Full disclaimer, right off the bat: I wrote this story back in early 1990 when Del Rey Books came to me for a piece to be included in a coffee-table book of modern fairy tales. Other contributors included Anne McCaffrey, Isaac Asimov, Lester del Rey, and half a dozen more. Since Lester was my editor and Judy-Lynn my champion, of course I agreed to contribute.
The collection was titled Once Upon a Time, and when it was published in 1991, “Imaginary Friends” was included.
So the story is neither brand-new nor unpublished. Of course, it has been out of print for quite a while, so at least it will seem new.
The idea for the story was already in my head when I was approached. For some time, I had been thinking of breaking away from the Shannara and Magic Kingdom series to write something new. I wanted to do a big, sprawling saga—another, obviously—but one that was situated in the present and in which the schematic of magic was so integral to what we know to be true about our world that it would feel entirely plausible. That meant the fantasy elements and magic devices I chose to employ had to have explanations that made them feel real to the reader.
I had envisioned this saga as a trilogy of books, all of them linked by a series of common elements, but never as a short story. However, since no one was clamoring for such an opus, I thought this would be a good chance to put something down on paper as a sort of rough blueprint of what I would one day have a chance to write in larger form.
So I wrote about Jack and his impish friend Pick and the owl Daniel and their lives together in Sinnissippi Park. Most of what I wrote in the shorter version was changed entirely in the longer. Yet I think you will find that the story stands up pretty well on its own merits.
Several years later, I would write the books that comprise the Word & Void series, but “Imaginary Friends” was the prototype. Read on, and you can discover a little about how the one led to the other.
— Terry Brooks
IMAGINARY FRIENDS
Terry Brooks
Jack McCall was ten days shy of his thirteenth birthday when he decided that he was dying. He had been having headaches for about six months without telling anyone, the headaches being accompanied by a partial loss of vision that lasted anywhere from ten to twenty minutes. He hadn’t thought much about it since it only happened once in a while, believing that it was simply the result of eyestrain. After all, there was a lot of homework assigned in the seventh grade.
But ten days before his birthday he had an attack as he was about to go out the door to school, and since he couldn’t very well ride his bike in that condition or stand around pretending that nothing was wrong, he was forced to admit the problem to his mother. His mother made an immediate appointment with Dr. Muller, the family pediatrician, for that afternoon, sat Jack down until his vision cleared, then drove him to school, asking him all the way there if he was all right and calling him “Jackie” until he thought he would scream.
She returned promptly when school let out to take him to his appointment. Dr. Muller was uncharacteristically cheerful as he checked Jack over, even going so far as to ruffle his hair and remark on how quickly he was growing. This was the same Dr. Muller who normally didn’t have two words for him. Jack began to worry.
When the doctor was finished, he sent Jack and his mother over to the hospital for further tests. The tests included X-rays, blood workups, an EKG, and a barrage of other examinations, all of which were administered by an uncomfortably youthful collection of nurses. Jack endured the application of cold metal implements to his body, let himself be stuck repeatedly with needles, breathed in and out, lay very still, jumped up and down, and mostly waited around in empty, sterile examination rooms. When the tests were all done, he was sent home knowing nothing more than he had when he arrived beyond the fact that he did not care ever to go through such an ordeal again.
That night, while Jack was upstairs in his room fiddling with his homework and listening to his stereo, Dr. Muller paid a visit to his house. His parents didn’t call for him, but that didn’t stop him from being curious. He slipped down the stairway to the landing and sat there in the dark on the other side of the half wall above the living room while Dr. Muller and his parents spoke in hushed tones. Dr. Muller did most of the talking. He said that the preliminary test results were back. He talked about the body and its cells and a bunch of other stuff, throwing in multisyllabic medical terms that Jack couldn’t begin to understand.
Then he used the words “blood disorder” and “leukemia” and “cancer.” Jack understood that part. He might only be in seventh grade, but he wasn’t stupid.
