The Monster Who Wasn't

by T C Shelley

  To Richard, for all the love, support and encouragement; and to Tess, for being my muse

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  It is a well-known fact that fairies are born from a baby’s first laugh. What is not as well documented is how monsters come into being.

  Monsterkind is divided into three categories. The Great Monsters – identifiable by their huge size – include trolls, ogres, goblins, dragons, abominables and other such monstrosities. The subgenus, Imps, covers all stunted and smaller species – pixies, brownies, leprechauns, sprites, boggarts, gargoyles and so on. And, lastly, of course, there are the Monster Witches: banshees, Baba Yagas, snitches, hags, wyrd sisters (hatched in triplets), and the wet witches like sirens and Jenny Greenteeth.

  All species of Monsterkind are born from a human’s last sigh, and the vileness of the monster is in direct proportion to the depth of the sigher’s regret. Unfulfilled dreams, disappointment and bitterness settle into the human soul like sediment at the bottom of a bottle of vinegar. Once freed, the last sigh grows, turning in the air, solidifying into a dark, resentful shape: as tough as loneliness, hard enough to cut a diamond in two, but as supple as a lie.

  After absorbing every bit of misery and loss in a room, a released sigh makes its way to The Hole, the native country of monsters, hidden in dark caverns of filth. Upon its arrival, the Ogre King breathes on it to begin the hatching process. When great evil has been done by the sigher, the sigh will be incarnated into a powerful and hideous beast. Whereas a life lived happily and full of goodwill generates very little regret, enough to produce nothing more annoying than the smallest of Imps. The Great Monsters are often disgusted by how darling the littlest ones appear.

  The breath of the Ogre King also grants the new monster some knowledge of the world. Ogre Kings do not allow their underlings too much insight, as they see knowledge as power and transfer only a few useful bits and bobs into the heads of new monsters: some basic language skills, remedial literacy and numeracy, and a thorough understanding of how to grovel before superiors.

  From The Monster Hunters’ Journal

  CHAPTER 1

  Old Samuel Kavanagh studied his granddaughter’s face. His son and grandson had brought her for the evening. It took him a lot of work to keep smiling so his boys wouldn’t know his thoughts. They worried about him enough. He peered at the sepia photo of his wife on the dusty sideboard. Despite his smile, she’d have seen through him and right into his thoughts. She’d have shared them.

  He missed her.

  The ten-week-old baby girl lay on his lap. She smiled at him, exposing bare gums. She’d been born with a full head of ebony hair, as they all had. His grandson reclined at his side, perching on the chair’s arm. Only two years into his teens, he watched his grandfather with Kavanagh black eyes, the young man he’d become hiding politely beneath the surface.

  Then Samuel turned to look at his son – greying at the temples, hovering over his daughter with lines of concern carved into his forehead. What wouldn’t the old man give to lift that load from him?

  He sucked his tongue, feeling the air move from that bottomless place in his stomach. He held it back, but the sigh won, hissing out into the room. Regret and misery, pain and weariness blended and solidified.

  The baby laughed, and her music burbled into the polluted air. She watched her laughter turn into a bead of light and circle the old man’s head, dancing and casting sparks over his thin hair. The baby reached for it and the sparkle ducked between her fingers, teasing her. It shot upwards joyously and got caught in the toxic fog of the sigh. It hit against the sigh’s insides and gleamed through the dark surface.

  The blend coughed and spluttered and struggled, but the laugh and sigh stuck together. The mixture sagged, its serpentine tail curling in as the baby giggled again.

  Samuel’s grandson grinned. ‘I’ve never heard Beatrice laugh before.’

  ‘Ah, Nicholas, it’s a wonderful sound, isn’t it?’ The old man ran a finger over the baby’s face.

  Unnoticed by the older humans, the muddle turned in the air, tightening into a tiny black lump. The laugh held it in the room for a moment, sparking as it soaked in the loving atmosphere. When it grew tired of fighting itself, it flitted towards the old man’s bathroom and slithered down the rusted plughole in the basin.

