The Tooth Fairy and Other Stories

The Tooth Fairy

                                                        The Tooth Fairy

My final milk tooth, the last to fall out, lay cold, smooth and hard like glass, cool in my clenched fist. I unwrapped my fingers from around it and placed it beneath the very centre of my pillow. They say you can feel your last tooth through it.

Laying my head on the soft pillow, I thought I could feel a little bump if I pressed my head down really hard. Some say that the tooth fairy doesn't exist. They also say that she isn't a good fairy either. They say she's a floating wisp of shadow, formless until you cast your eyes upon her. Then she becomes a clawed screeching creature, a mass of black rags. Her only distinguishable features were crooked, deformed, talloned hands and a white porcelain mask, with two bloodshot eyes glaring through two slits. Don't peek. Don't peek.

Shaking my head to dislodge the chilling thoughts, I pulled the covers up below my chin, turning on my side with my hands cupped around the tooth. The curtains flapped - the windows were open the way I liked it. It was cold outside and I was warm inside my cocoon under my sheets.

I lay daydreaming, my mind wandering from thought to thought. Sleep was almost descending when a sound, a whispering hiss woke me from my stupor. A draft floated by, blowing a wisp of hair across my face, and the door creaked. Watching, I expected the door to close, as it always does. It opened, easing at a steady, slow rate. A shadow lay across the floor, broken by the branches against the moonlight outside.

I snapped my eyes shut, and a harsh breathing could be heard, steady and strong. The sound of something sliding across the carpet, the soft muffled sound like an executioner's sack pulled shut over a head. The scrape of nails on wood grated through the air, filling my head up with images of claws scratching across my pale skin. Under the sheets, my legs tensed and a clammy sweat broke on my forehead, and then I steeled myself. A hand, cold like ice, brushed across my head, dry. Don't peek. Don't peek! I closed my eyes to slits, squeezing them so hard that tears broke out underneath them. 

All sanity lost me then, and I opened them, fraction by fraction, until I could see a shady picture through my eyelashes. A wisp of material flapped back, forbidding. I opened my eyes and yelled. The figure's hand reaching for my head. A keening wail filled the room and the figure's cloak flapped in the draft. I turned the light on, my fingers scrambling, seized up in fright. Two words swam into my mind unbidden. Rigor Mortis.

The yellow light bathed the intruder, a pale white face glared down at me. "Richard, you gave me such a fright!" it spoke. "I almost died of shock!" The face became warm and rosy, with blonde hair pooling in the light. It was my mother, wrapped in a blanket, with a five pound note and a smile. "Here" she said, handing me it. "Now, no more nightmares, I need to go to work tomorrow!" My mother bent down, kissed me on the forehead, brushed my hair from my eyes and left. I smiled. I switched off the light, closed my eyes and dozed, my note clutched in my fist. 

In the new dark, something stirred in the corner.

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This is a short story I wrote at the age of 13, with my teacher's corrections now included. The story was inspired by the film Darkness Falls (2003).

Teacher's grade, A* - "You are going to be a serious writer."

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