Letters to Jenny

by Piers Anthony

  I paused here to phone the Cumbersome Hospital and inquire how you were doing. (I had to wait until my daughter Cheryl got off the phone; she’s home from college, and she’s my Elfquest expert. Yes, I know I have written a story for Elfquest—it’s in Blood of Ten Chiefs—but my daughter is the elf freak in this family.) The lady took a while to answer, because she was with you. I didn’t mean to interrupt that! She said you had a good day and were smiling a lot, and that you sat in the sunshine for a while. That’s nice. I told her to tell you I’d called. You do remember who I am? Don’t give me that perplexed look! I see that smirk hiding. You’re trying to pretend you don’t remember, and it won’t work. Not this time. I think.

  Where was I? Oh, yes—the elf girl and her cat. That’s Jenny Elf, and her cat can find anything—except home. So she has to chase after him (maybe it’s a her—your mother described your eleven cats and one rabbit to me, but didn’t say which one of them finds things, so I don’t have a name or description yet. When you hear this letter, you can let me know exactly which cat it is) so she can bring him back home when he gets lost. This time he was looking for a centaur feather, and he found it, but by the time he did, he was lost and so was Jenny Elf. Really lost. Because, you see, she’s not from Xanth. Xanth elves are associated with Elf Elms, and the farther from the elms they get, the weaker they are. Jenny is from the World of Two Moons, and she doesn’t know anything about elms or centaurs. That’s right—she’s an Elfquest elf, and oh, boy is she lost! She was so busy chasing after the cat, just trying to keep him in sight, that she paid no attention to the route they took, and made a journey no one else ever made before, from Elfquest to Xanth. The second chapter will be all about her. See, it’s titled “Jenny’s Journey.” Now I’ll have to bore you with some technical stuff again. You see, I can’t just take an Elfquest elf without asking. But as it happens, I know Richard Pini, who publishes Elfquest; his wife Wendy draws the pictures. So I’ll make sure it’s okay with him. I’m sure it will be. Some day they may make Xanth into one of their comics, so we have to get along. When we met, Cheryl just about freaked out, meeting someone that famous. She was trying to drink a milkshake, as I recall, and each time she took a mouthful he would say something funny so that she had to laugh. We have a picture of her trying not to laugh in the middle of a mouthful; her cheeks are bulging and she looks desperate. I’m the only other one I know who is mean enough to do that to a fan. Anyway, it should be all right, and this will be something unique: Elfquest in Xanth. If folk hate it, it’s all your fault.

  Okay, you can wake up now, the boring part is over. Chex mentions that she’s looking for Che, and Jenny’s cat takes off, and Jenny runs after him because she knows she’ll never find him if she doesn’t keep him in sight. He’s not running away from her, understand; he just gets so excited with the chase after something that he forgets. He really does want to come home, once he finds what he’s after. Chex tries to follow, but they disappear into the thick jungle where she can’t follow and are lost. That’s why the second chapter is from Jenny’s view. The cat finds Che—but the goblins have him. That’s bad, and Jenny knows she has to do something to get him away. She does, but then the goblins chase her too. She finds a raft and takes Che on it on the With-a-Cookee river where they can’t go. (Oddest coincidence: near here we have the Withlacoochee River that flows the same way.)

  Well, there’s a whole lot of adventure I won’t bore you with, because I haven’t figured it out yet. But near the end they learn why the goblins grabbed Che: the grand-daughter of their chief is a very nice girl—goblin men are all ugly and mean, but their girls are pretty and nice—but she’s lame and just can’t get around very well. So they wanted to get a good steed for her, so she can ride places. Of course Che is too young to ride, let alone fly, but the goblins didn’t know that. The goblin girl is Gwendolyn, Gwenny for short, and Jenny likes her a lot. It’s really too bad she can’t have a centaur to ride. No need to spoil the ending for you—what? But—well, if you feel that way, okay, I’ll spoil it. They finally take Gwenny to live with the centaurs, and Jenny stays with them too, because no one knows how to get back to the World of Two Moons. Not in this novel, anyway.

