Imaginary Friends

by John Marco

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  INTRODUCTION

  A GOOD DAY FOR DRAGONS

  STANDS A GOD WITHIN THE SHADOWS

  NEITHER

  WALKING SHADOWS

  SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND

  JUSTINE AND THE MOUNTIE

  SUBURBAN LEGEND

  BEST FRIENDS FOREVER

  GREG AND ELI

  AN ORCHID FOR VALDIS

  THE BIG EXIT

  WHETHER ’TIS NOBLER IN THE MIND

  IMAGES OF DEATH

  About the Author

  “I don’t see you, I don’t see you . . .”

  Justine staggered down the hallway, the floor reeling beneath her feet as though she were on a ship at sea—a rough, rolling sea—instead of at home in her calm, land-locked apartment.

  “Dammit,” she said, as she stumbled into a wall. She was not drunk—didn’t even like to drink, except maybe for the occasional glass of wine. No, a problem with her inner ear was to blame. This was vertigo, and her doctor told her to hold tight, and it should pass.

  Finally she reached the doorway to her bedroom and swept past the Mountie standing there.

  Mountie?

  She turned ever so slowly and there he stood, the Mountie, tall and broad shouldered, attired in hat and scarlet coat and shiny boots. With his square jaw and sandy, neatly trimmed hair, he looked as though he’d just walked off a movie set.

  Justine screamed, and between the shock and vertigo, she fell to her backside.

  He bent over her, scrutinizing her. “May I help you?”

  —From “Justine and the Mountie” by Kristen Britain

  IMAGINARY FRIENDS

  Also Available from DAW Books:

  Mystery Date, edited by Denise Little

  First dates—the worst possible times in your life or the opening steps on the path to a wonderful new future? What happens when someone you have never met before turns out not to be who or what he or she claims to be? It’s just a date, what could go wrong? Here are seventeen encounters, from authors such as Kristine Katherine Rusch, Nancy Springer, Laura Resnick, and Jody Lynn Nye that answer these questions. From a childhood board game called “Blind Date” that seems to come shockingly true . . . to a mythological answer to Internet predators . . . to a woman cursed to see the truth about her dates when she imbibes a little wine . . . to an enchanting translator bent on avenging victims of war crimes . . . to a young man hearing a very special voice from an unplugged stereo system . . . these are just some of the tales that may lead to happily ever after—or no ever after all. . . .

  Fellowship Fantastic, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes

  The true strength of a story lies in its characters and in both the ties that bind them together and the events that drive them apart. Perhaps the most famous examples of this in fantasy is The Fellowship of The Ring. But such fellowhsips are key to many fantasy and science fiction stories. Now thirteen top tale-spinners—Nina Kiriki Hoffmann, Alan Dean Foster, Russell Davis, Alexander Potter, among others—offer their own unique looks at fellowships from: a girl who finds her best friend through a portal to another world . . . to four special families linked by blood and magical talent . . . to two youths ripped away from all they know and faced with a terrifying fate that they can only survive together . . . to a man who must pay the price for leaving his childhood comrade to face death alone. . . .

  The Future We Wish We Had, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Rebecca Lickiss

  In the opening decade of the twenty-first century, many things that were predicted in the science fiction stories of the twentieth century have become an accepted part of everyday life, and many other possibilities have not yet been realized but hopefully will be one day. For everyone who thought that by now they’d be motoring along the skyways in a personal jet car, or who assumed we’d have established bases on the Moon and Mars, or that we would have conquered disease, slowed the aging process to a crawl, or eliminated war, social injustice, and economic inequity, here are sixteen stories of futures that might someday be ours or our children’s from Esther Friesner, Sarah Hoyt, Kevin J. Anderson, Irene Radford, Dave Freer, and Dean Wesley Smith

  Copyright © 2008 by Tekno Books and John Marco.

  All Rights Reserved.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1451.

  DAW Books is distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  All characters in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

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  First Printing, September 2008

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

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  eISBN : 978-1-4406-3252-5

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Introduction copyright © 2008 by John Marco

  “A Good Day for Dragons,” copyright © 2008 by Rick Hautala

  “Stands a God Within the Shadows,” copyright © 2008 by Anne Bishop

  “Neither,” copyright © 2008 by Jean Rabe

  “Walking Shadows,” copyright © 2008 by Juliet E. McKenna

  “Say Hello to My Little Friend,” copyright © 2008 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “Justine and the Mountie,” copyright © 2008 by Kristen Britain

  “Suburban Legend,” copyright © 2008 by Donald J. Bingle

  “Best Friends Forever,” copyright © 2008 by Tim Waggoner

  “Greg and Eli,” copyright © 2008 by Paul Genesse

  “An Orchid for Valdis,” copyright © 2008 by Russell Davis

  “The Big Exit,” copyright © 2008 by Bill Fawcett & Associates, Inc.

