by K M Frost
I chuckled, barely holding back a full-out laugh. “Yeah, your silverware is formidable.”
Ellie giggled, the darkness in her blue eyes disappearing. “Oh, silverware’s only the beginning.”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
She smirked.
Somehow, in the last couple of minutes we’d both gone from grumpy to grinning. I’d been trying to cheer Ellie up, but I realized my own bad mood had run for the hills, too.
By the time we met up with Leah, we were both laughing.
Leah sent me a curious look before turning to Ellie and asking what was so funny.
Ellie told her about our bad morning and the incident at breakfast. Before long, we were all laughing —Leah included—and I decided maybe today wouldn’t be too bad.
When we reached the schoolyard Ellie’s laughter died, but I could see from the steel in her eyes that she wasn’t going to let Louise’s party ruin her day.
I tried to follow her example as I looked up at the schoolhouse. Kids were running around outside, laughing and shrieking as they chased each other and played their games.
We still had a while until the chime would ring, so Leah and I settled down in the grass at the edge of the yard.
After a moment, Leah shifted beside me and spoke hesitantly. “Jonas?”
I turned toward her, but she wasn’t watching me.
She was running a blade of glass between her fingers, her eyes focused on the ground, intense. “I’ve been thinking about last night . . .”
I felt something clench in my gut, and for a second I wanted to run away. It was still painful—surprisingly painful—to think Rogue had abandoned us the way he did. I’d begun to think of him as a friend. I thought he’d felt the same about us, but I guess the loyalty had been entirely one-sided.
Leah seemed oblivious to my inward pain, and continued in a carefully measured voice. “About Rogue. I mean . . . call me a fool, but I thought we were all friends.”
I looked down at her in surprise. Maybe I wasn’t the only one . . .
She huffed, jerking a blade of grass from the ground forcefully. “I know he’s a loner and all that, but for him to just run off like that . . . I don’t know. It didn’t seem right.”
I stared down at the grass too, brushing my fingers against the stiff green tips. “Well . . . maybe he’s found us in the Reality Dreams.”
Leah shrugged and fell back into the grass. “Yeah, maybe . . .”
I didn’t like the skepticism in her voice.
I tossed a quick glance at the kids playing in the schoolyard, but they were totally oblivious to our conversation. In fact, it was almost like Leah and I were in a little bubble, closed off from the rest of the world.
Leah spoke from the ground, her voice measured and careful. “You know . . . Mourett isn’t very far away. I’d bet we could make it there and back in eight hours.”
I had a hunch about where this was going, but I compressed my lips and let her continue.
“There’s a chance Rogue’s awake right now. I know he doesn’t spend much time outside the Reality Dreams, but he might be here now. We could go talk to him—find out what happened last night—and be back by the time everyone else is getting out of school. Your parents will never even know.”
As crazy as her suggestion was, I found myself considering it. Maybe Rogue had run off without us, but at least this way we could talk to him and find out why he’d left—without Rick interrupting with angry insults.
“Jonas?” Leah was watching me with a frown. “You okay?”
Feeling uncharacteristically reckless, I pushed all my misgivings aside and nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Her eyes widened, but so did her grin. “Seriously? That’s all it’ll take to convince you?” She sat up and leaned closer, her eyes glinting with mischief and humor. “Have you ever even cut school before?”
I ignored her question and glanced around quickly. The schoolyard was still full of kids, but I knew the chime would be calling them inside any minute.
It was now or never.
I stood up, pulling Leah with me. “Come on.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, we left Leah’s house, our book bags packed with food and water rather than books (Leah had suggested I leave my books at her house for now). Leah’s dad worked during the day, so we’d be able to get our supplies without having to explain anything to an adult.
Luckily, Leah lived near the edge of the village, so we only passed a couple adults on our way out. They did no more than toss us queer looks and let us go on our way.
I’d been outside Capernia before, but I’d always been with a group—whether it was with my family, or a fieldtrip from school—and somehow, the world seemed a lot bigger when it was just me and Leah.
We walked for almost a quarter hour in complete silence. We’d started the silence inside the village, thinking we’d draw less attention if we just walked quietly and quickly, like we had an important errand to run, and it had worked out well enough.
But now that we were completely alone, the silence was starting to weigh on me.
I cleared my throat, searching for something to say, and Leah looked over at me in surprise and curiosity.
I shrugged my bag a little higher onto my shoulder. “So . . . have you cut school before?”
Leah grinned slyly, green eyes shining with mischief. “Oh, once or twice . . . You know how it is.”
I smiled a little. “No, not really.”
She studied me thoughtfully. “You’ve really never done this kind of thing before, have you?”
I rolled my eyes, fighting down my embarrassment. Was it really so strange that I took school seriously?
I slid my hands into my pockets. “Like it’s such a bad thing . . .”
Leah laughed. “Listen to yourself! ‘Like it’s such a bad thing’. Jonas, if you’ve never missed a day of school, you haven’t lived.”
I frowned defensively. “I’ve missed school before.”
She shook her head before I’d even finished. “An honest excuse doesn’t count. That includes illness, family tragedy—”
“You’ve got this down to an art, don’t you?”
