Shine

I opened the door to the little shop, its dim yellow light brightening up the dark alley from its place at the very end, its bell jingling merrily, and I prayed that I didn’t look as desperately hopeless as I was.

The shop was filled; every flat surface, nook and cranny was stuffed to the gills with knicks knacks and brick a brack. All old and dusty, some in need of repair.

I cast about for the man I was here to see; I needed his help badly. I heard curses muttered under breath and my eyes followed the sound until they settled on a chestnut-haired man with broad shoulders and a cigarette gripped between his lips standing behind a counter cluttered with items needing repair, he was working on a clock with what looked to be little success. He wore a white dress shirt rolled up at the elbows, a brown leather apron and what looked to be a permanent scowl and a five o clock shadow.

I hastened to his work counter, where I stood for several minutes wondering if he could hear me"

"Mr. Johannes?" I said finally.

He turned his scowl to me "Names Joe, Joe Hann." He paused "Been a long time since anyone called me by that name."

I was put off, but I couldn’t afford to back down " Mr. Hann, I’m not sure how I heard about you, but I need your help. I know you probably won’t believe me..."

He shook his head "Firstly don’t assume what I won’t believe second let me guess, you have no idea how you know of me or found your way here. You had a boogeyman that tormented you as a small child and now it is back. "

I stammered "Y-y-yes. How did you know?"

He blew out a puff of smoke and continued to work on the clock “always the same when someone looking like you walks into my shop.

"Can you help me?"

He turned the clock over and nodded "There's a price."

I looked down, I knew this would come up "I don’t have a lot but..."

He put up a forestalling hand "I bet that you have around 10 dollars to your name. Between losing sleep, getting sick, missing work, late fees on your bills...your right on the edge of being homeless. It’s the way it always is. Thing drives you and drives you until you give up willingly just to get it done with. "

I stared at him "what do I pay you with then?"

"Your life"

"What?!"

"10 years of your life"

I was confused “You want me to work for you for 10 years??"

He looked up at me as though I were being particularly slow "No, I want 10 years of your life. I read your aura as you came in and it says you should live to ninety-five. 10 years is a small price to pay to stop this entity and make sure that none of its ilk trouble you ever again."

I mull it over "How will you get rid of it? How will I know it’s gone?"

He looks at me “I will go back to when it started tracking you and end it before it begins." He adjusted the gears of the antique clock slightly.

"Can there be more than one at a time. Following someone I mean." I stared at a spot on his counter.

"Sure, if there is another child. You got a sibling or something?" He is completely unfazed.

"My Daughter Lilah. She is seeing something in her closet. She is terrified...I thought she was just being silly or..."

His voice hardened “Or she wanted attention or had an overactive imagination, so you told her to suck it up and go back to bed because nothing was there. Or maybe you got her a new stuffed toy to pacify her. But the whole time, something was screaming in your head that she was right. You even got a little scared when you looked at her closet before you left her alone and turned out the lights."

Tears started to fall "How did you know? It’s as you said. I didn’t believe her until ..."

"Until the marks. Let me guess, her father wouldn’t hear of her sleeping in bed with you both. She needed to grow up. Or was that you?"

More tears flooded down from my cheeks "I have been so stupid! Those marks couldn’t have been made by anything I know of . I’m so sorry. I didn’t know."

"But you did. You knew what was happening, you knew how she felt...how afraid she was, how alone, how helpless. Because you went through the same thing."

I stood at his counter , crying and ashamed, I knew this was my fault and I didn’t know what to do now.

He continued fiddling with the clock and blew out another puff of smoke "Before you feel too bad, let me tell you a story.

It’s about a little boy who had a nasty Boogeyman and an even nastier old man. The boy was three when the Boogey came for him, and the boys old man used to beat him every day, so he knew not to call to his father and his mother had died when he was two. The Boy’s father blamed him for the mother’s death and took every chance to make the boy pay for it. It’s a bad parent when a 3-year-old chooses to fight a boogeyman on his own. Anyway, the fight went on every night for years and years. The boy began to study the creature, then to research the creature once he learned to read, which his teachers were surprised at his determination to do so at such a young age...little did they know he had such good motivation.

Then he dove into the study of magic, alchemy, curses, hexes, defensive magics & charms, anything he could get his hands on. Things would work for a while, but the creature always came back.

The boy learned much and was quite the accomplished warlock, but to no avail, this thing just wouldn’t go away.

He found others among his classmates who fought the same nightly battles. He could always tell by their gaunt & drawn appearance.

