22

  Cody

  We gathered at the Lake Friday after school. Susie, Brad, and I even ditched Cheer and Football practice respectively. The threat of having to do some extra burpees and somersaults in our near future wasn’t bad enough to stop us from doing what we knew we had to do.

  “Christian said he would be back Monday, if we find him and he’s fine, if everything is fine, I know he’ll come back Monday,” I said.

  “Oh no, no, we’re not going in there just to pop in and check up on our buddy,” Susie said with a bite at the end of her sentence, “We go in there, and we drag his ass out, by his ankles if we have to. This is going to be a wakeup call for him,” Susie said, “From now on, weekends only, and only three-day weekends if one of us goes with him,” she dug her feet into the ground and stood up to two men over a head taller than her. No wonder she makes such a good prosecutor, this woman could bite even the mightiest monster’s head off with one of her emotional and damning accusations. “If he wants to waste every waking moment he can in Lala land, that’s his prerogative, but I’m not going to let him drag us down for questioning if he goes missing while people know we know him,” Susie said, “After graduation, to hell with it, we could never see him again for all I care, he can give up on trying to have a life and just live there for all I care, but not while I’m involved, not while we’re involved,” Susie’s eyes darted between Brad’s and mine, “We’re a part of this, Brad, think of the questions if somehow people found out what this place was, Cody, think about your friend and how he may be about to throw his entire life away for a fantasy,” she said.

  “You’re right,” I said, looking down, my voice well neutered by Susie’s tongue lashing.

  “I’m sorry? What?” Susie asked. I know damn well she heard me, but she wanted me to mean it, I half expected her to yell ‘Sound off like you got a pair,’.

  “You’re right,” I said, looking straight at her, memory of that wonderful night Somewhere Else being the only thing that held my voice in restraint from snapping a little too hard at her.

  “Good, now let’s go,” Susie said, taking initiative I hadn’t seen her take before and being the first to jump into the lake. Usually, she was the last one of us to enter when we all went together. On one awkward day I had figured out where we would all land and I got into position to catch her. I wonder sometimes if the felling I had when Susie safely landed in my arms as opposed to dropping on the ground was the same feeling that Christian had when he played the hero Somewhere Else. Christian may be criticized for his lust and chasing of a beautiful maiden, but I was chasing a maiden of my own world.

  We entered Somewhere Else, and Brad and I went to the small ditch by the lake to retrieve our Somewhere Else clothing and gear.

  “No,” Susie said.

  “What?” Brad asked.

  “No games of dress up, no playing pretend, no swords, no arms, no fun,” She snapped, “We are here representing the real world,” Susie said, “We stay in our real clothes, and we talk to him like real people,” her voice was cold, commanding. Neither Brad nor I wanted to put up a fight against her. Hell has no fury like a woman scorned, they say. I think that phrase is incorrect. Hell has no fury like a woman who’s pissed off for any general reason I think is the more accurate saying.

  “I think we should at least take our weapons,” Brad said, reaching for his mace and putting it in one of his belt loops.

  “Susie, we don’t know what Christian could have gotten himself into, for all we know he’s trying to slay another monster, another monster threatening another kingdom, he could be hoping to win some great glory fighting some great threat and maybe find his princess,” I said, “Normal clothes fine, but I don’t think we should be unarmed,” I said, reaching for my axe and clumsily fitting it to my own belt loop.

  “Compromise, fine,” Susie said, reaching to grab her dagger and slide it in her belt, “You really think he’s going after a princess?” she asked, “You think, that he thinks, he can find something here he can’t get back home, do you think that’s enough to make him obsessed with this world. Because I do,” Susie said.

  “It’s possible, look,” I shook my head, “We don’t know where he is, we have no idea where he is, he could be somewhere dangerous. After what happened to him, after what he’s going to have to deal with in the real world if, when, he comes back to it, it’s possible he’s thrown himself into a maw of danger. If we’re to draw him out of it, drag him out of it like you want, we should at least be armed, just in case,” I said, trying to win a losing argument with her.

