34

  Cody

  When we left Somewhere Else Saturday we said nothing about what we had just witnessed on the other side of the lake. We just went to our cars and took off in the separate directions to our respective family's homes.

  Before Christian got in his beat up old chevy, I came to him for a private moment, “Hey,” I put my hand on his shoulder as he got in.

  “It’s Somewhere Else,” Christian said, “It’s not real,” he bucked my hand off his shoulder and got in his car, “That’s what you all keep trying to tell me right?” he put his hands on his wheel, and his face turned from the worry for social approval he so often carried in the real world, to that same look of determination when he put a gun to Morgan’s chest and pulled the trigger, “You keep telling me it’s not real, so it’s not real, it doesn’t matter,” he said.

  “Get a good nights sleep tonight, if you need anything, if you just want to talk, if you just want someone to listen, just give me a call, okay?” I said.

  “I’ll be fine, I just got jet lag, I’ve been over there for a while, for so long,” he tried to shake the guilt form his head, “I’ll see you in school, in school this Monday, I mean it,” he said, then took a deep breath, “What do we got, less than a week, then graduation? Let’s just finish this year and be done with, and then you all can go to college and you’ll never have to see me again,” he said.

  “Hey,” I saw his hand reaching for his keys and I grabbed it, “Look at me, we don’t want that, you’re our friend,” I said, “You’re our friend, and we’re all here to help you, and you can come to us when you need help,” I said as Christian ripped his wrist from my grip.

  “Let me just sleep on it,” Christan said, “I’m sorry,” he looked down, he bit his lip, his eyes shut tight, most likely fighting another onslaught of tears for the loss of his innocence.

  Susie will probably portray Christian as some kind of cold-blooded killer. She’ll probably say that he was fucked from the beginning, that we were the only thing standing between him and becoming just as bad as Morgan LeFaye. The truth is that he wasn’t, at least I think I can argue that from my point of view. Morgan, poor, misguided, and evil Morgan. She had been corrupted by that world. That world had given me the same kind of boost in confidence it had given Christian, gave me the drive to really push to get more time on the field. It gave Brad the time to get bump he needed to get his grades higher, and it corrupted Susie enough to spend a night with me after a drunken party. It corrupted us all in way now that I think about it. Though it corrupted Christian more then any of us, that was clear. Don’t let my, lets call it concern, for Christian misconstrue my reaction to his actions. It was horrifying, as I’ve said, watching someone die, watching one of your closest friends kill someone. It’s not something I would wish on anyone. Unlike Susie, and I’m not sure but maybe Brad too, I could see the logic a mind like Christian’s went through to make his decision to kill Morgan. Morgan was evil, she was probably the greatest example of evil I’ve ever seen in my life, Christian included. For God’s sake she laid out her whole back story and you can bet we were all paying attention as she gave her classic villain’s monologue. She didn’t just kill people who were innocent and got in her way, and that alone was enough to earn her some kind of punishment. A punishment as severe as Christian had laid on her? Well I don’t know. But the other things she did, her stories of the women who led her, tutored her, helped her, and she killed them just as easily. She didn’t come out and say it, but in our experience Somewhere Else I had learned enough about the dark twists that the Grimm Brothers would weave into their fantastic stories to know a messed up twist when I saw one. She talked of her meal, she didn’t call out her sustenance by name, but anyone with even a passing knowledge of some of the oldest stories we’re all told as children could realize what she had confessed to.

  She ate Hansel, and she probably ate Gretel as well.

  In the story, in that old fable, the brave woodsman comes and rescues his children from that evil witch. Rescues them from who is maybe the most evil witches of all the evil witches in Christian’s well worn tome of the Grimm fairy tales. I wonder how old they were, the children. Were they fifteen? Sixteen? Were they at least grown by the standards of Somewhere Else’s culture? Or were they younger, knowing how the Grimm Brother’s embraced the dark in their stories, my personal opinion is that they were most likely eight or nine years old. Hansel, a silly little boy enjoying a candy house and getting fat and plump. That tender, well marbled piece of meat that Morgan told us she enjoyed so much, and Gretel, that brave little girl who refused the decadence and trappings of Somewhere Else to try and save herself and her beloved brother. Christian always spoke of us rescuing princesses just a bit too late. That had we been there just a bit earlier, this or that Prince Charming wouldn’t have been able to swoop in at the last minute and take one of Christian’s beloved princesses for himself.

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  Christian loved that world more than anything, and he wanted to carve out his own piece of that world. You can’t fault him for that, I mean, you can if that’s what you think of him.

