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vanchlo · 4 years ago

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Under The Bed / Chapter Three, “Down”

-> SERIES MASTERLIST

-> MAIN MASTERLIST

-> READ ON WATTPAD

WARNINGS: Mild swearing???

WORD COUNT: 5.9k words

LEGEND:

* : jump in time

* * : change in point of view

TAGLIST: IDK HOW TO DO THESE, BUT IF YOU WANNA BE ADDED SO YOU KNOW WHEN A NEW CHAPTER IS POSTED, JUST LET ME KNOW! :)

@berrynarrybanana

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SNEAK PEEK OF COURSE ->

THEN

He kept doing that thing, and by thing I mean, showing up and scaring me.

Every night, he popped out from underneath my bed without fail, and scared the bejeezus out of me. He left me crying into my butterfly pillow from an impossibly horrible face he made, an insult he made that I took to heart, or because he wrecked one of my stuffed animals. I didn’t know how to get him to stay away, even if he was kind of cute I’d never tell him that, and when he screws up his blue face to look like a goblin, it’s not very cute.

I dreaded him coming tonight, just like any other night for the last two weeks. He never missed a night, and I had gotten used to staying up past my bedtime until he arrived, sure that that would save me some pain instead of getting woken up to frogs in my bed and gum stuck in my hair. He had told me about doing that to Polly down the street last week, and the last thing I wanted to do was explain that to my parents in the morning. So, I stayed awake even though it was so hard on so many nights. Tonight, it was hard, but in a different way, because I wanted more than anything to be asleep after my third horrible day of school. I had no choice in the matter, and it worked out that Harry showed up right at nine-thirty.

“Wakey wakey, bratty!” a voice booms, and I jump awake.

“I’m awake, I’m awake,” I moan, unsure of who or why I announce myself.

“Shiiiiiiit, I was hopin’ ya wouldn’t be. ‘s much mo’ fun t’ scare ya awake, ya hardly made a peep jus’ then,” the voice tuts with a clicking of their tongue. A puff leaves my lips when the light flicks on and his menacing figure appears before my eyes. “Welcome back t’ tha world o’ yer nightmares, Josie, loud and proud. Afraid ‘m back fer anotha night t’ scare yer socks off.”

The My Little Pony covers slide off of me, and I fix the sleeve of my flowery night gown that rode up my shoulder. Ignoring him, I’m met with relief when my fingers grasp the cold familiarity sitting on my nightstand.

“What tha hell, are ya givin’ me tha cold shoulder now?” he retorts with a volume in his voice, but I kn- I hope that he won’t talk loud enough to wake up Mommy and Daddy. “Since bloody when d’ya do that, Josie?”

“I’m reading, shhh,” I tell him, turning past the first few pages of a Clifford the Big Red Dog book until I find the first page with a picture of him and his owner, Emily Elizabeth.

“Oh my days, I can’t believe tha nerve you have, girl,” the monster spits back at me, but with shaking fingers, I try to shove his voice away. I have an even harder time finding happiness in the pictures when it’s so hard to forget that he’s standing right there, ready to attack. “Ya think ya can talk t’ me like that, a full-on monster? Tsk, tsk, you dunno who yer talkin’ t’ here, ya li’l-.”

“Eh-eh-v . . ugh . . Eh-eh-v-r-e-e . . ,” I try to sound out the word at the bottom of the page, but it’s so long and I don’t know this one. “Eh-ev-ree . . won loves Clifford, b-b-b-bee-c-c-cah-ssssss-e he has good m-m-m-a-a-a-n-n-er-r-r-r-s. You don’t have good manners, Harry, that’s something you need to work on.”

“‘Scuse me, Josie Stephens? I reckon ya don’t even know what tha hell manners are, now d’ya, ya li’l shit?”

Gulping, I tear my eyes away from his angry green pair. Looking back to the book, I try to focus on reading the next part. I get the first two words, but then I’m stuck again, sounding it out like a dummy. I don’t understand how so many of my classmates already know how to read, and I don’t!

Creeeeeeeeeak!

My eyes shoot up and find Harry is closer, he must have taken a step towards me. As soon as I had looked up, his feet inch away from me, and I wish I hadn’t. Rubbing at my eyes sleepily, I take a deep breath and try again.

“M-m-m-m-y-s-s-s-eh-l-l-.”

