Pog, page 10
Pog nodded. ‘’Twas Pog. Pog did it. Was it wrong of him?’
Penny felt a sudden ache in her heart as she saw the forlorn look on Pog’s face. ‘No, Pog. No. It was a lovely thing to do.’ She went down on one knee before him. ‘Thank you very much.’
Pog gave a small smile, but the smile quickly vanished, and he gave a furtive glance towards the window.
‘What is it, Pog?’
Pog looked back towards Penny and smiled.
‘’Tis nothing. Nothing at all.’
22
Night came quickly.
The house slept. In the attic Pog lay curled up in his den. Mouse lay nearby, his sides going in out like a tiny bellows. Dad lay sleeping too, twitching every once in a while, but fast and deep and away, as was Penny who lay serene as a statue despite the things she dreamt of. Things like terrible lonely houses in sunlight and a hot day in April. A day when she sat on a couch with David while her dad said something she couldn’t quite hear because there was a roaring sound in her ears, and beneath that the sound of David crying, while two policemen stood awkwardly by the sitting-room door.
And David dreamt too. In his dream the voice called out to him and asked him for help. David twisted and turned in the bed and moaned, and he felt the night air on his limbs, and he heard the breeze whisper among the dark leaves.
Help me. Find me.
David was elsewhere. He was in the house and yet he was a world away. Too far away, perhaps.
Too far away to be ready for what was coming this night.
23
Bill Boggart had decided that the boy was the most tastiest of them all.
As he made his way through the forest once again he thought back on some of the pain he’d supped in the past and how good it had been. There’d been that wood nymph who’d lost her whole family in the great fire. Her tears were so succulent that even decades later Bill still drooled to think about their sweetness and how they’d felt on his tongue. There were the lovely piquant tears of a rather stupid human who one night had got lost in the forest. Bill had realized that fear had made his tears all the more tasty, and he’d spent the night shaking branches and howling at him from the dark, rendering him senseless with the draught, and drinking in the tastiness of the man’s terror when he had been sent under.
Bill patted the pouch hanging from his shoulder that contained the bottle of sleeping draught. ‘Soon, my lovely,’ he gurgled.
He touched the signs he’d inscribed on his forehead and cheeks, just to make sure they hadn’t somehow vanished. Without them, Bill would be seen and heard and smelt like some common interloper, rather than the dashingly heroic boggart he knew himself to be. Bill’s chest swelled whenever he thought of himself this way, how noble he was, how adventurous and cunning. He felt like the old, proper Bill again. No more was he reduced to pinching wood nymphs on the fringes of a marsh, or sucking pain from hibernating animals. He was Bill Boggart again, a credit to his kind, and it was all down to the arrival of the new humans in the house.
When he’d first smelt them on the air he couldn’t believe it. It had been years since Bill had tasted real pain. He’d sniffed this new pain on the air, and it was thick and cloying and juicy. He hadn’t come across pain like this since the First Folk had battled the creatures from the wastes beyond the Necessary.
Sometimes Bill wondered if the world would have been a whole lot better then, stained and fetid as it was, with blood and pain and the grief of others. There was real fear in the air in them days, but then Bill supposed he was just as frightened as those around him. After all, even he had to flee too, so maybe it was for the best. He could never really decide. ‘Six of one, half a dozen of the other,’ he would say to himself.
Oh, grief, thought Bill. Grief which is the sweetest taste of all. And them new humans were jam-packed with it. Like ripe juicy fruit they were, just begging to be squeezed, and Bill it was who would be happy to do the squeezing.
Bill just quivered at the thought of it. The older of the three was just aching with it. On the first night, Bill had found him in his bedroom, curled into a ball like a little defenceless animal. Bill was well hexed, so no one or nothing – especially not him in the attic – could detect him.
The girl had been next, and her pain was just as delicious. When she slept she was serene, but Bill knew that was just superficial, because beneath the surface was a writhing torrent of agony, and it seeped into her tears.
Oh, but the boy, the boy, thought Bill.
