Hogfather Part 46

Teatime swung from her arm, staring upward with a thoughtful expression. She saw him grip the sword hilt in his teeth and reach down to his belt- The question "Is this person mad enough to try to kill someone holding him?" was asked and answered very, very fast...She kicked down and hit him on the ear.

The cloth of her sleeve began to tear. Teatime tried to get another grip. She kicked again and the dress ripped. For an instant he held onto nothing and then, still wearing the expression of someone trying to solve a complex problem, he fell away, spinning, getting smaller...

He hit the pile of teeth, sending them splashing across the marble. He jerked for a moment...

And vanished.

A hand like a bunch of bananas pulled Susan back over the rail.

"You can get into trouble, hittin' girls," said Banjo. "No playin' with girls."

There was a click behind them.

The doors had swung open. Cold white mist rolled out across the floor.

"Our mam-" said Banjo, trying to work things out. "Our mam was here-"

"Yes," said Susan.

"But it weren't weren't our mam, 'cos they our mam, 'cos they buried buried our mam-" our mam-"

"Yes."

"We watched 'em fill in the grave and everything."

"Yes," said Susan, and added to herself, I bet you did I bet you did.

"And where's our Davey gone?"

"Er...somewhere else, Banjo."

"Somewhere nice?" said the huge man hesitantly.

Susan grasped with relief the opportunity to tell the truth, or at least not definitely lie.

"It could be," she said.

"Better'n here?"

"You never know. Some people would say the odds are in favor."

Banjo turned his pink piggy eyes on her. For a moment a thirty-five-year-old man looked out through the pink clouds of a five-year-old face.

"That's good," he said. "He'll be able to see our mam again."

This much conversation seemed to exhaust him. He sagged.

"I wanna go home," he said.

She stared at his big, stained face, shrugged hopelessly, pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and held it up to his mouth.

"Spit," she commanded. He obeyed.

She dabbed the handkerchief over the worst parts and then tucked it into his hand.

"Have a good blow," she suggested, and then carefully leaned out of range until the echoes of the blast had died away.

"You can keep the hanky. Please," she added, meaning it wholeheartedly. "Now tuck your shirt in."

"Yes, miss."

"Now, go downstairs and sweep all the teeth out of the circle. Can you do that?"

Banjo nodded.

"What can you do?" Susan prompted.

Banjo concentrated. "Sweep all the teeth out of the circle, miss."

"Good. Off you go."

Susan watched him plod off, and then looked at the white doorway. She was sure sure the wizard had only got as far as the sixth lock. the wizard had only got as far as the sixth lock.

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.

"h.e.l.lo, 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 d.a.m.n patchwork quilt...

"Oh, I am 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 pa.s.sed through the figure in the bed.

"See?" she said. "You're not even real real."

"Oh, I I am real, dear," said the old woman, as her outline changed. "The candlestick wasn't." 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 sc.r.a.ping the bottom of the barrel, aren't you? I like like spiders. Snakes don't worry me. Dogs? No. Rats are fine, I like rats. Sorry, is spiders. Snakes don't worry me. Dogs? No. Rats are fine, I like rats. Sorry, is anyone anyone frightened of frightened of that 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 a...The..." it said.

"What do you mean, the 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... 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 first bogeyman?" 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 me! I was..." It folded up and started coughing. "And when...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 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?" 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 children...and...and there was a different world in their heads...In their heads, that's where the old days were were now. The old days. When it was all young." 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 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..." 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 embarra.s.sed 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 thieving...and I labeled 'em all, and kept 'em safe, and...and then I was old, but I found people..." The Tooth Fairy sn.i.g.g.e.red, 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.

"...and then they they came...stealing..." came...stealing..."

Susan gave in. Old G.o.ds do new jobs.

"You look terrible."

"...thank you very much..."

"I mean ill."

"...very old...all those men, too much effort..."