Free The Boggart and the Monster by Susan Cooper

boggart changing his shape for them: from a little black cat to a long white snake, to a four-tined stag, to a unicorn. And then, to a huge grey-bodied monster swimming in the loch, with a long neck and a small bright-eyed head. . . .
    In the moment that he recognized the image, from his space somewhere in the air he heard a great terrible noise, and saw Castle Urquhart explode into a sudden immense burst of smoke and flame, with stone and wood flying out in blazing arcs and into the loch. Jessup shouted in horror.
    And then he woke up.
    Tommy was leaning over him, gazing down at him in concern.
“Jessup! You having a nightmare? Are you okay?”
    Jessup blinked at him, trying to remember where he was.
“Uh,”
he said.
“Ah. Uh.”
    There was a tapping at the rear window and Tommy saw Emily’s face, pale and concerned; he unrolled the window to let her in.
“Jessup was dreaming,”
he said.
    Emily said,
“I thought one of you was being murdered.”
    â€œSomebody blew up the castle,”
Jessup said.
    Emily stared at him.
“What castle?”
    â€œCastle Urquhart, the one that’s a ruin. They blew it up, and he got stuck in the shape he was playing in. And he was so lonely after that, he just slept and slept for hundreds of years.”
    Emily rolled her eyes at Tommy, and tugged her parka tighter around her pajamas.
“He’s still dreaming,”
she said.
    â€œI’m not, I’m awake, I’m awake!”
Jessup sat upright, and banged his head on the car roof again.
    â€œOh
Jess!
”
said Emily. She reached out maternally to feel his head.
    Jessup shook her hand away ungratefully. He said,
“He was lonely, don’t you see? He just didn’t enjoy being awake. That’s why he slept for so long.”
    â€œWhy
who
slept so long?”
    â€œThe Loch Ness Monster,”
Jessup said.
“Only he’s not a monster and he’s not a plesiosaur. He’s a boggart.”
    â€œA
boggart?
”
    â€œJust like ours. But . . . clumsier.”
    Emily looked at him sympathetically.
“This was quite some dream. It must have been the fish and chips. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
She scrambled down off the tailgate, into the shadowy night.
    â€œWait a minute, Em,”
Tommy said. He reached out, as she paused, and took her hand. Emily stood still, and looked at him sideways.
    â€œRemember when the Monster disappeared, while we were looking at him on Harold’s screen?”
Tommy said.
“Remember Mr. Mac saying he couldn’t really have been there, because no real creature could disappear like that?”
    â€œMmm,”
said Emily uncertainly.
    â€œWell, he could too have disappeared — if he were a boggart. Our Boggart does.”
    Emily nodded slowly, as a dozen swift images of the shape-shifting Boggart danced around her memory. She looked around at the dark campground and the night sky.
“He came with us, our Boggart, didn’t he? Where d’you suppose he’s been today?”
    â€œI think he’s been giving Jessup a dream,”
Tommy said.
    In the air around them, so faint and diffuse that they couldn’t tell if it were inside the car or part of the night itself, they heard a low sound growing, a low warm sound, lapping them with approval, like the purring of a cat.

SIX
    J ESSUP SAID ,
“And in the minute after the castle exploded, when I was waking up, I had this terrible feeling of how lonely he was. Lonely, lonely, down in that dark water. And I really wanted to do something about it.”
    He was sitting beside Mr. Maconochie, looking out at the loch as they drove toward Harold Pindle’s trailer. The long gleaming expanse of water stretched beside and before them, and now and then as the road curved they could see the grey-green mound of the ruined Castle Urquhart in the distance.
    Tommy said,
“That was what the Boggart was putting into your head. His