The Winding Woods: Tales of a Boggle

by Dani Swanson

  The girls stayed up for a couple more hours, giggling and talking – each time getting loud enough that one of her parents would yell at them to go to sleep from down the hall.

  "Okay, I am tired now. I think I need to go to sleep." Denisha got up from her bed and placed her glasses on the desk.

  "Thanks for spending my birthday with me, Denisha. Today was awesome!" Her words were mixed in a yawn as Izzie rolled onto her side and looked out at the full moon sitting high in the sky outside her window.

  "Nightie night." Denisha was asleep within minutes of lying down, with soft snores coming from the darkness in her room.

  Zyon snuck through the moonbeams over to Izzie's bed, tucking her in tight as he had done every night since he was put in charge of her. "Happy birthday, Princess." She smiled at him and whispered a barely audible thank you back to him.

  The room was getting too cold, and Izzie got up to close the window. She was at the sill, locking the latch when something outside caught her eye. Clouds had started to roll in, making it hard for her to see clearly, but she made out a dark little figure that looked to be no bigger than Zyon moving across the lawn, running toward the tree. The creature looked like it was a just a shadow. "That's odd." Izzie caught herself saying out loud.

  There must be a figure attached to a shadow, she was sure of it. She rubbed her eyes and peered through the window again. The dark shadow was still there but now has been joined by a few other shadows. Then a few more. Soon there were hundreds of shadows running to the tree from every bush, the neighbor's house, even from behind Jack's car, but she couldn’t see anything that could be casting the shadows.

  "Zyon?" Izzie cried out in a hushed whisper as she looked over her shoulder at her sleeping friend. "Zyon, is this real?" She walked over to the castle and shook Zyon awake. "Something is happening outside!" Her voice was a little louder and woke up the boggle. Denisha had stopped snoring, and Izzie wasn't sure if she had woken her. Zyon jumped up and hurried over to the window. The shadows outside twisted together, weaving their spirits into a massive raven that stood high enough to look into her window. "Is this real?!" Izzie was louder and woke her friend.

  "What are you doing?" Denisha whined from her bed. "What's outside?"

  "Nothing!" Izzie cried. Her face was growing hot as she started to panic. The glass on the window started to tremble all on its own as Izzie could feel a pain in her stomach.

  The shadow from the enormous bird was blocking the moonbeams from entering the room. Denisha squinted her eyes and walked toward the window – the room was near pitch black as they heard the soft scraping of wood as the window was opened. Izzie turned and looked outside to see Zyon on the roof – with a loud cry, he dove from the gutter, grabbing the bird by its neck. She saw a glint of a knife in his hand, and he plunged it into the dark mass. The shadows started to separate, melting into a puddle on the ground as Zyon grabbed individual shadows and stabbed each and every one he could. The ones that were still moving made their way back to the darkest corners of the yard, hiding in plain sight.

  "What's that moving around out there?" Denisha squinted out the window, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Izzie could feel a lump in her throat.

  "Your yard is so dark!" She stumbled over to the desk and put on her glasses before making her way back to the window.

  "You're right; it is dark out there. I saw an airplane go by, and it made it dark in here. I think the neighbor's dog is outside running around." Zyon had slinked back in through the window and had told Izzie to repeat those words to her friend. He was out of breath and instructed Izzie to shut and lock the window behind him.

  "We should go back to bed. Sorry for waking you. This window sticks and it was cold in here." Izzie guided her friend back to the mattress and held her hand out for her glasses. Denisha took them off and gave Izzie a look before laying down.

  "I don't know what that was, but it didn't look like a dog to me."

  Izzie shrugged and climbed into her bed. "Night." She quickly said and laid there in the dark, holding her breath as she stared out the window. Zyon perched himself on top of her pillow and was also staring out the window. Izzie had so many questions to ask him but didn't dare open her mouth because she knew Denisha wasn't sleeping either. Zyon reached out one of his hands and started to stroke the baby hairs off Izzie's forehead as he tried to comfort her. He knew he wasn't going to be sleeping that night as they both watched out the window.