  “Fine, weapons okay, but we keep our clothes on,” Susie said.

  “This shirt feels a bit uncomfortable here,” Brad said, looking around, wondering what kind of mess he had gotten into.

  “Well, deal with it,” Susie said, “I know that the girls here may fawn over you, you dashing Moor,” Susie was carrying that great and accusing voice that makes her such a good prosecutor, “I’m sure you can go one day here looking out of place and it won’t hurt your foreign charms,”

  Damn, even Susie knew what a Moor was. I think she had been researching how this world had responded to us. She was always so smart, always so wonderful. I’m shaking those thoughts from my head. She’s just a girl from high school, as I’ve had to tell myself that so many times in this project. She’s not my princess, she’s not my trophy. She’s not some prize I earned for my brave heroism Somewhere Else. She’s just Susie, she’s just a girl. Many men, meet many girls, and just because it’s the first girl you meet that doesn’t mean she’s special. I try to tell myself that. I try to tell myself she wasn’t special, but she was. If Susie ever bothers to read my entries into this chronicle we’re building, I want her to know that she was special to me, she is special to me. She was then, she is now, and she always will be.

  “Where do we go first?” Brad asked, I could tell he felt in over his head. Susie was here with a mission, and I was as well. She had rubbed off on me. Susie wanted to drag Christian back to the real world kicking and screaming if we had to. And I wanted to save my friend. Susie was right, Christian couldn’t abandon the real world, we couldn’t let him. As horrible and messed up as things have become for him on our side, it was just high school. Some people think that your high school experience determines the entire course of your life, and most of those people come to that decision while they’re still in high school. I knew, at least in that moment I was convinced I knew, that if Christian could get a taste of what the world was like when you’re not mandated to spend time with your vicious peers, there could be a happiness everyone could carve out once pressures of social structure and winning grades that could impact your entire life were gone from your world. He almost made it, he really did almost make it. If he could just see what the world was like when the pressures of school and a forced social life with people who hate you have no reason to be around you anymore, I believe he could have made it.

  Susie damns what he did. I don’t want to sound sexist in this recount, so I’ll be careful with my next words. But Susie is a woman, an attractive woman. An attractive woman is, frankly, incapable of understanding the struggles of a man no woman in his world loves. I, as people have told me, am an attractive man, and I was even able to spend a night with an attractive woman. Even I can’t understand the true pains of what Christian was feeling. It’s in that lack of understanding that I see why Christian made the choice he did, why he did what he did. Christian did eventually find his princess, as messed up as the conditions around that meeting were, I see why he did it. From what little I’ve talked with Brad as we’ve been developing this project, Brad understands as well. But once again I’m getting ahead of myself, I want every detail of how Somewhere Else completely messed both Christian’s moral compass and his basic sense of right and wrong to be known. We all had problems with what he did, what he was reduced to. But Susie is too hard on him, if you look at all the facts it wasn’t as inhumane as she will no doubt declare it was.

  “What should we do first, how do we even find him, he’s been here for a week, if the calculations made are right, that’s like at least over a month here,” he said, adjusting the mace on his belt loop. It felt awkward carrying weapons while wearing our normal clothes, while wearing the clothes of the real world. I was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, Brad wearing a polo and kakis, and Susie in a yellow sundress. I knew wherever we went in this world we would look so out of place. She was adamant that we should keep our real-world clothes on, but I did worry about the questions that would be raised by being in this world in such odd and unbecoming dress.

  “The town, the first town Christian showed us,” I said, turning to the west, turning to the direction that Christian had led us in in our first time exploring Somewhere Else.

  We made our way there, saying nothing to each other. My dumb ass was the one to break the silence just as we were at the edge of the cobblestone road that ran through that small town. That town with the nice butcher, the nice seamstress, and the nice people who offered us a great point of entry to a whole new world. Friendly and wonderful people that had first intoxicated us to the amazing things that could happen here. I looked at Susie, I looked at her thinking about the amazing things that could happen here.

