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boggart’s body is filthy and covered in scabs. At one time it was
presumed that perhaps the bacteria in a house affected brownies more
than they did the humans, causing the scabs and their transformation
into a boggart. Boggarts tear at their own flesh in frustration as they
find themselves trapped in a home they no longer want to live in.
Brownies
and other hearth fairies are neat freaks; they choose to inhabit
beautiful homes. The size or cost of the home isn’t the issue. What
they care about is that the house be warm and inviting, if its not
they’ll begin to go crazy or leave. Looking at the boggart and a
brownie side by side one would never think they are one and the same,
for when fairies change they don’t simply become messier, or alter
their style. Their face and body warps, in some cases fairies that were
hundreds of feet tall have become smaller then six inches thanks to the
changes in the modern world.
The
boggart jumps off the bed and runs through the wall. I follow it.
Boggart’s are dizzyingly fast and can pass through floors, walls, and
other household objects as if they weren’t there. They can also close
any door in the house without having to be near it. Its rarely human
dead who haunt houses, at least not in the form we tend to anticipate.
In reality it’s more likely to be a fairy. Hearth fairies and other
similar fairies can grow close to people, so when a person dies
suddenly they become wild, just as this boggart has. They are also
prone to creating glamour’s of the person they once loved, all of which
creates the illusion that the being haunting the house is the person
that has passed on.
I
catch up to the boggart as it licks at the milk in the fridge with a
long, filthy tongue. A boggart living in your house means that your
food goes bad faster and is more likely to carry food poisoning, even
if it escapes the general mess of the rest of the house because the
boggart will lick at it for his sustenance.
I
sneak into one of the apartments the vampire passed by which is average
in cleanliness but is very brightly decorated. The smell of freshly
baked bread still hangs in the air. Of all the things they could eat
hearth fairies prefer baked bread over anything else. So depending on
how often the owner of this apartment bakes bread, there should be a
lot of household fairies in this place.
First
things first, I check around the threshold and find a cat with a beard.
It’s a domovoi, a Russian hearth fairy. Much like the brownie, the
domovoi is typically seen as an old man; however it can take the form
of a cat or a dog. They do more for a family than just protecting it
from evil magic, they also help them foretell the future by giving them
a sense of peace or foreboding about things they are about to do.
Domovoi are typically the spirits of deceased relatives of the people
whose houses they inhabit. I have one in my own household, a great,
great, grandfather spirit who came down from my mothers side.
Typically
helpful, he like most domovoi is likely to cause trouble for the
neighbors if they can, however other fairies under the threshold won’t
allow them to do this. Considering that this domovoi’s neighbors no
longer have a threshold fairy actively protecting them, however, it's
likely that he enters their house to cause trouble. Hiding keys,
breaking cups, or even stealing money to place in their own family
member’s wallets or coat pockets are a favorite activity. As with all
fairies then, the domovoi has a dual nature, helpful and wicked. This
is why household fairies can be so important, because they protect us
from the “Other world” which is teeming with fairies just waiting to
burst across our thresholds.
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