by Pete Kahle
P.J. shivered. She remembered huddling in the downstairs bathroom, in the tub with Daddy and Mother, while the Big Storm blew through the County. It blasted down their street, a thousand thousand angry animals scratching at the walls, the windows, the roof. The door was closed, but the bathroom's little window showed them the strobe flashes of lightning. Thunder shook the walls, louder than the rain and wind and the witches Gramma said rose above all such storms.
The storm passed, and even without the TV, P.J. kept herself amused. She had her books: art books, Nancy Drew, The Hunger Games, history books, and old books Gramma gave her; her paints; her camera that used to be Daddy's before he got a better one; and binoculars to watch for interesting things. She kept the last two close by, just in case. P.J. figured a strange sound somewhere was a 'just in case.' She picked up the binoculars and crept along the floor to her window to look out.
Junk was everywhere – leaves and limbs and paper and siding and trashcans. Lots of the houses were dark because their families had moved away after the Big Storm. P.J. figured maybe six families stayed on her street, scattered around, windows still taped and backed with plywood; that left a lot of sad, empty, broken houses. She couldn't see much more with the dim light of an early morning, but something kept tickling her eyes, making her blink and tear up. She rubbed, yawned, and slid down from the window, ready to go back to sleep. Movement caught her eye and held it.
There was something in the mirror that wasn't there. P.J. stopped, not daring to let her own reflection show up in the silvered glass. The mirror was one Gramma insisted Mother give to her. They'd fought about it, and she remembered all of the shouting and words she didn't understand, at least not then. In the end, Gramma got her way and P.J. had her mirror, which she kept polished and clean.
The thing in the mirror kept moving, so she focused in on it. Her head turned this way and that, trying to make it out, and she found the right angle.
"Uh oh," she said, under her breath. There was a boojum.
She was just ten, but Daddy called her 'precocious,' Mother called her 'precious,' and Gramma called once a week to dream about strange things to her. P.J. giggled, covering her mouth so the boojum couldn't catch the sound and eat it. She kept watching.
The boojum was a little twisted thing, a ragdoll-sized shadow, all a-swirl with thin little straps that cracked like whips, or Daddy's belt when he'd sneak up on her and make the leather pop to make her shriek and chase him around the house. There were little white things all along the straps, and the leather belts that pulled the boojum around like a centipede's legs made it look much bigger than it really was. P.J. knew that boojums and beasties did that sometimes to make themselves look bigger, like birds puffing themselves up or lizards showing their necks all red.
It crept out of the upstairs window of the Quinlans' house, and started walking down the side, the wiggling straps snapping to tree branches and the fallen power pole to steady its way. The Quinlans were a family that still lived on their street. P.J. played with their son sometimes.
She frowned, then remembered the binoculars in her hand. P.J. brought them to her eyes and looked at the boojum, now much-expanded in her vision, and sucked in a breath. Up close, P.J. glimpsed ugly wrinkles and spindly fingers, squinty eyes above a long, witchy nose. Its teeth were crooked and wrong, too big for its mouth; P.J. saw why. The wriggling, snatchy straps had teeth in them, stuck in the oily, filthy leather, each atop a darker stain. P.J. could guess what those were, too.
She watched it creep down, then across the street to one of the sad houses, slipping into the shadows. Just like Nancy Drew, P.J. snuck over to her desk and got out a notepad, flipping to a clean page, noting which house it was. She got a picture, with the camera, too. Evidence. There wasn't anything she could do until Mother or Daddy got her up, so she went back to bed, snuggled a pillow, and dreamed about silver coins falling from the moon.
"Daddy, what does the Tooth Fairy look like?" she asked.
Daddy put a serious expression on, which meant he was getting ready to kid with her. Mother rolled her eyes while she was taking down tape from a window, and stuck her tongue out at P.J. She giggled, since a good mood meant that Daddy and Mother would be more likely to answer her questions and think nothing more of it.
"Well, Pea," he said, scratching his stubble. "The Tooth Fairy's supposed to be really tiny, and she's got wings to fly around. Sort of like Tinkerbell, I guess."
"What does she do with the teeth?" P.J. pressed, eating her cereal, watching them.