“Myself,” Harry pipes up, and when I forget the book to look at him, we’re both shocked. “Tha word ‘s ‘myself’. ‘I taught him myself,’ it says,” he tells me slowly. Maybe, just maybe, he sounds normal and like me. Who would have thought that could be? “Duh, ‘s an easy word, even a Kindie like you shoulda known that, stupid.”

Shaking my head, I move the hair out of my eyes and continue to read, quieter than before, and yet I feel his eyes on me like a hot pair of sun rays.

“Clifford says p-p-p-l-eeeeee-s w-w-he-n he a-a-s-s-. Why are you laughing at me? I’m only five, we don’t know how to read yet,” I say, pointing my eyes at him. A sound flies from his lips that I’ve never heard before in that way. I think it might be a laugh, a happy one.

“Sounds like I jus’ heard a five year old swear right there. Looks like me job ‘s done, ruining you by teachin’ you yer first curse. Ass,” he titters, walking away and towards the end of my bed.

My throat begs for a glass of water and the words that didn’t make sense anyways become blurry in front of me. Swiping under my eyes, I get rid of the tears the second they warm my cheeks.

“W-What’s this word?” I ask nervously, keeping my head down and refusing to look at him. I know that he likes to see my tears, and I don’t want him to, because then he only becomes meaner. Sniffling, I listen as his steps creak along my floor and his musty smell tickles at my nose.

“Which one?” he groans as if I had asked the most stupid question in the entire world. I don’t answer out loud, and instead, I point to the one that starts with an ‘s,’ but my tired brain doesn’t want to figure it out.

“Sumthin’,” he responds, and it pulls my eyes up and over to him. The light catches in the caramel colored streaks in his hair, and the gold bits in his eyes. Shocks of pink around my room from posters, stuffed animals, books, and my Hello Kitty clock look funny behind him. “Something,” he repeats clearly, yanking the book from my hand to point at a word. “D’ya know this one at least?”

“P-p-p-puh-l-,” I begin, but he interrupts me with a whine of ‘you jus’ read it, c’mon now,’ and I continue until he nods when I say ‘please.’

“And this one?” he continues, pointing to one that starts with a ‘t’ that takes me a few tries until I get it. “What comes afta ‘thank’ usually?”

“You,” I tell him, and he nods, at some point perching himself on the side of my bed like a bird. I almost think I hear him say ‘good,’ but it’s gone before I can decide if I did or not.

The books lining my shelf across the room under the window itch for me to go and grab them, and sound out the words with him that look like nonsense to me. I hold back, and ask Harry to repeat what he said.

“Yer fallin’ ‘sleep,” he notes, bumping shoulders with me. I shake my head and blink hard, knowing that he’s right. “He says ‘thank you’ when he gets sumthin’. And he writes a thank-you note when someone gives him a present . . ,” and before I know it, the words from the pages are dropping from his lips, slowly, telling the story.

I don’t remember my head falling onto his shoulder or him letting it stay there. I definitely didn’t know that when I let my eyes rest for one second that I was going to fall asleep, and that the next time it would all feel like a dream, a far away dream that could never be true.

Because there’s a monster under my bed who’s really gross and mean to me, and he just read me a bedtime story and was maybe nice to me.

That couldn’t be, could it?

* *

The ripe smell of mothballs and wet dogs welcomes me back, ripping away the sweet relief of berries and cream that graced my senses for the last however-long-it-was. My feet land with a loud clap! onto the shambles of wooden decking below. I kick the forgotten remnants of a Scooby Doo stuffy away with the torn toe of my Converse. Loud, raucous laughter echoes around me and is followed by a spit and whizz of a bottle rocket nearby. It paints the ink black sky with shocks of gold and white for a few moments, suddenly making me miss the light. The next thought makes me stumble over a lost pink ukulele with broken strings. I think I miss the smell and the warmth, no matter if I never get cold.

How the fuck can I miss that obnoxiously sweet smell of ripe red strawberries, and decadent cream that they’re drowned in?

Would you shut the fuck up, Harry? What, are you finally going nuts here, on your four hundred and eighth year?

“Oi!” somebody shouts, yanking me from my thoughts much to my gratitude. “Wait up, would ya?!” they continue in their familiar lilt. Stuffing my hands away in my pockets, met with the typical cool temperature of my own body, my feet kick up sand clouds when they stop suddenly.

