The Monster Who Wasn't

by T C Shelley

  ‘Wish I’d stayed home. I’d be watching reality TV in the basement.’

  ‘Lotta good you are,’ Maggie called over the top of them. ‘You’re s’posed to show him the pleasure in mischief. None of this cleaning business.’

  ‘Ooh, there’s cake and blue cheese,’ yelled a pixie from the fridge. ‘Let’s eat!’

  ‘Now that’s more like it.’ Maggie clapped her hands.

  The pixies skirmished over the snacks; packets tore open and rippled crisps flew. The brownies squealed in horror. The imps converged on the table, writhing and eating, like a rat infestation.

  ‘Why don’t you get in there, Samuel? There’s goodies galore in this house.’ Maggie pulled out her silver tin and blew a finger of dust into the air. The powder encircled the cleaning brownies in a golden spiral and lifted them off the draining board. ‘I could keep you in dust for centuries and the world would be our playground. Wouldn’t you like that, Samuel? What creatures couldn’t we torment?’

  The brownies squealed and giggled, reaching for invisible handholds as Maggie’s hand waved, and they turned over and over. The pixies squeaked in wicked pleasure at the sight.

  Sam laughed.

  The brownies fell. One plopped into the sink next to the shampooing sprite. The others hit the bench and somersaulted on to the table.

  ‘What delights do you long for, Samuel? What are you after? Gold? Jewels? Power?’

  ‘He don’t want none of that.’ The goblin grabbed his hands and jigged him around the table. The other imps clapped and Sam heard music, a frenzy of invisible instruments played in his ears. ‘He just want to dance and do mischief and lark about, like all us new-mades. Don’t you, Sam.’

  The goblin let go of Sam’s hands. They both reeled back laughing as the imps linked arms between the plates of food and swung each other.

  ‘Well, Samuel,’ Maggie asked. ‘Is that what you want?’

  Sam clapped along with the magic melody. ‘I don’t know. I think I want …’ He chuckled as a boggart fell into the French onion dip and white cheese covered its face. He grinned at Maggie. ‘I have a name now. I think the only thing I want is a family.’

  Maggie swept him into her arms and twirled him around the kitchen. Dust floated around them, swirling and playing the furious music. ‘We are your family, Samuel. We have always been. You’re pretty as a lamb, but you’re monster through and through. Come away with me, come away with us.’

  The music sped and the dancing frenzy on the table died down. Some of the imps settled to eating dips and shoving sweets into their gobs, then sat up, making a symphony of belching, burping and farting. They stared at Sam. The goblin’s eyes peered over the edge of a dip bowl, its tongue licking it clean, and brownies grinned as the pixies hoovered the last of the crisps with their greasy, little mouths.

  ‘So, is he coming with us?’ an oily-faced pixie asked. ‘You said he’d come.’

  ‘You will, won’t you, Samuel?’ Maggie said. ‘Ask me for anything, anything at all.’

  The music played on, but only the sprite on the draining board danced. The rest of the imps quietened, all leaning forward to hear him speak.

  Sam looked at his eager audience. ‘Could you … ? Do you think it’s possible? I would like Bladder back in one piece.’

  ‘What’s that?’ a pixie asked. ‘What’s a bladder?’

  ‘He’s a gargoyle. An ogre took him from me.’

  ‘We’ll find you a dozen to replace it,’ Maggie said.

  ‘I don’t want a dozen, just him.’

  From the bedroom, he heard Nick mutter, ‘… Green …’ Then the older boy rolled over in his sleep.

  Two pixies dashed down the stairs. ‘There’s a baby. All fat and juicy up there,’ they cried.

  The sprite stopped spinning and the invisible instruments shrieked and ceased to play.

  The goblin tongue held in mid-lick. It had cleaned half its face. It drooled. ‘Baby?’

  ‘Pixies, you can’t trust them around the babbies, can you?’ Maggie laughed and kissed Sam on the mouth.

  He pulled away. ‘You mustn’t touch the baby!’

  The little dancing goblin tilted its head. ‘Why’s that then?’

  ‘Because …’ Sam started

  Maggie jumped in. ‘Because she’s his, not yours.’

  ‘Well, it’s not really about …’ the blue-ribbon pixie replied.

  ‘Hush, Nutty-Arm,’ Maggie said. ‘If Samuel says the babby’s his, the babby’s his.’