His pain was everything you could hope for.
Dark, sweet, salty, delicious. The boy was agony personified. When Bill sent him down with the draught he went somewhere deeper and more painful than the other two put together. This boy was lost in the dark, and like a fine wine in a cellar it was the dark that matured his pain and gave it such complex notes. Bill had never known pain like it. There was sorrow in it, such sweet, sweet sorrow, and there was suffering, and best of all there was rage. It was a rage that formed a delicious icing, and Bill gobbled it all up.
When he got back to the forest, he supped on all their tears and pain, but it was the boy’s pain that sent him into a swirling delirium, the likes of which Bill would have been happy to experience for ever. It was a delirium that sent him a-shuddering and quaking, illuminating the inside of his head with lights of purple and gold and mauve, singing to him with a sweetness he had never known before.
Since that night Bill had returned again and again, always keeping the boy till last, knowing that to do otherwise was to risk temptation and being caught. Tonight he crept in through the back door and padded quietly up the stairs, knowing full well that he could have made as much noise as he wanted because his hex was good and strong. But still, it was no harm to be careful.
Bill went to the father’s room first. The man was dreaming and the dreams were bad. This was good, this was very good. Bill took the bottle of sleeping draught from his pouch. It was an old green bottle, mottled and opaque with age and use. Bill held it over the man’s head and uncorked it. The mist fizzed softly out, and the man’s nose twitched. Bill was almost bouncing up and down with the excitement. The man inhaled the draught, and Bill recorked the bottle in a hurry, for fear he might use too much of it. He watched the man’s furrowed brow slacken as the sleeping draught drove him deeper, sending him a-questing for the darker, more deadly memories of his.
The man started to whimper, as did Bill when he saw the first tears glisten on his cheeks. It was the draught that brought them forth, and in his excitement Bill almost forgot his other bottle. He fumbled in his pouch for it and brought it out. This bottle was made of clear glass, and it looked like something that someone like Bill shouldn’t have had on his person. It was altogether too elegant and clean-looking, but Bill knew the truth of it, and of how its glass was even more charmed than that which held the sleeping draught, and that this bottle in its own way held the greatest enchantment of all.
Bill held the top of the delicate-looking bottle to the man’s face, and he watched as the tears which were coursing down his cheek started to roll towards the lip of the bottle until finally they were sucked into it. Bill corked the bottle, fighting the urge to taste, for he knew to taste meant to lose himself for a few moments, and that wouldn’t do in this current situation, hexing or no hexing.
He crept out on to the landing. The girl was usually next, but tonight Bill couldn’t help himself. Tonight he walked straight by her room and headed for the boy’s room.
Before he turned the knob he took one last look at the girl’s door. After a few moments he smiled and shook his head. Then Bill Boggart headed into David’s bedroom.
And straight into the biggest disaster of his boggarty existence.
David was down in the dark. Deep down, further than he’d ever been before. The darkness echoed like a dome around him and he felt the chill wind and smelt the night air, and yet he couldn’t help but shake the feeling that he was on solid ground and simultaneously floating in space.
Clear cool panic flooded his chest. He flailed and touched nothing. He cried out and heard nothing. He was voiceless and alone. That was when he started to cry, hot tears that scalded his cheeks. His throat hurt and he felt a deep ache in his bones that he was sure would last for ever, and he knew he was lost. And then he heard the voice.
Help me. Find me.
David fought the sobs. He could feel a sharp pain cut through the palm of his right hand, and he started to concentrate on that. He clenched his jaw and focused as hard as he could. There was the voice and the pain, and he concentrated on both. Nothing else.
The voice and the pain.
Help me.
The voice and the pain.
Find me.
David answered the voice. His words were half-sob, half-scream of rage. He held on to the rage, gripped it tight like someone holding on to a piece of driftwood in a flood.
And David felt himself start to rise out of the dark.
Pog was dreaming too. He was sitting around a campfire with Grandfa and other First Folk who lived in the Burrows. Grandfa was telling them a story, and Pog was laughing so hard tears were streaming down his face.