“What d’ya want, Ni?” I spit back, not bothering to turn my head. His cackle accompanies my boring slide down the Hill of Doom Jr. that he rides like a wave.

“Who put a stick up yer arse, ‘arry?” he gripes, almost losing his footing once we reach the end. “Not a good night with yer kiddies or summat?”

“Sure,” I answer stubbornly, my eyes flitting past the weathered signs slapped onto the pole, pointing every which way with words scrawled onto them. Minneapolis. Chicago. Detroit. Los Angeles. Washington D.C.

“I found some peanut butta at one o’ mine. I s’pose I could be a good mate and give ya some, but y’know what ‘s gonna cost ya. Figure I should get even mo’ than that seein’ as how ‘m deathly allergic.”

“Don’t want any,” I retort, walking around the scuffed Spongebob skateboard and Kim Possible figurine lying beside it, missing her signature head of red hair. But it’s forgotten when my foot steps on something, and I lift it to find a plush Hello Kitty with its head torn off, the white more like a light brown now from all of the shoe prints muddling it. A little stuffy that I know all too well, and had forgotten my handy work with until now.

Somehow, it bothers me more than it should, and tips me over the edge.

“What d’ya mean ya don’t-.”

“I said I don’t want any fuckin’ peanut butter, Ni, and I never said I wanted yer company, now fuckin’ did I?”!” I explode, whirling around and scaring him to the point that he almost runs into me. His unruly eyebrows sink and the neon purple in his eyes shrinks, the scaring of a monster quite comical in the thought.

“Fuck you, ‘arry. Dunno who shit in yer bed, yer always high as a kite afta gettin’ done with that Stephens girl. Jus’ cuz ya couldn’t scare tha lights outta her dis time doesn’t mean ya hafta jump down me throat cuzza it,” he says curtly, shaking his head of silver hair that sticks up at all ends. Muttered words float past me as he walks away with the pep out of his step.

“‘s not that I couldn’t . . ‘s that I didn’t wanna . . fer tha first time,” I curse under my breath, kicking a pink stone riddled with holes off the edge, not waiting to hear its plink! at the bottom of Ghastly Gorge.

Clenching my jaw to stop me from saying all of the words that ricochet inside of my skull, I take a few turns until I step onto a rickety lift. Ignoring the two vampires who cling to each other’s necks with loud suckling noises, I tip my head back and close my eyes against the yellow light of the naked bulb above me. I don’t even lose my footing as the contraption whips from side to side and up and down with the loudest of screeches, lastly halting with a piercing ding!

Sulking my way off and back to unsolid ground, the giggles from the ghoulish pair continue behind me, suddenly making me wish Liza was here. Biting my tongue, I try to forget about her, and the other her. Yanking open the door, it falls off its top hinge and I leave it there hanging, not giving a shit clearly. The squeals of the fireworks are almost out of earshot, but now, the shouting from some kind of game trickles past.

“Can’t even get peace and quiet here o’ all places?” I mutter with a long sigh, pushing harshly at the metal gate. It hits the fence with a deafening clang! of metal on metal.

“Heya, Harry!” somebody shouts and I nod and wave. More ‘hellos’ follow between the gravestones as I kick my feet along the black dirt path. “Oh, on your way to The Rotting River, I see . . Let’s leave him be, lads, he doesn’t look too terrible, the poor bloke,” Henry the Horrid whispers ever so loudly and I toss a hand up in the smallest of thanks, only bringing the memory back bigger and brighter.

Since when do I have fucking manners?

Their transparent white bodies float away with their silent steps, and from the corner of my eye, I see Marcus speed away like a flash of moonlight.

“Why? Why? Why in tha fuck why?!” I scream, pitching the hundred pound rock into the black water, far and away. “What tha absolute fuck am I doin’? ‘m gonna ruin it all, everythin’ ‘ve ever built!” the red rock crashes into the water and under the green cast of the orb hung in the sky, it smatters onyx droplets across the green. I pluck another one from the ground at random, in between shards of bones, glass, and lost lovers necklaces, propelling them into the lazy waves of the river, wishing it was crashing tonight like the throes of my heart. Something I thought I hadn’t had for the last few centuries, but here I am, low and behold, seeming to have one.