  “Hail, heroes of the kingdom of Nebraska,” the blacksmith said, wiping down his hands after a day of finished work, “I see you’re wearing that odd dress of your land, special occasion?” he asked.

  “Kind of,” I said, thinking of what I could say to excuse our out of place dress.

  “No,” Susie said, correcting me, “The man, the man you’ve called a hero, we’ve come to remind him of his home, so we wear the dress of his home,” she said, “Where is Christian?” she asked, walking right up to him, straight up and determined.

  “Oh, you mean Lord Christian, oh he’s been serving us for months, he won a great victory in battle, you heroes of Nebraska are quite the powerful breed, he’s a mighty warrior Lord Christian,” the blacksmith smiled, “Would you believe he even slayed an enemy brigand in single combat, I don’t know how this Kingdom of Nebraska saw to send one of their best warriors to us, but we are thankful, so thankful,” he said, shaking his head, “Would you believe he even let me have a look at his sword, Brightroar, crafted by the best smiths in all the local kingdom,” he said, “He’s a true hero that Lord Christian,” he said.

  “Where is he?” Susie asked, no joy, no pride in her voice. She just wanted to know where Christian was, she gave no damn if Christian was some great hero.

  “Why he’s in Impenetrable Tower, he’s got a lot of business to attend to, what with running a fiefdom and all,” he said.

  “He has a fiefdom, wait, he owns land here?” Brad asked.

  “Of course he does,” the blacksmith laughed, “What with saving our lands from the Brigands, he was of course awarded a title, lands, I tell you I have two sons who look up to him so much, I’m proud that they’ve found a hero worthy of my children’s praise, Lord Christian is a man of valor and a man of strength, any boy in this world should feel himself lucky to have such a brave hero to look up to,” he said.

  I looked over to Susie, she was beat red, I could tell she was fuming, it wouldn’t be surprising if in this play pretend fantasy world steam had started to literally billow from her ears.

  “He’s a lord here,” she said through gritted teeth, she shook her head calmed herself, “This is getting ridiculous, he’s not staying here another day, we are leaving with him no matter what,” she said.

  “Look, he just got a bit obsessed with a game,” I said, just like Susie always accused me of doing, I was defending Christian. Trying to reason away his actions with my own mix of pity and desperate need to understand and help him. “I’ve known guys on the team who got too into world of warcraft, they were leaders of guilds and had things they thought were responsibilities. That’s what Christian is right now, he’s just a little too caught up in a video game, it’s actually a common problem,” I said. I knew as I was saying just how flimsy my metaphor was. I was desperately looking for anything that could convince Susie that this wouldn’t be a wasted trip. Anything to convince her she could get what she wanted. I wanted to give Susie anything she wanted, and she wanted Christian out of this world and back in the real one.

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  “Yeah, coach busted Steven chatting with his guild on his phone between practices, gave him an ultimatum, said the game or the team, he got straightened out,” Brad said, nodding, “That’s what we ask him right? Does he want the game or his life?” he asked, looking to Susie.

  “No,” Susie said, “We’re not asking him anything, we’re telling him, telling him he has to come back,” she took a deep breath, “I know that leaving this place is too much of a demand, we can’t expect him to quit cold turkey,” she said, “I know none of us want to stop coming here, this place is…magical,” she shot me a quick look. She thinks I didn’t see it, at least I think she thinks I didn’t see it. But our eyes met, and without saying anything or even nodding back, with my eyes I agreed with her. This place was magical.

  “And the gold, He’s been here almost a week, who knows how long a week is over here, and if he’s a lord, he’s probably made bank, probably couldn’t even carry all the gold he has now back to our world in one trip,” Brad said.