  7: fairytales, fables, and fae

  The shadows never stopped. They always came back randomly in the middle of the night. Sometimes it would be a week between visits; other times, it would be only a night separating them. Izzie was glad that Denisha thought that night she stayed over was just a weird dream she had, and that the shadows never came out on the other nights she had slept over. Izzie never got a solid night's rest from that day forward and started sleeping with the lights on when she was the only one in her room. Zyon's sleep schedule only consisted of naps during the day while Izzie was at school or when it was super bright outside, and he was not worried about the shadows coming out of the darkness.

  Regardless of the experience, Izzie learned to adapt and flourish in school, often making top marks. She was still the quiet girl at school, often labeled as weird for the random things around her (usually at the hands of Zyon), and most people stayed away from her. Denisha went on to the same high school as Izzie but was part of the more popular crowd and was busy in her theatre group a lot of the time. They still hung out on the weekends; however, their school tastes had gone in two different directions.

  By the 10th grade, Izzie was ready to be out on her own. Though she loved her family, hiding her invisible friend from them was finding itself to be a challenging task. It seemed whenever Izzie started "talking to herself," her mother was right around the corner and questioning everything she just heard. At one point, Sami and Jack had Izzie go see a specialist who was ready to put Izzie on medication to make the invisible friend go away on its own. Izzie knew to not let on that she actually saw a little green man when she had her meeting with the specialist and claimed she didn't know what her mother was talking about. The strain that every mother and daughter experience during high school years was even more strained. Because of this, Izzie was ecstatic to escape to school. She liked the few good friends that she had, and Izzie loved the classes she was taking.

  It was a start to a new quarter, and as a sophomore, she was able to pick an elective class to fulfill her English requirements. She could have selected many choices but settled on a subject that was always near her heart: Fairytales, Fables, and Fae. Denisha reluctantly agreed to take the class since Izzie decided to take Geometry with her. Denisha needed to have her study buddy as she was struggling with all the angles and formulas that go along with Geometry.

  "I just don't understand why I would need to learn about this. I am never going to use it in my life!" Denisha tossed her book into her locker and pulled out her English notebook. "This is a dumb requirement. I know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. I'm good."

  "What if you're building something, and you need to know how much wood you need to complete the project? Then what?" Izzie smirked with her brow raised as she waited for her friend's response. She gently placed her book in the locker, careful not to hurt Zyon with it; she held her open bag in her locker for an extra moment while he climbed inside amongst her supplies. He was having his morning nap while she went to geometry.

  "Easy. I would pull out my checkbook and subtract the amount it would cost to have a licensed contractor complete it. See. I know enough to get the project done." She pushed her braids off her shoulder to place her backpack strap there. "This class better not be stupid."

  "Well, if you knew how to figure out the equation, you could complete it on your own and thus not have to pay someone else and leaves more money in your account. I think you'll find it interesting, besides, aren't you trying out for Little Red Riding Hood? Think of
it as research."

  Denisha took her glasses off and cleaned them with the bottom of her shirt before opening the classroom door. "All right, Izzie, I see what you're doing."

  The girls sat in the middle of the room, not far enough back that it was hard to hear or see the board, but not close enough that the teacher could listen to their whispers either.

  Ms. Johnson walked into the room a few moments after the bell rang. This was the first time the girls took one of her classes and didn't know what to expect. Unlike most of the teachers, Ms. Johnson was young and looked like she could be an upperclassman except for the more sophisticated way she dressed. She had on a pair of black leggings with a long, oversized cardigan in a navy-blue tone that pulled out the blues in her eyes. Her blonde hair had been curled a day or two ago and now had billowy soft waves in it. "Good morning, class! My name is Ms. Johnson, and I will be teaching you the history of your favorite fairytales, fables, and all about the fae within them." She turned and wrote her name across the whiteboard with a red marker – the standard for the class's start. She passed out her syllabus with the study schedule and the different stories they would be reviewing. She had the classics covered – the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, and of course, Aesop Fables. Sporadically, there would be quizzes on identifying the fae and what part of the world they came from. Izzie's head was zooming as she read through the list. Denisha kept glancing over to her friend with a side-eye glare. She was less than thrilled.

