Hogfather - First Bogeyman

The room beyond the door was entirely white, and the mist that swirled at knee level deadened even the sound of her footsteps.

All there was was a bed. It was a large four-poster, old and dusty.

She thought it was unoccupied and then she saw the figure, lying among the mounds of pillows. It looked very much like a frail old lady in a mobcap.

The old woman turned her head and smiled at Susan.

“Hello, my dear.”

Susan couldn’t remember a grandmother. Her father’s mother had died when she was young, and the other side of the family…well, she’d never had a grandmother. But this was the sort she’d have wanted.

The kind, the nasty realistic side of her mind said, that hardly ever existed.

Susan thought she heard a child laugh. And another one. Somewhere almost out of hearing, children were at play. It was always a pleasant, lulling sound.

Always provided, of course, you couldn’t hear the actual words.

“No,” said Susan.

“Sorry, dear?” said the old lady.

“You’re not the Tooth Fairy.” Oh, no…there was even a damn patchwork quilt…

“Oh, I am, dear.”

“Oh, Grandma, what big teeth you have…Good grief, you’ve even got a shawl, oh dear.”

“I don’t understand, lovey—”

“You forgot the rocking chair,” said Susan. “I always thought there’d be a rocking chair…”

There was a pop behind her, and then a dying creak-creak. 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 gray 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 way.

“…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 gray streaked its hair, how the skin was stretched over the bones…

“The first bogeyman?”

***

Hogfather - p317-319