#the bombinating beast

And he would beam at her, the old excitement returning to his eyes:

"What is it you know that I don't?"

"What is it you know that I don't, Father? You were going to the market, weren't you? I'm coming along. Let's catch up."

Moxie imagined this as she listened into the utter silence, her smile slowly fading. It was best to take notes as long as the event was fresh in her memory. So she opened her typewriter case, put in a new sheet of paper, and typed:

A stranger knocked on my door with an older woman who briefly pretended to be his wife. The stranger asked to see a particular item and was clearly surprised that I showed it to him."

She hesitated, her fingers still tapping over the keys. When she was little, the reporters used to talk about the fear of the blank page.

"It's daunting to create a story out of nothing," old Parker would say. "The empty sheet challenges you to push forward. It's always 'What's next? What's next?' Because, in truth, a story never ends. That's why I'm glad to be the copy editor."

Moxie felt the unease now, the white sheet glaring at her in the fading sunlight. She had been typing more than ever lately, recording everything around her. She was desperate to uphold the last remains of journalism in town. Yet she kept feeling like she was missing a vital part of the story. She could produce mountains of typed notes, adding them to the archives, old newspaper issues, and mail that cluttered the lighthouse, but it was never enough. The whole story lay hidden beneath all these words, in everything that had happened.

The statue Snicket had wanted to see now stood sideways next to her typewriter, leering at her with one hollow eye. She couldn't remember when she had last taken a look at it. She hadn't touched it six months ago when the telegram had come. She hadn't wanted to see it. Maybe she should have. Perhaps it was hiding a clue.

The eye reminded Moxie of an abyss. She'd always had the notion of an abyss lurking in people's lives or a treacherous cliff hiding in the darkness. It was one of those things everyone knew but no one spoke about. You never knew where it might lurk, and if you were not careful, you could fall or crash and be lost forever.

"Good journalism is like a lighthouse," Father used to say. "It lights up the dark so we can see where we're going. You need to look where you don't want to look. You need to hit the nail on the head."

"That's not how you sell newspapers," Mother would argue.

"That's how you change the world."

The snarling mouth of the statue seemed to mock her. "So? Do you really want to look where you don't want to look?" it asked.

Moxie glared back at it defiantly. She had been looking everywhere. She had spent days browsing through the archives, searching for clues, memories, anything that could fill the emptiness inside her. She'd get lost in old articles or letters or the notes she had taken herself since she knew how to write. Just a few days ago, she had found a story she had written when she was seven:

One night, my father and I went home by bus. A man was sleeping under a large piece of cardboard on the sidewalk at the bus stop. Some people walked by. They looked at the man, and they turned their heads away.

The Officers Mitchum came and woke him up.

"You can't sleep here," they said. 

The man said something. I couldn't hear it. His eyes were funny. He looked at the Officers, but I didn't think he saw them.

"Go home at once," the officers said. "Or we'll have to arrest you."

"I was just sleeping," the man said. "Just let me sleep."

My father stopped to take notes. Mr. Mitchum said:

"Mallahan, just let us do our job for once, will you?"

I wanted to leave.

"Moxie, why are you uncomfortable?" my father asked. "Don't turn away. Look, and tell me what you think."

She had read this aloud in class as homework to write an essay about something unusual they had witnessed. Everyone had been silent afterward. The teacher had given her a strange look.

She remembered that such a thing was rare at that time. Later, there had been many people sleeping in the streets. There had been people alone or in small groups, occupying the benches or huddling in corners, all with bottles in their hands. The Mitchums kept arresting them, but there were always more. Now, they were gone.

All those fragments formed a story she didn't fully comprehend, but it would make sense once she put it back together. If it had ever been together in the first place.

So, Moxie examined the statue from all angles, wiping the dust from its dark wooden surface. It was indeed old, so much older than the rest of the merchandise on the table. In fact, it had never been for sale. There was a recent layer of varnish on it, which made it so shiny. It must have been repainted again and again. Otherwise, it would have rotted long ago. She scratched lightly at the piece of paper glued to the small opening at the base. She wondered who had put it there and when. Probably, the paper was supposed to shield the statue's hollow inside from moisture. Or it served an entirely different purpose.

No one really knew how old the statue was or how long it had been in their family's possession. It had always been there, without anyone paying much attention to it.

There was a photograph of herself, in an old copy of The Stain'd Lighthouse , of when she had been four or five years old, playing with the statue and a doll, making the doll fight against the beast. She had worn a satin dress and shiny patent leather shoes. The caption read The Lady Mallahan .

Moxie didn't remember that moment or the photograph, but she did remember the dress. She remembered wearing it at the Ethan Frome Festival charity auction before going out into the snow and cheering the sledders on. She remembered wearing it at the Sallises' garden parties when Mother would do her hair and say:

"You are the true heir of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. The Knights may produce the ink, and all those lords and ladies may send their children to Wade Academy, but you come from the slayer of the beast, the savior, the beacon. You are second to none."

It must have been Mother who made that photograph and put it into the newspaper, back when Moxie had run up and down the stairs playing and when the clacking typewriters had woken her up and put her to sleep. Back when she sat on Father's lap as he taught her to write shorthand, always with a steaming mug of coffee in his hand and a gnawed-off pencil tucked behind his ear.

