Page 27 of Witchlore
“We make a deal.” Bastian holds his cheese out but I also see him getting his penknife out of his pocket.
“How?” The slithering shape is crawling closer. I can’t see hands or eyes or limbs; I can only sense its malevolence and the overwhelming feeling that I should be running very fast in the other direction. I feel like I’m confronting a bear or a puma. I know literally nothing about how to survive this encounter and am instantly furious with myself.What kind of numpty walks into this situation willingly with someone they barely know?The answer is obvious. It’s me.
“Stand very still,” Bastian whispers. “Unwrap a Babybel and hold it flat in your hand so it can smell it, like you’re feeding a horse.”
“But it’s not a horse!” My whisper is getting hysterical as the liquid sound of a vast, wet mouth chewing gets closer and closer.
“Do not panic,” Bastian hisses. “Donotpanic.”
I hold the Babybel flat on my outstretched palm like a small moon.I’m doing this for Elizabeth,I tell myself.It’s all for Elizabeth.The chewing sound stops. I listen to a heavy, rattling breath and imagine a wheezing animal with sharp teeth. I do not want it to get any closer to my fingers. I tell myself to not panic and to stand still but I realize I can’t do anything else. My knees have locked. I’m stuck.
“Show yourself to us,” Bastian says in a commanding voice. There is a low hiss in response and the darkness slithers back a few paces. I can’t help exhaling with heavy relief when its shadows retreat from my boots. “We have offerings.”
Bastian breaks off a piece of his cheese and throws it towardthe shadow. There is a horrible snap and I imagine a great jaw closing, a thousand pointy teeth wetly masticating. Then suddenly, it speaks. Its voice is uncanny and sets every hair on my body on end.
“You smell of human flesh and cow, surrender both to my claws now.” It sounds like a sick child. A high, young voice that’s somehow phlegmatic, full of gravel and damp. I swallow down the disgust in my throat, the overwhelming feeling that I want to turn away and never hear it speak again.
“It speaks in rhyme?” I manage to squeak out.
“Yes, all boggarts rhyme, give it the cheese.”
I shakily throw the Babybel toward the shadows, a ridiculous parody of throwing treats for a dog. There is a flash of something silver, maybe eyes or maybe teeth, and I stumble back from it, my heart thundering. Then it laughs, a nasty high-pitched giggle so lonely and sharp that it hurts my ears.
“You feed me but I smell your fear, what prompts such cowards to draw this near?”
“We want your name,” Bastian says.
The laughing stops. In a gust of wind, the shadow snaps close, close enough that a pair of ghoulish white eyes stare unblinking at us. We both gasp and I don’t mean to, but my hand clasps around Bastian’s clenched fist. I have no idea what a boggart should look like but this is probably going to give me nightmares for the rest of my life.
“Then name me, child, face your fear, and you will always have me near,” it whispers. We both take a slow step backward and Bastian unclenches his hand, gripping mine. His palm is sweaty.
“We have come to bargain.” Bastian’s voice is shockingly level. “We want your name.”
“Come to bargain with what, little child?” the boggart croons toward Bastian. Their faces are horribly close; I can see saliva dripping onto Bastian’s shoes. He leans his head back but seems determined not to move his feet. “I see your fear in your eyes and smile.”
Bastian’s breath hitches and I realize that he’s gone mute with terror. Out of nowhere, I’m speaking instead.
“Hey, don’t talk to him like that, you’re not eating him,” I blurt out. It was the wrong thing to do. Now those bulbous white eyes are focused on me.
“What of you, then, little skin changer?” it whispers. “I’ve eaten children but none stranger.”
With trembling fingers, I throw another Babybel a few paces back. The boggart lurches away, hastily devouring the cheese with those slick, wet sounds. Bastian has my hand in a vise grip. I’m not even sure he’s breathing properly; he looks scared silent, his eyes wide and still.Oh, shit,I think.This is a deer-in-headlights moment.I have no idea what to do so, of course, I keep babbling.
“Do you spend all your time thinking up rhymes?” I improvise, shoving my fear right down inside me, just like I did when the police took me to the station after Elizabeth’s death. “You think you’d be better at it. You know poetry has evolved beyond rhyming couplets.”
“Your fire is nothing compared to my ire, I shall light your skin up like a pyre.”
The boggart twists its head a sickening 180 degrees with a crunch. I taste a surge of bile in the back of my throat.Do not fucking panic,I tell myself angrily.
“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes,” I say shakily. “See? I can do it, too. Tell us your bloody name!”
This senseless antagonism, this infuriating back talk, it’s been there my entire life. The boggart is my mother, my father, the twenty tutors I had, the shifting specialist I hated.Sarcasm will not make you better at what any shifter infant can do, Orlandowas what he always said to me. Maybe he’s right but it will help you distract a boggart. I look at Bastian desperately, because I know this stalling is only going to get us so far, and luckily, it looks like he is back with me, breathing fast and hard but eyes more focused than before.
“We’ve come to bargain,” Bastian repeats, stepping forward and breaking off more cheese. “We want your name.”
“Then offer me something, small witch, say what you come to bargain with.”
“I have a dog,” Bastian says.