That doesn’t happen, it’s not supposed to be. My kind . . we’re not supposed to use them, or even have a working one.

How is it that when I saw the glassy tears in Josie’s eyes tonight, it felt like it was being squeezed in my chest? I can’t explain away the warmth I felt in it when her head fell onto my shoulder, and then when I pulled the covers over her tiny, sleeping body.

I broke a hundred dozen rules tonight, enough to get me sent to the headstones just over the hill, and I can’t decide whether I care or not.

* *

The tater tot casserole sitting in my stomach tried to lull me into an early sleep that next night, but with determination, I ignored it. I sat in bed with my school books in my lap, flipping through the pictures and trying to find familiar words. I knew that I wouldn’t find many, if any, but it didn’t stop me from trying.

I didn’t know how long I had been sitting there after dinner looking through the books and making up my own stories, until my tired eyes glanced to the window. There I sat, watching the last few rays of sun be sucked back into the ground, or that’s how it looked.

Smack!

“Arentcha a li’l old t’ be havin’ shit like this?” a voice pipes up, and before I see him, I smile. I really wish that I hadn’t, because when he turns around, that dark glint in his eye has returned. I don’t know why I thought his voice sounded- what did it sound like, like it had last night? When the words from the Clifford The Big Red Dog book fell from his chapped lips?

All of my questions are answered when there’s a loud crash! and my Hello Kitty pink clock smashes into a puddle of glass at his feet. “Whoops,” he giggles as I suck in air loudly, the dirty bottoms of his shoes crunching through the glass that I’m sure I’ll never get out of my carpet now.

“What, ya think ‘m gonna bloody read t’ you again or sumthin’, brat?” Harry says, nodding to the pile of books that I tighten my grip on now. “Not gonna speak t’ me, are you? Y’know that’s never a good bet, Josie Stephens,” he continues, each word laced with disgust from his lips. He licks them with his chalky pink tongue as the floor creaks with his nearing.

“Don’t!” I squeal when he reaches for the books, but I put up a fight.

“It never does any good fightin’ me, li’l shit, ya should know this by now,” he retorts, giving one last yank with his hands and painfully ripping the books from my grasp. “Ooooo, what d’we got here, huh? More stupid Clifford, Scooby Fucking Doo, Pussy Tom and that minx Jerry, and Peter Bloody Pan. Hmmm, looks like a good lot ya got here, Josie. I reckon they won’t be very easy t’ read if they’re in shreds.”

“Harry, no! Please, those are from school, they’re not mine! I’ll get in trouble with my teacher,” I beg, getting on all fours and crawling across my bed towards him. One look is all he needs to get me to stop, because I know if I took one more step towards him he’d pull out one of those faces that’d make me wet the bed . . again.

“Even better then, love,” he smiles that mischievous smile with his yellow teeth that he swipes his tongue across. I feel a lurch in my chest when the first book begins to look like rainbow snow falling from his fingers, then the next, and the others while he laughs loudly. My pleas for him to stop don’t make any difference, and I fear that they only make his devilish smile brighter and wider across his blue tinted cheeks.

“Why’d you do that?!” I almost scream, and one of his unruly eyebrows raises in answer.

“How many times do I gotta bloody tell ya t’ shut yer mouth?” he lips back in return, tossing the last handful of papery snow behind him.

“No, I won’t! Why’d you read to me last night if you were just gonna do that?” I sob, angry words flying with the tears. It’s only a second, but I think that I surprised him. “I thought you could be nice!”

“Ya well, ‘m not nice, Josie. ‘m a bloody monster, I dunno why you expected that I could ever be nice. Me job ‘snt t’ be nice, ya brat, and that was a fluke - a one time thing that’s never gonna happen ‘gain, ya hear? Stop cryin’ ‘bout yer bloody books and fuckin’ go t’ bed, ya cry baby,” Harry hisses, tightening the frayed red and black flannel tied around his body covered in holey black clothes.

“But you can be nice, I saw it! You are nice, Harry, if you just try!”

“What’d I say, li’l girl, huh? Go t’ bed befo’ I make ya, and ya don’t wanna see that happen, I can promise ya that,” he answers with a stern finger pointed at me. The lights flick off with no warning and I fall back when he pushes me onto my covers. I don’t remember when he left, because I was too wrapped up in the tears flowing down my cheeks, and the fear leaking through them.