  The imps studied Maggie with bewildered faces.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said the goblin.

  Maggie reached for Sam, taking his shoulders and turning him to face her. She studied his expression.

  ‘Ooh, he’s jealous of his sweetmeats,’ the goblin said, and laughed.

  ‘Just putting away the last of the rubbish,’ the brownies said.

  ‘Leave it!’ the pixies wailed. ‘For crying out loud!’

  ‘Normally thin pickings in this area. This has been good,’ the blue-ribboned pixie said to another. ‘We’ll have to come back.’

  ‘Pixies. Such light-fingered little rascals. Don’t worry about them, they’ll behave. You’re not to touch his toys. Shoo!’ Maggie waved her hand again and the pixies, brownies and boggarts ran for the fridge and slid under the pantry door. The rest of the imps dashed into corners and up the walls, disappearing into cracks like cockroaches. ‘Come with me now, my darling?’ she said.

  ‘I think I’d better stay. Just for now.’ He opened the pantry door. The space seemed empty. He moved the bin and checked behind it.

  ‘If not just now, ’ she asked, ‘when?’

  Sam stared up the stairs as Maggie watched him. He heard Beatrice whimper and Sam remembered her beautiful sparkles. He also remembered he looked like the Kavanaghs. They might not be as much fun as the imps, but it was worth investigating more. He also didn’t trust the pixies not to return if he left. ‘I don’t know.’

  Maggie sighed, kissed him again and vanished.

  He looked over the kitchen and saw the room, neat and shiny. The brownies had even dusted the window sills, but there were no snack foods left.

  CHAPTER 12

  Nicholas’s slippers shuffled into the kitchen. ‘You did the dishes. I knew I was gonna like you.’ Then he opened the creaky fridge and saw the bare shelves. ‘I don’t suppose you want breakfast though?’

  ‘You did the dishes?’ Michelle said behind him, the baby dangling in her arms.

  Nick nodded in Sam’s direction. ‘But he was hungry. At least he left us some eggs.’ He pulled out a carton, flipped the top and grinned at a dozen bald domes. ‘Scrambled?’

  Beatrice’s rose-coloured lights wriggled towards Sam. The boy tapped them back one at a time. Her small hands flexed open and closed, catching rebounded flickers.

  Michelle fixed a kiss on Nick. ‘I’ll take you into town this morning and buy something you want. Samuel needs new clothes and if we hand him over without a good spit and polish they won’t consider us … I mean, they won’t think we’ve taken care of you.’ Michelle patted Sam’s shoulder.

  ‘Yeah, the vision of him in Dad’s old Elvis shirt is a bit much,’ Nick said. ‘Mum, do you mind getting me that Bad’un T-shirt while you’re there? You know the one, right?’

  ‘The red one?’ She frowned as he sighed. ‘I take notice.’

  ‘Last winter’s anorak says not.’

  Sam wondered why she laughed.

  ‘You want a new shirt to look nice for that girl?’

  Nick flushed.

  ‘Not for Maggie?’ Sam groaned.

  Michelle folded her arms. ‘Stop scowling. It’ll happen to you soon enough.’

  ‘I’m never going to be in thrall to a banshee.’

  ‘Ouch,’ said Nick. ‘Harsh!’

  Michelle stroked Sam’s cheek. ‘You’ll understand one day.’

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Beatrice kept him up all night so I l
et him sleep in. We’ll get out of the house and give him some peace.’

  Sam smiled. A morning with Beatrice would be a treat and moving might keep them all a bit safer, until Daniel returned.

  ‘I’ll look after her,’ Nicholas offered. ‘I’d rather not hang out with you and Sam looking for Spiderman T-shirts. I can watch TV and stick Bea in the rocker.’

  ‘Who’s Spiderman?’ Sam asked.

  Michelle pressed her lips together. ‘She’ll need a feed and be put down for a sleep.’

  ‘Well, what if she goes to sleep while you’re out, won’t you want to come home anyway?’

  Michelle patted Beatrice’s nappy. Blue sparks flew from her bloomers. ‘I suppose we won’t need to be gone more than an hour. We could shop in an hour, couldn’t we, Samuel? I could get this one a pair of jeans too.’

  Sam gave her his best unknowing grin.

