Destroy All Monsters
Page 24
But I knew I couldn’t have any of those things. I knew nothing in life was promised. Nothing was truly ours. Everything would be taken from us. All we really ever have is the moment we are in—and in that moment, we had each other.
Seventy
Solomon
A month passed, before I could see Ash again. She was busy, of course. Meetings and trainings and lessons and long-delayed quality time with her mother. Which was mostly spent arguing, according to the stories Niv was not supposed to be telling me.
High overhead, the lights of the bridge came on. Ash sat beside the riversea. Soldiers on ankylosauruses were stationed all around her, and they tried to block me and Maraud when we rode up, but Ash barked “Let them through” and the line parted for us.
They had put me on her schedule between meditation time and history reading. She’d missed out on all her basic education from the age of twelve on, so there was a lot of general stuff to catch up on—at the same time as she was learning the very specific family business.
The meditation was supposed to help her control her ability. Give her the kind of clarity and insight to see what she needed to see. And to tune out all the stressful stuff that cluttered her royal mind.
It didn’t seem to be working.
She opened her eyes when I climbed down from Maraud, and frowned. “I hate meditation,” she said.
“I hate broccoli,” I said. “But I’ve got to eat it.”
“I missed you,” she said, standing up. The hug I got was intense. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to see you sooner.”
“How have you been?” I looked into her eyes when I asked, but she looked away.
“It’s so much, Solomon. I thought I understood, before, how complex this city was. How hard my mother’s work is. But what I knew—what the public knows—that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Our intelligence reports stuff to us every day that would make you cry. Or scream. Or run away to live in a cabin somewhere superfar from the nearest human being.”
“We’re the worst,” I said.
“For real.”
I took pictures. One where Ash was looking off into the distance. One where she was picking absentmindedly at a scuffed spot on the regal black sweater/cape/robe/gown that she wore. One where she was stroking Maraud’s neck. One where she was smiling at me, rolling her eyes.
“Speaking of complex,” I said. “What’s going to happen to Commissioner Bahrr?”
“I don’t know,” Ash said. “And even if I did, you know I can’t tell someone who works for a newspaper.”
“I’d keep the secret,” I said, but I sensed that this was a distraction. Getting me to take it personally, so I wouldn’t pursue the conversation about the police commissioner. She was clearly learning a lot in her training.
“He should be in jail,” I said.
“Not my call to make,” Ash said. “But my mother knows everything now. She’ll be keeping him on a much tighter chain from now on.”
“I hope that’s true,” I said.
“I’m not happy, Solomon. I thought I would be.”
“I know,” I said, and reached for her, but she had turned away.
“I thought it would be easy to fix things. I thought all I had to do was be brave and be strong and smart and do the right thing. . . .”
“Me too,” I said.
Maraud screeched, and dove into the water. Came up a few seconds later with a jeweled eel in her jaws, spewing rubies.
I could see it in Ash’s face. Her light was dimmed. She’d been damaged by her experience, and she might not ever heal.
“I’ll help you,” I said. “I don’t know how much help I can be, but I’ll do whatever I can. And there’s a lot of other people who will help too.”
She smiled. Then her eyes narrowed, looking at me, and the smile went away from her face.
“What?” I said, laughing. “What did you see?”
“Nothing,” she said, and turned away. So I knew it was something.
“Something about me?” I asked.
“About us,” she said.
“I don’t want to know,” I told her.
“Good,” she said. “It’s stupid.”
“This place gets the best sunsets,” I said, pointing out over the riversea. The sky was painted in broad messy strokes of mauve and orange and blue gray. Ms. Jackson spoke softly from the radio around Maraud’s neck. New things to be afraid of, and to feel hopeful about.
“It does,” Ash said, and reached out her hand. I took it, and I held it.
I wanted certainty. Clarity. The belief that everything would be fine. That we’d be strong enough to survive whatever the future hit us with.
But life doesn’t give us those things. Anything could happen. New threats, sudden sicknesses, a slow change into someone new and different. Violent political uprisings. Irreconcilable interpersonal differences. Kaiju accidentally stomping half the city.
“We can do this,” I said.
Ash smiled, and then she said, “We can do this.”
Nothing is promised. Nothing is truly ours. All we ever really have is the moment we’re in—and in that moment, we had each other.
Acknowledgments
This book goes out to all the kids like me who had the normal trauma of high school made way worse by mental illness, who didn’t know how to get help or were afraid of what that would mean. You are magnificent. No matter what the world might say is wrong with you, know that you can and will have an incredible life full of joy and wonder and love and pain, just like everyone else.
Destroy All Monsters owes an awful lot to:
My magnificent agent, Seth Fishman, who always knows exactly when and how to calm me down or hype me up or set me straight.
My genius editor, Kristen Pettit, whose sense for story and voice and humor and the most efficient way to break hearts is unfailing.
Sensitivity reader Jen Larsen, whose wisdom and insight dramatically improved this narrative. Writers, take heed: Sensitivity readers make everyone better. Even when we’re writing #ownvoices fiction rooted in our own experiences, that’s still our own experience. Everyone is different, and getting other perspectives will only make your story stronger.