Grandfa looked at him through the flames and smiled.Time to wake up now, he said.
Pog tilted his head. ‘What’s that now?’ He heard something in the distance. It sounded like . . .
Time to wake up. Now, Pog!
A scream. Cutting through his dream like a knife.
Pog woke up. For a moment he was disorientated.
The scream came again.
It was a child’s scream.
Pog bounced up and on to his feet, grabbing his sword and Grandfa’s staff in the same fluid motion. He bounded straight for the attic door, shoving it aside. Beneath the child’s screaming he heard a strangulated piggy squeal, a sound he hadn’t heard for quite some time, but one that was all too familiar.
Pog let out a bellow of rage when he realized what had happened, and he was angry with himself for not realizing the truth sooner.
‘He’s hexed hisself!’ he roared.
Pog ran back to his nest and quickly scrabbled through his belongings for a pouch. He found it in seconds, and squeezed it tight in his fist.
And with that Pog was through the attic door and shooting towards David’s bedroom, snarling as he went.
24
David sat straight up and blinked. He knew something had woken him, but he wasn’t sure what.
Then he heard the gasp to his left, and he turned.
There was a short, squat dwarfish man-thing standing by his bed. It had a bald pointy head, and skin of a strange pinkish-grey pallor. It had a large mouth with rubbery lips, and only a few yellow decaying teeth at random intervals along its purplish gums. Its arms were incredibly long, longer than the rest of its body, and bristly hair protruded along its forearms. It was wearing soiled brown dungarees.
David took in all of this in a moment that seemed to go on for ever.
The strange short man-thing was clutching a clear vial to its chest in a gesture that might have been more befitting a startled Victorian lady.
‘It sees us!’ it squealed.
That was when David screamed. It was more a scream of rage than fear, and even as he grabbed the thing by its head and felt its repulsive cold doughy skin beneath his fingers, he still felt the rage course through him. He dug his nails into the creature’s head and the thing howled.
The thing grabbed David by the arm, and an enraged, frightened David pulled its arm in return and dragged the thing on to his bed. The creature looked shocked, and was even more shocked when David started to punch it about the head.
David started to scream at it: ‘Get out! Get out!’
The thing somehow managed to shake itself of its initial terror, and now it grabbed David by his forearms and snarled at him, saliva bubbling at the corners of its grotesquely large mouth. It was incredibly strong, but even so it seemed shocked at how much effort it took to force David backwards.
‘You won’t stop me!’ David screamed, his eyes bulging, tendons quivering on his neck.
The creature tensed, and gave a great snarl—
‘Grimroot!’ a voice shouted, and suddenly the thing was showered with what looked like wood shavings. Except these wood shavings fizzled and sparked as they touched its skin, causing it to howl and spasm with agony. While David continued grappling with it, the creature tried to shake the pieces off. As the flakes touched it, it seemed to sharpen and become clearer, as if it had been slightly out of focus all along.
The staff hitting it in the head took it by complete surprise.
‘Pog sees you now, Bill Boggart!’ Pog roared, and he thrashed Bill in the temple with Grandfa’s staff.
Bill flailed at him with his right hand, but this only allowed David to free his left and claw at Bill’s eye. Bill howled in pain, and he tried to smack David, but Pog was too quick. Three more belts in quick succession sent him sideways, and Bill was lying on his back. Pog proceeded to pummel him about the chest and belly. Bill squealed, and he continued to flail with his huge arms, but to no avail. David was also hitting him, sometimes getting in the way of Pog’s blows. His eyes were wide and wild, and he was gripped by a rage that seemed to consume every fibre of his being. He grunted and panted like a wild animal and hit out again and again . . .
Bill threw himself backwards and rolled off the bed. He sprang round the corner of the bed, and loped towards the door, using his impossibly long arms to propel himself forward. He launched himself at the door, only to be hit smack in the face with a broom handle which was being wielded by Penny.
