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Crombie hadn't even been missed. That certainty seemed to justify his attitude.
Soon it was time for supper. He wasn't hungry. But Metria curled out of his mouth, an invisible vapor,
and made the food disappear. She did the same for the oil from the castors, and that was an even greater
relief.
When he went up to his lonely room, she was with him. He had company. She formed herself into the
nicest pillow he could imagine, with two extremely soft mounds, and he rested his head on her and felt
wonderful.
Then in the dark, a spook came. It leaned over the bed. "Look!" it exclaimed. "He forgot to hide under
the covers! Now we'll get him!"
Suddenly the pillow opened a big long mouth with one-and-a-half squintillion teeth. "Oh, yeah?" it
breathed with supreme menace and snapped at the spook's nose. The spook was so surprised it dropped
to the floor, where Missile-Toe, Crombie's Monster Under the Bed, fired a spike into its foot.
"Owoooh!" the spook cried, and shot out of there so fast a piece of it tore on a nail in the wall. After that
no more spooks came. Crombie laughed until he almost cried, sheerly happy.
Then the pillow formed arms, and they hugged Crombie and stroked his hair, and there was a soft sweet
humming until he drifted to sleep. Metria was the perfect mother, all right.
After a year, the other boy went away. But Metria stayed. Usually she assumed the form of Crombie's
jacket, and he wore her around the house, but she could be anything he wanted. Indeed, she was all he
wanted; he hardly cared about anything else. When Sofia made him study things he Ought to Know, he
paid no attention, knowing that Metria would provide the answers for him when they were required.
And often they sneaked out to the With-a-Cookee River and gorged. His miserable life had become
totally happy.
What none of us knew, then, was that Metria was learning all my secrets, for she was an enemy in our
midst. A number of my spells went wrong, causing great inconvenience and annoyance, and we didn't
know why. What a joke the demoness was having at our expense!
Then Crombie turned thirteen. The moment he was a teenager, he became aware of the female of the
species. He was still too young to join the Adult Conspiracy, but he had notions about it, and chafed at
being kept in ignorance. In short, he was a typical teenager.
Here he ran afoul of Metria herself. She was a creature of mischief, but she knew there was more
mischief in maintaining the Adult Conspiracy than in abolishing it, so she maintained it. So when
Crombie sought to put his hands on her in an aware way, she told him no. He had never been balked by
her before and was at first incredulous, then furious. He grabbed her-and she dissipated into smoke and
floated away. While it disturbs me to agree with that confounded demoness, I have to say that she acted
correctly in that instance. Any woman who gets grabbed in a manner she doesn't want should depart
with similar swiftness.
After that she was no longer with Crombie. He had to sleep alone. He was now too big for the spooks to
harm, but he hated losing his womanly-soft pillow. Now his almost complete ignorance of the things
Sofia had been teaching him manifested. He was a spoiled-rotten teenager, and that was a condition not
even he could live with. Metria had done him the worst of favors by enabling him to escape any
discipline in childhood. He was so angry he had to keep blinking to keep the red glare of rage from
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burning his eyes. He cursed all older women, for of course he was incapable of blaming himself.
He stormed out of the castle, now having more freedom because we were under the impression he was
worthy of it. He whirled and pointed, uttering the syllable "Girl!"
He followed his finger-and came across a girl his age, sitting in the very glade where he had first found
the honeypot. She was exquisitely pretty, and he fell in love with her right away. This, too, is the manner
of teenagers. Since he hadn't grabbed her, she was responsive. The two of them had a marvelous time
dancing and kissing and sharing secrets. Then he became too demanding: "Show me your panties."
She laughed. Annoyed, he grabbed at her-and she dissolved into smoke and floated away. Only then did
he realize that she had been merely another aspect of the Demoness Metria, having her fun with his
innocence.
That was when he swore never to trust another woman. Any age, any type. They say there is no fury like
that of a woman scorned, and Metria is a perfect example, but surely the fury of a teenager balked comes
close. (I have, of course, long since forgotten that I was ever a teenager, not that this is relevant.)
By the time I discovered what had happened, it was way too late. My son was hopelessly embittered.
There was nothing to do but send him away to be a soldier, for hate is an asset to that profession. I had
in effect lost my son. Sofia was not particularly pleased, either.
I revised the castle defenses, to make sure that never again could a demon sneak in unobserved. It was
not that I was prejudiced against demons; some of my best friends were demons. But Metria was sheer
naughtiness. She never acted with outright malice, and indeed sometimes seemed to act decently, but
there was no telling what the final cost of her mischief would be. Obviously she remained annoyed by
her failure to corrupt me, so had corrupted my son instead. Corrupted him, ironically, with kindness: she
had enabled him to avoid the necessary disciplines of growing up. That lack of discipline might be
typical for demons, but was disaster for humans.
Yet it was my fault too. I should have been alert. I should have taken a hand in the upbringing of my
son. I, too, had been spoiled, for the Maiden Taiwan had brought up my first son. I resolved that if I ever
had another son to raise, I would be a true father to him, not leaving his upbringing to others. To that
resolution I was true.
But let me now return to the matter that so preoccupied me at the time my son was going astray. It was
not, as will be seen, a thing of little consequence. Let's make that a separate chapter.
Chapter 12. Trent
One day Sofia came to me, surprised. "There's an eight-year-old boy approaching the castle!" she
exclaimed. She, in common with most mothers, could tell a child's age and state of health at a glance.
I pulled my nose from the Book of Answers. I had been studying it for five years now, and was
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