  “Enough caring about gold, I know we all love the gold you don’t need to keep reminding me!” Susie, while she may be ashamed to admit it, stacked away her own little nest egg on one weekend. Brad, Christian, and I were busy on a scouting party looking for some girl who was said to have been abducted by a great Beast. We found the Beast’s manor, and he begged us to let the girl stay, and the girl begged us as well. The happy couple had offered us a good deal of gold to keep their forbidden love a secret, and Brad and I just cared about the gold.

  While we were doing our Mission, Susie found her own path to financial gain. She brought a couple packs of that dye she used on her hair. What turned her less then flattering light red-blond copper tinted mix to the blood red that had made her so alluring and matched with so many more outfits in a wardrobe she had been growing since selling one of her coins and going on a shopping spree with the two thousand dollars she earned and haggled for with a bat of her eyelashes. That was probably the most fun Susie had with the people Somewhere Else. A day where all the girls could get their hair done, the noble maidens just dumping coins to her with wishes to attain that mysterious and foreign shade of red they had never seen before as that shade of red hadn’t been invented yet Somewhere Else.

  “We go to the tower, and we lay into him,” Susie said, “Like I said earlier, we’ll drag him out if we have too,” she said, her fists tight at her sides and her voice commanding with that one day prosecutors authority.

  “Okay, we’ll drag him out, tough love,” Brad said, not wanting to upset anyone. As much as I cared about Christian and wanted the transition back to reality to be easy for him, Susie was Susie and getting Susie what she wanted was my primary concern as a seventeen-year-old boy who- no, no sordid details. No writing here of how much I was longing for the experiences of Somewhere else almost as much as Christian probably was. I could understand the appeals of the magical moments that we could experience Somewhere Else, the amazing, magical moments. Moments of stolen time and secret lusts of things that were once thought of as a bold dream if not a straight up impossibility in the real world.

  I thought about that night the same way I thought about that night every time I looked at Susie. Could that night had ever happened without our experience Somewhere Else? Would a great play I had a chance to make on the field be as impressive to her as standing up to the Big Bad Wolf. Could some silly freshman cheerleaders trying to make time with a senior varsity player have made her, dare I say, as jealous as the castle maidens and bar girls complimenting me on my heroics did? Could the trappings and light fun of a party in the real world led us to be drunk enough to follow one another to an empty room? These are questions that were meaningless. What I once thought could only potentially have happened, happened. There’s no sense dwelling on it now. No sense dwelling on the actions of two drunk high schoolers when one is in their thirties.

  “Where’s the tower,” Susie asked, “We’ve business with, Lord Christian,” she said, I could feel the cringe in her voice. She was the first of us to turn against Christian. When he did what he did, even before he did what he did, she was already fed up with him. It’s no surprise she was the primary prosecutor trying to have Brad and I damn Christian for his actions. Damn my pity for him, damn my understanding for his actions, and damn my wish that things could have worked out for him. It’s a tragedy that he was punished instead of any of us, your three humble narrators. We all have had a degree of success in the real world. In the world I wanted Christian to find his place in so badly. Susie has a great job, I have a comfortable nest egg, and Brad, well Brad has a life he he’s been able to find pride in. But as for Christian, I don’t even know what his life is like, I don’t even know if he’s still alive. I don’t know if the consequences of his actions led to his own death or his own glory. The last time I saw Christian, he was dead, not physically dead, not bereft of life, but he was dead on the inside. He was so far gone, I understood that last choice he made. But we’ll get to that later. We traveled to the Impenetrable tower. A great structure, one fitting for a lord.

  “I just have to say something,” Brad said, cutting the silence the three of us had carried on our way there. “Why not just let him stay?” he asked.

  “What?” Susie said, throwing another accusing look to Brian.

  “Look, I don’t understand what this world is, none of us do, but why not just let him stay,” he said. This was an odd coldness I felt from Brad.

  “Because people will look for him,” Susie said, “They’ll look for him, and then they’ll ask us questions,” she said, repeating her warning.

  “Who are we to Christian, in the real world I mean, here we’re his allies. Over here we’re the people who help him slay monsters and save princesses, over here we’re his brothers in battle, but back home. We’re just some kids he talks to sometimes, we could all keep our story straight, we could all just be bystanders who have no idea what happened to him,” he said.

