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Gawain and Twyla, who’d been named by people who apparently loved them, had been put to bed by the time Susan got in, at their own insistence. It’s a widely held belief at a certain age that going to bed early makes tomorrow come faster.

She went to tidy up the schoolroom and get things ready for the morning, and began to pick up the things the children had left lying around. Then something tapped at a window pane.

She peered out at the darkness, and then opened the window. A drift of snow fell down outside.

In the summer the window opened into the branches of a cherry tree. In the winter dark, they were little gray lines where the snow had settled on them.

“Who’s that?” said Susan.

Something hopped through the frozen branches.

“Tweet tweet tweet, would you believe?” said the raven.

“Not you again?”

“You wanted maybe some dear little robin? Listen, your grand—”

“Go away!”

Susan slammed the window and pulled the curtains across. She put her back to them, to make sure, and tried to concentrate on the room. It helped to think about…normal things.

There was the Hogswatch tree, a rather smaller version of the grand one in the hall. She’d helped the children to make paper decorations for it. Yes. Think about that.

There were the paper chains. There were the bits of holly, thrown out from the main rooms for not having enough berries on them, and now given fake modeling clay berries and stuck in anyhow on shelves and behind pictures.

There were two stockings hanging from the mantelpiece of the small schoolroom grate. There were Twyla’s paintings, all blobby blue skies and violently green grass and red houses with four square windows. There were…

Normal things…

She straightened up and stared at them, her fingernails beating a thoughtful tattoo on a wooden pencil case.

The door was pushed open. It revealed the tousled shape of Twyla, hanging onto the doorknob with one hand.

“Susan, there’s a monster under my bed again…”

The click of Susan’s fingernails stopped.

“…I can hear it moving about…”

Susan sighed and turned toward the child.

“All right, Twyla. I’ll be along directly.”

The girl nodded and went back to her room, leaping into bed from a distance as a precaution against claws.

There was a metallic tzing as Susan withdrew the poker from the little brass stand it shared with the tongs and the coal shovel.

She sighed. Normality was what you made it.

She went into the children’s bedroom and leaned over as if to tuck Twyla up. Then her hand darted down and under the bed. She grabbed a handful of hair. She pulled.

The bogeyman came out like a cork but before it could get its balance it found itself spread-eagled against the wall with one arm behind its back. But it did manage to turn its head, to see Susan’s face glaring at it from a few inches away.

Gawain bounced up and down on his bed.

“Do the Voice on it! Do the Voice on it!” he shouted.

“Don’t do the Voice, don’t do the Voice!” pleaded the bogeyman urgently.

“Hit it on the head with the poker!”

“Not the poker! Not the poker!”

“It’s you, isn’t it,” said Susan. “From this afternoon…”

“Aren’t you going to poke it with the poker?” said Gawain.

“Not the poker!” whined the bogeyman.

“New in town?” whispered Susan.

“Yes!” The bogeyman’s forehead wrinkled with puzzlement. “Here, how come you can see me?”

“Then this is a friendly warning, understand? Because it’s Hogswatch.”

The bogeyman tried to move. “You call this friendly?”

“Ah, you want to try for unfriendly?” said Susan, adjusting her grip.

“No, no, no, I like friendly!”

“This house is out of bounds, right?”

“You a witch or something?” moaned the bogeyman.

“I’m just…something. Now…you won’t be around here again, will you? Otherwise it’ll be the blanket next time.”

“No!”

“I mean it. We’ll put your head under the blanket.”

“No!”

“It’s got fluffy bunnies on it…”

“No!”

“Off you go, then.”

The bogeyman half fell, half ran toward the door.

“’s not right,” it mumbled. “You’re not s’posed to see us if you