  There’s more to the novel, about Dolph and which of his two betrothees he chooses, but you have the idea about Jenny Elf. She wraps up in Chapter 14, and then we go to Dolph and the girls for what turns out to be a really difficult decision. I wonder if the Elfquest folk will want to take Jenny back to their world and have her in a comic? You never can tell what will happen. Anyway, you now know more about it than anyone else does, and I hope you’re satisfied. You aren’t? You what? Oh, yes, Jenny Elf does look a bit like you, in her elfin way. I thought you understood about that.

  Odds & ends: remember when you smiled for the first time, and your mother was so excited she wrote me a four page letter? Well, then you laughed, and she wrote six pages. You had better slow down, because you don’t want her to write even more! I managed to make her laugh, when I told her on the phone about the key I have on my computer; when I touch it, it flashes DON’T TOUCH THIS KEY AGAIN!. Another says HELP! I’M BEING HELD CAPTIVE IN THIS COMPUTER. It’s a strange thing: your mother started smiling and laughing again just about the time you did. Isn’t that a coincidence? Or maybe it was magic.

  I meant to explain about something that happened way back at the beginning of time, when you listened to my first letter. (When folk are my age, it can be easier to remember the distant past than what happened five minutes ago.) Your mother asked you whether you’d like to have a Jenny Elf or a Jenny Ogress in the novel, and you indicated that you wanted the elf. She asked you again, and you indicated the elf again. She asked you the same question yet again, and you began to get a bit impatient, because you’d already answered it twice, and wondered why she wasn’t paying attention. Then she asked still another time, and you got sort of frustrated. WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET YOUR ATTENTION—HIT YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH A TANGLE TREE?! I SAID ELF! At which point she began to get overexcited, and had to leave for a while. Well, I wanted to explain her side of it. At first she could hardly believe that you had answered, because the truth is, you hadn’t answered many questions before. So she asked you again. Then she was afraid it was just chance; maybe your eyes were moving around randomly and she was just seeing what she so much wanted to see. So she asked again, and you answered again. Then she thought, suppose she tells the nurses, and they say impossible, that child’s in a coma, you imagined it, so she might bring them in to see for themselves—and you’d be in a coma, not answering anything. So she asked again; she didn’t mean to upset you. It can be very difficult to function smoothly when someone you love is in trouble, and it’s very exciting when things start to get better. I guess you figured that out, because when she got hold of herself and brought a nurse in, you showed them that yes, you did know what you were doing, and the one who maybe thought it was impossible had to eat her thought. Now you know the whole story. Don’t tell your mother I told.

  Each time, I learn something new. In your mother’s last letter she mentioned that you and she are vegetarians, because you love animals too much to hurt them by eating them. Would you believe, I am a vegetarian for the same reason. Well, there were other reasons too, but once I left high school back in 1952 I sorted things out in my mind and decided not to eat any more meat. So for 37 years it’s been that way. My wife is a vegetarian because I am, and my daughters are too, though I told them they should make up their own minds about a thing as important as that. None of us like to hurt animals. My older daughter Penny has pet mice, because someone at college got a white mouse to feed to his snake, and when the snake wasn’t hungry he let the mouse go outside his door in the hall. Penny was appalled; she knew that a tame white mouse couldn’t survive in the wild, let alone the college dormitory hall. So she took it in and got another mouse as a companion for it, because mice don’t like to be alone any more than people do. The oddest thing was that the mouse she saved wasn
’t grateful; it tried to bite her finger every time she fed it. We helped her buy a three story mouse cage for them. Penny has parakeets, too, adopted from folk who didn’t want them. One was for sale at a flea market, and the poor thing was so downtrodden that it just hunched on the floor of the cage. But once it had company of its own kind, and decent care, it perked up and used the perches. We like to have a cage big enough so the birds can fly, you see. I think she has about five birds now, and they all look happy.

