I'm not a professional writer. This is pure fantasy, just for fun. Enjoy the story with all its flaws.
The Monster Under The Bed
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The summer before Damien started school his parents moved from Vancouver to Ottawa. They sold their house and temporarily moved in with his grandparents. They would take care of Damien during the summer while his parents worked at their new jobs and searched for a new place to live.
Grandma and Grandpa lived in the country, in a rambling 150 year old farmhouse. It was an old place with lots of additions, and had odd corners and strangely shaped rooms. There were little closets that fit into corners or under the eaves, and built in cupboards in many rooms and hallways. So many places for an inquisitive boy to explore. There was even a secret door that went from the back stairs behind the dining room and into the garage. It was an awesome place for a an active and curious little kid like Damien. The yard was amazing too, with big trees to climb and a creek with a pond and a dock he could fish off of with Grandpa.
There was one more thing in the old house that Damien discovered. A monster under the bed.
Damien heard a small noise under the bed the first night he was there. It sounded like something moving down there, a scuffling scratching sound. He was scared, so he hid under the covers. He listened to see if the noise was still there, and he heard it again. He didn't know what to do, so he said "Hello?"
There was silence for a while, then small voice answered "Hello. What's your name?"
He was terrified, and a jolt of fear swept through him, but he answered. "I'm Damien."
"Hello Damien. I'm Gwendolyn." The voice wasn't actually scary, but he was still frightened out of his wits.
"Who are you? Why are you here?" he asked.
"I live under your bed. This is my home. Why are you here?" Her voice was very very quiet and he had to listen hard to hear her.
"I'm staying with Grandma and Grandpa."
"I haven't seen you before."
"I just got here."
"How long will you be here?"
"I don't know. How long have you been here?"
"A long time."
Curiosity was beginning to win out over fear. "Are you a girl?" She sounded like a girl.
The voice laughed softly and said "I'm a girl, but I'm not like you. I'm a monster."
A MONSTER? Under his bed?! This was like the scary stories he'd heard. His neighbour Jimmy talked about scary things all the time back home, things just like this. But there was no such thing as monsters. All the adults said so. They said Jimmy was teasing him. This had to be something else.
"W-what do you want?"
"I want to be your friend. I don't have any friends. Will you be my friend, Damien?"
She sounded so quiet and so nice and so sad that his fear began to fade. And he thought that having a new friend would be good. He'd left all his friends behind in Vancouver. The farmhouse was nice, but he missed his friends. He had no one to play with. "Yes. I can be your friend."
"Oh, that's wonderful." Gwendolyn said. "Do you like games?"
"Oh yes, I love games."
"Then let's play a game. It's a guessing game. I will think of something and you have to guess what it is. You can ask me five questions and then you have to guess."
That sounded like a good game, so he agreed. He stayed up for hours that night playing guessing games with Gwendolyn. First she made him guess, then it was her turn to guess what he was thinking about. When Damien started yawning she said 'Goodnight Damien' and he fell asleep.
He told Grandma and Grandpa about the monster under the bed the next morning, and that her name was Gwendolyn and they played guessing games. They didn't believe him, and wanted to know if he wanted to stay in their room with them if he was scared of being alone in the guest room. Damien told them he liked the room he had and didn't want to move.
The days were filled with playing in the yard and the garage. Grandpa let him help him with his woodworking projects in the shop out there. Damien also liked to fish and swim in the pond. The nights were filled with talking to his new friend, the monster under the bed. They played word games and math games and told each other stories. Some stories were true and some were made up. Even when he spent hours talking to Gwendolyn and only got a little bit of sleep he wasn't tired the next day. And all she had to say was 'Goodnight Damien' and he would fall right to sleep.
And for some reason, no one ever heard them talking, even when they were laughing and getting really loud. When Damien shushed her one night for being too loud, she told him that no one else could hear them when we were together. It was magic, she said. He stopped trying to talk to Grandma and Grandpa about Gwendolyn. They didn't understand.