He’s right, I am stupid for thinking that the monster who lives under my bed could ever be nice.

* *

Even after I slipped under the bed, and back into my world, her sobs still wrench at my heart and fill my head. It doesn’t matter how far I get away from her door that looks like a pixie threw up on it, pink as can be, I still hear them. If anything, they get louder and swarm around in my head. I shake it a bajillion times, wishing they would leave, and that when I pass other monsters who pat me on the back for the sound of her wails, I wish all the more for them to be gone. Suddenly, I’m not proud of them, and I had thought that the few tears she shed the other night bothered me, but this is anything but that. It rips apart my insides how they dig into the crevices of my mind, and how they pull me back to her.

With every step past the cracked headstones weathered of names and dates of life, my feet become heavier, like cement blocks. With each step, they grow a pound in weight, and the stones and boulders I chuck into the blackness can’t even compare. The shrieks and requital of the pissed off mermaids and slimy grindylows below don’t throw a damper on my exaggerated rock skipping.

“We’re tryna sleep here, ye fool!” one of the pinched faced mermaids bellows at me, propelling the sharp edged stone back at me.

“Does it look like I fuckin’ care what yer doin’?” I scream back, chucking a bigger stone in her direction. She yelps before her muddled neon pink hair disappears below the murky surface. “Fuckin’ mermaids, bloody lot still hate me afta I broke tha heart of yer beloved Hera last century,” I mutter under my breath, at last falling to sit on a smooth, red boulder. Prying the minuscule shards of glass from the soles of my shoes, my dormant lungs beg for air, something that stuck with me past my days as a human.

I don’t need to breathe or let alone be gasping for air, but it never escaped me, although most other mortal things certainly did.

It feels as if a stone stronger and wider than those beneath my feet sits lodged in my throat when I try to swallow, her face stuck behind my eyes. My throat soon feels akin to Darkly Desert a few miles away and the emerald reflected on the toiling waves grows messed up in front of me.

“What tha bloody hell?” I curse, swiping a finger across my cheek and feeling wetness greet my chalky skin. “Christ Almighty,” I breathe, feeling the cool tears scatter my cheeks as my nose sniffles accordingly. “I can’t remember tha last time I had a bleedin’ cry, certainly not since ‘ve been a monster. Tha fuck ‘s happenin’ t’ me?” I croak, my head collapsing into my hands.

“Gotcha heart broken by another girl, Harry?” a slinky voice asks, waves lapping against the rocks at my feet. I don’t need to peek my eyes open to know who it is, their revolting voice and squeaky, wicked laugh tells me the whole story.

“Would ya fuck off, Freya? N’body asked you,” I crack, toeing my shoe through a puddle of rotten weeds that I fling at her. She scoffs loudly and it’s unbeknownst to me whether she scurries away or lingers.

“Me’s hopin’ she did good work on it, if ya even have anythin’ left in there. Guessin’ ‘s a shriveled ol’ black thing by this time,” Freya bites back, making a loud exit and whipping her tail to spray me with the water that reeks of rotted corpses and fish.

“Like you’ve ever had one, Frey, it takes one t’ know one!” I shout, standing to my feet and tossing one more stone in her direction. “N’body likes yer kind anyways, jus’ glorified fish with boobs, you are,” I groan with a shake of my head, my feet crunching with every step over the tiny bones that her and her posse toss to the shore like it’s their own garbage bin.

Questions swim through my mind as I hike up the hill muddied by last night’s boiling hot rain showers, wondering how I can fix this. I jumped right past the wondering and decision making, and have landed right at the ‘how.’

I really do have a problem here, but the one that concerns me isn’t the existential one of sorts.

“Open alfucking ready!” I shout, pounding my fist on the chipped wooden door, streaked with red. I’m not sure if I want to ask the question of what made it red. “Zekey, c’mon open up , you git!” I continue, lifting my fist for another blow right when the door swings open.

“Da fuck d’yeh want, ‘arry?” he sighs in return, rubbing at his eyes and only further smearing the black makeup surrounding them. “Shouldn’t yeh be out on yer route, and not buggin’ me?”

“‘m uh, in between kiddies right now, Z. Ya busy, mate?” I explain softly, biting at my nails but there’s not much left to bite.

