Tag: there are monsters in small places

there are monsters in small places 6

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

It’s important to keep in mind that sirens are not beautiful. They don’t even sing beautifully. They just know the right notes to get you to throw yourself into them. They know how to convince you that the world’s a shit show and that everything will be okay, just come to them, they know how to make it better, just sink yourself and they’ll save you.

Sirens are almost never beautiful, and the sirens of Brightview are no different. Hazel sees them before anyone else

“Look, Ray,” she brags, “sea monsters.” Ray gets the balance back in his tottering legs and puts his hand on his hips.

“Those are sirens,” he shows off. Hazel puts her hands on her hips too. “Yeah? Then how come they aren’t singing?”

there are monsters in small places 5

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

Ezrah as long as he had lived in Brightview had never seen the top of Deadman’s Boulder – even though Evander would scramble to the top ever since he was seven and Ezrah was three, even though ever since then Evander would sneer down at Ezrah.

“Coming up?” Ezrah would not respond.

“What are you, scared? Do you think there are…monsters up here?” Ezrah still thought there were monsters under his bed, and even though Evander didn’t think that, Ezrah would sleep much better once the monsters decided to move out.

“Monsters?” Ezrah whispered. Thinking exactly of the variety that lived under his bed.

“Oh, yes,” Evander grinned, “big scary ones.” His cruelness made Ezrah feel alone. “Are you gonna come up or are you gonna be a sissy?” Ezrah shook his head and shrank back to be alone somewhere else, every time really convinced that there were monsters up there, big scary ones.

That’s why Ezrah was immediately jealous when he found Ros at the top of Deadman’s Boulder only three weeks since she had come to Brightview. The edge of his voice cut towards her through the wind.

“What are you doing up there? You know there are monsters,” he snapped. “Big scary ones,” he added, only half convinced of it himself. Ros did not get angry at him. She was silent like she had joined the soft green moss lining this rock.

“No there’s not,” she responded after being moss for a long time. “There are sirens.” Ezrah was about to start high school and had long since stopped believing that there were monsters hiding in the jagged peaks, but he had never considered sirens, and he thought had heard something from the peak of the boulder that he could not see. “Come see,” Ros invited. Ezrah paused with his foot on a pedal-like out hang for a second he heard Evander instead of her. “Are you coming?” she asked and the moment broke like water over the boulder.

there are monsters in small places 4

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

They call it Deadman’s Boulder because every year, someone winds up dead there. Usually, it’s a tourist who thinks they can swim against the undertow and stay away from the sharp sea rock. Every year, through the usual town lottery, someone finds their body, skin opened or back twisted and neck snapped.

There are a lot of ways these people find themselves snagged on Deadman’s Boulder and none of them have to do with the undertow. They are thrown from the ocean by the scaly sixty-foot sea snake that no one had ever photographed. They are thrown the other way by people who think the same snake could use a sacrifice. They are sunk by sirens who draw them in with slippery songs.

But every year, one person from Brightview has to call the town police, directly because it takes 911 three transfers to find a place called Brightview, and say, “Chief, there’s another one.”

there are monsters in small places 3

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

There is a boulder thick with moss along the beach that looks like one man leaning over another’s back. It’s an easy thing to climb if you are young and don’t mind scraping your knees the way Hazel doesn’t. She is already watching the ocean with the wind licking her neck – the way you can’t when you’re on the ground like Ray is – when Ezrah catches up to him.

“Want to go up, bud?” Ray shakes his head.

“No,” he says. But he watches Hazel with frustrated jealousy, scared to say that he’s scared of climbing up. Ros walks up slowly from behind.

“Really?” she asks, sounding surprised. “Because there are sirens up there. They’ll listen to you when you’re feeling sad.” Ray looks back up at Hazel on the top of the rock.
“Sirens? Really?”

Ros nods. The air of gravity she always keeps around her makes her easy for a kid to believe as Ray does now. He looks at Ros. She doesn’t make him ask her for help.

“Go on up. I’ll make sure you don’t fall.” Ray’s mouth parts in an uncertain smile, and he starts up the mossy foot of the first man. Ezrah tries to pierce Ros’s silence with his eyes.

“We used to think there were sirens up there,” he smiled.

“There are,” Ros answers. Her face remained sharp sea-broken rock.

there are monsters in small places 2

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

Rosmond was a quiet out-of-towner when Ezrah met her first four years ago. She smiled well on command, but she wouldn’t invite herself to talk to you and she would stop eating if she knew you were watching.

Ezrah thought she didn’t eat at all when his parents told him to come to lunch with the nice new family in town with a daughter your age, Ezrah. He watched her hand hovering over her fork to see if he could catch the butterfly wing movement of her picking it up, but she did not. She kept her head bent. Halfway through Ezrah’s grilled cheese, she could finally talk to him.

“Can you stop watching?” she said in a voice that only reached as far as Evander in the seat next to Ezrah. There was not a daughter four years older like Evander but Evander had to come to this stupid lunch anyway.

“Why don’t you just eat?” Evander snapped. Rosmond could not answer. She also could not eat. She still could not answer until Ezrah’s parents took them to see the lovely little boardwalk just outside of town. Evander stepped over the still water tide pools and stilled the waving anemone with the point of a stick.

“Why not just leave it alone,” she whispered, and only Ezrah heard her.

there are monsters in small places 1

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

“Come look at this, Hazel. It’s a sea monster,” Raymundo taunts. Hazel sticks out her chin.

“I know that’s not a sea monster. That’s a mamenomy,” she stumbles over the word. It waves its fingers at her, and in return she pokes its stomach to make it flinch away from her.

“Gotcha!” she grins. Ray grumbles and looks for something else to torment his sister with.

“Your cousins are pretty cute,“ Ezrah comments. Rosmond nods slowly and silently, but she does not speak. Ezrah surveys the boardwalk for an interesting conversation topic, but the small town of Brightview is a sleepy little thing, and he quickly grows restless.

“Why don’t we go play with them?” he asks, knowing Rosmond will not ignore a direct question.

“I shouldn’t get involved,” she says. Hazel and Ray move down the beach and Rosmond gets up to follow. Ezrah notices that she does not mention him in her response. She does not say that Ezrah should not leave her to play with her cousins, but he knows better than to leave her alone on the beach.