  Are you asleep yet? Not quite yet? Okay, a little more. We have little spiders around our house, because we don’t like to hurt them either, and they mostly mind their own business. We figure that if they can find enough bugs to eat, they must be doing us a favor. Sometimes one will come across my keyboard when I’m typing, and I wait and watch it till it’s clear. Meanwhile we’ve had a minor adventure with a cow. Our neighbors have cows they raise for—well, we don’t like to think about that. This is a brown cow who somehow got out of their pasture and into our forest, this past week. Last night she even found her way from our drive into our pasture, but she must have left again, because I spent twenty minutes looking for her this morning but all I found was some footprints, cowflops, and the white skull of a goat. Hm. Well, if that cow comes back, she’s welcome to some of our hay, and the company of our horses. I wouldn’t mind if the owner never got around to fetching her back. I’m calling her Elsie, the Bored Cow.

  Keep getting better, Jenny; you’re doing great.

  April 1989

  * * *

  A communications board provides helpful messages: “My—–hurts.” A girl is moved to Ward 7. A nerve is blocked. A companion is chosen. A support brace to therapists becomes elven armor in a girl’s imagination. Someone moves her left hand for the first time. A letter appears with a mysterious signature. A whistle sounds. And the first word is spoken, “Hi.”

  * * *

  Apull 3, 1989

  Dear Jenny,

  What’s that? Why didn’t I send this letter in care of the Monster Under the Bed in the Cute Care section of Cumbersome Hospital, as I have before? Well, it’s a long story. You see I have a feature of my computer program that will put on a whole address when I type one word. That way I can type “Jenny” and it puts it all there in half an eyeblink. I use it mostly for business letters, but since I’ve been writing fairly often to you, I decided to put you in too. Then when I print out the letter, I can copy that address for the envelope. But if I set it up with the Bed Monster and all, I might accidentally type that onto the envelope, and then I’m not sure exactly where the letter would go, but I’m afraid it would not reach you as quickly. So give the Bed Monster my regrets; this letter is in care of someone else.

  I was going to write to you yesterday, Sunday, and phone the hospital to learn how you were doing, but things happened. My day started well, because when I rode my bicycle out to pick up the newspapers (we’re so deep in the forest that our mail box is three quarters of a mile away) I saw a cloud sitting on the ground. It had come down to rest for the night, where it thought no one would see, but it overslept and I saw it resting about three feet above the ground, and the tops of the trees showing above it. It’s a rare thing to catch a cloud napping like that; mostly they stay way up high and pretend that they never sleep at all.

  I decided it was time to listen to that record with the beautiful picture on the album, the one with the huge stone musical instruments and the castle in the background, and the girl in the red dress dancing—well, maybe she’s just standing there enjoying it, with the wind blowing her hair off to the side, just the way you’re going to, one of these days, after you get better—but to do that I had to put together the record player, after postponing that chore for about a year. So I got it set up, and the tape player too—what a mass of wires and connections and things, all threaded through impossible-to-reach little holes in the back! That’s almost as bad as combing the tangles out of your hair after you’ve been through a windstorm. That used up my morning, but I did listen to the record. That hammer dulcimer actually sounds delicate, not at all like a carpenter’s hammer on metal. Oh I knew better, but somehow that’s how I thought of it. It’s nice enough music, and it does sound as if there’s a heartbeat in it. Maybe I’ll get one of those dulcimers, though I have no hope of playing it decently. If you and I ever meet, you can play it decently. My daughter Cheryl was home from college this week, and she’s taking a class in the recorder, and she was practicing on it, tootling away at all hours of the day and night. My parents used to play the recorder, and I think it’s great if my daughter does too. The more music the better. This morning on the radio I heard Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, and that’s one of the loveliest pieces I’ve heard. I was trying to read the newspaper, but I just had to stop and listen. Oh, I know, that sounds like a cumbersome title, but believe me, the music is beautiful, and if you ever get a chance to listen to it, do so. For that matter, if you ever have a chance to listen to Grieg’s Peer Gynt—I’m not sure I’ve spelled that right, but it’s such wonderful music that it almost gives me hope for the world.

  Anyway, that’s how my morning went. Then the phone rang: two of my readers were in town and wanted to visit. Okay, I meant to talk with them for an hour, but I always talk three times as much as is good for me—it’s a trait I share with your mother, I think—and it was close to three hours before they left. Then I had to mow our lawn. We’re deep in the forest, but we do have a little lawn around the house, in patches; it was even, but the horses grazed parts down to bare dirt, until we confined them to the pasture. That finished my afternoon. Then I had to finish Chapter Three of Isle of View, and that was only 500 words but I kept running into things I had to figure out, so it took time. So I never got to this letter, and never called the hospital. I hope you didn’t miss me. So now I’m doing it first thing this morning.