“Apparently not, and would it even matta if I was? ‘m sure yeh’d still barge right in, wouldntcha?” he tuts, turning around and leaving the door open for me. “By tha way, did yeh fookin’ tell Ly’ that I revoked his invitation? Told yeh not t’, I found him snoggin’ me girl and that’s reason enuff t’ banish him from here, I reckon.”

“Nah, that wasn’t me. Maybe it was Ni, I dunno. Can we get on with this, ‘s important,” I rush, tip toeing a careful trail through his doorway littered with empty beer bottles, cardboard pizza boxes, and cigarette butts. “D’y’know how t’ bloody pick up fer once, Z? Yer not even a monster, so ya can’t fall back on tha ‘messy monster’ cliche, mate.”

“I dont’ rememba askin’ yeh, ‘arry. Now, what tha fook d’ya want that I had t’ wake up fer?” Zeke responds with disdain laced in his voice, collapsing onto his maroon sofa that’s by far seen better days, perhaps last century even.

“‘m takin’ up that favor o’ mine ya owe me, and don’t even say sumthin’ like, ‘oh, what favor?’ Cuz ya bloody well know what favor, need I remind you?”

“No, no. My bloody God, ‘arry, jus’ name it already. ‘m not gettin’ any younger sittin’ here waitin’ fer yeh t’ explain yerself away, am I now?” he sighs, raking a hand through his spiked, electric green hair. I nod and with an unnecessary breath, I steady myself, and prepare the sentence that I’ve rehearsed over and over.

“I need some o’ yer Fix-It Dust,” I say slowly, waiting for his reply.

“That’s all? God, yeh scared me, thinkin’ I needed t’ hex somebody, bring a lover back from tha dead, or wipe a memory,” Z chuckles, springing up from the sofa and across the room to his bookshelf that’s never changed in appearance since that day I met him at the Wobbly Waterfall and came back here. “There, easy ‘nough,” he announces a moment later, tossing a small, dark bottle at me. The bookshelf behind him slides closed, and the fluorescent bottles coloring the rainbow disappear behind the moving novels.

“Thanks, Z.”

“Don’t mention it, Hare. I dunno why yeh think that warrants a favor,” he replies with a soft laugh and shrug of his shoulders.

“What d’ya mean?”

“‘s bloody dust, mate, not a bleedin’ spell, jinx, or body swap. Tell anybody I did this fer you, and yer screwed, but tha favor still stands. Good luck with whateva tha fuck it ‘s, I don’t care and don’t wanna,” he insists, waving a hand at me.

“I appreciate it, mate, thank you.”

“Since when d’yeh have fricken manners, Hare? Yeh gettin’ soft on me, or sumthin’?” he giggles, crossing his pale arms riddled with black ink, one or two of them my own handiwork.

“Oh, would ya learn when t’ shut yer fuckin’ mouth, Zeke?” I scoff with a tut of my head, turning around and kicking a few beer bottles out of my path.

“Hare, a softie? It really mus’ be tha end o’ days a comin’,” he titters from behind me, soon the sound of his TerroVision roaring to life.

“Mention that t’ anyb’dy and ‘ll knock a few mo’ o’ yer teeth out, mate!” I counter, hearing the last few licks of his laugh before the door slams behind me.

“This shite better magic me way back onto her good side,” I sigh, turning the dark bottle over in my hands, watching the flecks of fluorescent orange trickle around, and wondering just what the hell I’m doing. “I need t’ fix me fuck up befo’ ‘s too late,” I say, shoving it into my pocket hurriedly and padding down a flight of chipped steps, my heart thumping harder with every step that nears her.

Her decadent smell of berries and cream welcomes me back first, and then the sound of her slow snores. Her Scooby Doo night light smiles at me ironically, shedding light on the piles of torn paper on the cream carpet. Never, did I feel so guilty. The dried tears staining her cheeks and the heart wrenching sniffling in her sleep only make matters worse. Her mattress sags under my weight and I watch how her chest rises and falls with every breath, a sensation I can’t remember experiencing, but then again, I’ve never tried to remember it. I thumb away the strands of golden hair cast over her face, her smell wafting over me when I brush my thumb against her warm skin. Toasty breaths against my hand remind me that they feel like icicles, and that somehow long ago, they used to feel like her. They used to feel human, and so did I.

