by Travis Smith
Christopher took the phone away from his ear. His mother was still yammering into it. “Yeah, sure, anything,” he said.
The man folded his hands in a praying gesture before his face. “I got a family emergency back in Scotland. I’m flying out tonight. Could be a couple weeks before I’m back. Three or more.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Christopher said. “Everyone okay?”
“I dunno, mate. Thank you, but I just don’t know yet.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring to offer to Christopher. “Alls I need is ya to bring in my mail and the lot. Feed the fish in my windowsill every other day.”
“Dude, that’s totally fine. It’s no problem at all.” He took the keys and smiled.
The man bowed to him and clapped him on the back. “You’re the tits, mate. Really. I owe you! Apartment two-oh-four!”
Christopher tipped his head as the man trotted back down the sidewalk toward the coffee shop.
“Who is that? Christopher? Are you there? Who are you talking to?” His mother was bordering on hysterics when he pulled the phone back to his ear.
“What? Mom, it’s my neighbor. He just asked—”
“Was he black?” she demanded. “He sounded like a black man.”
Christopher gritted his teeth as he walked up the five flights of stairs. “Yes. He is black.”
His mother considered this for a few seconds before speaking again. “You need to be careful up there, Christopher. I worry about you.”
“You worry about me?” he spat. “What about? About me catching snow-borne bacteria? About me doing a favor for a black man?”
“You watch how you talk to me, son. I worry for your soul.”
“Oh, of course! My soul! Not my happiness, or my state-of-mind, or my well-being—that’s why you sent me to those camps to be shamed and tortured, right?”
“Christopher! Enough!” she shouted.
“Yeah. God forbid your son be gay and happy, but you worry about every unfounded superstition your simple mind can think up!”
He heard the familiar click as she hung up on him.
“Fuck you!” he screamed, slamming his apartment door behind him. He threw his phone across the room and watched it shatter. His chest heaved, and his arms flexed as he struggled not to smash his fists through the door.
He stormed into his bathroom and snatched open the medicine cabinet. A small box of straight razors was stashed away off to one side. He opened it and took one between his two fingers. He hadn’t done this in years, but things had been building for a while now. If he couldn’t be happy out of The South, where could he be?
He closed his eyes and pressed the razor’s edge to the meat of his left arm. Sliding it across, he felt the sting of skin tearing. He felt the hairs stand up as drops of warm blood flowed down to his palm and dripped into the sink. He waited for the usual elation that followed, but it did not come. He waited for the deep pain that didn’t hurt so much as it did remind him that he could feel it. He waited for the reassurance that he still had some control. If he could hurt himself like this, if he could cut and feel it, he still had control. But that old reassurance did not come.
He moved the razor down an inch and drew it across his forearm again. Still, no euphoria. No reassurance. His racing heart did not slow, and his shaking hands did not still.
“Fuck,” he said.
He turned the razor and slid up his arm, from the wrist to the crook of his elbow. The cut grew deeper the longer he made the slice. He winced at the awful pain it brought—far worse than the shallow cuts he’d just made.
“Fuck!” he shouted as a river of thick blood flowed from his arm.
Still, that sense of control would not settle in.
He opened his eyes and flung the razor into his bathtub. He smashed a fist against the open medicine cabinet and knocked it off its hinges. The mirror came crashing to the bathroom floor and shattered into hundreds of pieces. He ran out of the bathroom, still screaming as hard as his chest could allow. The small wooden table he flipped upright in a fit of adrenaline and rage. It slammed into the wall and splintered down the middle. One of the legs broke cleanly off as it hit the kitchen floor. Blood poured from his wounds, and he nearly slipped in the growing puddle on the floor. He lunged forward and grabbed two of the kitchen cabinet doors, ripping them off their hinges and flinging them across the apartment.
“Fuck you! I fucking hate you!” he screamed at last, collapsing to his knees and putting pressure against his throbbing left arm. He bowed his head and sobbed in the ensuing silence.
12
David Goodwin sat in his car outside the boy’s Brooklyn apartment building. He had resolved that the next time the boy came out, he would ask him for assistance with his car and stuff him in the trunk in broad daylight if he had to.
Beads of sweat ran down his forehead as he baked in the midday sun. Even with a window cracked and the wintry chill flowing through the car, his skin burned in the direct sunlight. He looked into his rearview mirror and saw the eyes of another peering back at him. Goodwin could scarcely recognize the haggard face bearing that glare.
“Please,” he begged. “Let me go back home.”
