The Boogeyman's Lullabye

Child He Said

  The spine of the book cracked softly, an old man's back falling into place after years of wear.  Soft hands gently and almost absent-mindedly brushed over the two covers, making a leathery kind of sound before using the same amount of gentleness to place the book into the Boogeyman's lap.  

"Do you think he will be stuck in that labyrinth forever?" I asked softly, wanting to draw out the story past where Michael had chosen to end it, for the night at least.  In a way that avoided the demeaning humoring of adults when I asked them questions, he leaned back in the chair and quirked up an eyebrow, eyes casting towards the window before him.  He was silent for a few moments, me watching the black locks of hair slowly fall, one-by-one,  into his face, until there were four.

"Forever?  That's a place that only exists in books, I believe.  I suppose it will be up to the author." He reasoned, slowly turning to face me and giving me a smile that I found was the only true smile I'd ever seen an adult give.  Then again, I didn't consider Michael and adult.  He was far too real for that, took me too seriously and wasn't nearly condescending enough.  In fact, I figured, Michael was what happened when teenagers didn't become adults, but their bodies did.  What other adult would let their hair hang like that?

  I nodded to his answer and reached up, combing back the locks of hair that always seemed slightly damp, as if he'd taken a shower not too long ago.  As I did this, he gave me another smile, this time quirked up a bit like his eyebrow and seeming to reach all the way up to his eyes, green flashing a slightly brighter shade.  In return, a silent conversation that only a child and their Boogeyman could understand completely, he took a thumb and hooked it under the hair on the side of my head, securely combing back a few dull blonde strings blurring my vision and tucking them behind my ear in a way that didn't itch.  When my father did that it always itched.  Michael was just better at it.

  "But I think he'll find a way out.  He's shown more bravery than I'd have given him in the beginning." He continued, voice hushed though no one else could hear him.  

"Bravery doesn't always make the difference." I said, "Brave people die, too."  Michael looked above me, to the blank greyish-greenish wall, and slowly began to nod.  One of his hands was still on the book, the other resting knuckles against the side of my face.  I opened and closed my mouth to feel my jawbone moving against each knuckle, forward and backward until he nodded again and smiled down at me.

"That they do.  Brave people also have bedtimes, and you've kept me up past yours again." Disappointed and not the least bit willing to admit how actually tired I was, knowing the moment he settled me down and told me the lullabye, that I would fall asleep. Falling asleep led to waking up, and waking up led to my forced participation into a pre-set schedule of manners and Irishmen talking about manners.  It would have to be a whole nother 24 hours before I could see Michael again, and each 24 hours for the past however-long-I've-had-him was just as monotonous and drug-out as the last.

  "I'm not brave." I tried, but he just let out a breathy laugh that wasn't at all demeaning and leaned over to me, sitting sideways in his chair and giving me a look that knew what I was doing and also told me without sound that, while age and I had a non-linear relationship, seventeen was the age to begin to come up with new excuses as to not fall asleep.  

"That's disheartening," Michael mused, leaning over until he could place a chaste kiss on my temple, saying without pulling back and warm breath on the side of my face smelling like cold and warm all at the same time, "You are by far the bravest person I know." I looked plainly forward at the book in his lap and said,

"You must not know very many persons."

"Just your family, a lot of cowards.  Now stop delaying dear, it's bedtime, and I'd not like for Redmond to scold you again for sleeping through breakfast." Michael tapped his thumb on my temple and leaned up a bit, carrying on placing the chair back in front of my desk by the door at the head of the bed and dusting the cover of the book, as if he didn't know we still had to finish something.  I waited, laying on my side with my legs tucked up into my nightgown, watching until he had straightened his eternal black sweater and smoothed out dusty black pants, locks of hair falling out of place again.  And then I waited a bit longer.