information.

Of course it is happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?

~Albus Dumbledore

[ setting ]

Cambridge, Massachusetts. Never let it be said that this city has no imagination. It is imagination that has created the dimension in which Brattle and his compatriots live. It is the collective voice of four and a half million people wanting, crying out for escape or entertainment or possibly salvation. Four and a half million people who are scared, hurt, or simply bored; people who want something more.

Imagination has opened the doors to a world existing alongside Earth, like an invisible layer woven into the city.

Sometimes, desperation renders the imaginary layer visible for a fleeting moment. Sometimes, catching a glimpse of the imaginary layer is all it takes to break through the barrier. And sometimes, imagination has a price.

[ story ]

The official line is that Sophie, a nine-year-old girl with a very vivid imagination, has created a fantasy world populated with imaginary friends and has trouble differentiating between fantasy and reality. ("Hallucinations," the psychiatrist tells her mother in secret. "Dissociation. Psychosis," he suggests, more than once.)

The unofficial line is that Brattle was hanging around Cambridge when he saw a rather unsavory character following a little girl and her mother around. Careful observation indicated that said unsavory character was a fairly new addition, and that the little girl could see him while her mother couldn't. It was an odd situation, odd enough to prompt Brattle to turn himself into a dog and trail them around for another block, which is how he discovered that the little girl was in rather desperate need of a caretaker who truly understood what she was dealing with. And after all, he hadn't had a job in a while, it could be interesting.

"Hello," he had said. Barked, really.

The girl looked at him, then looked away, reluctantly. But she did reach out and scratch his ears. Obviously, the dog thing had been a stroke of brilliance. (Obviously, he didn't consider the fact that he'd have to maintain it while near her, which is sort of an inconvenience.)

Two blocks later, she named him Brattle Street.