Celia pulled herself out into a world of cement, light, and greenery. She blinked and squinted as she tried to make sense of this place. Warm, sweet air enveloped her.
“Our sanctuary,” Demetri whispered, coming up and standing beside Celia. He chewed on his lip as she looked around.
It was the inside of a warehouse, with corrugated aluminum walls peeking out from beneath the thick vines that grew everywhere. Kiwifruit vines climbed up the walls next to fat pink hibiscus blossoms and red bougainvillea. Across the warehouse, garden plots grew where concrete chunks had been cut out of the floor. The bright orange of pumpkins grew next to stalks of corn and bean bushes. Up near the ceiling was a row of windows that streamed in weak winter light. It didn’t seem like enough to grow the plants, not this time of year. Surrounding each garden plot sat little shacks and tents. Dozens of Little monsters worked at tables, walked along different paths, and watered plants.
Then the Littles, all across the warehouse, froze. They raised their heads and sniffed the air. Their heads swiveled, and each of them turned to look at Celia. They stared and smiled, because of what they were, and because of what she was. They all kept sniffing her scent as their smiles grew.
They stood and started coming closer over pathways covered with scraps of carpet and worn Astroturf.
Why did I think I should come here? Celia wondered. She stepped behind Demetri and eyed the passageway she’d climbed up.
They closed in on all sides. They had horns, claws, and fangs, or swirling skin and misshapen skulls, or forked tails, or bright-red skin. A few looked like Demetri—90 percent normal except for feathers for hair, or skin with a dusty metallic sheen. About a hundred of them gathered, and the air filled with a heady, impossibly delicious smell. Nothing that smelled that good could hurt her, right?
No. That idea could destroy me, Celia thought, even as all of her senses told her she was safe. She breathed in the summery- feeling air and noticed she had finally stopped shivering.
“You found the doom girl,” a short Little with bright-pink eyes and pinker skin said into the growing silence.
“Yes. And all of you are tasked with keeping her safe. You can do this.” Demetri gave them stern looks.
Some of the Littles looked down. Others licked their strange-colored lips.
“Of course we can do it,” Daisy said. “Like the time Demetri took us all out on Halloween to test us being around kids.”
“That was the best,” said a girl with tentacles sprouting out of her head. “Remember how all those people gave us tons of candy because they said they’d never seen such great costumes before? Everyone could see us because they expected to see kids dressed up as monsters. It was fun, until . . .”
“Until Wallace attacked a boy,” Demetri said. “He gave in and became evil.” He looked out at all of them.
Celia watched a Little touch the sharp edge of her fang, and another pull his sleeves down over his bearlike claws.
A horned boy lisped, “We can put up a tent for her as far away from everyone else as possible. We won’t hurt her.”
All the Littles nodded.
Demetri looked at all of them for a long moment before nodding. “I will be watching each and every one of you. You all know the kind of magic I can do. Do not think you will go unpunished.”
“We got this, D,” a Little called out. The rest of them murmured and nodded.
Demetri looked toward Daisy. “You’ll keep watch as well?”
“Of course.”
Demetri walked to the highest hill in the warehouse, which was surrounded by grass and had a scraggly green tree at the top of it. He sat down and leaned against it. It was high enough that he could watch over everything from there.
“Class dismissed.” Daisy made shooing motions toward all the Littles with flicks of her black-and-white fingers. “Let’s get food,” she said, turning her mismatched eyes toward Celia. “I could eat a hundred horses.”
The Littles walked away along the dozens of paths that wound through the warehouse floor. Every single one of them kept glancing back at Celia with hungry eyes.
Celia followed Daisy down a carpeted path to a rickety picnic bench. Flowering nasturtiums grew up one side of it. A couple of Littles brought them bowls of food, and Celia had a moment’s panic, wondering what monsters ate. She relaxed when she saw mashed potatoes, beans, and brown rice. Littles hovered around the table, pretending to be busy but obviously wanting to be near Celia. She glanced toward Demetri, who sat stone-still under the tree. He won’t let anything bad happen to me, she thought. The last cold that had been lodged deep inside her belly began to thaw as Celia swallowed mouthful after mouthful of warm food. She scanned the warehouse, knowing this wasn’t a place she could ever let her guard down.
Celia and Daisy ate, and Littles brought them more food—caramel apples, fresh-baked bread, and a beet salad. Every time Celia looked around, Littles across the warehouse looked away. “Is this what you always eat?” Celia asked. Everything was fresh and homemade.
