"It's not real, dude. No such thing as a Tooth Fairy. It's your mom putting money under the pillow," the other kid at school had told him. The boys in his class didn't believe in Santa Claus either. According to them, only babies bought that stuff. For Billy, as he poked at the loose tooth just barely hanging onto its place in his mouth with his tongue, feeling it flex within the gum, it became one of those questions that wouldn't go away. He had to find out for himself.
When the tooth finally gave up the fight and fell free with the sudden taste of blood in his mouth, Billy made sure to safely tuck it away inside his pants pocket. He went through the rest of the school day periodically checking that it was still there, treating it like a totem, his gateway to witness some of the magic in the world that his friends, and even the internet, insisted was all made up. Either he would see a frilly fairy dressed up like his sister did in a sparkling princess dress with magic powder that let her sneak through the house even though it was locked and Buster the dog was in the hallway ready to bark, or, maybe, — he thought glumly — it really would just be his mom.
Billy did everything he could to be ready to catch whoever came for the tooth slipped under his pillow, magic or mundane, with his own eyes, even taking an afternoon nap so he would have plenty of energy to keep awake come bedtime. Billy settled into his bed, face pressing into the soft pillow, his body tucked in under his blankets, his eyes shut pretending to drift off to sleep.
Nothing happened for a long, long time, long enough that he was beginning to feel tired for real, wondering as he lay there if beams of sunshine were about to come through the curtains at any moment. Billy had never stayed up all night before and seen the sunrise. It was supposed to be pretty.
At last, just as he was about to give up the wait and doze off, there was a familiar click of the knob of his bedroom door turning. Through eyes still shut but for a sliver of opening, still pretending his hardest to be sleeping and trying to do it without actually falling asleep, he saw the door slip open, faint yellow light from the hall spilling into the room. A lady was standing there. It was hard to tell, but she did look a lot like his mother. She also had glittering wings sticking off of her back, which his mom certainly did not. The wings and the fancy dress with sparkling frills sure made her seem just like he'd imagined. It could be a Halloween costume, he thought, but second guessed that because he was supposed to be sleeping. Why would his mom go through all the effort of dressing up as the Tooth Fairy to fool him if he wouldn't be looking anyway? She crept across the carpet towards his bed. Billy held his breath, excited.
As she came closer, something seemed wrong. She didn't look like his mom. Her face seemed, at first look, like it could be a pretty lady's, with rosy cheeks and pleasant shape except her head seemed bigger than it should be for her neck. Her smile was stretched too wide, with white teeth peeking through the very red lips, coated in smeared lipstick. Her eyes were broad, the same kind of hungry look Billy had seen with Buster when he was excited to be fed. As she hovered just above him, reaching for his pillow with an arm that was pale and too thin, almost skeletal, Billy had to keep himself from whimpering.
She pulled the tooth from its resting place, pinching it between the tips of her spindly, bony fingers, holding it in front of her face, her smile getting wider by the second. It seemed like she was cherishing it, like Billy's tooth was exactly the thing she had wanted to see under the tree on Christmas morning. It seemed impossible for her smile to keep growing larger, the lips peeling back and the jaw adjusting to let the mouth open even further, revealing tooth after tooth in row upon row, slathered in saliva. As if she had a spot perfectly picked out, she gently placed Billy's tooth in one corner of her mouth amid the cluster of disparate teeth, adjusting it slightly to set it into place he guessed, before her mouth thankfully closed shut. Her hand hand returned to the pillow, leaving behind a single quarter before she slunk away, pulling the door to behind her. Billy watched her go, his heart racing.
He lied to his mom as he clutched her in the morning sunlight, crying and saying it was just a bad dream that had upset him. The next few weeks passed in terror, thinking he saw that monster in every dark corner. Getting to bed was especially hard, spending hours awake staring at the door, expecting it to creak open as soon as he let down his guard.
Before long, another of his baby teeth started wiggling in his mouth,