The Lawrence Watt-Evans Fantasy

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  THE BOGLE IN THE BASEMENT

  Mary watched as the movers brought the trunks down the front hall, one by one, and with much grunting and muttering maneuvered them around the corner and down the basement stairs.

  She could hear horns beeping out front as the lunch hour traffic tried to get past the double-parked van, and hoped the cops wouldn’t be too quick to ticket it. That would mean an argument between the movers and her parents about who was to pay the fine.

  “I can’t believe you had all that stuff shipped all the way from Scotland!” she said.

  “Well, what else was I going to do with it?” her mother asked. “Great-Aunt Margaret left it to me, and I couldn’t just throw it all away, could I?”

  “It must have cost a fortune,” Mary said. “What if it’s all just junk?”

  “It’s not just junk,” her mother said. “I looked in enough of them to see that much.”

  “You want us to stack ’em?” the man holding the front of the latest trunk asked.

  “Not if you can help it,” Mary’s mother replied.

  “Okay,” the mover said, and trudged onward.

  “How many trunks are there?” Mary asked, as the movers dropped the latest and went back for the next.

  “Thirteen,” her mother replied. “They should all fit down there.”

  Mary tried to imagine how anyone could cram thirteen big old-fashioned steamer trunks into the little stone-walled cellar of their Boston townhouse without stacking them. The furnace and the water heater and the boxes of Christmas decorations and the like already half-filled it.

  When the movers had collected her mother’s signature on the necessary paperwork and departed, Mary made her way down the old bare wood steps to the basement.

  The trunks filled almost all the previously-available floor space, leaving only two narrow aisles.

  “Mind if I look in them?” Mary called upstairs.

  “Go ahead,” her mother called back.

  Mary opened the heavy brass latches on the first one and lifted the lid; inside, neatly folded, were woolens—scarves, blankets, shawls. Mary stroked them, and burrowed down into the stacks, and found everything wonderfully soft; they were lovely, and would be welcome in cold weather, but they weren’t very exciting.

  The next trunk was full of linens and lace—again, pleasant, but nothing thrilling.

  The third trunk was locked. Mary shrugged, and went on to the fourth.

  By the time her father got home that evening Mary had rummaged through twelve of the trunks, and found a few treasures as well as mountains of boring household goods. She had begged her mother into giving her a carving of a cat, had played with an antique nutcracker, had polished up some old brass trivets and other knicknacks, and had marveled at a drawstring bag full of exotic old coins. She had glanced at the books and letters, but had not yet read any of them; that could wait.

  That locked trunk fascinated her, though; why was just one out of thirteen trunks locked? What treasure was in there that Great-Aunt Margaret had thought deserved special treatment?

  She brought it up at dinner, but her mother didn’t know anything about it, and didn’t have the key.

  “We’ll get it open eventually,” she told Mary, “but there’s no hurry.”

  Mary had to be content with that.

  Over the next three weeks the contents of the trunks were largely absorbed into the everyday supplies of the family home—linens went into the sideboard cupboard in the dining room, scarves and mufflers in with the winter coats in the attic cedar closet, and so on. Some items went to the antique shops on Charles Street, or to various charities.

  The locked trunk stayed locked.

  Then one day Mary was rummaging through the trunk where Great-Aunt Margaret had stored books and old letters when she happened to pick up a bundle of envelopes and put it to one side.

  The bundle had been stored upright, but she placed it on its side, without really looking.

  She heard a little click.

  She looked, and found that a small brass key had fallen out of one of the envelopes.

  She stared at it for a moment, then grinned. She picked up the key and studied it.

  It sparkled in the light of the two bare light bulbs that served as the basement’s only illumination; being tucked away in an envelope had kept any hint of corrosion from dimming its luster. It was the right size and general shape to be a trunk key.

  And there was no better time to try it, she decided. She closed up the trunk of books and letters and sidled along the aisle to the locked one. Half the trunks were empty, but none had been removed yet, so the basement was still crowded and hard to maneuver in.