She looked proud. “Yup. Let’s just say . . . practice makes perfect?”
The laugh in her voice brought my grin out. “And you’ve had lots of practice, haven’t you?”
Leah only grinned.
After that, conversation was easy.
Leah asked me about my childhood (which she decided had been a sad waste of infinite possibilities), and she told me a little about her own childhood. We avoided the topic of her mom (she seemed to really have a hard time with it, which I understood). Instead, we stuck to the assortment of pranks and trouble she’d experienced and caused in the course of her fifteen years.
It was a great way to pass the time, and sooner than seemed possible, we saw Mourett on the horizon.
Mourett was very different from Capernia, but not nearly as alien as the dark city in the Reality Dreams. The streets of Mourett were dirtier than Capernia’s, and paved; the stone and brick houses were built close together.
I’d been to Mourett once on a fieldtrip for school, but it’d been a long time, and I’d forgotten how chaotic this place was.
There were a lot of people in the streets, headed to and fro on business, and no one paid us any attention. It seemed strange after the friendliness of Capernia, but I guess it was better this way. At least we didn’t have to answer anyone’s questions about why we were roaming the streets instead of attending school.
After several minutes, we moved on from the main part of the town and into a calmer section. Here the houses were just as tightly packed, but the streets were less crowded, and the hustle and bustle of the market was in the distance.
We began to ask around about Rogue, but since we didn’t know his real name, it was a bit harder than I’d expected to find him.
After describing him to more villagers th
an I cared to count, we finally came across an old man who said the description was familiar.
“Rogue, eh?” He scratched his stubbly chin thoughtfully, wrinkly eyes squinting with the effort. “Rogue . . .”
I looked at Leah, silently asking her to just move on. This old man probably didn’t even know where his own house was. We were wasting time. In fact, maybe this whole expedition had been a waste of time. If we left now, we could make it back before school got out.
The old man’s voice drew me out of my thoughts. “Don’t know no ‘Rogue’, but there was a young man who used to live here who looked like you described. Long black hair, dark skin—moody bloke. Kert, was his name. But I haven’t seen him in . . . Oh, about a year or so now. I’m sure he’s moved on.”
“Where did he live?” Leah asked.
The old man frowned. “Who?”
She tried not to roll her eyes, but I could see it was a struggle for her. “Kert.”
The old man’s face brightened with a toothless smile. “Oh, I used to know a Kert. Strange fellow he was. Kept to himself. Only saw him every few weeks. I think he must’ve traveled a lot for work. Why else would he be gone so often? He couldn’t very well have been holed up in that old shack on the hill, now could he?”
“Which hill? Kert,” I added quickly, before he could ask. “Which hill did he used to live on?”
“Why, on the far eastern hill, over yonder.” He waved a hand in the general direction.
I could see a hill in the distance, but it was too far away to make out any houses. I hoped we wouldn’t be disappointed.
I turned back to the old man. “Thank you for your time, sir.”
The old man frowned curiously at us, and I hurried to follow Leah before he could ask me again who I was and how he could help.
Leah tossed a frown over her shoulder as we made our way toward the faraway hill. “That guy’s just a little confused.”
“At least he helped us.”
Leah shrugged. “Maybe.” Then she grinned. “Can you believe Rogue’s real name is Kert?” She laughed. “Boy, I’m gonna have fun with that . . .”
I didn’t get what was so funny about the name, but I decided not to ask. I was still mad at Rogue for running off like he did, but I just wasn’t the type to make fun of people.
It didn’t take long to reach the hill (it wasn’t as far as it had looked at first) but no building appeared on top of it like expected.
Then, when we got closer, I realized there was a rundown shack at the foot of the hill, wrapped in thick trees and hidden mostly from view. I thought it was kind of a creepy place to live, but hey, to each his own.
As we got closer, I caught an unpleasant scent on the wind. Rogue must have left some food out the last time he went to sleep, because something had definitely gone bad.
I didn’t want to go inside where I knew the smell would be even worse, but Leah just rolled her eyes and took the lead.
We knocked three times, but there was no answer to any of them.
Finally, Leah tried the handle and the door swung open easily. I thought it wasn’t all that smart to leave your door unlocked if you were planning to go to sleep for weeks at a time, but maybe people just knew not to come up here.
Leah glanced around the empty kitchen. “Rogue?”
There was no answer. Maybe he was still in the Reality Dreams.
There were two doors across the room. I assumed one led to the bedroom and the other to the bathroom. We checked the right door first.
The door squeaked when it swung open, but I guess Rogue didn’t care about things like that.
The room inside was dark (maybe to help Rogue fall asleep during the day?) and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust.
The first thing I saw was the table in the corner, laden with powders and dead flowers.
The second thing: Rogue’s lifeless and mangled body.
Chapter 20
I think Leah might have screamed, but I was too shocked to be sure.
I don’t know what I had expected to find: Rogue sitting around with a novel, curled up in bed, completely unaffected by his abandonment of us? But I do know the last thing I expected to see was his body, twisted, torn and ruined, his face frozen permanently in pain and fear.
Leah ran from the room gagging.