He stayed on the stairway until he heard his mother start to cry, then crept back up to his room without waiting to hear any more. He sat there staring at his unfinished homework, trying to decide what he should be feeling. He couldn’t seem to feel anything. He heard Dr. Muller leave, and then his parents came up to see him. Usually they visited him individually; when they both appeared it was serious business. They knocked on the door, came inside when invited, and stood there looking decidedly uncomfortable. Then his father told him that he was sick and would have to take it easy for a while, his mother started crying and calling him “Jackie” and hugging him, and all of a sudden he was scared out of his socks.
He didn’t sleep much that night, letting the weight of what he had discovered sink in, trying to comprehend what his dying meant, trying to decide if he believed it was possible. Mostly, he thought about Uncle Frank. Uncle Frank had been his favorite uncle, a big man with strong hands and red hair who taught him how to throw a baseball. Uncle Frank used to take him to ballgames on Sunday afternoons. Then he got sick. It happened all at once. He went into the hospital and never came out. Jack’s parents took him to see Uncle Frank a couple of times. There was not much left of Uncle Frank by then. His once-strong hands were so frail he could barely lift them. All his hair had fallen out. He looked like an old man.
Then he died. No one came right out and said it, but Jack knew what had killed him. And he had always suspected, deep down inside where you hid things like that, that it might someday kill him, too.
The next morning Jack dressed, wolfed down his breakfast as quickly as he could, and got out of there. His parents were behaving like zombies. Only his little sister Abby was acting as if everything was all right, which was the way she always acted since she was only eight and never knew what was going on anyway.
It was Friday, always a slow-moving day at Roosevelt Junior High, but never more so than on this occasion. The morning seemed endless, and Jack didn’t remember any of it when it was finally over. He trudged to the lunchroom, found a seat off in a corner where he could talk privately, and told his best friend Waddy Wadsworth what he had discovered. Reynolds Lucius Wadsworth III was Waddy’s real name, the result of a three-generation tradition of unparalleled cruelty in the naming of first-born boys. No one called Waddy by his real name, of course. But they didn’t call him anything sensible either. It was discovered early on that Waddy lacked any semblance of athletic ability. He was the kid who couldn’t climb the knotted rope or do chin-ups or high-jump when the bar was only two feet off the ground. Someone started calling him Waddy and the name stuck. It wasn’t that Waddy was fat or anything; he was just earthbound.
He was also a good guy. Jack liked him because he never said anything about the fact that Jack was only a little taller than most fire hydrants and a lot shorter than most girls.
“You look okay to me,” Waddy said after Jack had finished telling him he was supposed to be dying.?“I know I look okay.” Jack frowned at his friend impatiently. “This isn’t the kind of thing you can see, you know.”
“You sound okay, too.” Waddy took a bite of his jelly sandwich. “Does
anything hurt?”
Jack shrugged. “Just when I have the headaches.”
“Well, you don’t have them more often now than you did six months ago, do you?”
“No.”
“And they don’t last any longer now than they did then, do they?”
“No.”
Waddy shoved the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Well, then, who’s to say you’re really dying? This could be one of those conditions that just goes on indefinitely. Meantime, they might find a cure for it; they’re always finding cures for this kind of stuff.” He chewed some more. “Anyway, maybe the doctor made a mistake. That’s possible, isn’t it?”
Jack nodded doubtfully.
“The point is, you don’t know for sure. Not for sure.” Waddy cocked his head. “Here’s something else to think about. They’re always telling someone or other that they’re going to die and then they don’t. People get well all the time just because they believe they can do it. Sometimes believing is all it takes.”
He gave Jack a lopsided grin. “Besides, no one dies in the seventh grade.”
Jack wanted to believe that. He spent the afternoon trying to convince himself. After all, he didn’t personally know anyone his age who had died. The only people he knew who had died were much older. Even Uncle Frank. He was just a kid. How could he die when he still didn’t know anything about girls? How could he die without ever having driven a car? It just didn’t seem possible.
