Page 16 of A Door in the Dark
“Step two is simple. Why is it a monster?”
He looked around the room, hands out and inviting. Clyde jumped in first.
“Claws. Teeth. Fangs.”
Agora nodded. “Seeing a lot of that. Let’s take Ren’s creature. It has claws. Sharp teeth. But what if this creature was domesticated? Looks like a sturdy animal, doesn’t it? Maybe it pulls wagons for farmers. Would it really be a monster then? Just because it has claws?”
Clyde answered, “If it used those claws to shred the farmer’s child, sure.”
“Interesting. Thus, it is not simply the presence of claws. It’s the use. I doubt we’d be upset if Ren’s monster dug irrigation trenches or used those scythelike fingers to clear fields. What else?”
Ren looked around at the other drawings.
“Predators,” she said. “We associate the word ‘monster’ with something that preys on other species. We’re especially aware of anything that preys on us as a species.”
“A common starting point for this discussion, but that definition relies on perspective. We’re quite monstrous to chickens, no? We raise them. Butcher them. Eat them. And chickens must seem like giant monsters to the bugs and flies they peck at. And bugs… well, you see the pattern. If ‘predator’ is our only definition, it relies on who starts the conversation. Very interpretive results.”
Mat Tully raised his hand. “I thought being a monster meant you were scary.”
Agora considered the drawings again.
“And there’s evidence of that concept in your drawings. The misshapen nature of the creatures. One too many eyes. Oversized teeth. It’s a curious trend, because the apex predators in our world are known for their symmetry and beauty. The dragons supposedly looked like great gemstones brought to life. Nymphs lure passing sailors with songs and swaying. Have you ever seen a vayan’s eyes? They look like small galaxies. Very few predators are so crude as what we’ve drawn today. Most predators use their beauty to lure.”
Ren saw the line that might be drawn to Theo. A gilded boy who’d likely face no consequences for his actions. Agora stood there for a moment, encouraging other responses with his silence. It annoyed Ren to realize she’d never dare speak Brood’s name aloud. If word got out, she’d burn bridges she couldn’t afford to burn. It would all but ruin her chance at finding a position in a proper house. But that was where metaphors could be useful. She raised her hand.
“ ‘Predator’ is too simple a definition. But what about creatures that act beyond their assigned role in nature? Clyde’s hawk is a good example. If it snatched a mouse from a field, we wouldn’t think twice. But if we were in the forest one day and saw it torturing a mouse? Picking it up. Letting it go. Catching it again. Dropping it on the stones for fun. What if it was not simply hunting, but glorying in the pain it caused? That would be monstrous.”
Agora’s eyes glinted. “Expand on that.”
“Maybe ‘monster’ is our definition for something acting outside the parameters of its design. Hawks hunt to survive. Acceptable. A hawk who tortures its food? Monstrous. We could apply that same principle to people. It’s one thing for a warrior to kill his opponent in battle. Quite another thing for him to smash an innocent child’s head with a stone. ‘Monster’ could apply to anything that’s self-aware of its purpose in the world and chooses to act in a fashion ill-fitting to its calling.”
Like dropping a two-ton instrument on a teahouse for a party trick.
An understanding passed between her and Agora. They were both talking about the same person today. And neither of them was brave enough to say his name. Ren didn’t blame her professor. It was how their world worked. Instead her teacher wrapped up the discussion with some theoretical connections to the text they’d been reading.
“Essays after break,” Agora concluded. “You may choose one of two arguments. The first is that there are no monsters in our world. The second is that everything in our world is a monster. Cite your sources. At least three scrolls’ worth. Due after break. You’re dismissed.”
She watched the rest of the class file out before following, feeling the guilt of her silence weighing down on her shoulders. As she left, Ren wasn’t certain if she lacked the power to speak up or if she simply lacked the will to do so. The line separating those two notions seemed rather thin. The exercise had her mind racing, though. She’d spent most of her time at Balmerick weighing every action and word with such care. Always she chose the least risky option. Perhaps it was time to take a more direct role in her future.
Some monsters are quieter than others.
Outside, the tolling of bells announced another hour.
10
Balmerick’s public waxway room would be available soon. Ren headed in that direction, while everyone else on campus walked toward the main quad, their fancy chariots ready and waiting. Brood’s mistake already seemed like old news. Every conversation she heard focused on break:
“Where are you sailing?”
“The Oft Isles again?”
“We’re going to the northern foothills. Father’s just…”
All the anger churning in Ren’s chest burned cold by the time she reached the grove of trees fronting the school’s private waxway system. It was nestled within a squat building, dark shouldered and hidden amongst the sprawling limbs. She took a seat in the shade and waited for Timmons. This portal was unlike the public access she’d taken to come up to the Heights. Instead of individual candles, the waxway room had a spell that activated at regular intervals so that as many as twenty people could travel using the same wave of magic. It mimicked all the usual steps—visualizing a destination, lighting a candle, dousing the flame—but with a guiding spell to make everything more convenient for Balmerick’s students. Not that most of the other students ever bothered with the place. There were only two other classmates who regularly joined Ren and Timmons in using the room.
The first passed by as Ren waited. Cora Marrin was short enough and quiet enough to be missed in any crowd. Ren thought that was a part of why she never saw the girl around campus. She kept her dark hair trimmed tight, except for a set of artful bangs that ran unevenly down her forehead, slightly longer on one side than the other. Ren spied a new piercing on the girl’s exposed eyebrow, inset with a lovely little amber stone. Her skin was a faded olive color. Ren knew she spent quite a bit of time underground in the school’s mortuary. That also explained why the girl looked dressed for the dead of winter. A pair of thick trousers, the curling wool scarf, and a plaid forest-green coat that ran down to her calves. Ren supposed it always felt like winter in the rooms where they stored the cadavers.
Over the years she’d learned that Cora had grown up in a farming town north of the city. Most of her surgical practice had come from dissecting animals in the woods near their house. Now she was a medical student, here on scholarship like Ren, because she’d proven incredibly adept at anatomical magic. The girl offered her typically shy wave before slipping inside the waxway room.
