A Monster Calls

by Patrick Ness

The plan was that she’d finish them, a new school year would start, and they’d be able to put all this behind them and start afresh.

Except it hadn’t worked out that way.

Belief is half of healing.

As incredible as it seemed, time kept moving forward for the rest of the world.

She was happy to see him, but she was frightened, too. And sad. And more tired than he’d ever seen her, which was saying something.

“I think, deep in your heart, you’ve always known,” his mother said. “Haven’t you?”

“It’s okay that you’re angry, sweetheart,” she said.

“You be as angry as you need to be,” she said. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not your grandma, not your dad, no one. And if you need to break things, then by God, you break them good and hard.”

“And if, one day,” she said,

“you look back and you feel bad for being so angry, if you feel bad for being so angry at me that you couldn’t even speak to me, then you have to know, Conor, you have to know that it was okay. It was okay. That I knew. I know, okay? I know everything you need to tell me without you having to say it out loud. All right?”

I did not come to heal her, the monster said. I came to heal you.

Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. And your mind will punish you for believing both.

If you speak the truth, the monster whispered in his ear, you will be able to face whatever comes.