Nevertheless, the feeling persisted that he was only fooling himself. It didn’t make any difference what he believed; it didn’t change the facts. If he really had cancer, believing he didn’t wouldn’t make it go away. He sat through his afternoon classes growing steadily more despondent, feeling helpless and wishing he could do something about it.
It wasn’t until he was biking home that he suddenly found himself thinking about Pick.
The McCall house was a large white shake-shingle rambler that occupied almost an acre of timber bordering the north edge of Sinnissippi Park. The Sinnissippi Indians were native to the area, and several of their burial mounds occupied a fenced-off area situated in the southwest corner of the park under a cluster of giant maples. The park was more than forty acres end to end, most of it woods, the rest consisting of baseball diamonds and playgrounds. The park was bordered on the south by the Rock River, on the west by Riverside Cemetery, and on the north and east by the private residences of Woodlawn. It was a sprawling preserve, filled with narrow, serpentine trails; thick stands of scrub-choked pine; and shady groves of maple, elm, and white oak. A massive bluff ran along the better part of its southern edge and overlooked the Rock River.
Jack was not allowed to go into the park alone until he was out of fourth grade, not even beyond the low maintenance bushes that grew where his backyard ended at the edge of the park. His father took him for walks sometimes, a bike ride now and then, and once in a while his mother even came along. She didn’t come often, though, because she was busy with Abby, and his father worked at the printing company and was usually not home until after dark. So for a long time the park remained a vast, unexplored country that lay just out of reach and whispered enticingly in Jack’s youthful mind of adventure and mystery.
Sometimes, when the lure was too strong, he would beg to be allowed to go into the park by himself, just for a little ways, just for a few tiny minutes. He would pinch his thumb and index finger close together to emphasize the smallness of his request. But his mother’s reply was always the same—his own backyard was park enough for him.
Things have a way of working out, though, and the summer before he entered second grade he ended up going into the park alone in spite of his parents. It all came about because of Pick. Jack was playing in the sandbox with his toy trucks on a hot July afternoon when he heard Sam whining and barking at something just beyond the bushes. Sam was the family dog, a sort of mongrel terrier with a barrel body. He was carrying on as if he had unearthed a mountain lion, and finally Jack lifted himself out of the maze of crisscrossing paths he was constructing and wandered down to the end of the yard to see what was happening. When he got there, he found that he still couldn’t see anything because Sam was behind a pine tree on the other side of the bushes. Jack called, but the dog wouldn’t come. After standing there for a few minutes, Jack glanced restlessly over his shoulder at the windows of his house. There was no sign of his mother. Biting his lower lip with stubborn determination, he stepped cautiously onto forbidden ground.
He was concentrating too hard on what lay behind him. As he passed through the bushes, he stumbled and struck his head sharply on a heavy limb. The blow stung, but Jack climbed back to his feet almost immediately and went on.
Sam was jumping around at the base of the pine, darting in and out playfully. There was a gathering of brambles growing there and a bit of cloth caught in them. When Jack got closer, he saw that the bit of cloth was actually a doll. When he got closer still, he saw that the doll was moving.
“Don’t just stand there!” the doll yelled at him in a very tiny but angry voice. “Call him off!”
Jack caught hold of Sam’s collar. Sam struggled, twisting about in Jack’s grip, trying to get back to his newfound discovery. Finally Jack gave the dog a sharp slap on its hind end and sent it scurrying away through the bushes. Then he crouched down beneath the pine, staring at the talking doll. It was a little man with a reddish beard, green shirt and pants, black boots and belt, and a cap made out of fresh pine needles woven together.
Jack giggled. “Why are you so little?” he asked.
“Why am I so little?” the other echoed. He was struggling mightily to free himself. “Why are you so big? Don’t you know anything?”
“Are you real?” Jack pressed.
“Of course I’m real! I’m an Elf!”