Daddy looked at Mother with a raised eyebrow, like Spock on TV.
"Got an opinion, hon?" he asked, teasing. "I think the Tooth Fairy takes them to Tooth Knox, but..."
Mother yanked a particularly sticky piece of tape down, and hmphed.
"Don't turn this into a game, Franklin," she said, wadding the tape up and throwing it into a cardboard box. "Fairies are serious business. Nobody knows where the Tooth Fairy takes the teeth, or what she does with them."
Daddy rolled his eyes in perfect imitation of her, then winked at P.J. and Mother; Mother laughed as she left the room, box in hand.
"Well, Sweet Pea, it sounds like it's a mystery," he said, mock seriously. "Tell you what – soon as the library opens up, I'll walk with you down there and you can look it up, okay?"
"Okay!" P.J. declared. She knew she could find out about the boojum in the back rooms of the library.
"Think you can ride your bike back?" he asked. "I've got to help around the house."
"Uh huh."
"It's a done deal, then. Finish your cereal, kid, then we'll head out," Daddy said.
Her bowl went into the trash bag, since the water was off and it was plastic anyway. She wiped her hands off after using the big bottle of Purell and started for the garage. She'd almost made it before Mother caught up with her.
"Why were you asking about the Tooth Fairy, honey?" she asked, sitting on the stairs next to the living room. "You're a little old for that, aren't you?"
P.J. sighed. This always happened when Mother thought anything strange might be going on. It had something to do with Gramma; they didn't get along. P.J. thought Gramma was neat.
She had no choice but to answer, truthfully. It was one of Those Things.
"I saw a boojum coming out of the Quinlans' this morning," she said. "I thought it might be the Tooth Fairy, but I didn't know for sure, so I asked you and Daddy."
Mother paled, the tired circles under her eyes darkening. Rubber-gloved fingers went to her forehead above her left eyebrow, rubbing.
"Pea, we've talked about this, honey," she murmured, trying to loosen the knot P.J. knew was under her fingers. "There's no such thing as boojums. No. Such. Thing. Okay?"
"But mother..."
"No, Petra Jane," Mother said, louder. "We are not having this discussion again. We had it when you said there was a boojum under your bed, then when there was another one in your closet..."
"Mom, it was the same one...!"
"No, it wasn't, because it's not real!" she snapped. "I don't care what Gramma told you. There are no such things as boojums. Do you understand?"
"But...!"
"Enough! Not one more word about this, do you understand?" Mother said, voice sharp.
P.J. sniffed, ducked her head, and nodded. Mother was more than cross, well into angry, and if she pushed it any more, she wouldn't be able to go to the library to speak to Miss Thomasina. Dismissed, she shuffled to the garage to get her bike.
"Hey, kid," said Daddy. "You going to be okay? I overheard."
"Uh huh," P.J. said, very, very softly. "I'll be okay, Dad."
He ruffled her hair, face brightening with a smile.
"It's the storm. It’s got everyone rattled, even your old man," he teased. "I think getting you out and about will do you both a world of good."
Daddy started out of the garage, and the clouds started to lift from P.J. He was always the peacemaker, and sometimes P.J. thought he used to be a cowb
oy or sheriff in the old days, before he was Daddy. The Dad with No Name, roaming the Old West, making people stop fighting with kind words and a smile instead of a gun. Of course, he had a gun, but that was because he was a policeman in the City.
As they walked, P.J. watched the streets, especially the shadows. There were other kinds of boojums that came out after something bad happened - boojums for accidents - sometimes crowds of them for car wrecks, boojums for fires, and boojums for floods. Gray men and hollow men and women with crow's eyes all out to do something bad to nice people. The thought made her shiver, her heart felt heavy and slow. She remembered Alec, her fuzzy buddy, her cat, legs planted, back arched, eyes aglow in the moonlight as he hissed and spat at the boojum from under her bed.
He'd been so brave. He was just a cat, but she was his human, too. When the boojum wanted to drag her off to the other side of the darkness, he fought like his bigger forebears, all claws and fangs and fury. Alec gave her time to drive the boojum into the closet where P.J. could trap it. She'd been crying when she carried his still, cooling body to the street.
