Guillermo del Toro: The Shape of Water

He emerges again from the deep. They stand before each other on nothing but water, new and naked, the ocean their Eden. His gills expand and contract. Elisa, too, breathes. She does not understand how, and doesn’t care, for the water-air is wonderful! It tastes like sugar and strawberries, fills her with an energy she’s never felt. She can’t help it: She laughs. Bubbles rollick from her mouth and the creature playfully swats them. She reaches out, caresses his soft gills. She believes she could look at him forever.

And she might. Something inside her is beginning to expand. These are the parts, she realizes, that made the Matron, maybe the only person to know the truth, call her a monster. Elisa feels no hate for the woman; she realizes that, down here, hate has no purpose. Down here, you embrace your foes until they become your friends. Down here, you seek not to be one being, but all beings, and all at once, God and Chemosh and everything in between. The change in her isn’t only mental. It’s physical, of skin and muscle. Yes, she has arrived. She is full. She is perfect.

She reaches out to him. To herself. There is no difference. She understands now. She holds him, he holds her, they hold each other, and all is dark, all is light, all is ugliness, all is beauty, all is pain, all is grief, all is never, all is forever.

WE WAIT WE watch we listen we feel we are patient we are always patient but it is difficult the woman we love it takes her a long time it takes her so long to know to see to feel to remember and it is not happy to see her struggle it is not happy to see her with pain but we struggled too we all struggled and the pain and struggle are important the pain and struggle must happen if she is to heal as we all have healed as we have helped heal her and now it is happening it is happening there is understanding and it is beautiful she is beautiful we are beautiful and it is a good sight a happy sight the lines on her neck the lines she thought were scars but are not scars it is a good sight to see those lines split open for the gills to open for the gills to spread wide it is a happy sight and now she knows who she is who she has always been she is us and we speak together now we feel together now and we swim into the distance into the end into the beginning and we welcome all who are willing to follow we welcome the fish we welcome the birds we welcome the insects we welcome the four-legs we welcome the two-legs we welcome you ///

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Guillermo del Toro is the award-winning director of numerous critically acclaimed feature films, such as Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy , and Pacific Rim . His most recent film, The Shape of Water , received the Golden Lion at the 2017 Venice Film Festival. He is the coauthor of the bestselling Strain Trilogy (with Chuck Hogan), which was turned into a popular television series on FX, and Trollhunters (with Daniel Kraus), the source material for the Netflix series of the same name. You can sign up for email updates here.

Daniel Kraus has landed on Entertainment Weekly ’s Top 10 Books of the Year (for The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch ) and has won two Odyssey Awards (for Rotters and Scowler ). His novels have been Library Guild selections, Bram Stoker finalists, and more. He lives in Chicago. Visit him at danielkraus.com, or sign up for email updates here.

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Text copyright © 2018 by Necropolis, Inc.

Illustrations copyright © 2018 by James Jean

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First hardcover edition 2018

eBook edition February 2018

eISBN 9781250165374