Jack cocked his head. “Like in the fairy tales?”
The Elf was flushed redder than his beard. “No, not like in the fairy tales! Since when do fairy tales tell the truth about Elves? I suppose you think Elves are just cute little woodfolk who spend their lives prancing about in the moonlight? Well, we don’t! We work!”
Jack bent close so he could see better. “What do you work at?”
“Everything!” The Elf was apoplectic.
“You’re funny,” Jack said, rocking back on his heels. “What’s your name?”
“Pick. My name is Pick,” muttered the Elf. He twisted some more and finally gave up. “What’s yours?”
“Jack. Jack Andrew McCall.”
“Well, look, Jack Andrew McCall. Do you think you could help me get out of these brambles? It’s your fault, after all, that I’m in them in the first place. That is your dog, isn’t it? Well, your dog was sneaking around where I was working and I didn’t hear him. He barked and frightened me so badly I got myself caught. Then he began sniffing and drooling all over me, and I got tangled up even worse!” He took a deep breath, calming himself. “So how about it? Will you help me?”
“Sure,” Jack agreed at once.
He started to reach down, and Pick cried out, “Be careful with those big fingers of yours! You could crush me! You’re not a clumsy boy, are you? You’re not one of those boys that goes around stepping on ants?”
Jack was always pretty good with his hands, and he managed to free the Elf in a matter of seconds with little or no damage to either from the brambles. He put Pick on the ground in front of him and sat back. Pick brushed at his clothes, muttering inaudibly.
“Do you live in the park?” Jack asked.
Pick glanced up, sour-faced once more. His pine needle cap was askew. “Of course I live in the park! How else could I do my work if I didn’t?” He jabbed out with one finger. “Do you know what I do, Jack Andrew? I look after this park! This whole park, all by myself! That is a terrible responsibility for a single Elf!”
Jack was impressed. “How do you look after it?”
Pick shoved t
he cap back into place. “Do you know what magic is?”
Jack scratched at a mosquito bite on his wrist. “It turned Cinderella into a fairy princess,” he answered doubtfully.
“Good gosh golly, are they still telling that old saw? When are they ever going to get this fairy tale business right? They keep sticking to those ridiculous stories about wicked stepmothers, would-be princesses, and glass slippers at a royal ball—as if a glass slipper would last five minutes on a dance floor!” He jumped up and down so hard that Jack started. “I could tell them a thing or two about real fairy tales!” Pick exploded. “I could tell them some stories that would raise the hair on the backs of their necks!”
He stopped, suddenly aware of Jack’s consternation. “Oh, never mind!” he huffed. “This business of fairy tales just happens to be a sore subject with me. Now about what I do, Jack Andrew. I keep the magic in balance, is what I do. There’s magic in everything, you know—from the biggest old oak to the smallest blade of grass, from ants to elephants. And it all has to be kept in balance or there’s big trouble. That’s what Elves really do. But there’s not enough of us to be everywhere, so we concentrate on the places where the magic is strongest and most likely to cause trouble—like this park.” He swept the air with his hand. “There’s lots of troublesome magic in this park.”
Jack followed the motion of his hand and then nodded. “It’s a big place.”
“Too big for most Elves, I’ll have you know!” Pick announced. “Want to see how big?”
Jack nodded yes and shook his head no all in the same motion. He glanced hurriedly over his shoulder, remembering anew his mother. “I’m not supposed to go into the park,” he explained. “I’m not even supposed to go out of the yard.”
“Oh,” said Pick quietly. He rubbed his red-bearded chin momentarily, then clapped his hands. “Well, a touch of magic will get the job done and keep you out of trouble at the same time. Here, pick me up, put me in your hand. Gently, Boy! There! Now let me settle myself. Keep your hand open, palm up. Don’t move. Now close your eyes. Go on, close them. This won’t hurt. Close your eyes and think about the park. Can you see it? Now, watch…”