When Mother found him the next morning, she thought he'd been hit by a car. It hurt to think of. P.J. missed him, and she hated lying. Grownups didn't understand the battles little kids fought until they were very old and wise like Gramma.
Daddy had helped make a little wooden box for Alec, and the three of them had buried him in the backyard, in the spot where he liked to sun himself. Mother had said Words in the Old Tongue, which she never did. But she had, and for a little while, she and Gramma didn't fight. It didn't last, which made P.J. sadder still.
"Penny?" Daddy asked. He'd stopped. "For your thoughts."
P.J. squinted her eyes, sniffed, and wiped at the tears. Daddy caught it all in the reflection off the library's window, and wrapped a heavy, warm arm around her.
"We all loved him, and he loved us," he said, softly. "But he loved you best. He was a good boy, a brave cat. Petra, I'm so sorry."
For a while, they sat there on the curb, with the junk and the fallen branches, the leaves and the glass, eyes raining in the afternoon sun.
That made her smile. In his way, even as a grownup, he believed her. He didn't ask what had really happened to Alec, not because he didn't want to know, but because he trusted the secrets children kept. P.J. thought Mother knew what happened, but she didn't want to. Mother came from the City, so that was understandable.
The City was a Bad Place. When they drew in class, P.J. made beautiful maps, and whenever she drew maps of the County, where the City was always had the legend 'Here There Be Monsters.' That was a true thing, and the children nodded solemnly when the grownups weren't looking.
"Looks like we're here, kid," Daddy said, smiling again. It had been a good cry, and they both felt better. "You know the rules-"
"Uh huh. Back before dark, come back right away after I'm done, and if I'm late, call. I know, Dad."
"Love you, kid," Father said, kissing the top of her head. "Be good, and watch out for those boojums, huh?"
The interior of the library was cool and dim, even with the big battery-powered lights the workers had strung up since the power went out. P.J. smiled to herself, and waved at the kids and teenagers reading, at the librarians, getting vague replies back. She went among the stacks, headed for the back rooms.
Nobody but staff was supposed to go into the back rooms of the library. They were left over after the original building burned down. The grownups called the back rooms the vaults, because that was where the very old and valuable things were kept safe. After the fire, the county people had left them in place instead of demolishing them, saying it was historical. That suited P.J. fine, because the back rooms were where she knew she could find Miss Thomasina.
"Hello?" she called, once she'd slipped past the door hidden behind the stacks. "Miss Thomasina?"
The room scented of dust, of old paper, the tang of newsprint, and the smell of all of the cats that had moved in. Lithe shapes glided through the shadows, eyes glittering in the gloom, watching her. A few growled and purred and muttered, but most remained a silent Parliament.
P.J. stepped to a circle of light nearly in the center of the room and waited.
"Hello, dear," Miss Thomasina said.
Miss Thomasina was old-young today, a woman with hair that might be silver, might be white, or even calico. Looking at her, one couldn't have placed her age; she seemed anywhere between forty and seventy. As P.J. watched, she saw more of Miss Thomasina, the old person clothes, the folded hands, the bright eyes, the sharp teeth.
"I seek secret knowledge, the knowledge of the moon, the knowledge of the sun, I come seeking the wisdom of your Parliament," P.J. said. Gramma had taught her the words. "I come to beg a boon of the children of Bastet, of Sekhmet, for yours is the knowledge of shadows and whispers."
Miss Thomasina nodded formally. Around her, the cats lay, or sat. None moved, all eyes upon P.J.
"You speak well and true, for a human," Miss Thomasina said. "You speak the words that most humans have forgotten save in dreams, and your Alec is known to this Parliament. We would hear your boon, Petra Jane Connor, human of Alec."
"There's a boojum," she said. "I saw it, and I think it hurt the Quinlans. I want t make it stop before it hurts anyone else."
"What does our Parliament care of humans that become prey?" Miss Thomasina asked, contemptuously. "But the Parliament knows your secret heart, Petra, we know what you truly desire. It is a thing we have knowledge of."
P.J. blinked, caught off-guard.
"I don't understand," she said. "I need to know how to stop the boojum, that's all."
