The Trails We Walked

More from secretlysidhe. This was perhaps my favorite alt piece, and one of my overall favorite fictional pieces this season perhaps. It could use some work, sure...But still a story I enjoyed very much.



I’ve never been one to believe in ghosts, but I have a hard time explaining an incident (or rather a series of incidents) that happened to me when I was just a child. My mom will try to tell you that I had an imaginary friend, but I refuse to accept that he was anything less than real.

My dad was killed in a car accident when I was 10 years old. This left my mom and I to fend for ourselves. My mother was grief stricken and decided to sell our house in the city. She uprooted our lives, something that destroyed me. She took me away from my friends, my school, my neighborhood....and planted me smack dab in the middle of nowhere.

No brothers or sisters to speak off. No cable TV. No one to play with. My mom would barely speak to me except to tell me to go outside and play because she had a headache.

Play? With who, I would ask? For which she had no answer.

I took to exploring the wilderness behind my house. There was a trail that led to a dried up creek bed. One humid Saturday morning, I decided to venture down and see what delights an old creek could offer. I felt depressed that it would be the highlight of my day, and hoped that somewhere along the line, I might run into a bear or a snake just to make the day more interesting.

I walked along the beaten trail, breaking off twigs now and then as I passed. I would see a rock that caught my eye and stick it in my pocket if further investigation proved to keep my interest. I really didn’t pay any attention to the scene around me, a bear could have snuck up on me without me even noticing. If I focused too much on my surroundings, it would make me realize how utterly alone I was in the world. I preferred to be a part of something smaller, my own personal world instead.

After several minutes of ugly internal thoughts about finding the nearest cliff to jump off of, I heard something.

Laughter. A little boys laughter.

"Who's there?" I grabbed a nearby stick for protection.

More laughter, I couldn't tell where it was coming from. Behind me?

I turned around. No one. Only the thick brush, which could be hiding a person, couldn’t it?

The leaves rustled to the left of me, I quickly turned around with my stick aimed for attack.

"Who's there? Tell me and maybe I won't hit you!"

Laughter and a voice "silly girl!"

I held my stick up higher, taking aim at something I wasn't sure was out there. The leaves continued to move in the wind, or I had hoped it was the wind. Nothing else for several minutes...

Something brushed up against my arm, but there was nothing there as I turned to look...

A flash of movement in the trees made my knees go weak. Suddenly my braveness abandoned me and I made a quick dash up the hill toward my house. It felt like I would never make it, and I swore I heard laughter following me all the way to the back door.

I pushed open the screen door and let it slam behind me with a loud noise that would surely get me scolded. I couldn’t care less at this point.

"Valerie Ann! What on Earth?!?"

I told her what I heard in a frantic voice. I told her all about the boy's laughter.

She had plenty of plausible explanations for what it could be. It was a bird. Or just the trees ruffling in the wind. She said I was a city girl and simply not used to country noises.

"But mom...I heard him call me a silly girl!"

"Val, enough of that nonsense at once! No one lives within 4 miles of us! I doubt a little boy walked all the way here to talk to you!"

She brushed it off as more erratic behavior since I had been displaying a lot of that since dad died. She told me there would be no more talk of children living in the woods and sent me to my room as soon as dinner was over. She had enough of me, as she often did in those days, and sent me to my room to stare at the wall and think about things which no little girl should ever have to think about.

Since I had nothing better to do with my time, what harm could investigating further do? Besides, it’s the most interesting thing I had experienced since dad passed away.

I walked back out to the trail and ventured down the worn path once again. I found the same spot from the day before and stood there a moment before getting the nerve to go through with it.

"What's your name?"

At first, nothing.

Then a voice in the distance. I heard a name. "Alfred".

I giggled. I know it was mean, but I couldn’t help it.

"What kind of name is Alfred?"

Silence. Had I hurt the boy’s feelings? Was it really a boy that I was talking to? I felt bad regardless of whether or not this person was real.

"I'm sorry, that was mean. My name is Valerie. Or Val for short..."

A giggle was all I heard.

"So where are you?"

"I'm here..." His words were almost carried on the breeze, as if they traveled directly from his mouth to my ear so I would be the only person who could ever hear them. Maybe I was.

He offered very little of anything. He was a voice in the woods. I never saw the boy, but eventually the fear and my sanity left me and I'd venture down the trail daily. Alfred would merely giggle at my jokes and stories. He'd play hide and seek, except I never found him. I could tell him all about my father and how much I missed him and he would merely be a presence I could feel, but not see. I didn’t need to physically see or touch him, just his soft voice in the wind was all I needed to comfort me through one of the hardest summers of my life. I simply needed someone to listen.

Eventually, school started and the darkness came earlier. My mother refused to let me venture outside once it got dark. She told me something might eat me. I told her that Alfred would never let that happen and she would merely roll her eyes and tell me to grow up.

Then one day, I made some friends at school and stopped going into the woods altogether. I kept meaning to, but the joys of playing softball with real kids fascinated me more than talking to a boy I couldn’t see. I always felt a little guilty...

Fifteen years have passed, and my mother still lives in that same shack. I have since moved out. I left as soon as I was old enough to leave her bitter and cynical house. I rarely would stop by, but tried to visit when I could.

During one such visit recently, she decided to bring up my childhood friend.

"Do you remember your imaginary friend, Alfred or Albert, I think it was?"

She smiled at me. A smile of a mother who missed her child being so young and imaginative. If only she had appreciated it when I was young, perhaps I wouldn’t be as bitter as she is today.

"He wasn't imaginary..."

"Oh honey...yes he was...you're 25 years old and should know better..."

"He was very real and he was there for me when no one else was. Not even you."

I knew that would hurt, but her lack of being a proper mother to me still stung. The fact that she wasn’t there for me when I needed her most would always live with me. I wanted her to feel the pain and abandonment I once felt.

"Oh dear..." she eyed me carefully over her coffee cup. Judging my mental stability once again, I’m sure “Are you really okay about Jeff? Perhaps you should talk to someone...a counselor, maybe?”

I merely changed the subject. I had nothing to prove to her, or anyone. I had just found out that my fiance’ had cheated on me and felt alone. I needed her comfort, not her judgmental ways. I merely needed a friend.

But I wasn’t going to find it in her. I’m not sure why I ever thought I would.

That afternoon, I found myself behind the house, on the same trails I walked as a kid. I pulled my coat tighter around me and walked toward the dried up creek. Not much had changed in 15 years. The trees were still the same trees, the creek was sure to still be dry... I wasn’t sure what I might find there, but whatever it was, I needed it in that moment.

As I walked into the woods, the sound of a boy's laughter filled the air.

See mom? He is real. I told you so...