“You’ve destroyed him,” he says, and she finds the word destroyed curious. Has she really? No. She has destroyed nothing; nothing was left to destroy. But she has made a mess. “Magos.” He says her name, as if it could summon an explanation. “Joseph.” She returns his name to let him know that she sees him standing there, gaunt and pale green.

So pretty a dread grows right in my chest. Monstrilio loved this light the best. Night is when we’re hungriest. And hunger can be magnificent. I stare at the half-washed dishes. I fight to push the dread out. I pretend my time as Monstrilio is hazy. Muffled sounds and blurred colors. I say I remember warmth. But I don’t say I miss my fur. I don’t

My arm-tail uncramps. I unhinge my jaw. Let my mouth stretch as wide as it will go. Soon I won’t feel the cold anymore. My body is already regrowing its patchwork of fur. The world lightens before me and reveals its edges. Its shapes and in-between spaces. I step forward.

what they needed wasn’t acknowledgment or empathy or closure; it was escape.

In church, my mother was less afraid of me. She prayed for me with eyes tightly shut. There, she believed I could be saved, her family could be saved.

Wouldn’t that have been a groundbreaking discovery, someone bringing a creature to life solely with their own grief and a prodigious unwillingness to let go?

Blood drips from my nose and mouth. Mostly mine, but I savor the remains of his. He will hit again. Until he’s full. Like eating.

“My son died!” My mother pinched my chin and swiveled my head left and right. She explored my face, my ears, my neck, my jaw, as if I were new to her. “He did, my beautiful girl. But you didn’t, did you?”

A human dreams crazy dreams. Horrible dreams. Great dreams. Like flying. Or teeth falling. Or people long forgotten who pop up as if they never left. They dream of what they were and what they could become. And the dreams seep into their meat. Like a delicious marinade.