Imaginary... friend?

[WP] "And how many claws does Stewie have?" you ask your daughter as you consult the list your mother gave you. You need to figure out if your daughter's invisible friend is a monster, demon, or fairy and if you have to kill it to save her.

*****

"This is important, honey," says Eric, consulting the battered journal in his hands. "I need you to point to the image that most looks like your friend. Understand?"

Eric inherited the leather-bound journal from his mother. Well, inherited is perhaps a little strong, Eric supposes. He'd come across it while clearing out her cluttered attic a few days after her death and claimed it as his own. It could come in useful, he'd thought, because his daughter had a problem and it was perhaps possible that this book held an answer.

The journal is a faded compendium of the bizarre and impossible, of the otherworldly. Notes at the front detail types of hereditary conditions. They are followed by detailed explanations on the collective subconscious, about Carl Jung's more esoteric theories, about how certain people pass down not just traits, but images, concepts, and manifestations to the next generation.

"I'll look, Daddy, if that's what you want," Anna says. "But Dinah says I shouldn't. She says I should close my eyes and scream."

Eric's smile, already forced, strains further. It's like a rubber band pulled taut and ready to snap for good. Dinah, he thinks. Fucking Dinah. If she dared scream... "Dinah's not your daddy, sweetie," he manages.

Anna takes the journal from her father and leafs through the strange drawings. Many kinds of creatures lurk within the pages, although not all scary -- some just look like cats with extra paws on their legs. She prefers her friend to any of the cats. Her friend is much more comforting in appearance.

"Not this one," she says, then turns the page. "Hmm, nor this one."

It'd be easier, Eric thinks, if her mother were here to straighten out this stupidity. But the imaginary friend had only started visiting after his wife's death. Personally he'd have ignored the issue completely -- it's not abnormal to have an imaginary friend -- but the interfering English teacher at her school seemed to think it had become serious. The 'friend' was marking its territory and had become aggressively protective over Anna.

No, he knew he'd need to sort this out himself. Have to put an end to it.

Anna flicks through the fairy section. Leafs through the monster section, too. When she reaches the demons, she slows down, taking her time now as if enjoying the scrawled artworks.

"Does it look more like those?" Eric asks impatiently. He leans over. That one looks like an elderly woman with scratched out eyes. Not very imaginative. Who the hell drew these? The book seems older than his mother. But it does reference Jung so it can't be much older.

Not that she was actually his mother. She was his step-mother, and only for a few months. Tragically, mother and daughter died together in a car accident. Swerved off the road when another car came roaring into them around a mountain corner. The other driver must have been insane! It was a game of chicken for him and he wouldn't lose.

Eric smiles at the memory. Even the thought releases a rush of adrenaline. He could have died that day, too. But he didn't. And now he was wealthy. Owned two houses. And had a daughter, which was unfortunate but probably only temporary. Especially the way she was--

"This one!" Anna says excitedly, pointing at the black-eyed old-woman-demon.

Eric takes the book and reads the slim description.

This demon is a matriarchal figure passed down through the feminine bloodline, along with a handful of memories from each of its friends (the living person). Usually, the demon only stays with the girl until puberty, at which point it will--

He stops reading. Pseudoscience! What was the point of any of this? This drawing isn't of her imaginary friend. No girl chooses to make their friend look like a feeble old woman. He decides then and there: either the girl suppresses her imagination, starting tonight, or else the girl joins her mother in a dark far away place.

"Dadd--"

"Enough," he snaps, the rubber-band-smile broken for good. "First of all, no more Daddy. I'm not your father and never will be or want to be. I'm sick of hearing that word. Daddy. Second: bed, now. We've wasted enough time with this nonsense. Here's what we're going to next time you see Dinah. You're going to tell her she's not real and she has to go away for good. And if you don't do that, then you--"

His hairs prick up. The light hairs on his neck and arms first, as if they sense the danger before his mind is aware. The oldest part of his brain, the reptilian part, is responsible for this. It controls this automatic response to ancient threats.

He then smells the sour-sweet air as a cold draft tickles his neck.

"You should have been nicer to her," says a voice as prickly as a cactus. Run, says his brain, but his legs won't move. The reptilian brain already knows its defeated.

Instead he managed to turn his neck, very slowly.

"I'm sorry, Daddy," says Anna. "But she thinks you've been bad."

The black-eyed woman, with wrinkles that fold into the deep darkness of her tar-soul, stands crooked behind him.

He swallows hard and pisses himself at the same time.

In the demon's face he sees his own terror.

He sees memories of the girl's mother. The girl's grandmother. And more than anything, he sees the girl herself.

"She told me what you did, Daddy. And you were very bad."

"I..."

When Dinah's mouth opens, it doesn't stop opening. It clicks and cracks and extends into a cavernous maw. The jaws open wide enough to swallow his entire head, then teeth -- a dozen rows on needles and jagged rocks -- protract as the mouth snaps shut over him.

"Goodbye, Daddy," says Anna.

*****

THE END.