  ‘Go on,’ Nick said to Sam. ‘Work your magic on Mum. Whatever you’re doing makes her happy. Talk her into getting me a voucher. I don’t wanna end up with mum jeans.’ Nick chuckled. ‘And Mum, get him something decent cos that look’s not working for him. No collars. Let him look normal.’

  Sam giggled when the car broomed to life and vibrated around him. Michelle laughed and leaned over to help him wind down the window. He had seen vehicles moving, even this one, but it tickled being inside a car with all its chuntering and humming.

  ‘Why’d you bring that awful old backpack?’ Michelle asked. He still wore Elvis, but he’d put on the pants Daniel had given him. Michelle brushed her hand over one dirty knee.

  ‘It’s all I have. And if I have to leave …’

  ‘Oh,’ Michelle said. The word sounded like it couldn’t quit her throat, and she avoided looking at his face. She stared at his bare feet instead. ‘We’ll get you some sneakers too.’

  As they drove away, he put his head out the passenger side window to smell the salt and watch the whitening coast disappear, and little white shacks shove up against each other to hide the sea. The car guttered along, quivering on slight bends. They headed west, tracing the road along the seashore. Boats bobbed away white and sheeplike, huddling in threes or fours as waves trembled in. Magnificent white birds – seagulls, Michelle said – moved up and down between the boats.

  ‘The world is a wonderful place,’ he said.

  ‘It can be.’

  He looked at Michelle’s face, a tear gathered on the lower lashes of her eye. Sam marvelled at how it magnified the hairs. It sailed over and down her cheek. She saw him watching and rubbed it away.

  She seemed to cry a lot.

  ‘Do you miss the other Samuel?’ he asked.

  ‘What? How did you know?’ Her eyes threatened storms again.

  ‘It was his …’ He’d heard someone say the word, what was it? ‘His wake. Yesterday.’

  ‘Da? You mean Da?’ She didn’t wait for his answer; she rode the car up on to the footpath and they sat with it rumbling under them. She pinched her nose, high across the bridge. Sam mimicked her. It hurt. ‘I thought you meant the other “other Samuel”.’ She laughed, but it was high-pitched and didn’t make Sam think of happiness. More frightened pixie.

  ‘The other “other Samuel”?’

  Michelle put her head on the steering wheel and tears coursed over it. ‘Oh, hell.’

  Sam had no idea what to do. He put his hand on her shoulder, like Daniel would, willing it warm, wanting something to pass between them. It didn’t, but she reached up and put a damp hand over his.

  ‘Samuel was our baby, Nick’s little brother. We lost him twelve years ago, not long after he was born. He was weak and sick and then he was gone.’ Michelle’s voice thickened and muffled. She stopped talking and pinched her nose again. ‘When I saw you in the shop, you are the way I imagine he’d look. I wonder all the time, you see? I think, he’d be starting high school soon, or I wonder if he’d like skateboarding, like Nick, or whether he’d be more of a reader. What would his favourite food be? Would he be quiet or loud?’

  Sam studied her face. She was smiling, which confused him. Her words sounded so sad. He said what he’d heard everyone say at the wake. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I should have realised that you meant Da. But with your stories about angels and … belonging with us …’ She put her lips together and exhaled hard. ‘Samuel, would you really like to belong with us?’

  I would, he thought, although that wouldn’t be safe for you. I wish Daniel would come back and take me far from you, and I wish the monsters would all forget about me and let me stay here without bothering me any more. He thought all these things and knew he wished he could, and when Michelle looked at him with pink eyes he said the truth. ‘Yes.’

  Michelle burst into noisy sobs and threw her arms around him. ‘We’d like that too.’ She stroked his hair and wet his T-shirt, soggying Elvis. He held her. It warmed him. He felt her heart beating.

  ‘Why did that make you cry?’ he asked.

  She laughed as loudly as she’d sobbed. ‘Oh, Samuel,’ she said, and touched his cheek, starting the car again without answering his question.

  Michelle drove at the road with ferocious focus, and Sam studied her, thinking over her words. She said she wanted him to belong too. A heat built around his heart. He’d felt it before, from Daniel. The angel called it ‘hope’.

  They drove a little longer, then parked along a road of red bricks. No cars ran up it, just people in groups or idling alone, smiling in the sunshine.