  She knelt and fitted the key in the lock.

  It slid in easily, but didn’t seem to want to turn, and she was beginning to wonder if maybe it went to one of the other trunks after all when the lock finally yielded and clicked open.

  Holding her breath, Mary opened the latches and started to lift the lid.

  Before she had it open more than a few inches, though, the lid sprang upward, out of her hands. She yelped and stepped back, colliding with the empty trunk behind her; she lost her balance, swayed, and abruptly sat down on the closed lid.

  And there, before her eyes, the lid of the formerly-locked trunk was flung up, and a creature lifted itself up from the trunk and stared at her.

  Mary shrieked in surprise.

  It was black and leathery, with long, bony arms and long, bony fingers, with huge pointed ears on either side of a mostly-bald head. Tangled wisps of white hair clung to either side of its pate, while the center was bare and wrinkled.

  Its nose was a great dark hook, its mouth broad and lipless, and its eyes a ghastly shade of yellow.

  It grinned at Mary, showing a great many crooked yellow teeth.

  Mary shrieked again.

  “Mary?” her mother’s voice called from the top of the stairs. “Are you okay?”

  “NO!” Mary shouted.

  Her mother clattered quickly down the stairs, but the thing in the trunk didn’t vanish, didn’t seem particularly disturbed by the noisy approach; it hoisted itself up out of the open trunk and clambered atop the closed one next to it, squatting with sharp, bony knees thrusting up above its head. It crouched there, blinking at Mary.

  Its body was tiny, almost doll-like; its head was the size of a man’s; and its arms and legs were impossibly long and spidery. Each limb was like muscles stretched taut over bone and wrapped in coarse black leather, utterly without fat or other padding, and each was, Mary estimated, more than a yard long. If the thing stood up it would be about her own height of five foot two—but more than two-thirds of that would be leg.

  It wore a burlap rag wrapped loosely about itself, and she couldn’t tell whether it was male or female.

  She didn’t particularly want to.

  Then her mother saw the thing, and gasped.

  “Oh, my God,” she said.

  The creature winced.

  “It’s a bogle!” Mary’s mother said.

  “A what?” Mary asked.

  “A bogle,” the creature said, sketching a bow. “An’ I suppose ye’d hae me gie my name now, arter the fashion o’ ye mortals, but I’d no’ gie ye power o’er me.”

  “It talks!” Mary said.

  It was undeniable that it spoke, but on the other hand, its Scottish accent was so thick she wasn’t sure what it had said. Mary stared.

  “What’s a bogle?” she asked.

  The creature glanced at Mary’s mother. “Are ye tellin’ me the lass knows nought o’ bogles? Is she not a McTeague?”

  “She’s a Fiorelli,” Mary’s mother replied. “I was a McTeague, before I got married.”

  The thing eyed first Mrs. Fiorelli and then Mary suspiciously. “An’ this man o’ the outlandish
name that ye’ve wed holds not wi’ the old tales, then?”

  “Neither of us does,” Mary’s mother said. “Besides, I couldn’t remember most of the ones my parents told me. God, I can’t believe I’m talking to you!”

  “Mother, what’s a bogle?” Mary demanded. She was over her initial fright, and beginning to be angry—her mother and the creature were speaking as if she wasn’t even there!

  “That is,” her mother said, gesturing at the creature. “It’s a sort of…of Scottish goblin. A nasty kind. They play tricks on people, and catch unwary travelers, and make noises in the

  night. Except I thought they were just stories.”

  “We’re nae just tales,” the bogle agreed. “We’re all o’ that you’ve said, and more besides.” It turned and leered at Mary, displaying an incredible number of large yellow teeth. “If you’d hae lied when you said ye’d no’ heard o’ bogles, me pretty lass, I’d hae ripped the tongue from your head, for a bogle can’t abide a liar, nor any ither scoundrel or blackguard. That’s another thing

  that we are, it is!”