  The visitors didn’t stay long. The baby’s giggles settled to whimpers, and she began to fuss.

  The old man stood to see them off.

  ‘Sorry to leave you, Dad,’ his son said. ‘Your show’s on next. We’ll let you watch it in peace.’

  His grandson kissed him on the forehead.

  Familiar music wisped from the television as Samuel waved them out. He saw the glow of their car’s backlights heading south.

  He leaned over and picked up his wife’s portrait, setting it on his lap and stroking the picture frame.

  ‘I don’t know why, but I think they’ll be fine, Annie, my darling,’ he said. ‘And I’m not worried any more; maybe my prayers have been answered.’

  He settled to watch his show, but he would never move again. He drifted away remembering his granddaughter’s giggle.

  At the window, a pair of pretty green eyes looked in on Samuel Kavanagh. They had witnessed everything. They’d seen with some surprise the sigh rise smoke-like and congeal into a small and scaly cloud, and they had creased into a smile as the old man breathed his last. Then their owner turned away and slipped into the darkness.

  The tiny black gem fought with itself as it travelled the pipes, turning a normally quick journey into a struggle lasting days. The laugh itself wanted to burst free, find fresh air, see the sky and head for a bright star singing a singular, irresistible note. But the sigh was heavy; it needed to sink and merge with dark water running through rusted pipes into murky sewers.

  It looked odd too. It was not pure regret – not merely loss and wasted opportunity. The laugh had brightened it, and though the nugget was black, like all last sighs, it gleamed. It had held back long enough in its absorbent state to nab the humour, the kindness and the love of a family. It had soaked up a lot of humanity.

  It took five days for it to arrive in The Hole.

  It zipped over the heads of the monsters gathering in the centre of The Hole’s Great Cavern, the huge hub of the monsters’ lair, deep under the Earth’s surface. One end stretched three football fields from the other. The cavern walls rose high and dingy, so high not even a monster’s nocturnal eye could see the roof.

  Near the middle, a thunder of ogres played football with a gargoyle’s head. The little sigh flew over them and joined the hundreds of other sighs flitting around, gnat-like, into the faces of red-coated leprechauns and pixies wearing newspaper hats and hessian skivvies. The trolls batted at them. Boggarts climbed head first down impossible walls to watch sighs fall into a heap inside a circle of rocks. They were overshadowed by a rough-wrought throne on a raised stone platform.

  It was Hatching Day. A day of celebration, a day to listen to cracking and crunching of hard dark shells as the latest crop of sighs spat out grubs and pups of the various mon
ster breeds. The monsters had gathered from every corner of The Hole to see if there were any new members to their packs. Some even came down from the world above, abandoning attics, cellars, bridges, tunnels and other human-built residences to have a look at the new additions. The stronger the beast, the closer to the throne and the circle of dark eggs they shoved themselves, which annoyed the weaker imps, as they couldn’t see much at all.

  At the front of the crowd, trolls shoved leprechauns, which in turn bit their toes. One ogre with a head like a damaged pumpkin grinned down at a clutch of shivering pixies and sucked his fleshy lips. Towards the back, a batch of brave brownies waited for their moment. After the goblins and ogres pushed forward and settled, they squeezed between comfortable bums to fill gaps. Being breakable, the gargoyles hung at the rear of the mob, away from ogres’ feet, and listened to the few snatches of news that were passed back to them. They readied themselves to rush forward and grab any new gargoyles before ogres crushed in the hatchling heads.

  Ogres on guard circled the mob, making sure no one ate anyone else before the new-mades hatched. It was exciting. A festival of sorts. Even the footballers stopped their game and pressed close, elbowing banshees and goblins out of the way.

  When the ogre king entered, an avenue formed as the crowd parted so he could ascend his throne upon the flat stone. The king was the largest of all the monsters. He had two fangs like elephant tusks poking from his top lip, and though his left hand was of the same compact muscle and meat as any ogre’s, his right curled into a solid stone fist. It weighed on the end of his wrist.