  “Whether ’tis Nobler in the Mind,” copyright © 2008 by Fiona Patton

  “Images of Death,” copyright © 2008 by Jim C. Hines

  INTRODUCTION

  John Marco

  SEVERAL years ago, while finishing up my degree in psychology, I was assigned a research paper for my class in human development. We could pick any topic we liked as long as it involved the psychology of childhood and, importantly, we could find enough research literature to support a paper. My mind went to work trying to come up with an interesting topic. Hands shot up at once as my fellow students announced what they would write about, which were mostly pedestrian, well-worn subjects like the effects of divorce on children or sibling rivalry. I sat quietly for a time, rejecting ideas as fast as they came to me, until at last inspiration arrived. I would write about imaginary friends.

  I was probably calling upon my inner fantasy writer when I came up with my topic. The notion of imaginary friends has fascinated me for years. I love the idea of a friend that no one else can see or sense but who uniquely belongs to a single child, conjured out of some deep, private need. Armed with my topic, I headed to the university library to find everything I could on the subject. I combed through books and journals and online databases, expecting to find a wealth of data. Surely a topic that interested me must also interest others, right?

  Wrong. All I found were a few weak research projects and oblique references to the phenomenon of imaginary friends. Certainly not enough to write a weighty paper on the subject. Dejected, I informed my professor that I would be writing about birth order instead.
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br />   But it’s a funny thing about subjects that interest you. They follow you around, demanding to be heard. Rather like some of the imaginary friends in this very anthology. If I couldn’t write a research paper about these ethereal playmates, then surely I could write fiction about them. Or better yet, I could helm a whole collection of stories about imaginary friends and see what kind of companions might spring from the minds of my fellow writers.

  Many of us have had imaginary friends. Maybe we don’t want to admit it, but if we think back to our youth, we might be able to summon a whisper of that talking lion who protected us when we were frightened or that perfect, petite little girl who was talented and fabulous and made us believe that we could be those things too. My own imaginary friend was a sandy-haired boy named Peter, who was miraculously the same exact age as me and liked all the things I liked. Peter was with me off and on for a while, and while I don’t remember much about him, I remember the sense of him. He wasn’t just my friend. He was also my secret.

  The thirteen writers in this collection all tapped into that part of their brain where unseen companions lurk. Some of these friends are the kind of heroic protectors we hope our own children might conjure. Others can hardly be described as “friends” at all. And because the imagination is boundless, these beings come in all shapes and sizes and very often aren’t human at all.

  From the pen of Rick Hautala comes the tale of a boy and a dragon, the kind of bittersweet story-telling that smacks of the end of summer. In Bill Fawcett’s “The Big Exit,” an imaginary buddy returns after years of being nearly forgotten to aid his “boy” in the desperate battlefield of war-torn Iraq. Other companions do their work quietly, such as Biff, the stuffed St. Bernard in Tim Waggoner’s marvelous “Best Friends Forever,” or the silent and sly “little friend” in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s startling and funny contribution.

  From the dark side, Anne Bishop brings us a haunting fairy tale of a woman trapped in a tower, forced to view the world only through a mirror. In “Walking with Shadows” by Juliet McKenna, a young girl on the precipice of change summons a life-threatening cohort. And Jim Hines brings us Death himself, coming in the guise of a cartoon character to warn a mother and her son that life is both precious and fleeting.

  To all the authors who contributed to this anthology, you have my thanks. Thank you for your hard work and willingness. Most of all, thank you for helping me put a punctuation mark at the end of a project that has simmered in my mind in various forms for years now.

  To the readers of this book, I hope more than just enjoyment for you. Let the stories in this collection start your mind to wandering and to remembering, and maybe to recalling a friend of your own who was there when needed.

  A GOOD DAY FOR DRAGONS

  Rick Hautala

  THE waves hissed and writhed like a nest of snakes as they washed across the sand, leaving behind dirt-flecked foam that bubbled angrily for a moment before it disappeared. The dragon walked along the beach close to the water’s edge, leaving huge, round craters wherever he stepped. The holes were soon swept away by the next rush of the rising tide. The dragon’s name was Benedict—Benny, for short. The boy who sat confidently astride Benny’s back between his large, leathery wings was called Alfie.

  The day was just about perfect . . . a good day for dragons. If it hadn’t been for a very slight chill that blew in off the water, it would have been beyond compare. But now the sun was dropping low in the western sky, casting Benny and Alfie’s shadow across the sand dunes like a wash of deep blue ink. The salty tang in the air was laced with adventure, but so far Benny and Alfie had been disappointed. They had spent the entire afternoon lying on the beach, enjoying the sun and sand, and taking an occasional dip in the ocean; but all day, they had been expecting the pirates to return to Mockingbird Bay. And all day, there hadn’t been even the slightest hint of their ship on the horizon.

  “Maybe we scared them away for good yesterday,” Alfie suggested, leaning close to Benny’s ear so the dragon could hear him above the gentle roar of the surf.

  “I doubt it,” Benny replied in a deep, booming voice that sounded like distant thunder. “They don’t scare very easily.”

  “Neither do we.”