The smile widened, and Miss Thomasina stretched, pacing around P.J.'s circle of light, strutting with the surety of knowing what P.J. did not.
"We know your secret, dreaming heart. We smell your true desire in your tears," she fairly purred. "You wish to bring Alec Five Lives back to you, to guard you at night, to pet during days. We know how to do this, and should like to share it."
Each word was a blow, and P.J.'s heart thudded in her chest, tears rising unbidden to her eyes. Gramma had told her the nature of cats. Cats liked to play with their food. P.J. swallowed the pain and tears. She found her voice. She wasn't the prey here.
"That is a true thing you speak," she said, and the Parliament of Cats smiled as one. "But it is not my boon. My boon is the secret knowledge of defeating the boojum."
"For Alec Five Lives' sake, we will grant this boon, child of man," Miss Thomasina whispered, the sound of the Parliaments' bodies moving, their claws scratching. The voice of the Parliament smiled. "But the cost will be blood and innocence. Alec Five Lives will never return to you."
The voice of the Parliament spoke again, and spoke truly.
P.J. stopped a block from home, looking into the darkened windows of the sad house, and was sure the boojum could see her. That was good. She had a few hours of daylight left to start putting things together, to think about what the Parliament had said to her.
Boojums couldn't be hurt by regular people most of the time. That hadn't been a surprise, because of what Gramma had told her about the boojum in the closet. They couldn't be really hurt because they weren't really real, only a little real, but they could be locked away and bound. Every boojum was different, so what had worked on the under the bed (now closet) boojum wouldn't work on the tooth fairy boojum.
P.J. hadn't wanted to speak to the cats, but Gramma only had a few teeth left, and she didn't want Gramma to lose them. The idea made her smile after a moment's reflection. Any boojum that tried to mess with her Gramma would end up bottled, jarred, or sent back to the Wherever with its butt on fire.
The cats had told her what to do, and she didn't like it one bit. She'd have to get her slingshot and shoot a bird. After that, before the moon rose, she'd have to go to the back yard to do the ugly part of the business. She stuck her tongue out at the boojum's sad house, and made a face at it, what she thought of as her mean witch
face. The Parliament of Cats had told her that the boojum would need to be challenged and made to think she wasn't afraid of it. They had also advised she grow better claws in case the business didn't work, but that wasn't happening.
She pedaled, feeling the boojum's eyes on her, making her neck hair rise. She looked over her shoulder and spat, hard, a real loogie that splatted against the curb. It made her feel mean, but after what the cats had said and done, feeling mean was good. She could hear the leather straps it whipped around creak and snap angrily against the windows and walls of the sad house. It couldn't come out during the daytime, as she'd suspected, which was good. That made it mad, and making the boojum mad was even better.
Mad boojums were stupid. They could also be much more dangerous, but P.J. thought she had this one's number. It was a Sneaky Pete, which was what the pirate in her favorite books called things that skulked and slunk and that he had no patience for. She didn't have the pirate's ship, or his jolly crew, or a cutlass, but she had the business, and that would have to be good enough. She looped around at the end of the block, headed for the Quinlans'. She'd have to see what the boojum had done before getting down to the real business.
The block over from hers was empty, families fled before the Big Storm to more hospitable climes or to the City. That made it easy for her to ride low and do some Sneaky Pete-ing herself, leaving her bike leaning against the splintered fence while she crept through a gap in the boards. The back door wasn't locked.
There was a smell inside the dark house. Something wet and foul, thick with iron, rotten. P.J. gagged, pulling her shirt up to cut the stink. She moved slowly, fighting the urge to run back out. Every shadow, every creak of the battered old house might be a warning, a boojum, or just itself, and there was no way to tell them apart.
P.J. stopped cold at the threshold of the living room. Mr. Quinlan was still on the couch, would always be on the couch, at least until the police came. She had enough time to see what the boojum had done, written in his wide-wider open mouth, his empty gums, the ruin of his eyes, then she ran, yanking her shirt down before breakfast came out in a sour flood, splashing on the kitchen linoleum. She didn't stop until she was outside the fence, breathing hard to get the stink out of her lungs.