I would have gone with her if I’d been able to move. But I just stared at Rogue—what was left of him, at least —as my stomach lurched and twisted uncomfortably.
There was no sign of a struggle, except for the bloody bed and mangled body, and I had no idea why someone would go through the trouble of destroying Rogue’s body if their intention was simply to kill him. If their intentions had been darker . . . I didn’t want to understand.
Leah returned eventually, her face sweaty and pale. She stepped into the room gingerly and stood just behind me. Together we stared at Rogue’s corpse, mortified and entirely unable to register exactly what had happened here.
“Who do you think . . .?” Leah’s throat was raw, and she didn’t finish her thought.
I finally pulled my eyes away from the carnage and looked down at her. “I don’t know.” My voice was frighteningly rough. I cleared my throat. “Do you think that’s why he never caught up to us? Someone killed him here, so he disappeared from the Reality Dreams?”
Leah didn’t have an answer.
We stood there for a minute, and then we inched a little closer. A ridiculous part of me hoped Rogue was still alive, though the logical part of my brain knew that no one could survive injuries like that, losing that much blood.
I noticed there were deep gouges in Rogue’s face, almost like claw marks. His dark clothes were torn in many places, and it looked like the same claws that had attacked his face also took out some hunks of flesh from his body, leaving deep and gruesome craters behind.
Disturbing as the sight was, there was something eerily familiar about it, something stirring in the back of my mind.
Then it hit me: the dead man in the Reality Dreams.
The dead man in the house had the same wounds—in different places, sure, but they were the same. Rogue was nowhere near as rotten as that man, but that made sense; Rogue had only been missing since last night.
I remembered Rogue telling us an Entity had been the one to kill the man in the city, and as I looked at Rogue, I knew he’d been right. After all, Rogue had been surrounded by Entities the last time we’d seen him. What else could have killed him?
But that wasn’t possible. The Reality Dreams were dreams! How was it possible that when Rogue was killed in the Reality Dreams, he died here too, in reality? It just didn’t make sense. It wasn’t possible.
“Jonas.” Leah’s small voice brought me back to the present. Her eyes were wide and haunted. “We should go. We need to get out of here before someone finds us.”
I stared at her in bewilderment. “What? We can’t just leave him here! We’ve got to tell somebody.”
“No!” Leah’s voice was angry, but when I looked in her eyes I saw only fear and pain. “We’ve got to get out of here—now.”
I started to feel annoyed—frustrated, even. “Leah, this is Rogue. We can’t just leave him here to rot.”
She acted like I hadn’t made a sound—like I wasn’t even there. “If they find us here, they’ll start to ask questions. They’ll never stop asking questions. Then they’ll chase us, they’ll follow us and threaten us—we’ll never get away from them—”
“Leah!” I grabbed her shoulders and gave her a firm shake. “What’s wrong with you? What are you talking about?”
She blinked quickly and looked up at me, dazed.
I frowned. “What’s going on?”
Surprising me, a strong sob burst from her lips and she sank to the floor.
I was shocked and confused, but I knelt in front of her, totally unsure what to do or say.
After several seconds, Leah began to shake her head frantically. “It’s just like before. They’ll ask quest
ions and they won’t believe us—they’ll never believe us! And they won’t ever stop.”
“Leah.” I forced my voice to sound steady and calm, though I felt neither. “What are you talking about? Who are you talking about?”
She finally stopped shaking her head, and covered her face with her hands. “My mom.”
I blinked in surprise. “Leah, what do you mean, your mom? What does that have to do with anything?”
Leah began to rock back and forth slowly. The motion reminded me of a feral animal. I wondered if seeing Rogue’s body had thrown her into shock.
She was muttering to herself, but I listened. “It’s the same thing. It’s just like Mom. No one knows . . . But they won’t believe us. They never do . . .”
A weight settled on my chest as a thought occurred to me. “Leah. When your mom left . . . where did she go?”
Leah shook her head so feverishly I worried she was going to hurt herself. “She didn’t leave, Jonas. She’s dead.”
Hearing the words sent a shock through me, but I wasn’t surprised. It was the only thing that made any sense. She’d seen Rogue’s body and been reminded of her mom’s death.
But why was she acting so paranoid? Why was she so scared?
Her quiet voice was borderline hysterical. “No one knows what happened to her. She just disappeared one day. We waited for her to show up—Dad was out of his mind with worry—but she never did come back. After a while, people started to ask questions. They thought Dad had done something to her. We told them we didn’t know where she was, but they still took Dad away. They put him on trial for murder.”
She shuddered, and I wished I knew how to comfort her. For now, I just listened.
“They couldn’t prove anything, though, so they let him go. But that didn’t matter to our neighbors—our friends. They all treated him like he was a killer. They were so mad, they did all kinds of things—terrible things. Finally, Dad knew we weren’t safe there anymore, so in the middle of the night we packed up and left Thyrid for good.”
Leah was still rocking herself, though the frantic motion was slower now. Her voice had gotten smaller, softer. “We didn’t have anywhere to go, and we ended up wandering into Capernia. It’s small enough we were sure we’d be safe. But now . . .”