A Fierce and Subtle Poison
Page 20
I spent the night after Rico and Ruben left sitting alone on the beach. The air was unusually thick, and my ears were filled with murmurs from the sea and the trees.
I didn’t hear the sound of the boy’s feet kicking through sand as he approached, but when I looked over my shoulder, there he was. He had to have been about eight or nine years old, with ears that stuck out past his short-cropped dark hair.
In his outstretched hand was a small piece of paper, folded along a neat crease.
“Qué es esto?” I asked.
“Es para tí.”
I pointed at my chest.“For me? De veras?”
He dropped the piece of paper at my feet and took off down the shoreline, toward the flickering lights of a string of small houses in the distance. I unfolded the note, but the light was too dim and the handwriting too bad for me to see what it said. I would have to wait until I got back to my room before I could read it and put it with all the others.
I went back to that story in my head, the one I’d started late last summer and had been building upon ever since. It started with a witch who could grant wishes. There were parts in the middle about girls who disappeared in the night, spirits who guarded a great island, and a scientist gone mad with grief. Two girls I would never get the chance to love would die; both their bodies would get swept out to sea with a storm.
But that won’t be the end. One of the girls will come back. She’ll walk out of the water just before dawn. I’ll be waiting for her. She’ll clutch the front of my shirt with her wet hands, pull me toward her, and kiss me with a mouth that tastes like saltwater. She will be warm.
THE END
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to . . .
my champions: Krestyna Lypen, Elise Howard, and the team at Algonquin Young Readers; Michelle Andelman, Claire Anderson-Wheeler, and all at Regal Hoffman.
my teachers, including but certainly not limited to, Dennis Covington, Lad Tobin, and Paula Lemmon (gratias tibi).
my parents and family, all the Mabrys, Garcias, Schulzes, and Clarks.
my friends, particularly those who offered kind, brutal, and necessary feedback on early drafts of this manuscript.
my colleagues and students who spend their days in English classrooms.
my Jay.
A
Fierce
and
Subtle
Poison
Samantha Mabry
Questions for Discussion
Questions for Discussion
1. What did you think the title meant before you started reading the book? How about after you finished it? Discuss the similarities and differences. What was the biggest change in your interpretation? How big an effect did the title have on your choice to pick up and read this book?
2. How does the weather contribute to the overall tone of the story? What was the most vivid or memorable description of the weather? What effect did it have on the story and the characters. On your reading?
3. Lucas’s friends refer to his father as el patrón “or, when they were feeling particularly brutal, el conquistador” (page 16). What do el patron and el conquistador mean? Why do his friends choose these words?
4. On page 47, Lucas says, “What my dad didn’t get was that Mara Lopez hated me not because I was white but because I was spoiled. I sometimes hated myself for the same reason.” What does it mean to be spoiled? In your opinion, is Lucas spoiled? If so, does he exploit it throughout the story? How? Does he use his privileged position for good, evil, or a little bit of both?
5. The author often describes sounds in her writing. For example, “I stayed there, sweating, through the duration of many candles, listening to the hiss of the paper fan Ruben’s abuela used to keep the mosquitoes at bay and to the clacks of her dentures shifting in her mouth as her lips moved in silent prayer” (page 80). How do the auditory details affect the story? What are some other examples of uses of sound in this story?
6. Isabel says to Lucas, “Looks can be deceiving, you know. In many ways, these plants seem harmless, but they are good at hiding their true nature” (page 119). Does this apply to the humans in this story, too? Discuss in regard to Lucas, his father, Dr. Ford, and Isabel.
7. Both Lucas and Isabel had mothers who abandoned them at early ages. How does this affect their lives now? What do you think are other ramifications? Put yourself in the shoes of each mother and discuss possible motivations for their actions. Are the disappeared mothers parallel to the disappeared girls in the story? Why or why not?
8. In the beginning of the story, the cursed girl in the house at the end of the street is merely a legend—a myth with many different and complicated origins. Once Lucas gets to know her, he finds out that “Isabel wasn’t a myth. A myth is simple. Isabel was a muddled mess” (page 193). Have you ever had a similar experience with someone you’d previously only known through stories or reputation? Was this person different once you actually got to know them?
9. On page 234, Lucas says “To me, stories were stronger than the truth.” How does this statement apply to the stories the islanders share? What parallels are there between the truth and the stories? Do the myths ultimately reflect the truth? If so, how?
10. On page 251, Lucas feels like a hero as he lets out “a yelp of victory. I couldn’t help it. I’d done it. I’d beaten the police and a mad scientist and a curse and a storm and a goddess who makes storms.” On page 268, Lucas says, “Isabel didn’t need a hero. She was saving herself.” And on page 269, he says, “She had the soul of a giant, and no one would ever know.” Is Luke a hero in this story? Why or why not? What about Isabel—is she a heroine and “a giant”? Why or why not?
Reader’s Guide by Diane Cain
LAURA BURLTON
SAMANTHA MABRY credits her tendency toward magical thinking to her Grandmother Garcia, who would wash money in the kitchen sink to rinse off any bad spirits. She teaches writing and Latino Literature at a community college in Dallas, Texas, where she lives with her husband, a historian, and her pets, including a cat named Mouse. A Fierce and Subtle Poison is her first novel.
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Published by
Algonquin Young Readers
an imprint of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2016 by Samantha Mabry.
All rights reserved.
eISBN 978-1-61620-588-1