  Wait.

  Never mind that particular debate. The one about how far Christian would go to get his princess. We’ll have time for that later, we all will. Never mind now my condoning or Susie’s condemnation of Christian’s last brave act Somewhere Else.

  “You don’t have to apologize, I…I understand,” I said. I really did. Morgan had proved herself to be, just as Christian said, dangerous, unhinged, native. The greatest terror that Somewhere Else had ever been presented with. This is why I defend Christian, as Susie is most likely accusing me of. He loved that place, he said he would do anything to save it and he meant it.

  “Hey,” I said, “It’s over, at least it’s over,” I said, forcing a smile and trying to buck up my friend, “And School is almost over, One more week, one week to a future so bright you can’t even imagine,” I said, “Never mind the gold we’ve earned, never mind the awfulness that both this and that place have forced you to do, just One more week and you’re free. You’re free of grinding through school, you’re free of responsibilities and worry, you’re free of the cafeteria and assholes, and you’re free of women who can’t look over a mistake to see what a good person you are. Free of women, whom have no idea what you sacrificed today to bring peace to hundreds, no thousands of lives, you’ll be free soon,” I said, trying to reassure him.

  “I’ll see you Monday,” Christian said, his voice monotone. I backed away from him, I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to scold him, as I was sure Susie would have done without me trying hold her back. As fucked as it was, killing Morgan, there was part of me that knew that she deserved death. You can make your own decisions about what Morgan deserved, but I do believe that she deserved it. And I do believe the only way to stop her, after seeing just who she really was and what she could really do. I believed Christian when he said it was the only way, the only way that we could have protected that world, that world that may very well have been as real as ours if not more fantastical, full of big bad wolves, fairies, evil queens, and princesses waiting for their own personal Prince Charmings. Christian loved that world so, I can see why he thought that committing that mortal sin was justified.

  “One week left,” I said, “One week, remember what I told you, it’s going to work out,” I gulped, Susie says that in this part of the story we were way past Christian being too far gone to save. Maybe we were, I’m not just going to say we weren’t. As much as Susie is going to rail me for defending him, I’m not going to say that he was totally innocent.

  Christian meant what he said, he was in school Monday, he was in school Tuesday, and he was even in school Wednesday. The last day of class. The bullying had subsided for those last three days. Everyone more concerned with their end of the year plans, college admissions and who was going to this or that party. People forgot, like people do when high school is coming to a close. No one cared about Christian, and no one cared about what Christian had done. He was relegated back to being that harmless ghost that wandered the halls avoiding any interaction that he had been before we met him and all this mess started.

  Susie wanted this, said we needed to do this. She was right, or at least I thought she was right at the time. I had no idea that the stress we were about to put him under would only make his obsession with that world even worse then any of us could imagine. I came to Christian after forth period, forth and last period on our last day of school, the last day of Christian’s torture, the last day of his imprisonment. God damn, he was so close to freedom, so close to being able to cash in his gold for any damn desire that this would could have given him. But he didn’t desire the things of this world, he didn’t desire the whiskey, flesh, and pearls that his world, our world, the real world could offer.

  “See, I told you that you could do it,” I said, “And I haven’t heard anything about you, it’s over, it’s finally over,” I said.

  “I know,” ever since that business with Morgan, Christian carried this thousand yard stare. The stare of a man who had made a choice, the stare of a man who had abandoned his world.

  “So I was talking with Brad and Susie, we should celebrate,” I said, smiling. Once again I was trying to get that positive emotional feedback to form between us, “Let’s go Somewhere Else,” I lied.

  “Really? Even Susie wants to go Somewhere Else?” Christian asked, “You saw how she looked at me, she looks at me with even more scorn then any girl I could even think of dating,” he said, “Susie of all people still wants to go there?” he asked.

  “We talked about it, what happened, you did save that world, we all agree,” I felt so bad, lying to him like this. Lying to my friend and trying to drag him in to the viper’s den that Susie was laying for him. “We’re meeting up tomorrow, Brad’s parents are gone, I thought we could plan an adventure,” I said, gulping and trying to keep my wits as I tried to invite Christian to something he most certainly would think was a trap.

  “Okay, yeah, I mean it’s way safer now,” Christian smiled nervously, trying to play off the fact that he had murdered someone to make that world safer.

  “Yeah, it’s safe now,” I said, pretending to agree with him. I felt bad, knowing I was about to take Christian to the most unsafe place he could imagine.