finds boogeyman

I covered him up with a blanket and turned to examine the rest of the room. Not much to it. A lot of toys, most of them more or less put away; a dresser the two younger kids evidently shared; a little table and chairs; and a closet.
A nice, shadowy closet.
I grunted and got on the floor to peer beneath the little pink bed. Then I squinted at the closet. If I were four and lying on the girl’s bed, the closet would be looming right past the ends of my toes.
I closed my eyes for a moment and reached out with my wizard’s senses, feeling the flow and ebb of energy through the house. Within the defensive wall of the threshold, other energy pulsed and moved—emotions from the house’s inhabitants, random energies sifting in from outdoors—the usual.
But not in the closet. There wasn’t anything at all in that closet.
“Aha,” I said.

Brief Cases, AAAA Wizardry, Page 71-72


“YOU’VE GOT A boogeyman,” I told Megan an hour later.
Megan frowned at me. “A-a … ?”
“A boogeyman,” I said. “Sometimes known as a boggle or a boggart. It’s a weak form of phobophage—a fear-eater, mostly insubstantial. This one is pretty common. Feeds on a child’s fear.”
Yardly’s eyebrows tried to climb into his hair.
“That isn’t possible,” Megan said. “I’d … I’d sense something like that. I’d feel it. I’ve felt things like that before. Several ghosts. Once, a poltergeist.”
“Not this one,” I said. “You’re too old.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Excuse me?”
“Ahem. I mean, you’re an adult.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Only kids can sense them,” I said. “Part of their nature conceals them from older awarenesses.”
“The threshold,” Meg said. “It should keep such things out.”
“Sometimes they ride in with someone in the family. Sometimes if a child has a vivid enough dream, it can open up a window in the Nevernever that the boggart uses to skip in. They can use mirrors sometimes, too.”
“Nevernever?” Yardly asked.
“The spirit world,” I clarified.
“Oh, what bullshit, Meg—” Yardly said.
Megan stood up, her eyes blazing. “Benjamin.” The tension between them crackled silently in the air for several seconds.
“Crap,” he snarled finally, and stalked out the front door. He let it slam behind him.
Megan stared at the door, her lips tight. Then she turned back to me. “If what you say is true, then how can you sense it?” she asked.
“I can’t,” I said. “That was the giveaway. The rest of your house feels normal. The closet in the younger kids’ room is a black hole.”

Brief Cases, AAAA Wizardry, Page 73-74