“This is our normal. We grow most of our own food, and Demetri makes us all be vegetarians. We’ve all taken oaths not to hurt anything ever, as much as possible. We have to learn to never take lives.”
“Demetri says it, and everyone just obeys him?”
“Are you kidding? Littles travel from all over the world to meet him. Demetri’s done what every monster and hunter says is impossible. Bigs don’t own us, and we don’t change kids. We’re free.” Daisy shoved a big spoonful of greens into her mouth.
“Free,” Celia echoed. She wished everyone would stop looking at her like she was what was for dessert. “What else, besides being vegetarian?” Celia asked as she ate some beets.
“The first rule is that we run and hide from all Bigs. We all want to get our revenge on every single one of them, but we stay away. Fighting them almost never goes well. We’re weaker than they are.”
“But today . . . ,” Celia began.
“Today was special, and we got to fight them to rescue you. I loved every second of it.” Daisy spooned lentil soup into her mouth. “The second rule is we always help other Littles out, no matter what. We always rescue them when we can. We always share what we have and watch out for each other.”
Celia liked that rule. She wished real kids had a rule like that.
A couple of demonic-looking Littles laughed nearby as they planted a row of seeds in dirt.
“And the last and biggest rule”—Daisy blinked her large two-toned eyes—“is we don’t touch kids, not ever. Even if every cell of what we are tells us all the time that’s what we have to do, we don’t. Even when the urge to do it gets so big that it feels like the only thing in the whole world that we can do, we don’t.” Daisy’s breathing went ragged.
Celia looked into the girl’s eyes, and it felt like gazing down a thousand-foot well. The Little smiled and reached toward her.
Celia inhaled her beautiful smell and found herself leaning toward the other girl.
Daisy blinked and jerked away from her. She yanked her hand back. “Careful, Celia. Remember what I am.”
Celia scooted away from her and nodded.
Daisy licked her lips and tried to smile. “So, it’s neat here, right? When I first got here, I couldn’t believe it existed. I couldn’t believe I got away from my maker.”
Two Littles with overalls and long messy hair that looked like seaweed walked past them. One had gray skin, and the other was covered in purple boils.
“Were you with your maker for a long time before you got here?” Celia asked.
Daisy stared into her empty bowl. “Yeah. My maker kept me on a short leash, for years. Like, an actual leash.” She touched her neck.
Celia looked at Daisy’s black-and-white checkered face and saw past the strangeness to a girl her age who’d been a slave.
“I’m . . . so sorry.”
Daisy shrugged. “You want to know the worst part of it? For the first five years, I loved it. There’s this yucky thing where at first all you want to do is serve your maker. But that was long gone by the time Demetri rescued me and brought me here. He almost got killed doing it, but Littles help Littles. I’m one of the lucky ones.”
Celia looked over to where Demetri sat watching the world. He was a Little, but he was more than that too.
“So no one was free before him?”
“Sometimes, here and there, one of us would run away from our maker and not change into a Big. But no one knew how to make wards back then, so it was harder to hide. Bigs would always find the runaways. We’re hard to kill, but it’s not impossible.” Daisy stared past Celia at some unseen memory.
“The world shouldn’t be like this,” Celia whispered. All around her, Littles who used to be kids sniffed the air and tried to pretend they didn’t want to attack her.
“Right?” Daisy said. “And don’t you wish you could go back in time and change the one moment that led to all this? It always starts with one thing going wrong. If I could go back . . . but there’s that stupid rule of the universe that time only moves in one direction.”
The one moment that changed everything? Celia thought about the piece of paper that had lured her to the hunters. But that hadn’t been the beginning. No. The first thing was when she saw Demetri going up to the roof after the earthquake. If she hadn’t seen him and followed, she would still be the old Celia, maybe. The lonely, bored, and safe Celia who spent all day at school wishing someone would notice her. Now the hunters wanted to control her, every Big in the city was hunting her, and she sat in the middle of a Little sanctuary where none of the monsters could stop staring at her.
Even if she could go back and redo the moment she made the choice to go up to the roof, she didn’t know if she would. Life felt bigger now. Monsters were real, but so was magic. There were girls who pretended they were her friends, but there were also Littles willing to battle Bigs to rescue her. Monsters who vowed to go against their very nature, just to keep her safe. “Will you show me around the warehouse?” Celia asked. “This whole place seems really amazing.”
Daisy grinned. “Sure thing, doom girl.”