  "I thought that we would start the class off by looking at some of the creatures we will meet throughout our studies this term. I do have some books that do not leave the classroom, as they are from my own stash, and the school board didn't approve my budget to get a copy for each of you." She clasped her hands in front of her for a moment, wanting to rant about her disgust with the school board. "But you will find that I have a love for books and for reading. Please treat my books with care."

  Ms. Johnson walked over to her desk, and the click-clack of her heels echoed through the silent classroom. She picked up a leather-bound book that looked to be older than everyone in the room combined. "This right here is one of my favorite storybooks. It's a collection of Irish and Scottish fairytales that my grandmother had when she was a girl. Some drawings go along with each story which I used to stare at for hours when I was a child." She walked over to a projector and carefully slid the book into the slot. A picture of a fairy appeared on the whiteboard. "Justin, will you hit the lights, please?" The boy sitting closest to the door reached over and hit the switch that darkened the front half of the room. The page illuminated across the board with bright colored pictures of fairies hiding amongst the flowers in a garden. Each fairy looked a little different. Some had soft wings, others ended in jagged points. Their hair and eyes, and even their clothes were different as you looked across the page. "I figured you can't talk about fairytales without starting with the fairies. Right?" The class muttered in a positive agreeance to what she had asked. "Now, who can tell me why they call these stories "fairytales"?"

  The room fell silent as everyone awkwardly was trying to avoid making eye contact to not be called upon. "Did I mention that I keep track of who participates each day in class, and they get points to use on bad quiz scores?" The murmur of side conversation started back up as the teens discussed what they thought the answer might be.

  "Ah, because they have fairies in them." Meredith, one of the most popular girls in the school, answered from behind Izzie.

  "Close….but what about those that don't have fairies in them?"

  Izzie could tell that the teacher wanted a more in-depth answer than that. "You know you know the answer, so why don't you tell the class." Denisha always got annoyed when Izzie got shy and tried to hold back from allowing her brainy studies to shine.

  "That's okay," Izzie whispered back. She could feel her face grow red as she started to slouch in her chair. She could see Zyon peeking out of her bag, so she leaned down and opened it enough for him to climb out.

  "Tell her it’s because fairies are the best known fae that is spread throughout every culture." He was whispering in her ear as he crawled up onto her shoulder. "Your teacher will love it. I'm right. Tell her." He pulled on her earlobe until she raised her hand.

  "Yes, Ms..?"

  "My name is Isabella. Izzie Smith."

  "Okay, Izzie Smith, what do you got?" Ms. Johnson pulled the chair out from behind her desk and sat down next to the projector.

  "Most places have stories of fairies or pixies, and they are known by many different cultures and is something common enough to be understood by many different readers." Izzie's voice cracked as she was unsure of herself or her answer.

  Ms. Johnson smiled and jumped up from her chair. "Perfect! You are absolutely right!"

  "Of course, she would know the answer. It's what weirdos know." Izzie didn't have to turn around to know Meredith was speaking about her to the other girls. Zyon spun around on Izzie's shoulder and growled like a dog. She could feel the heat rising in her face. The panes of the window shook as she was doing her best to not pay attention to Meredith.

  "Don't you dare," Izzie whispered. Denisha seemed to be the only one that noticed that she was talking. Zyon didn't heed Izzie's request and jumped off her shoulder disappearing out of her view. She didn't dare turn around to look for him as to not draw attention to herself. She could hear the soft whispers from Meredith as she continued to talk to her friends.

