THE MANGROVE is full of monsters. I have seen them. Once, Honor’s cousin Teale dared us to climb to the top of the nursery tree. Three-quarters of the way up, he slipped and fell into the green water. Teale swam willy-nilly toward a branch and almost made it, except this enormous mouth with ragged teeth got him and pulled him under. Honor screamed, and would not stop until her mother came and took her away. Around us, people whispered the death blessing: “Welcome this soul. May his body nourish you and his mind add to your wisdom. Amen.” That scared me. His mind added to their wisdom? Did that mean the monsters — we called them three-eyes on account of the lump on their foreheads that looks like a third eye — now knew everything Teale knew? That evening I had a nightmare about a Three-Eye that looked like Teale and called out my name. “Little twerp,” Honor said the next day. “Teale was stupid, Eezel. He was going too fast, and he went out onto that thin branch.” “But it wasn’t his...
Fighting Entropy One Story at a Time.