《Get Off the Mountain》Terry | You are the monster

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“What have I done? What have I done?”

My hands tremble, stained with blood. Grandma’s book spread across my lap. Pool of blood in my bedroom, on the floor.

Grandma’s note is scribbled on the margins of page one-hundred and six. The bones of the one you love will rattle and moan if you place the lilac across their chest inside of the den of monsters and the monster it will come to life though blood it needs to resurrect.

No commas, damnit. No colons. No semicolons. “Come on, Grandma,” I mutter, realization of what I’ve become leaves a bland taste on my tongue, saliva gone, a force to gulp.

“Damnit.” Blood didn’t work. No it didn’t.

When Odon’s bones didn’t move, when the lilacs crumbled to dust with the breeze, when the den of monsters wasn’t enough, I needed blood to finish the spell. The goat collar is on my lap, the charm carved lively and jubilant. Grandma said if I crush the charm, her spirit will ascend to the heavens and she’ll take her throne among the Gods of Sky. And so will I, she said. In her notes. Scribbled with no punctuation in the margins of her rule book.

Which by the way, I lied. I lied.

Souls come down, must go up. Don’t let Chief know. Flesh decays the moment life is taken. Bones + flowers + the den of monsters + a monster = life

Rule 3: Madness takes over the soul if it does not go back up.

Rule 4: Ideas are madness.

Rule 5: You must realize your madness.

Rule 6: Death is locked inside you.

These three? See why I lied? I don’t get it or maybe I’m afraid of rule three. Afterall, what have I done? The green-eyed goat lays at my feet. Her blood collected in a jar with a cork lid I found under a tree branch next to the cliff Odon and I used to sit.

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And I don’t feel her. I don’t feel Odon with me at all.

“You were mad, grandma. Mad.” I pull the blanket over me and lay, staring at the black puddle on my floor. “So mad.”

And Odon? I’m sorry, Odon but I failed you. The dragon I carved is pulled tight into my chest. I’m sorry Odon. I can’t find the dragon and I can’t bring you back. I’m sorry.

Grandma said it was time to bring us back. She said it. She really did. But a dead goat lays at my feet, grandma’s charm on the nightstand.

Did Grandma really say it?

I can’t think, blanket wrapped around my face. I can’t. I’d sleep in the Grief Room but Odon is there and I can’t sleep with her haunting me. Her beautiful smile, gentle eyes, watching me as I pretend to sleep, as she thinks she sleeps too. How much longer can this go on Grandma?

An idea strikes. Either paint goat’s blood on the Grief Room wall and play another trick on Chief. Give me more time to sift through all the notes, mostly incoherent and faded of Grandma’s to see what to do next.

Or give up. Give in. Let Chief kill the rest of the villagers.

And then tell Odon Terry’s Grandma was never for real.

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