  Michelle grabbed his hand and headed towards a gleaming of glass windows filled with red pots and pans, blue balloons and pink cake piled upon white. Some teenagers passed them and sniggered. Sam guessed it wasn’t normal to hold an adult’s hand, but he liked it and gripped harder. Michelle only let it go inside the shops so he could try on T-shirts, shorts and a couple of hoodies, and her eyes grew damp when he showed her.

  She remembered at the last minute to grab a pair of sneakers, and they got thrown into the bag. The girl in the store let them have everything because Michelle had a square of plastic.

  They walked past a sweet shop. Sam stared at the bars of chocolate in the window, thinking about Bladder. Michelle bustled him inside and bought him a couple of bars. He shoved them into his backpack.

  ‘Time for a quick cuppa then we’ll head back,’ she said in the tea shop. She slung her handbag over a chair and watched Sam as if he might disappear, then with an abrupt swivel she moved towards a sign saying ‘no table service, order here’. While she was away at the counter, her bag buzzed like insects wanting to escape. Sam jumped. It buzzed again and again, then stopped.

  Michelle returned, struggling to put her money away. ‘There. A few moments to catch our breath before we head home.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sam wondered about the insistent sound of her bag, but when she opened it to put her purse into it nothing flew out.

  Michelle ran her fingers through his hair. ‘We’ll keep the clean clothes until you’ve had a bath, hey?’ She watched as he ate a biscuit and drank half a cup of tea. ‘Are you telling the truth about your angel? I half believe you. He brought you where you belong.’ She caught sight of the tea-room clock. ‘We’ve been away long enough. It’s time to head home.’

  She chatted in the car and asked him whether he could read and write. Sam knew he could read. He didn’t know about writing.

  The car climbed the hill to the house. The sun hit a mellow blend of brickwork and flowering plants. Ivy covered the walls under intertwining branches of trees; an occasional boxy two-storey broke the greenery, but most of the houses hid behind vine-wrapped stone walls.

  Sam wound down the window and breathed. The streets reeked of fairy magic; it hung in the foliage and swung on the gates. People and dogs on the roads wore it in hair and fur.

  When they turned down the street to the house, cars cluttered the way. Two vans settled along the kerb. Michelle paled when she turned into the driveway and saw a police car. She parked an
d ran without closing her door. Sam clutched at his pack and chased her in.

  A police officer stood on the doorstep, staring at the far corner of the garden. Two men and a woman in dark jackets were working within a small area of trees. Between them sat an empty baby rocker encircled by a mauve toadstool circle. A pixie trap! He should have stayed with Beatrice, Sam thought, not left her alone in the house while he’d gone off enjoying himself with Michelle. He’d assumed the pixies wouldn’t have been silly enough to steal a human baby.

  Michelle grabbed his hand, crushing it. She balled her other hand into a fist and dug it into her chest.

  ‘Mrs Kavanagh?’ The young police officer stared at Michelle. ‘Mrs Kavanagh?’

  ‘Where’s Beatrice?’

  ‘Come inside, we’ll explain everything.’

  Michelle lurched forward, her legs shaking. Sam held her hand tighter to stop her falling.

  In the living room, Richard sat on the sofa, his head in his hands, as Nicholas answered a young police officer’s questions. When Michelle and Sam came in, Richard jumped up and reached for his wife.

  ‘I tried to call you. Several times.’

  ‘What’s happened to Beatrice?’

  Nick’s eyes were swollen plums. ‘Dad …’ He groaned. ‘Dad was asleep, and Beatrice fussed so …’ He looked around him. The officer stared at him, nodding for him to finish. ‘… for some air, just for some air.’ Michelle sank to the sofa. ‘She was in the carrier, then she was gone.’ He looked at Sam, focusing on his shoulder. His eyes dulled and he couldn’t seem to close his lips, as if he were concentrating on something too hard to understand. ‘Really just there and then … not there.’ He put a hand to his head and rocked himself.

  ‘We’re checking all the neighbours along this road first, and the surrounding areas …’ the officer in charge said.

  ‘Checking the neighbours?’ Michelle’s voice shook in a high note. ‘What … ?’

  ‘Not just that, we’ve contacted Child Rescue Alert, and they are sending someone to go over everything.’

  Michelle gazed at them all, turning from face to face, including Sam’s, as if the solution would appear on one. Sam thought she looked lost and lonely, even though they all filled the room. Then she sobbed into Richard’s shirt, and he held her. They shook together.