Through one of his classmates, the boy found out the information that his own Boogey had been concealing. Children who catch the attention of Boogeymen give off a special light, be it kindness or imagination or something else, it’s this quality or as the Boogeys call it SHINE that they want.

Sometimes the boogeys just feed on a child’s fear until the light dies within the child. Other times, the boogeys will pull a child’s soul out, taking the light or Shine with it- and leaving a boogey in its places or just leaving a husk behind. It’s only when a child’s light is just too strong that they take the entire child. These children are never seen again." He pauses to take a drag and blow a smoke ring.

I stare at him ,my eyes wide and my mouth agape, the smoke ring filters past me " How did the boy get rid of his Boogeyman?"

He smiled “He didn’t. He learned and learned and practiced, and finally he turned thirteen. The night of his birthday, his Boogey came to him and said goodbye. The Boogey blew a strange smelling, glittering dust at him and promised to see him again. "

"Dust?!?"

"The dust was from a flower that grows in their realm. It makes the whole experience seem like a dream, to fade as the child wakes. The boy had already been aware of it and was prepared. Or so he thought. The boy slept for 4 days after that, when he woke up, it all felt like a horrible dream, and he let the people around him convince him that that was exactly what it had been." He blew another smoke ring.

I Stood waiting for him to continue, my skin pebbling and a cold prickle sliding down the back of my neck. I swallowed reflexively.

"Well one thing led to another, and the boy grew up and had a boy of his own. His boy's light shined brighter than his ever had, cultivated by the fact that he was loved deeply and truly by both of his parents. Little Jakob was their whole world. One-night little Jakob came to his father saying that there was something scary in his closet. Jakob's mother wanted to keep him in their room, but not the father. He forgot what he went through as a boy and went through all of the things that a parent in denial goes through. Even anger at the child. Weeks went by, and little Jakobs mother and father began to fight. The mother wanted to move Jakob to their room until this passed. The father wouldn’t hear of it. The father knew something was wrong in his gut & in his heart, but he was a fool. He was stupid and it cost him dearly!"

I knew I didn’t want to hear the end of this story, but I couldn’t stop listening.

"One night after a terrible argument, Jakob's father lost his temper with his son - the mother had gone for a walk to calm down- and in tears Jakob went to his room. That night was the last time The man ever saw his son. The man searched and searched, but he knew what had happened. He even made his way to the Boogey realm to try to find his small boy, he found many children but never his son. Jakob's mother fell apart, and they separated. She blamed herself for leaving that night, but the man knew it was his fault because he had known all along what was happening, and that the entity had promised to see him again. The man vowed to find his son no matter what it took, and he vowed to find a way to keep any other children from being taken."

I began to feel sick.

"That's why I run this shop, and why I ask for the price that I do. I have regretted that night every second of every day for 300 years." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

I looked down at the counter to gather my thoughts against the gravity of what he had just told me. I heard a loud clock chime from some where and my head shot back up to see Mr Hann drenched.

He shook the rain from his tan trench coat and lit another cigarette without looking at me.

"You lost your son."I said staring at him.

"Yes. And now you know the risks." He eyed me then and I felt myself shrink beneath his gaze.

"It’s done, both you and your daughter are safe. Seal the portals in your house with a cross above your doorways and on your mirrors and you should be good." He swiped some of the rain out of his hair and shrugged his coat off, shaking the droplets from the waterproof material and hanging it up on a hook.

I felt off as I realized he had been dry when I had come in "wait...when did you put your coat on...and where did the water come from....what’s happening?" It was as though my head were splitting in two.

He smiled "the only way to stop your entity was to go back to the beginning and mask your light, then seal your home. Think back to that night again."

"I...I remember the Boogeyman...but I remember waking up to a guy in a trench coat chanting and a green glowing symbols all over my room. The sound of a heavy door slamming shut...and the smell of rain. Wait, it was raining that night. When all this started. It was you; you were there...but how?"

"You will always have two sets of memories, but one will fade a bit. Just in case, I also sealed off your daughter’s light. You won’t be able to find me or read my shop sign unless you need my help again." He picked back up the clock and began adjusting gears again.

"But I never paid you."

"You released my payment the second that you admitted your guilt. Your heart let go of fifteen years of your life."

My eyebrows draw down together "You said ten."

"That was before I found out there were two boogeys. I took fifteen instead of twenty as the entity hadn’t had the same amount of time to feed and grow strong." He kept working on the clock, unfazed .

I sighed "Thank you. I hope you find him. Your little boy, I mean."

He looked up "Your welcome and Thank you."