Bill skidded backwards across the bedroom floor and blinked in disbelief. Pog took the opportunity to somersault off the bed and swipe at Bill again.
This time, through luck more than anything else, Bill somehow batted Pog’s staff away with his arm. He winced and howled at the pain, but he still managed to pick himself up and barrel towards the door.
He stopped for one moment, tensed himself, and then threw his head back and emitted the loudest, most foul-smelling belch anyone had ever had the misfortune to experience. It was a belch so noxious that it made everyone’s eyes sting. It was so bad Penny had to fight the urge to be sick.
Bill pressed his advantage. A nauseous Penny wasn’t ready this time. Bill’s momentum was too much – he pressed down hard into the floor with his knuckles, his flabby pinky-grey arms tensed, and wobbled, and he launched himself skyward. Penny was only able to muster a half-hearted swipe as she brought the broomstick down. Bill smacked it out of the way, and pushed against her shoulder, using her as leverage to propel himself out into the hall. Penny was thrown forward and ended up on her knees on the floor. She managed to spring back up quickly, and without a word to each other, she, Pog, and David, all raced out of the room in pursuit of the boggart.
Pog was the quickest, shooting across the landing and launching himself at Bill, who was halfway down the stairs and already flying through the air. They collided in a clatter of limbs, tumbling over and over each other until they crashed into the front door and came to a dead stop.
Pog was first to react. He jumped up and brought his arm across Bill’s neck and held him there. Bill gasped and gobbled and choked.
Penny was distracted by an object that had been thrown from Bill when Pog had collided with him. It was a bulbous bottle with a slim narrow neck, and it spun around on its side for a few moments before finally coming to rest. Penny ran downstairs and snatched it up. David was by her side, panting and sweating hard. His eyes were still wide, and he was white with rage.
‘Hold still now, Bill!’ Pog shouted.
Penny turned to see Pog holding Bill by the scrag of hair on his head, and with his other hand he held his sword at Bill’s neck. Penny reacted instantly.
‘POG! NO!’ she screamed.
She could see madness in Pog’s eyes. A genuine wildness that she knew was not typical of him, and she found it frightening. His eyes were dark and crazed, and she shouted at him again.
‘POG!’
Pog blinked. He looked like someone just woken from a dream, and as he looked at Penny, he seemed to be recognizing her for the first time.
‘Don’t,’ Penny pleaded.
Pog nodded at her to show he understood. He pushed Bill forward and threw him on to the ground. He sheathed his sword, and just in case Bill got any ideas, he twirled his staff and then pushed the point of it against Bill’s chest.
Bill Boggart whimpered.
‘Who are you?’ asked Penny.
Bill pulled his head down and drew his shoulders up, like a tortoise trying to retract its head into its shell.
‘B-Bill,’ he stuttered.
Pog pressed the staff firmly against his chest. ‘Full name and title, Bill. Manners now.’
Bill’s eyes flashed with hate for a moment as they rested on Pog. Pog snarled and pressed the staff in further against his doughy flesh. The hate in Bill’s eyes vanished and was replaced by fear.
‘Bill Boggart,’ he gasped.
Pog snarled with contempt. ‘Sneaked in through the Necessary, you did. Out from beyond the forsaken place, where the trees rot and earth stinks and boggarts scratches their armpits and smells and belches all day every day.’
Penny just wanted to burst out laughing at this, but somehow she composed herself. She held up the bottle. ‘What’s this, Bill Boggart?’
Panic in Bill’s eyes now. He stretched out his arm, and curled his fingers in and out like a child. ‘Give us that. That’s Bill’s.’
‘Is it now?’ said Penny, advancing towards him. ‘So what’s in it?’
‘Give us it, or Bill will—’
‘Bill will what?’ asked Penny, fury welling up in her.
Bill hissed at her.
Pog poked him with the staff. ‘Tell Penny, Bill.’
‘Tears,’ Bill spat. ‘Them’s tears is all.’
‘Tears?’ said Penny.
Bill nodded, and then did something which gave away his true purpose. Bill licked his lips.