  Now, do you see all the different kinds of fairies here?" She ran her finger over the whiteboard, blinding herself from the projector, as she pointed at each fairy on the board. "It is said in these Irish tales that the fairies all had different clans that they lived in throughout the forest; thus, they all looked a little different or had different magical abilities. The storytellers would create these creatures or fae to reflect what was happening in their section of the world. Many of these stories would be told by word of mouth to children at nighttime. Think about it. There was no TV to turn on. No radios. It was too dark to go outside and do anything. You sat around, worked on your sewing, and sang and told stories." The murmurs started up again as the teenagers commented on how lame that must have been.

  The class came to dead silence when Meredith shirked from the back of the classroom. "Something just bit me!" She yelled.

  "Like a bug?" Ms. Johnson made her way into the back of the room to investigate.

  "No, something actually bit me!" Meredith was spinning around in a circle, trying to see what it was that could have attacked her. There was nothing there, but the hole in her leggings and a little bit of blood. It was running down the back of her legs, backing her story.

  "Maybe you got stuck on a corner of the chair?" Ms. Johnson offered as a reason as she examined the little bit of blood on the seat from when Meredith stood up. "I do not see any little creatures back here…. you should head down to the nurse's office, though, and get patched up." Ms. Johnson grabbed a hall pass from her desk and sent Meredith on her way.

  "Maybe a fairy bit her." One of the boys from the front of the room offered. The class erupted in laughter as Meredith's face turned red.

  "Not funny." She shot back as she ran out the door.

  "Okay, settle down." The tone of Ms. Johnson's voice was that of amusement at the suggestion. "Now I've never read of a fairy biting someone…but I have of one of these." She flipped the pages of her book and replaced a new page on the projector. On the screen was a picture that looked all too familiar to Izzie. There was a little green man with small eyes, jagged teeth, and a lot of hair sticking out from under a hat. "Who knows what this little guy is?"

  Izzie could feel the weight of Zyon as he climbed up her arm and made his way to her shoulder. "It's a boggle." Her voice was low, and Ms. Johnson almost missed her response as Justin answered that it looked like a gremlin. Though the face was slightly different, and the eyes were much smaller than his, the picture looked like a hairy version of Zyon wea
ring a pointed hat like a gnome.

  "Oh, close, Justin. It is a relative of a gremlin – though gremlins are more of a German creature. Did I hear you say something Izzie Smith?"

  Izzie cleared her throat before Denisha elbowed her to answer. "Ah, yeah, it's a boggle."

  The look of surprise mixed with happiness spread across the teacher's face as she looked back at Izzie. "Also, remarkably close and in the right part of the world, I may add. This is what you may have heard of in your youth as a boogeyman." The classroom started to laugh as they responded with their own childlike horror stories that their parents would tell them. "Okay, so you've heard of this guy. Good. So, think about the situation of when this book was written. No TV. No radio and most people didn't know how to write, let alone read. This story was told to little ones to discourage them from acting poorly around their parents, or they would be stolen in the middle of the night by the boogeymen and eaten for dinner."

  The bell rang, and most of the kids got up and started to leave the classroom. "All right, well, read the first three stories in the Brothers Grimm book for tomorrow and get ready to talk about them. Have a great day!"

  "How do you do that?" Denisha was talking to Izzie, who was still fixated on the screen in front of her. "Hello, earth to Izzie?"

  "Oh, I'm sorry, what? Do what?"

  "Flip your hair like that with barely moving your head or your hands. Your hair moved a lot during class. Funny how that girl got her karma right away, huh? Meredith is always talking trash about other people just because she's too dumb to know an answer in class." Denisha kept talking as she loaded up her bag, but Izzie wasn't listening. She was in awe that a document had something on it that she was for sure a hallucination she's just been living with her whole life. "Girl, you ready? I have to get to science class." Denisha was standing over her as Izzie slowly packed her bag.

  "Ah, you go ahead. I have PE next anyway on the other side of the building."