  I feel one could have cut the tension between Susie and Brad in this moment with a knife. That’s such a cliche thing to say, but cliches have their place in our language for a reason, it was palpable.

  “We have to do this because it’s right,” Susie said, determined, “We have to do this because Christian is our friend, we have to do this because we can’t let our friend waste his life on a fantasy. This world is amazing,” she shot another look to me that I don’t think she noticed that I noticed, “We have to do this because we’re saving someone from wasting their life, as amazing as this world is it’s just a fantasy, this world is not the real one,” Susie looked down, collected herself for a second.

  “If what Cody says is true, it’s real to him,” Brad said, “Why not just let him have it, I know I’ve been worried about the government asking us about this place, but I don’t know if Christian missing is enough to get the FBI involved. We’ve seen his home life, we’ve seen him in school, we’ve seen how bad things are for him. Hell, the reason he’s here is because things are so bad for him back home, is it really that wrong to let someone have what they want?” he asked.

  I was shocked, Brad was always the one of us who was so worried about what would happen if someone started asking questions about where we went every weekend. He was always the one of us nervous about the government kicking down our door and demanding answers about this alternate world we had found. And here he was saying that Christian should just be consigned to living where we all knew he was meant to be.

  “This world,” Susie said, “This world, this amazing, wonderful, fantastic world, isn’t real. It’s not our lives, it’s not where our families where born, and it’s not where we belong. I’ve always wanted to go to New York,” Susie turned from us, “I know it’s such a basic girl fantasy, the idea of going to New York, maybe being discovered, maybe getting a part on Broadway or in some show or movie, so basic and unrealistic,” she said, “But I’m smart enough to know it’s just a fantasy, knowing it’s a fantasy doesn’t make the idea of going to New York any less appealing, but if you put your whole life, your whole desires risked on one trip to New York, you’re a fool,” she said, “That is what I’m trying to save him from, I’m trying to save him from his own fantasies,” she said.

  Susie, these days, is probably constantly ripping into Christian and talking about how awful she thinks he is. I still try to find arguments for why I defended him in the moment. The worst part about it is that, after seeing what happened, Susie did prove herself right in the end. That’s what she does in court from what I’ve heard. She proves herself right in the end. The defense against her may be able to make case, but in court, Susie is always right in the end.

  “What way is the Tower?” Susie asked, “We need to parlay with you lands ruler” Susie said, “We come from his home of the great kingdom of Nebraska, and his home needs him,” she said. It was so odd, seeing Susie try to play by Somewhere Else’s rules. Brad and I stayed silent. We knew that a woman in charge was a force to be reckoned with. Susie was right, in that moment, Susie was right to try and rip Christian away from his fantasy. Rip off his obsession with the fantasy Somewhere Else provided that would eventually be his undoing. Knowing that, whilst I’m looking back on these events, I can vouch that Susie was right.

  “Travel north, just beyond where Lord Christian dispatched the Monster of the Mist, but not as far as where he rid our community of the Bridge Troll, Careful though, as further north is the castle in vines, a place far too dangerous for anyone to enter,” the blacksmith said, “I remember you said you’re from his land, you Nebraska men,” he smiled and looked to Brad and I, “You Nebraska men are the best thing that could have happened to our world,” oh how he would come to either regret, or treasure those words.

  I don’t know if our influence in that world was positive or negative, I don’t know if we made a difference for the better, or if our actions, all our actions Christian’s included, disrupted this world for good or worse. I know Christian wanted only to be a positive force in that world, that he wanted to bring righteousness and justice to that world no matter what it would cost him. I know that he accepted the titles and trappings of Somewhere Else with pride, I know that in his work, in his work before everything got so crazy, he thought he was doing a good thing. He thought that he could make this world, a world, a better place. I thought about how he was never given the opportunity to wield the kind of power he could Somewhere Else in the real world. I told you that he could have joined the business club. In all honesty, a man with a mind like Christians, had it not been destroyed by the bullshit an American high school can inflict on someone, he could have become someone who could have done good in our world. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t. As I write this, I must admit that I knew Christian was lost to Somewhere Else even before Susie accused him of it. This was Christian’s world. This was the world he felt so safe and confident it. This was, in all honesty, the world where he belonged.