  “Oh, my,” Mrs. Fiorelli said, sitting down abruptly on the stairs.

  Mary backed away suddenly when she realized that the creature meant its words literally, and that those long, strong arms and fingers probably could tear her tongue out. She swallowed.

  “Oh, gross,” she said. She turned to her mother, and said, “Get it out of here!”

  “How?” her mother said. “I don’t even know how it got in!”

  “It was in Aunt Margaret’s locked trunk!”

  “You opened it? Oh, Mary!”

  “I found the key in the other trunk,” Mary said defensively. “How was I supposed to know there was a goblin in there? It’s our trunk, I figured we had a right to open it!”

  “Aye, you’d the right,” the bogle agreed, “and I thank ye for the doin’ of it, lass, for I’ve been locked inside for many a long year.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’ve had a nice time,” Mary said, cautiously taking a step closer, “but now climb back in, would you, please?”

  “What, and let you lock me in again?” The creature scuttled suddenly farther away from the open trunk. “I’m no’ such a fool as that, lass! I’m out, and ’tis out I’ll stay!”

  “Mom?”

  “I don’t know, Mary,” her mother said, but she rose and approached the bogle from the other side.

  The thing saw that the two women intended to trap it, and let out a shriek of hysterical, grating laughter. Then it scampered wildly away on its long, long legs, springing from trunk-lid to trunk-lid, swinging from beams overhead, bouncing from the ductwork and plumbing as it darted and leapt about the little basement.

  For a moment the two humans tried to catch it, but it quickly became obvious that they had no chance of catching the creature. It danced away, shouting and yelling, whenever they approached, and it was much faster than they were, able to dodge with superhuman speed and agility.

  And it shrieked amd gibbered constantly.

  “Stop that racket!” Mrs. Fiorelli ordered it.

  “Ah, nay,” it said. “I’m an eighth banshee on my mother’s side, and blood will out!” Then it laughed again and jumped over Mary’s head.

  At last, as it clambered through the pipes above the furnace, at the far end of the basement, Mrs. Fiorelli beckoned to her daughter, and the two hurried up the stairs.

  At the top they slammed the door, and Mrs. Fiorelli threw the bolt.

  Then they looked at each other.

  “Now what?” Mary asked.

  “Now we wait for your father to get home,” her mother replied.

  “Why?” Mary asked.

  “Because he’s bigger and faster and stronger than we are, and with the three of us working together maybe we can catch that thing!”

  “What do we do with it if we catch it?”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Fiorelli admitted. “Stuff it back in the trunk, maybe?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  A gale of inhuman laughter came from the basement just then, followed by several loud thumps.

  “What’s it doing down there?” Mary asked.

  “I don’t want to know,” her mother replied.

  They tried to go on about their business, but it wasn’t easy; the afternoon was punctuated with screams, giggles, and bumps from the basement. Whenever either of them was just getting settled down in front of the TV, or reading a magazine, after a lull, there would suddenly come a resounding crash or other loud noise. It was impossible to concentrate on anything.

  At last, though, Mary’s father walked in the back door.

  Just then the bogle let out an ear-piercing shriek.

  “What was that?” Mr. Fiorelli said, startled. “It sounded as if it came from the basement.”

  He turned, and before his wife or daughter could stop him, he slid back the bolt and opened the basement door.

  The bogle, gibbering wildly, sprang up the stairs at him; he stepped back in surprise, and it vaulted neatly over his head, into the kitchen.

  There, it snatched up a pair of saucepans and began clanging them together.

  “Free!” it shrieked, as it danced around the breakfast table. “Free at last! And ’tis a fine home I’ve found here! I’ll be staying here for long and long, my fine McTeagues! Oh, Margaret McTeague, ye thought you’d seen the last o’ me, but your family shan’t e’er hae done!”

  “My good lord in heaven,” Mr. Fiorelli said, backing away, “What’s that?”

  “A bogle,” his wife said. She led him into the living room, where she and Mary tried to explain over the din of clashing cookware.

