouldn’t do what Mom had already done to us.

Not to me.

I yank the note out of my pocket. The tiny piece of paper that the police didn’t even bother to take because it meant there was no case. After all, it’s his handwriting. Even I can see that.

It’s bullshit. Even when I’d tried to shove him away, Jules had stayed when no one else would.

Bailey makes this pathetic sad face at me. “August—”

“Can you drop me at the dock?”

“…Yeah. Okay.”

On our way to the car, Mia comes out of her house dressed in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, her long woven purse around her shoulder and a hockey stick in her hand. Given the lack of ice currently, I assume it’s for indoor hockey. “Are you going to the dock?” she asks.

“Yup,” Bailey says. “You want a ride?”

“Please!”

I groan.

Bailey side-eyes me. “Be nice.”

I don’t have any issue with Mia. She’s fine, as far as fifteen-year-olds go, but I want to sit in the car in silence. Now she and Bailey will talk the whole time.

Which is exactly what happens. I let Mia have shotgun, and for the whole ten-minute drive, they talk about her intramural floor hockey league—she’ll switch to ice hockey in the winter—and some dinner thing that she wants to plan.

I tune out and lay my head against the window, then practically sprint out of the car when we stop.

“August!” Bailey calls.

I force myself to turn around.

“If you want to talk, I’m here. I know we haven’t gotten to spend a lot of time together, but I’m always available. I can do things other than give you rides.”

Dad said something similar before. Jules, too. “I’m fine.”

I leave and stand in line for the ferry, arms crossed and foot tapping. I don’t have a plan. But at least partying in Kingston will distract me for a while. If I play my cards right, I can probably crash a pregame, too.

Mia says, “She’s trying to help.”

“Yeah, I know.” I light up the joint I stole from Bailey. She thinks she’s slick with where she hides them.

Mia eyes me. “Did you steal that?”

“No, it’s mine.”

“You definitely stole it.”

I pull the note out of my pocket and look at it again. I took the letter too, but it’s more confusing. This, at least this is Jules’s words.

I need to get away for a while. I’m fine. Don’t look for me.

—Jules

I hold my lighter to the note, smiling as the flames eat the paper.

Until I notice the words appearing on the other side.

The joint falls out of my mouth, and I drop the lighter as I scramble to stop the fire. Of course! Of fucking course! The invisible ink. I flip the paper over, and a new message appears, written in small, cramped letters.

I know this won’t make any sense to you, but I am serious when I say this: Monsters are real.

Monsters are real, and dangerous, and they are here.

From that text you sent me, you’ve already seen one.

I wish I could tell you to run, but unfortunately, they might follow.

Instead, use everything Mom taught us to keep yourself safe.

Bailey and Dad, too. Don’t do anything that might put you in danger.

Stay away from the parks and forests, anywhere with tree cover and no people, especially at night.

And if you hear growling or snarling, RUN.

Someone’s already been hurt, and I don’t want you to be next.

Don’t search for me. The best way for you to stay safe is to stay away.

—Jules

Monsters, plural. As in, there are more things than the cursed Easter Bunny running around?

! I swallow and lick my lips. And Jules knew about it.

He disappeared the same day that monster had come after me.

Maybe even because I’d texted him about it.

And I was right, it had been coming after me specifically, but why?

And why did it leave without finishing the job?

The best way for you to stay safe is to stay away.

If everything was fine, he wouldn’t have left in the middle of the night without even saying goodbye. He wouldn’t warn me away from trying to find him. He would have had time to explain what’s going on.

“What’s up with the paper?” Mia attempts to peer over my shoulder, and I crush the note in my fist.

“Shut up. I’m trying to remember something.”

“So fucking rude.”

Someone’s already been hurt, and I don’t want you to be next.

The last time I went out, what did that girl say about me walking home? Some other girl had gone missing. Yes! Like, the week before or something. I shove the crumpled note into my pocket and yank out my phone, Googling until I find her.

Nineteen-year-old Queen’s second year student Samantha George went missing in early August and was last seen near City Park .

I look up which park that is on Google Maps. It’s the same one I walked through. Where that dude winked at me. But there wasn’t any monster there.

Or there wasn’t any when I was there. But Jules… He wanted to know where I was that night. He was worried.

Worried about monsters.

And I recently met someone who knew exactly what that thing at Big Sandy Bay was.

The ferry’s bell tolls as it pulls up to the dock.

Suddenly, I have a new destination in mind.