  The creatures bowed low, muttering ‘Your Majesty’ and ‘King Thunderguts’ under their collective smelly breaths as he passed. A pixie squeaked as a boggart trod on it, desperate to get out of his way.

  King Thunderguts blinked at his scraping underlings and took one large step to ascend the platform. As he did, the sighs hiccupped and bumped each other in front of him, rolling, some already cracking in a hurry to become little monsters.

  The ogre king’s attention was caught by the sight of a sparkle. He studied all the beads and spotted one shining. Even among hundreds of dark jewels it stood out, with its unnatural and (Thunderguts’s mouth felt sour as he thought it) pretty glow. He shifted from one hip to the other; he knew he should waddle down there and pick it out. It was lovely, and nothing so lovely could produce a half-decent monster. It would be best for all if the thing was destroyed. No point telling one of the underlings to do it. They’d be holding up every bead and button until teatime before they got the right one.

  He stepped forward, ready to descend into the pit of sighs to collect the shiny little reject, but before he could, a panting, puffing crone in bedraggled, venom-green rags shoved through the crowd.

  ‘Majesty, Majesty.’ The frail creature pushed past a bear-eared ogre. It flinched and stepped aside for her. ‘Majesty?’ She stood wheezing beside the platform.

  The king nodded and a troll with a nose like a cowpat lifted her on to the dais.

  Thunderguts leered at the crone, studying her twisted face, and stepped to his throne. He wiggled his huge behind between its long-suffering arms and sat down. His red eyes widened but even the strongest of the cavern’s yellow lights could not make them glow.

  ‘What’s got you so excited, Crone?’ He spoke low, although the crowd’s attention had turned back to the black beads in the pit, watching them pop and jump like fleas in a pot.

  ‘It’s happened. And the bead, it’s a little different. I think this one will take.’

  ‘Well, which one will it be, then?’

  The hag looked out over the myriad black stones. She shook her head; there were so many. Then she smiled and pointed at the glowing gem among the dull black nuts.

  The ogre king chuckled. ‘You’re sure it will work?’

  The crone sighed and opened a small metal box. It was full of sparkling powder. She took a pinch and snorted it, clicking the tin closed again. ‘It has to, I won’t last much longer.’

  ‘Well, get down there and grab it before some oaf forgets himself and steps on it.’ The king lifted his stone fist on to the arm of the throne and issued an exhausted grunt. ‘It’s time to hatch these beads!’ From the comfort of his seat, he tupped his tongue to the top of his mouth and bellowed his heavy breath all over the new nuggets. Then he watched with the rest.

  A goblin helped the crone off the edge of the dais and she hobbled through the mob. The monsters shuffled aside for her, jostling and pushing and peering back at their ogre king. Thunderguts felt their curious glances on him. His people knew he didn’t normally wait to watch the new ones emerge once he had set the hatching in motion.

  Crowds of monstrosities and imps huddled closer and raised eyebrows as the first of the black gems snapped and erupted. A dark boulder began hatching before all the rest, expanding as the ogres cheered. Its surface cracked and a claw burst through the top. Two ogres helped the young ogre climb out and they leaned forward to hear its first word.

  ‘Meat?’ the confused creature said. Its new pack shouted encouragement and the little ogre tried to grab a yellow-jacketed pixie.

  Next a batch of brownies burst out of their kernels like popping corn. Pop! Crack! Knisper! Adult brownies gathered them in arms before the trolls could shove them into their mouths. At a safe distance they stopped, pushed together and laughed as the hatchlings struggled to speak.

  ‘Slackle,’ one said. The brownies giggled. It tried again. ‘Spackle.’ The tiny creature looked around to eager faces. ‘Sparkle.’ The brownies hoorahed and the whelp repeated the new and exciting word.

  Leprechaun arrivals received approval for their cries of ‘gold’, ‘profit’, ‘coin’ and ‘commerce’. One excited cub yelled ‘business’ over and over until it vomited. The leprechauns shook its tiny hand.

  ‘Shall we call it Kean?’ an old leprechaun laughed.