  I’m sorry, Susie. But I mean that. He belonged there, and the action he committed that you so criticize him for was an action he committed because of the pressures you led us to give to him. I’m not accusing you, I’m not a star prosecutor. I’m sure in your deepest fantasies you’ve thought about having Christian in one of your court rooms, having the chance to rake him over coals that we ourselves laid. Were it me at the other table, playing the role of Christian’s defense, you would most likely run circles around me and be able to convince any jury of his guilt. If such a hypothetical even came to court, I would most likely end up on your side, try to get a plea bargain for him. I would let you get the guilty verdict you so badly want Christian to be stained with, and I could try to leave Christian with a penalty that could at least let him have life after a sentence served.

  “North,” Susie pulled out a compass, looked to Brad and I, “These work the same way here too,” she said, “I think it’s a globe, magic of the lake aside I think this world is closer to ours then it seems,” she said. There’s that mind on her again, she thought of everything, she researched her case and was ready to do whatever she had to get her perp.

  “You’re sure, north is north here?” Brad asked.

  “Well, I don’t know if north means the same things north means in the real world, but I’ve noticed that when people say north, whatever direction a compass shows me here is the same direction they’re talking about,” she said.

  I turned to the Blacksmith, “You said it’s past where Christian killed Bridge Troll, how will we know when we’re there?” I asked.

  “Oh, that would be the monument, it’s under construction so it’s not quite done yet, but the King decided that such a great action deserved something to commemorate his brave act of heroism. He even refused coin for the work,” the Blacksmith said, “So of course for that act of chivalry he was granted his lordship over our land,”

  “Christian, he refused coin?” Susie looked at me, “He gave up the one thing that gives us a reason to be here,” she said.

  “Look, we know he’s got his mind warped on fantasy world, but maybe the idea of being a lord made him think he could earn even more gold. He’s smart with money, here and there,” I said, “This is probably just another move to get more coin,” I said. I told you I would be a horrible defense against Susie if Christian’s fate was on the line.

  “He refused gold because he doesn’t care about going back home, and we all know that,” she looked at us, that accusing future prosecutor’s eye judging us.

  “It’s pretty suspicious,” Brad said, “He refused gold, became a lord, this place gave him some pretty hard trappings,” Brad said.

  “Look,” I said again, shaking my head as I continued to try and defend Christian’s actions, “When we talk to him, we can have him see reason,” I didn’t know if that was true when I said it. How on earth could we convince Christian that a world of bullying and rejection was a more suitable place for him then a world of praise and commendation. “Our world is real, this is a fantasy place, and Christian has found himself in need of going somewhere fantastic,” I continued, trying to build a defense for him. “We’ve agreed to terms, he can keep coming here, he can escape from how awful his life is, and if he can earn coin, be it for adventures or as a lord, he can have a better life when he gets out of school,” I tried to reason with Susie. Susie knew as well as I did that there were few things on the other side of lake, few things in the real world we could offer him. Gold was the primary motivator for our travels there, but gold may not be Christian’s primary motivation anymore.

  “there’s the tower,” Susie said as we came over a hill, “Sounds like the tower we were told about, Christian’s held up in there beating off to fantasy world no doubt,” she said.

  “Hey, I’m sure he’s busy, apparently he has responsibilities here,” I said.

  “They did make him a lord, he’s probably running some things, this is going to be a hard sell,” Brad said.

  “We just need him to see reason, he knows this world is a fantasy just as much as we do,” Susie clung her fists, she was ready to dig her feet into the ground on this issue, “I least I hope to god he does,” she said.