"Yeah! My friends are really brave, too."

"I can tell!"

Nausicaa laughs, and it's back to playground games.

And, on the walk home, the Boogeyman contacts Makoto.

'The Flesh Things are a concern,' he says, entirely without preamble.

I figured. What have you been doing about them?

'Killing them as they come. Dissecting the ones that aren't too badly damaged, and trying to find how they're made. Patrolling for more, and talking to the other monsters - I've been trying to contact the vampire and werewolf, but that's hindered by my inability to talk.'

I can probably help with diplomacy. Anything interesting turn up in the dissections?

'They're not made like humans. They don't have organs. They're just meat and fat and sometimes bones on the stronger ones. I haven't been able to identify the meat, but most of it's red meat. I think one had fragments of a crystal in its neck.'

Definitely made things, then. Have you see anything like the crystal before?

'No, but I haven't seen many things. It's not like pictures in my books. I have it still, in Shadow Home.'

Shadow Home?

'Where I rest, and where I keep my things. It is a place between waking and dreams. I can bring things out of it.'

Neat. I might want to take a look at it, see if the Nanny has any ideas.

'The crystal?'

Oh. Sorry, yes, the crystal, not Shadow Home. I wasn't clear.

'You're more clear than the Girl usually is, at least. I can retrieve it, when we're home.'

Well, I've been practicing talking for longer. Thanks.

Nod.

The walk home is without incident, and the Boogeyman slides beneath the bed, returning with a few shards of dark crystal cupped in his shadows.

She takes them.

Thanks.

He nods.

(The crystals feel weird. They almost hum, in a way that sets teeth on edge and sings at the back of hearing.)

Almost like an overfull grief cube. Weird.

If grief cubes are the essence of grief, these are the essence of fear - or its cause. A yawning chasm, impossibly deep; the hairs on the back of your neck rising; darkness and odd shadows, distilled into a few shattered shards.

Very creepy. Does she still get the effect if she sets them down and stops touching them?

It fades, though not instantly.