She continued searching through the boxes with the articles and photographs that had never made it into The Stain'd Lighthouse . There had been countless cover stories about the draining of the sea. Everyone complained about the salt storms, the masks, and the Clusterous Forest, but nobody ever mentioned the silence. With the swashing gone, the silence crept into every corner of the town, every street, every house, every minute. It haunted Moxie in her sleep.

The typewriters' clacking had grown fainter, and the ink had faded. Ink Inc. Is Forced to Resort to Mass Dismissals had been one of the first headlines Moxie had helped set. She hadn't really understood what that meant at the time. But she had noticed that the streets were emptier afterward. Gone were the inkworkers who had traveled to and from the machines every day. And then there were the angry crowds, sometimes even marching right past the lighthouse. Moxie watched them from the window, terrified. Never before had she heard such yelling. They were carrying banners reading Have you forgotten who has made you rich?

"Moxie, get away from the window!" Mother cried before turning to Father, who was grabbing his notepad. Standing next to him was Bourke, the head photographer. "Are you mad? You can't go out!"

"The world needs to see this!"

At that moment, a rock came crashing through the window.

By the time Moxie dared to go out alone again, the ghostly silence had settled everywhere. The shops were closing. People were moving out. Windows were smashed or nailed with wooden boards. The garbage piled up in the streets. At first, people turned their noses. Then they searched it to find something valuable. Then they searched it for something to eat or burn.

Moxie remembered Father taking her to see people in their homes. It must have been years later, but she wasn't sure. There had been a small apartment with blind windows and grime in every corner. They were sitting around a kitchen table, Father turning on the tape recorder and talking to a woman with greasy hair and dark stains on her hands.

"Been an inkworker all my life," she said. "The stains don't go off no more."

A heap of tobacco spread on a dish rag in front of her. While talking, she picked up bits of it one by one and rolled them into cigarette papers.

"You've always been one of us, Mallahan," she laughed. "And you got a cute kid. I'd adopt her any time."

If Moxie could find the tapes, she'd know when precisely this had taken place. Father had wanted to record interviews with the fired inkworkers and present their stories in the Lighthouse . He and Mother had fought a lot. She heard them at night when they thought she was asleep.

"What good will it do? It will only spread more discontent. What we need is good news!"

But the good news was gone, along with the ink and all the journalists. One by one, the people she knew left the town. Still, when Mother announced she was going to begin a new job in the city, Moxie felt as if the world had ended.

"Don't cry, Moxie, dear," Mother said. "It's a grand newspaper read in the entire country. That's where they write the big news. That's where our future lies. Once I'm settled, I'll send for you. Aren't you curious to see the great city?"

With only Father and herself remaining at the lighthouse, the silence became worse than ever. At first, Moxie was confident they could make it. He still wrote the articles and printed the newspaper by himself, even though the ink was barely readable by now. But he hardly spoke anymore. Sometimes, she watched him working the printing press without having put any letters into the case. Blank page after page emerged from the press, but Father didn't seem to notice.

That was when Moxie dropped out of school. Father couldn't possibly run a newspaper and a home without anyone helping him, and she was twelve now, old enough to support him. She was even proud of it at first. Didn't many children run their parents' businesses by now while the parents had to build a new life?

"I've been thinking about publishing my first story," she told him. "I want to make an interview series like you once did. Stain'd-by-the-Sea: A town upheld by its children . I've already spoken to Marguerite Gracq and Jackie, the mechanic. They're interested. We could telegraph the articles to Mother so she can publish them in the city. What do you think?"

Father said nothing for a while.

"Well, what do you think?"

"I'm sorry, what did you say? I'm afraid I need to go to sleep."

Father slept a lot these days. He was always tired, maybe sick. No more meals were on the table, no washed clothes, garbage piling up in the kitchen, and unopened mail on the floor. Soon, Moxie realized nothing would be done unless she did it herself.

"It's fine, Father," she said, "I can take care of everything while you get better. And then, Mother will send for us, and we'll go to the city. You'll run a newspaper again."

He said nothing.

So Moxie did run everything the best she could. It was her lighthouse and her newspaper now. She was always careful to keep her clothes tidy and her own business cards tucked into the band of her hat.

Then, six months ago, a telegram came from an unknown address in an unknown town.

I am very interested in a certain statue I believe is your home STOP. I believe it is called the Bombinating Beast STOP. If you are willing to sell it to me -

Moxie had to stop reading because her head was spinning. It took her a while to figure out what the stranger could even mean before she remembered that there was indeed an old wooden statue of the Bombinating Beast somewhere in the newsroom with all the other stuff.

"Father!"

If this didn't rouse him, she couldn't figure out what else would. He wasn't in his bedroom. He'd been out last night, and Moxie thought he'd come home late, but he was nowhere to be found in the lighthouse.

She almost tripped over him as she ran out into the backyard. He was sleeping in the cold, damp grass, covered with some old newspapers.

"Father? Father, wake up! You have to get inside. You'll get a cold."

He raised his head a little and slowly blinked at her. He didn't really see her.

"Just let me sleep a moment, dear. Just let me sleep."

She backed away from him like an abyss that suddenly opened up in front of her and would drag her down to her death if she didn't run fast enough. She leapt into the lighthouse, slammed the door shut behind her, and screamed.

The statue was still grinning at Moxie as she remembered this. All of a sudden, she itched to smash it into pieces. She abruptly snapped her typewriter case shut and headed for the staircase. Better to continue her notes in a more comfortable place. Or to leave them for now altogether.

Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps there was no mystery to any of this, and everything truly was nothing more than old gimcrack.