  Benny paused and turned to look out to sea. The ocean heaved with tall, white-crested swells that rippled like flame in the light of the setting late afternoon sun. Out past South Port Head, the sky and water blazed with a dazzling display of orange and yellow that blended so perfectly that it was all but impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. The setting sun shone warmly on their faces, the last traces of this near-perfect summer day. Alfie sighed as he wiped a thin sheen of sweat from his forehead with his bare forearm. His other hand rested gently on the hilt of the wooden sword he wore under his belt.

  “What if they landed on the other side of the headlands?” Alfie nodded toward the huge, rounded hill that jutted out into the ocean. Waves crashed against the rocks, sending up white plumes of surf. “What if they’re sneaking up behind us right now?”

  In spite of the warm afternoon, a shiver rippled like an earth tremor through Benny. He belched. He did that whenever he got nervous. It was usually followed by a brief burst of flame from his nostrils, but thankfully,that didn’t happen this time. Benny realized it would have been all right if it had. He was facing out to sea, and he wouldn’t have burned anything except perhaps a swatch of sand and seaweed, or maybe he would have made the seawater boil and bubble a bit. When he really let loose, his breath was hot enough to turn beach sand into tiny beads of glass, which Alfie simply loved. He told Benny he took those glass beads home to his mother as gifts, and she strung them in her hair and around her neck. But Benny had never seen Alfie’s mother, and he began to wonder if she existed at all.

  But glass beads and burned kelp and invisible mothers were the furthest things from either of their minds.

  The pirates, led by the vicious captain known as Skipper Black, had come ashore yesterday morning, shortly after sunrise. It had taken all of Benny and Alfie’s bravery and skill as warriors to defend the beach. Only after a hard-fought battle that had lasted for hours and hours, when the sun was at its hottest, did the pirates finally retreat to their ship and sail away. Benny was so exhausted from the fighting that he didn’t have any flames left to burn the pirate ship before it sailed out of the bay. Alfie reminded him to save some of his fiery breath if they showed up later, but yesterday afternoon had passed peacefully, as had today, and evening was drawing on.

  “Should we go around the headlands and check?” Benny asked, turning his head, which was the size of a small pony, so he could look back at Alfie.

  Alfie cupped his chin with his hand and was silent for a long moment as he stared out across the glittering water. The sunlight was so dazzling that it would be easy not to see the pirate ship heaving over the waves until it was too late. Dark red clouds were closing in fast, looking like the slashes of angry claw marks across the sky. Alfie had a far-away look in his eyes, and Benny wondered if his friend could see better than he could. Alfie claimed that he could, but Benny wasn’t always sure he trusted everything Alfie said. He’d been known to exaggerate on occasion . . . like the time he told Benny about the fairy fruit he had stolen when he surprised a group of fairies having a midnight picnic.

  What was a little boy doing out in the woods at midnight? Benny wanted to know. And if he had eaten fairy fruit, he wouldn’t be here today to talk about it.

  Before Alfie could answer him, they got their answer when a cannon boomed from somewhere far off in the distance. The sound echoed within the small, sheltered cove, so at first neither Benny nor Alfie was sure from which direction it came.

  “From the north,” Alfie said, pointing in that direction, but Benny shook his scaly green head and said, “No. From the south.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “A dragon’s ears are much sharper than his eyes,” Benny said knowingly. “And his eyes are sharper t
han an eagle’s.”

  His shoulders and back grew rigid with tension. His wings, which were tucked up close to his body, began to twitch.

  “What say we fly there?” Alfie said, his voice pitched high with excitement. He was never happier than when they were flying together . . . especially if Benny was also breathing flames down on their enemies.Yesterday and—hopefully—today it was pirates, but the day before that—and maybe the day after tomorrow—it would be Indians or aliens from outer space. It didn’t matter who they were fighting. Whenever they were in the air, Alfie whooped and hollered and waved his arms with delight as Benny soared above the earth and breathed his fiery death upon their mortal foe du jour.

  “I suppose we could go up and have a look around,” Benny said. He knew how much Alfie loved to fly and was teasing him. “Are you sure you want to?”

  Alfie nodded with excitement lighting his eyes.

  “Hold on tightly, then.”

  Alfie clung to Benny’s neck and dug his knees into the dragon’s flanks as, with a few quick hops followed by several powerful strokes of his wings, the dragon became airborne. The ground receded at a rapid, dizzying rate. The higher up into the sky they went, the stronger the wind blew in their faces. Alfie’s long, dark hair was pulled straight back, and he narrowed his eyes to mere slits so he could see better. The patchwork of sand and sea grass and surrounding forest below them and the wide ocean receded, grew smaller and smaller by the second.

  “Look!” Alfie called out with delight. “I can see my house from here!”

  Benny chuckled. Alfie always said that even though he had never invited Benny to his house, and all he could see for miles around was sand and sea and forest.

  “Do you see the pirates?” Benny asked.

  Alfie took a moment to look around, and then, raisinghis arm and pointing—even though everyone knows it is not polite to point—he cried out, “Over there!”