“‘m so sorry, Josie, for ruinin’ yer books and clock. Pinky promise ‘ll fix ‘em. Right here and now,” I whisper softly, placing the wild strand of hair behind her ear adorned with an earring of a little, pink ice cream cone. Standing up, I look over my shoulder to make sure I didn’t wake her.

She’s not really a heavy sleeper or a light one, I’ve found, somewhere in the middle instead. With my back to her, my grimey shoes come to freeze before the flurry of colored paper below me. Nibbling at the inside of my cheek, fretting, I fish the bottle from my pocket. The brown cork slides from the opening easily with a pop! before I turn it around in my hands, finding Zekey’s chicken scratch on the other side.

After sprinkling on your screw up, chant these words and it’ll magic your mistake away, like it never happened. Three times is a charm.

Fixus Motalus

“Easy enuff,” I mutter, stuffing the cork away into a pocket. Tipping the bottle to the side, I tap my finger against it to watch the glowing dust fall to the floor. “Fixus Motalus. Fixus Motalus. Fixus Motalus,” I recite and within a blink, the pile of torn books sparkles before an imaginary wind kicks them up into a tornado of sorts, mending themselves back together before my smiling eyes.

My steps leave creaks along her carpeted floor, something I’ve always hated, because it gives me away. I just hope it won’t do that very thing now, when I need to remain in secrecy more than ever before.

“C’mon, Posie, where’s yer markers? They’ve gotta be here sumwhere, bein’ a little kiddie and all,” I sigh, my eyes searching her desk that, of course, is a baby pink. Only when I pull open a drawer do I find a stack of plain paper, and a plastic box chalk full of markers.

Plucking one of the papers from the stack and a blue marker, I quickly scrawl a note on it before the cap clicks! back onto the marker. I’m careful to shut the drawer quietly and to not move a thing from its place, besides the Aladdin water bottle on her bed stand. Beside it, I find room to place the shiny pile of books with her teacher’s name written on the front, and with my note sat on top.

She continues to snooze away, unknowing of my presence, and ignoring the crackling of glass below my feet at the end of her bed. As silence trickles through the house, I watch until every last sparkling fleck has fallen from the bottle to the floor, leaving it empty. A small tornado of sharp glass whirls into the air above the floor, and like a puzzle, they fit themselves back into the pink frame of the clock. With a whooooooosh!, it flies itself back up the wall and to the nail that it hung from, a shiny glint on its glass.

“I dunno what yer doin’ t’ me, Josephine May Stephens,” I cluck softly, hands stuffed in my pockets as I trudge over to her bed and find a seat in front of her. “But I know ‘s no good, that’s fo’sure . . cuz I think I may be gettin’ a soft spot for you . . and monsters don’t get soft spots for kiddies, we hate you lot typically. Yet, here I am, thinkin’ I might be likin’ a kiddie. ‘m in fer real trouble with you, aren’t I, lovie?”

* *

Sun stretches through my blinds the next morning, trying to reach me. Groaning, I turn over in my bed and call back to my mom when she knocks on my door, asking if I’m awake. Flying up to sit, my eyes race around the room, hoping she won’t walk in.

“Alright, honey. Breakfast is ready, come and eat before it’s cold.”

“Okay, Mom!” I reply, swinging my legs over the side of the bed as I lift the covers, accidentally hitting my bedside table. Something falls to the floor with a slap! and my tired eyes follow curiously.

“What was that? I didn’t have anything on the table last night,” I yawn, my feet falling onto the carpet. “Huh?” I exclaim with wonder, falling to my knees and picking up the pile of books, the very same stack that Harry shredded to pieces last night. Questions roll through my head and no answers come as I flip through the pages that are just like before, not even a page tear in sight. “This is really weird . . Am I still dreaming?” I mumble. Something tells me to lift my head and when I look at the wall, there sits my Hello Kitty clock with her arms telling me the time, ticking along just fine.

Huffing, I glance back to the books but they’re forgotten when I see a piece of paper on the floor. Wait, that wasn’t there before, was it? I never wrote a note or colored last night before bed. Reaching a hand out, I pick it up and find that this morning can only get weirder, and weirder.

“If only I could read you, because I bet you’re from Harry, and then all of this silliness would make sense to me,” I huff, stashing the note in my side table’s drawer and trudging downstairs, wondering what to expect tonight from the monster under my bed who signs his notes with a really bad drawing of a monster.

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