Hob Goodfellowe

The boy had been trying as best he could to follow the conversation. He glanced at Fleat, who was also listening, looking a bit confused, looking worried also. Though Fleat seemed to think it best to be tight-lipped and silent, the boy couldn’t help himself. He piped in. “Wait! Wait… Are you saying that you…

As the boy sat, watching, he thought about how it was strange to see Caewen like this. She was so full of will and force, now reduced down to this a shadow of herself. He even noticed small unheroic details that he had not seen before, which somehow made her seem all the more heroic….

By the time Dapplegrim returned, the boy had managed to get Caewen wrapped in a blanket. Fleat was dabbing water on her brow and whispering quiet words, whilst the boy looked on with worry. She was febrile to touch, the heat radiating off her flesh. Intermittently, waves of shivering passed up and down her body….

The late afternoon had long since got onto dusk, and the evening light was itself settling into shadows. She stood, uncertainly, whilst holding out a hand to steady herself against the steep hollow where she had been resting. The boy went to her and caught her other hand. Her grip felt weak, almost tenuous. “Caewen?”…

“There!” said the boy in a harsh whisper. As he pointed, he could see the tip of his own finger trembling. “I see it,” snarled Dapplegrim. “You’re eyesight has improved. And your hearing. How’d that happen then?” “Not sure,” he answered, with a shrug. He kept his eyes focused out into the darkness of the…

They were less wary, now that they’d seen the boggart turn and go. As they went, they merely spoke quietly rather than whispering. The boy said, “There was a dream, while I was asleep. There were things in the dream. I don’t know… a shadow that was slinking around. I think it wasn’t really a…

It was terrifying.  Every second that passed  was a moment that he was sure a boggart was about to reach down, unexpectedly out of the darkness, and fall upon him with outstretched claws. He imagined the beast picking him up by the nape of his neck and shaking him as hard as a chook in…

 Of course, the boy had heard of boggarts and their ilk. Once even, in Wurmgloath, he had seen a dead bogle, brought in by a hunter who had filled the beast with arrows. And he’d seen what remained of the boggart that had been turned to moss-and-stone in the witch’s garden. But he had never…