Damien lived with his grandparents for a month, then his parents found a new house in town. They moved in and unpacked everything. He made new friends on his street, and then more new friends when he started school. He missed talking to Gwendolyn at night. When he talked about her, his parents scoffed at the idea of monsters under the bed, and bought him a night light. His new friends teased him for making up stories or being afraid of the dark. So Damien learned not to talk about Gwendolyn.
They went to visit his grandparents at Thanksgiving, and Gwendolyn was there each night. They talked and talked all night long. He told her all about his school, his new friends, and their new house. She told him stories and they played games. When they left he stopped in the guest room to say goodbye, but Gwendolyn was always silent during the day. And she was never at his new home, only under the old bed at the farmhouse.
He kept Gwendolyn a secret, and talked to her every time they visited his grandparents' place for holidays or summer vacation. Years passed, and their conversations were always at a level that was almost too sophisticated for Damien to understand. Gwendolyn always forced him to stretch his imagination and understanding and intelligence. And she seemed intensely interested in his life and everything he was doing at home.
When Damien was 16 his grandfather passed away. He stayed at the old house with his parents and grandmother for a few days, first for the funeral and then to help Grandma sort through her things to get ready to leave. She was moving into a retirement home, as she couldn't take care of the big rambling old farmhouse by herself.
Damien told Gwendolyn what was happening, and she sounded sad, because he wouldn't be back to visit her anymore.
"Hey, what if I took this bed home? You could come with me."
"I don't think that would work Damien. I'm tied to this locus."
"What's a locus?"
"It's a special place, this room, this house, and the bed, all together. If you move the bed you disrupt the locus."
"I can try, can't I?"
"Yes, you can try. I hope it works, but I'm not counting on it."
"What will happen to you if we move the bed, or sell the house, or tear it down or something?"
"I don't know. I'm sad, Damien. I don't want to lose you. You're my only friend."
"I don't want to lose you either. I'll try taking this bed home with me. Maybe it will work, and we can be talk every night."
"I'd like that, but I'm still afraid."
"Don't be scared Gwendolyn, It'll work, I guarantee it."
"Thank you. I hope so. Goodnight Damien." And with that, he was asleep.
The next morning he asked what the plans were for the house and the furniture. The house was being sold. His parents wanted some of the furniture, but most of it would go to charity. Damien asked if he could have the bed from the guest room he always stayed in. They were surprised, but it was a nice old walnut bed frame, nicer than what he had at home, so they agreed. It came with a couple of matching chests of drawers, which would be a tight fit in his room, but he could have them too, if he wanted.
When the small moving truck pulled up at their house the next weekend, Damien had already cleared out his room. He'd slept on the floor the night before, thinking the truck would arrive a day earlier. That night, with the old bed set up in his room, he laid down and called out softly for Gwendolyn. There was no answer. He waited all through the night, whispering her name, and eventually cried himself to sleep just before dawn. She was gone. It didn't work. His friend was gone, with no way to find her or bring her back. Every night for weeks, he would whisper her name at bedtime, to no avail.
Damien was unhappy for a while, but life in high school was a potent distraction. Track team, swimming team, driving lessons, classes, homework, and girls caught his attention. He had his first date, his first kiss, and his first heartbreak. It was actually his second heartbreak, if he would admit he had feelings for Gwendolyn, but he had pushed her out of his mind. She wasn't real anyways. Everyone said there was no such things as monsters under your bed. It was just a childhood fantasy he told himself.
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In his final year of high school he turned 18 just before graduation. His birthday party was a bunch of friends getting together to play laser tag and eat pizza. He didn't have a girlfriend because his most recent girlfriend had agreed with him that when they left for university they wouldn't be able to maintain a relationship. They'd gone to Senior Prom together and had a nice time, but it was more like hanging out with a friend than a date.
A week after his birthday party, with his high school diploma hanging on the wall now, Damien was lying in bed, thinking about the future. He was going to be working hard all summer to save money for school. Then it was off to Queen's in Kingston. It was going to be an adventure, that was for sure. He was filled with nervous anticipation. Just as he was drifting off to sleep he heard a small noise, like a fingernail scratching the floor.
"Mmm?" he murmured.
"Damien." came the faintest of whispers, almost inaudible.
