Hogfather

There was a pop behind her, and then a dying creakcreak. She didn't even turn round.

‘If you've included a kitten playing with a ball of wool it'll go very hard with you,’ she said sternly, and picked up the candlestick by the bed. It seemed heavy enough.

‘I don't think you're real,’ she said levelly. ‘There's not a little old woman in a shawl running this place. You're out of my head. That's how you defend yourself… You poke around in people's heads and find the things that work —’

She swung the candlestick. It passed through the figure in the bed.

‘See?’ she said. ‘You're not even real.’

‘Oh, I am real, dear,’ said the old woman, as her outline changed. ‘The candlestick wasn't.’

Susan looked down at the new shape.

‘Nope,’ she said. ‘It's horrible, but it doesn't frighten me. No, nor does that.’ It changed again, and again. ‘No, nor does my father. Good grief, you're scraping the bottom of the barrel, aren't you? I like spiders. Snakes don't worry me. Dogs? No. Rats are fine, I like rats. Sorry, is anyone frightened of that?’

She grabbed at the thing and this time the shape stayed. It looked like a small, wizened monkey, but with big deep eyes under a brow overhanging like a balcony. Its hair was grey and lank. It struggled weakly in her grasp, and wheezed.

‘I don't frighten easily,’ said Susan, ‘but you'd be amazed at how angry I can become.’

The creature hung limp.

‘I… I…’ it muttered.

She let it down again.

‘You're a bogeyman, aren't you?’ she said.

It collapsed in a heap when she took her hand away.

‘…Not a… The…’ it said.

‘What do you mean, the?’ said Susan.

‘The bogeyman,’ said the bogeyman. And she saw how rangy it was, how white and grey streaked its hair, how the skin was stretched over the bones…

‘The first bogeyman?’

‘I… there were… I do remember when the land was different. Ice. Many times of… ice. And the… what do you call them?’ The creature wheezed. '… The lands, the big lands… all different…’

Susan sat down on the bed.

‘You mean continents?’

‘…all different.’ The black sunken eyes glinted at her and suddenly the thing reared up, bony arms waving. ‘I was the dark in the cave! I was the shadow in the trees! You've heard about… the primal scream? That was… at me! I was…’ It folded up and started coughing. ‘And then… that thing, you know, that thing… all light and bright… lightning you could carry, hot, little sunshine, and then there was no more dark, just shadows, and then you made axes, axes in the forest, and then… and then…’

Susan sat down on the bed. ‘There's still plenty of bogeymen,’ she said.

‘Hiding under beds! Lurking in cupboards! But,’ it fought for breath, ‘if you had seen me… in the old days… when they came down into the deep caves to draw their hunting pictures… I could roar in their heads… so that their stomachs dropped out of their bottoms…’

‘All the old skills are dying out,’ said Susan gravely.

‘…Oh, others came later… They never knew that first fine terror. All they knew,’ even whispering, the bogeyman managed to get a sneer in its voice, ‘was dark corners. I had been the dark! I was the… first! And now I was no better than them… frightening maids, curdling cream… hiding in shadows at the stub of the year… and then one night, I thought… why?’

Susan nodded. Bogeymen weren't bright. The moment of existential uncertainty probably took a lot longer in heads where the brain cells bounced so very slowly from one side of the skull to the other. But… Granddad had thought like that. You hung around with humans long enough and you stopped being what they imagined you to be and wanted to become something of your own. Umbrellas and silver hairbrushes…

‘You thought: what was the point of it all?’ she said.

‘…frightening children… lurking… and then I started to watch them. Didn't really used to be children back in the ice times… just big humans, little humans, not children… and… and there was a different world in their heads… In their heads, that's where the old days were now. The old days. When it was all young.’

‘You came out from under the bed…’

‘I watched over them… kept 'em safe…’

Susan tried not to shudder.

‘And the teeth?’

‘I… oh, you can't leave teeth around, anyone might get them, do terrible things. I liked them, I didn't want anyone to hurt them…’ it bubbled. ‘I never wanted to hurt them, I just used to watch, I kept the teeth all safe… and, and, and sometimes I just sit here listening to them… ’

It mumbled on. Susan listened in embarrassed amazement, not knowing whether to take pity on the thing or, and this was a developing option, to tread on it.

‘…and the teeth… they remember…’

It started to shake.

‘The money?’ Susan prompted. ‘I don't see many rich bogeymen around.’

‘…money everywhere… buried in holes… old treasure… back of sofas… it adds up… investments… money for the tooth, very important, part of the magic, makes it safe, makes it proper, otherwise it's thieving… and I labelled 'em all, and kept 'em safe, and… and then I was old, but I found people…’ The Tooth Fairy sniggered, and for a moment Susan felt sorry for the men in the ancient caves. ‘They don't ask questions, do they?’ it bubbled. ‘… You give 'em money and they all do their jobs and they don't ask questions…’

‘It's more than their job's worth,’ said Susan.

‘I… and then they came… stealing…’

Susan gave in. Old gods do new jobs.

‘You look terrible.’

‘… thank you very much…’

‘I mean ill.’

‘…very old… all those men, too much effort…’

The bogeyman groaned.

‘…you… don't die here,’ it panted. ‘Just get old, listening to the laughter…’

Susan nodded. It was in the air. She couldn't hear words, just a distant chatter, as if it was at the other end of a long corridor.

‘…and this place… it grew up round me…’

‘The trees,’ said Susan. ‘And the sky. Out of their heads…’

‘…dying… the little children… you've got to… I’

The figure faded.

Susan sat for a while, listening to the distant chatter.

Worlds of belief, she thought. Just like oysters. A little piece of shit gets in and then a pearl grows up around it.

She got up and went downstairs.

Banjo had found a broom and mop somewhere. The circle was empty and, with surprising initiative, the man was carefully washing the chalk away.

‘Banjo?’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘You like it here?’

‘There's trees, miss.’