  The fledgling yelled out its name – ‘Kean, Kean, Kean’ – until it vomited again.

  Thunderguts’s gaze narrowed. He ignored all the hubbub and excitement, focusing on the sparkling nut. It was one of the last to hatch and the crone almost had it, but as she bent down, a newly hatched pixie grabbed it away. The bead cracked in the little imp’s hand. The pixie yelped in pain and dropped it, staring at its fingers.

  The crone held back.

  At first, the hatchling grew like many of the other larvae, its shape bubbling and popping. Legs snaked out, arms appeared like worms. It spread the usual pale leaves, although Thunderguts flinched to see the odd budding of straight, slim limbs.

  Nearby ogres and trolls squinted at each other. Goblins shifted. Nobody knew what to expect: a puck, perhaps?

  Thunderguts raised an eyebrow and smirked as the shiny nugget grew. A head formed: one ear on each side, two eyes facing forward, the nose too short (even for a puck) and a mouth filled with small, even teeth with no sign of a fang. Hair sprouted like dirty wheat from the top of its head, but not its chin. Hands burst from the stumps of arms, small and dainty.

  A troll grunted its distaste.

  The soft, pale thing opened its eyes, and the monsters nearest him inched back, muttering. Even the new-mades shuffled away.

  ‘Good grief. It looks human,’ something hissed.

  ‘Let’s not start imagining we can hatch our own humans, shall we?’ a green-vested leprechaun said, waving calming hands in the air.

  ‘Nummy,’ said a small ogre.

  Thunderguts grinned, drool collecting on his bottom teeth as the new creature sat up and sneezed.

  The crone pushed the other new-mades aside. When she reached the creature she leaned down and kissed it on the mouth, making several brownies yuck and gag as she did so. Kissing was not normal monster behaviour.

  They all heard the hiss as a long sliver of fresh air filled the new-made’s lungs. Then the crone stared at it, as if she was waiting for something.

  Thunderguts’s voice carried across the space. ‘Is it … is it … all
right?’ he asked.

  The crone grinned, her eyes disappearing into the crimping folds of her face. ‘It’s perfect,’ she cried back.

  The ogre king laughed. As enormous as the cavern was, his bilious chortle filled it. The noise startled the remaining new-mades and many cried.

  ‘Got nothing to do wivvus. S’not one of ours. S’get outa here,’ a goblin said. It bombed past the crone, pushing her out of the way as it snatched up a tiny goblin.

  ‘Let her work!’ Thunderguts bellowed, and jumped from his throne. Monsters nearest him backed away, desperate to escape the king’s flailing fist. A sprite hustled forward, seized three fresh pixies and fled with them. Other waiting packs, wanting to collect terrified hatchlings, forced themselves in, grabbing at grubs.

  In the midst of all the mayhem, a brownie scuttled between the crone’s legs. It tripped her as it snatched a pair of soft-haired mewlers. Sprites and boggarts scooped up more pups.

  ‘Oi! Oi!’ yelled Thunderguts in growing frustration, and jumped down into the pit. ‘Get out of her way. Stop!’ He threw his stone fist around and hit an oversized leprechaun in the face. The imp flew backwards into the throne, clanging on to the chair, sending shudders through the ground.

  The crone dragged herself up and reached for the strange new-made imp once more. Everyone else was trying not to touch the deformed creature, but the growing pandemonium threw it up and over piddles of pixies and a glut of shivering tommyknockers. The crone crawled towards the new-made imp, but it bumped further away. A gaggle of boggarts tripped in front of her, dragging at hairy cubs. The crone sat back on her bony bum and screamed frustration into the cavern roof.

  Thunderguts’s bellows reached the crone across the chaos. ‘Hurry up and get that …’ Thunderguts could not find a word for the new imp. ‘Bring it to me. It’s mine.’

  CHAPTER 2

  The new imp stared at the buffering, battering monsters around him. Things came to him in flashes and flits, skimming the edge of actual ideas. He tried to form words with his … he put a hand to his lips. What was this thing?