  “They aren’t generally so loud as this,” Mrs. Fiorelli said, apologetically. “I think it’s from being cooped up in that trunk for so long.”

  “I don’t care why it’s so loud,” her husband replied, “I won’t have it! I want it out of this house!”

  Mary agreed enthusiastically, but her mother hesitated. “You want it loose on the streets of Boston?” she said. “Bogles are supposed to injure or even kill unwary travelers—it’d probably have a fine old time scaring drivers or jumping on people in dark alleys.”

  “Well, what’s it going to do if we don’t throw it out?” her husband demanded. “I don’t want it slitting our throats while we sleep!”

  “Oh, they can’t do that,” his wife assured him. The sound of shattering china interrupted her, but then she continued, “A bogle can’t harm an innocent person in his own home—they can harass you, and they’ll harm anyone who’s lied or killed or betrayed a trust, anything like that, but they don’t hurt innocents directly.” She hesitated as something in the kitchen crunched. “At least, they aren’t supposed to.”

  “Listen to that!” Mr. Fiorelli said. “It’s got to go! Do you think the insurance is going to cover this?”

  Mrs. Fiorelli looked at Mary, who shrugged.

  “All right,” Mrs. Fiorelli said, “how do we get it out?”

  “It won’t go of its own free will if we open the door?” her husband asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Let’s try.” He marched back into the kitchen to the back door and swung it wide, then turned to face the bogle, which was crouched atop the refrigerator, watching him intently.

  “Here, you,” Mr. Fiorelli said, “you can go, now. You want to be free? Go ahead!”

  “Ah, I’d none o’ that!” the bogle replied. “’Tis a fine home I have right here!” It giggled, and threw a cracker at him.

  Mr. Fiorelli stared at it, frustrated, then closed the door, turned, and marched back to the living room.

  “Now what?” he growled.

  “Maybe if we ignore it, it’ll get bored and go away,” Mrs. Fiorelli suggested. “Or at least shut up.”

 
Her husband glowered. “You’d need earplugs to ignore that thing,” he growled.

  “I have some earplugs in my room,” Mary volunteered. “For concerts.”

  She blinked, opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

  “And I have an idea!” she said. “Wait right here!”

  She ran upstairs to her room, and began rummaging through her dresser; then she snatched up the boom box she’d gotten for Christmas and a couple of tapes.

  She ran back downstairs, the boom box bumping her thigh, and handed each of her parents a set of earplugs.

  “Here,” she said, “you’re gonna need these!”

  “Mary, what…” her mother began.

  Mary explained, as she headed for her father’s big stereo that she ordinarily wasn’t supposed to touch.

  “That thing came from rural Scotland, right?” She pressed the power button, and the displays lit up. “And it hasn’t been out of that trunk in years? And they mostly live out in lonely, deserted places? Then I’ll bet it’s used to being the loudest thing around.” She slipped a Led Zeppelin tape into the tape deck on the stereo. “Well, around here,” she said, slipping in the earplugs, “it’s an amateur!”

  She hit PLAY, and turned the volume to 10.

  The opening words of “Black Dog” roared from the speakers.

  Mary couldn’t hear anything from the kitchen any more, but she slid another tape into the boom box and cranked that all the way up, as well. Then she inched warily down the little hallway and peered into the kitchen.

  The bogle was cowering in the sink, hands over its big pointed ears.

  “Stop it!” it shrieked, its voice barely audible over the racket from the two stereos.

  “No,” Mary said. “You get out of our house!” She pointed toward the back door.

  The thing leapt from the sink and scampered to the door; it fumbled with the knob, got it open, and stumbled outside.

  Mary dashed over and locked the door; then she turned off the boom box.

  And when she turned off the living room stereo as well and took out the earplugs, she thought that was the end of it.

  It wasn’t.

  Hours later, when the kitchen had been cleaned up and the three of them were just finishing up a late supper, there came a timid knock at the kitchen door.