She looked up from the picture book and at me with her big eyes -- she was afraid.

I picked her up and squeezed her. "No no no, Sweetie, those monsters aren't real. Your mother is real, and I am real, and the ger about us is real. But those monsters are the thoughts of other people, only thoughts, like dreams. You don't see monsters like you see your mother and me and the ger and the world. And when our part of the world turns away from the light each day for the night, the darkness that encompasses us is empty. There are no monsters in it. The darkness is empty."

I didn't tell her that the emptiness is fearful.