Have you ever seen a demon cry? | Lisa x Female Reader

Chapter 12

"You found your parents dead in the redwood forest," he points out.

"That was luck. I saw their car on the side of the road. It was coincidental," I deflect, grasping for normal explanations.

"When you first came to this house, you played croquet with Dustin and found a dead bird on the edge of the lawn," he continues, his voice steady.

"The ball rolled to it. It wasn't me. I'm just bad at croquet..." I trail off, my voice faltering as more memories flood in.

I remember my first Horticulture class, when I found the dead fawn. How I discovered the dead mouse in the library. How I always seemed to find myself in the crevices of my room, staring at a dead spider or insect.

The realization dawns on me slowly, the pieces fitting together like a puzzle I never knew I was solving.

"You've always been drawn to death. It's as if you can sense it," my grandfather continues, his voice carrying the weight of years of observation. 

"There were hints early on. Your mother told me about how, as a child, you would wander around the yard, always returning with some sort of dead insect crushed in your tiny fist. During one of my visits when you were six, you found a mouse caught in a trap behind the refrigerator."

"It smelled wretched; it must have been decaying for days, but it didn't seem to bother you. You picked it up with your bare hands and presented it to us just before dinner. "

"Your father wanted to throw it out, but you insisted on giving it a proper burial. Sepultura, as we call it. You did the same with all of your pets."

"Sepultura?" I repeat, the term resonating with a new significance as I recall Cassandra's file.

"Interment. The preferred method of putting the Undead to rest, at least in these parts," he explains patiently. 

"That's another reason for many of the rules at Gottfried—to protect the Monitors while they do their work. The no lights after curfew rule, for example, was designed for this specific purpose."

I pause, the revelation settling heavily on my shoulders. "But I didn't know. If I were a Monitor, shouldn't I have known, instinctively?"

"Underclass Monitors, such as yourself, take one training class per year, through which the faculty is able to assess their skill sets," he reveals calmly. "For you, that class is Horticulture."

"Horticulture?" I repeat, my mind racing through our class exercises: the burials, the soil, the graveyard, the medicinal plants, the snow topography.

"And like yourself, they are not told of the existence of the Undead, but are left to discover it on their own. The process of discovery is incredibly important, as it distinguishes a truly excellent Monitor from a capable one."

" Information as shocking and disturbing as the existence of the Undead is not something one can merely be told; it has to be felt thoroughly and utterly. This is why I resisted telling you about it, as much as I wanted to."

"So you think that I'm some sort of...killer?" I ask, my voice trembling with disbelief and apprehension.

"Not a killer, a Monitor," my grandfather corrects firmly.

"Monitors still kill people," I counter, struggling to grasp the implications.

"Monitors only kill things that are already dead. The instinct is genetic. It runs in families," he explains patiently. "It was your great-great-great-grandfather, Headmaster Theodore Winters, who created the Board of Monitors. He was also the man who planted the great oak. In essence, it's literally our family tree. Every generation of our family has been connected to Gottfried since then; most have served as Monitors, even after graduating from Gottfried. Your mother and father included."