Bradley Silver of White Rabbit Tattoo, who put a big beautiful allosaurus on my body to celebrate this book. Amber Kline, for vital insights and amazing stories and a lifetime of so much laughter.
The Get Along G’Aang—Juancy Rodriguez, Kathy Rodriguez, Kalyani-Aindri Sanchez, and Patricia Thomas—the bestest group chat on earth, bringing me so much laughter on the days when we need it most. My best friend, Walead Esmail-Rath, and Erica, and Lola Bee; bright lights in a dark world. My extended family at Picture the Homeless: hundreds of incredible humans, including Jean Rice, Nikita Price, Mo George, Francine Walker, Arvernetta Henry, Darlene Bryant, Rogers, Chyna, Doc, DeBorah Dickerson, Tyletha Samuels, Darlene Bryant . . . and of course Lynn Lewis. Y’all’s power and pride give me hope that even when we’re fighting monsters as big and scary as capitalism and racism, we can still destroy them all.
My family—Deborah Miller, Sarah Talent, Hudson Michael Talent, Eric Talent, Flavia Aleida Castillo, Jose Rodriguez, Tia Yani, Mama Tola, Maria Alejandra and Maria Fernanda, Bready & Dabriel & Carla & Zaiel and the Blackwells—Emilia & Michael & Leilani & Marie . . . and my husband, Juancy Rodriguez, the guiding light behind all the good parts. Only the mistakes have been mine.
In the process of promoting and touring for The Art of Starving, I was grateful to count on the support and hustle (and air mattresses) of Blair Overstreet, Matt Dunn, James Tracy, Juliette Torrez, Jessica Hilt, Esther Wang, Jonathan Fortin, and Michelle Matos.
I’m just generally a hardcore fanboy, and this book is shaped by some of my deepest passions. I had my mind blown by Sam Kieth’s The Maxx in its incarnation as an MTV animated series, and there’s a lot of its DNA in this strange hybrid creation. Pretty much everything I create has been influenced by my profound love for the Avatar: The L
ast Airbender universe, but Destroy All Monsters owes a particular debt to season one of Legend of Korra. Ash’s gift is partially an homage to the character of Cass Neary in Elizabeth Hand’s masterful Generation Loss, which is why there’s a character named after her here. My love for Jewelle Gomez’s The Gilda Stories also inspired a character name. If you like this book, and don’t know those things, I hope you’ll check them out. They’re all way better.
About the Author
Photo by Hyman P. Miller
SAM J. MILLER lives in New York City now but grew up in a small town in upstate New York. He is the last in a long line of butchers. In no particular order, he has also been a film critic, a grocery bagger, a community organizer, a secretary, a painter’s assistant and model, and the guitarist in a punk rock band. His fiction has been nominated for the Nebula Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Award, was long-listed for the Hugo Award, and has won the Shirley Jackson Award. He’s a graduate of the Clarion Writers Workshop. Sam is the author of the critically acclaimed young adult novel The Art of Starving, as well as the adult fiction novel Blackfish City. His husband is a nurse practitioner and is way smarter and handsomer than Sam. You can visit Sam online at www.samjmiller.com.
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Praise for Destroy All Monsters
“Sam J. Miller has gifted us not one, but two mesmerizing worlds in Destroy All Monsters: Ash navigates the harsh, unforgiving reality of the everyday as her best friend, Solomon, tries to survive the twisted, fantastical danger of a parallel city just a breath away from our own. The ways that these two places meet and bleed into each other is at once beautiful, wholly believable, and absolutely heartbreaking. This one will stay with you for a long time.”
—PENG SHEPHERD, author of The Book of M
“Laini Taylor meets John Green in this poignant young adult tale of parallel worlds and deep magic where trauma breaks but friendship heals. Miller offers no easy answers for fighting the all-too-real monsters in our lives but still allows space for hope, healing, and above all, bravery.”
—REBECCA ROANHORSE, Hugo and Nebula and Campbell award-winning author of Trail of Lightning
“Sam J. Miller has cemented his status as one of the most visionary fiction writers of his generation. A staggering, stunning novel.”
—KASS MORGAN, New York Times bestselling author of The 100
“Destroy All Monsters haunts and delights. In this beautiful book are visions of what we might look like as victims, as villains, but, most important, as heroes. Sam J. Miller has done it again.”
—TOCHI ONYEBUCHI, award-winning author of Beasts Made of Night
“In Destroy All Monsters, Sam J. Miller bravely examines the wounds that trauma leaves behind and continues to beautifully study the way love and connection of all kinds hold us all tight until it gets better.”
—CHRISTOPHER BARZAK, award-winning author of Wonders of the Invisible World
Books by Sam J. Miller
The Art of Starving
Destroy All Monsters
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Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
DESTROY ALL MONSTERS. Copyright © 2019 by Sam J. Miller. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art © 2019 by Nathan Burton
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019937387
Digital Edition JULY 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-245676-2
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-245674-8
1920212223PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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