  Yes, I wrote Chapter Two, with Jenny Elf. She managed to scare off the goblins by picking cherry bombs from a nearby cherry tree and tossing them behind the goblins, who fled. Then she untied Che Centaur and told the cat to find a safe place, and then the two of them followed the cat. Your folks were going to ask you about the name of that cat, but you had such a big day that day, with everyone visiting (and listening to my last letter? Ouch—I hope I didn’t say anything naughty!) that there wasn’t time for that. I understand you are doing so well that they may move you out of Cute Care. All those nurses there will be so lonely when you go! Anyway, Jenny and Che and the cat do make it to the raft on the With-a-Cookee River, but mean Fracto drives them back to shore and the goblins capture them. Tune in next week, when maybe I will have written the next Jenny chapter and saved her from a fate worse than a flu shot.

  I’m enclosing a comic strip, “Curtis.” I don’t read comics much these days, except for “Calvin and Hobbes,” but the newspaper is just now starting this one up, so that they can have a black comic to go with all the white comics they have. I think I’m going to like it, and you can see why. We vegetarians can get obnoxious when we try.

  Last night I looked out back, and there were dozens of fireflies flashing green. That’s the first time I’ve seen them here. Maybe the freshly mowed lawn attracted them. Folk who hate bugs should try watching fireflies some time.

  Remember Elsie the Bored Cow? Then I saw another one, Hownow Brown, and my wife saw a third, and we realized that there must be a hole in the fence. Those cows belong to the sheriff, and he checked and found that the air-boats had shoved a hole in his fence where it’s at the pond, and the cows were getting through. So they weren’t lost, they were just heading for the farthest and greenest pastures.

  Tell your mother that I got her letter of Marsh 29 and I hope she’s well enough this week to come in and see you. Maybe she’ll be able to read this letter to you. Of course that means I can’t say things about her, the way I have in other letters; she might be listening. She asked about the article I wrote for THE WRITER that mentioned you, so I’m enclosing one of the messed-
up copies my computer ran off. You are mentioned on page 7; tell her she doesn’t need to bother reading the rest of it, which is mostly about technicalities of writing. I don’t know when it will be published, but at least this will let you folk know what I said.

  Keep getting better, Jenny! I understand you even waved to your daddy the other day. I guess that’s better than wiggling a toe at him.

  Apull 9, 1989

  [This letter was addressed to Jenny at Warp 7-A, Sick Bay,

  Enterprise.]

  Dear Jenny,

  What’s that? You don’t recognize the pun? It relates to Star Trek, where they are always zooming into space at Warp Factor 7 or something. When I heard you had moved to—oh, Ward? Sorry, I misheard. And they have a barrier up to block off the nerds—what? Oh, nerves. I thought you said—well, never mind.

  I have some good news, which you may already have heard. I wrote to Richard Pini, and he phoned me and said it was fine to use an Elfquest elf in Xanth. In fact, he said they would send you a note. I gave him your address; I thought it was all right. So if the one thing you wanted more than a note from Xanth was one from Elfquest, now maybe you have it.

  Remember how your mother wrote me a four page letter when you smiled, and six pages when you laughed? When you got better enough to leave Cute Care, she called me and talked for seven pages. I think she’s having trouble keeping up with you.

  I’m still working on Isle of View. I am now in Chapter 5, “Chex’s Checks,” and right now Chex is trying to get past the evil cloud Fracto, who naturally wants to stop her from getting wherever she’s going. Grundy Golem is with her, yelling insults at Fracto, so it’s getting pretty stormy. I’ll be back with Jenny Elf in the next chapter, but first I have to get through this one. Writing a novel can be almost as much work as recovering from a coma, I think. Well, maybe not that much. Some day maybe you’ll write a novel, and you can let me know then. Chex is going to fly so high, trying to get over Fracto, that she winds up on the moon, and not the honey side of it either. Did you ever get all four feet mired in green cheese? Even Grundy’s big mouth isn’t going to be much help there!