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When Gabrio shows up to River Wall Manor, in all his fifty-foot, Wall Man glory, I’m dumbstruck.
“Gabrio. Ohmygod.” He’s big again. And he’s wearing a green sweater that matches his eyes and a pair of soft jeans. He’s even wearing boots! Where he got them, I don’t know, but Pennsylvania’s weather is nothing like Monsterland’s. He probably figured that out pretty quickly. We get real winters here. Clothing is not optional.
“I missed you so much.” I run and greet him with a massive hug around his lower leg.
Gabrio looks down at me with confusion, and the lack of affection in his eyes is abundantly clear.
Bard comes up beside me and wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Sorry, brother. My wife is behaving very soft and human today. Baby hormones.”
Gabrio shrugs. “That is because Lakeissoft and human. What is new?”
The ground vibrates and rumbles. “Where’s the food? I’m hungry.” Tiago marches up through the forest, shirtless but wearing thick fur pants.
I tilt my head all the way back to check him out. Tiago the Terrible’s here? And he looks, well…uncomfortable.
I try not to laugh. I bet he hates the cold and hates being among the weaklings. Nevertheless, he’shere. Inmyworld. Withmyfamily. On Thanksgiving! This is very un-Tiago behavior.I have no words.
“Be polite, Tiago, or no dessert.” Alwar comes up behind him, wearing a black sweater and long black pants. Like Gabrio and Tiago, he’s still a giant, too. And he looks…happy.
I burst out in tears of joy. For him. For me. For my family. Words could never express what I’m feeling in my heart, so I go with, “Thank you. Thank you for showing up.”
Alwar smiles but doesn’t really react.
“Well, what are you all standing around for?” Grandma Rain comes out the back door of the mansion. “Get that tent set up, Alwar. And you, Gabrio, get that bird on the grill. Flier ain’t going to roast itself. Tiago, I need you to fire up the crusts on those pumpkin spice crème brulees. I got ’em all set for you.” She jerks her head toward a bunch of, well, they look like four-foot-wide galvanized metal buckets, the shallow kind you use for animal feed.
“Did you make mine bigger this time?” Tiago snarls. “You know I like my creamy desserts.”
Grandma Rain snaps a towel at him and smiles. “Yes, my dear boy, I made extra for you.”
He smiles and walks off toward the buckets.
“Well, get on with it, you two,” Grandma Rain says to Alwar and Gabrio. “Dinner in thirty minutes.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the two reply in unison.
I feel like I’m going to faint. Or maybe wake up from a dream. Did my grandma just order around a bunch of warmongering Wall Men? This can’t be real. But it is.
When my parents finally show up, it takes everything I have not to melt down. Their absence in my life felt like missing a limb or a major organ. I have to contain myself or I’ll ruin this incredible celebration. What to me is the reunion I’ve dreamed about since I was a nine-year-old girl is just another holiday to them. Good. Wonderful even. But nowhere near a miracle.
I limit myself to one long hug for each of my parents and then force myself to smile and engage in “normal conversation” about the baby, the progress of my work, and how I’m dealing with the pushback from certain political groups.
Seems not everyone is on board with our work or accepting of the fact that in the end, Monsterland is the key to our survival. If we fuck up now, it will only come back to haunt us.
As my dad put it, “We can only survive if we accept that our actions do matter, and there can either be life after death. Or just a lot of death.”
I think what he meant was that our legacy isn’t one straight line on an infinite continuum. Eventually, everything circlesback. Honestly, it sounds like an argument for karma, but on a much grander scale.
I don’t know what I believe, but I’m at a point where it just doesn’t matter. I know I’m grateful—lucky as hell—to be right where I am. I know I’ll always fight for what I love even if there aren’t any guarantees at the end of the road. I know that if there’s a chance at hell in succeeding, it doesn’t begin with feelings—fear, hope, wishing, sadness. It’s about ignoring all that. It’s about action.
And if anyone doubts me, I’m about to sit down with monsters for a feast.
We eat outside, under an enormous white canopy. There’s turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes for us and a huge roasted Flier with a side of very large tubers for the Wall Men. I try not to gag from the smell because this moment is too good to ruin.
Alwar is alive. Gabrio and Tiago, too. And they are Wall Men. Only, they’re not exactly warriors anymore.
From what I gather during dinner, they’re more like gods, who came from a “hole in the sky” and convinced humans they needed to face what was coming rather than fight it. Alwar’s actions changed everything.
Now the Wall Men guard the wall in each direction, carefully balancing the changes we make in my world for the betterment oftheirfuture.