The man’s face contorted with despair as he fought against inevitable tears.
Goodwin squeezed the steering wheel in both fists and attempted to steel himself as a woman walked nearby and glanced into his car with a look of distaste.
“Pull it together, coward,” he growled under his breath before reaching to his hip pocket to find the comforting lump of his medicine bottle within.
For three days, he sat in that spot and waited. On the fourth day, he was forced to move his car to the other side of the street for the trash collectors.
In all that time, Christopher never again exited the apartment building.
13
Christopher stood on shaky legs and surveyed the destruction he’d inflicted upon his apartment. The shattered glass and broken furniture, all covered in blood, looked like the most horrific crime scene he could have dreamt up.
As he peered around, his eyes fell upon the keys the man from apartment 204 had given him.
“Gone for weeks …” Christopher murmured.
He wrapped his bleeding arm tightly in a towel and stood for several minutes, pondering. After, he carefully gathered up the razor blades and other contraband and tossed them in a backpack. He then grabbed a pair of boots he’d purchased at his mother’s request but never worn and put them on. In these, he plodded through the puddles and created boot prints throughout the apartment. When he finished that, he took a cloth and dipped it into the blood. With this, he wrote in big smeared letters on the wall: F-A-G. To add to the display, he snatched a scrap piece of paper and scrawled a hasty note to his mother … If anything happens, I just want you to know I’m sorry, it read. Taking the boots, the towels, and the contraband in his backpack, he snatched apartment 204’s keys and backed out the door, which he left slightly ajar.
He took one last look at his open laptop before leaving. It was still open to Matthew Sloan’s blog. The view counter was now over 2,000.
Christopher spent the next three days pacing in apartment 204. He kept the news on but had yet to see anything about his disappearance. He didn’t hear any more police activity outside than before. He made sure not to bring his laptop or cellphone with him, so he couldn’t do any proper searching.
He’d eyeballed the backpack he brought with him several times. If he was going to get through this, he’d need a little assistance.
“Think of it as medication,” he muttered to himself.
He opened the bag and dug through until he found the small wooden box he’d packed. He pulled out a sterile syringe and a small white bag of powder he’d gotten months ago. Searching the apartment, it didn’t take long to find a spoon and a lighter, so he set to work cooking up his goods. When it was ready, he drew up the spoonful into the syringe and sat back in the unfamiliar bed.
> “What the fuck have you done, man?” he asked the silent apartment.
Belt tied tightly around his right arm, he inserted the needle’s tip into the vein popping out of his elbow. He winced as the needle pinched his skin. It had been a while, but he found the vein easily enough. When the stuff flowed into his blood, he smiled as his head became more and more difficult to hold up. Soon, he was floating way above the strange bed in the barista’s apartment.
“You made a martyr, man,” he whispered.
As endorphins flooded his brain, Christopher closed his eyes. In the moments during which he faded to nothingness, he was not visited by comforting illusions, but a season-finale recap of his sad life—a series of slights that had shaped him and driven him to this tragic point.
Chapter 15:
Heart of Shadows
1
T
he Stranger and the remainder of the travellers returned with the townspeople to the small village. “How do you fare,” he asked Maria, “being back home after all this time?”
“Oh,” Maria shook her head and chuckled, “this is not home for me.”
“Do you not hail from Mitten?”
“Yes, but Mitten is quite large. Our borders in Fordar are ill-defined, and there are innumerable small townships such as this.”
The Stranger nodded, accepting more so than understanding.
Corina eyed him with suspicion, struggling to place his familiar face. “Not from around here?” she asked.
Patrick looked up and smiled. The group was seated around a large table where several of the generous villagers had provided fare.
The Stranger shook his head. “Far from here …”
“What’s your name?” she asked, eyes narrowed.
The Stranger stared back without expression or reply.
“He’s th’ king!” Patrick blurted through a mouthful of food. “I can’t recall th’ laff thime I ’ad a meal thiff good!”
Corina’s eyes did not leave The Stranger’s. “Is that so?”
“Mhm,” Patrick agreed, oblivious to the rising tension. He swallowed hard, struggling to force down a bite that was far too big for his mouth. “Much better ’n rats and bugs underground.”
“Reprise, then?” she mused. “And what of your visit to Fordar?”
“Lovely as it is, I’d much prefer to be home.” The Stranger chuckled in an attempt to ease the tension.
“Not humble enough for your liking?” she jabbed. “Or perhaps too humble for such royalty?”
The Stranger’s smile faded. He shook his head slowly. “Patrick speaks of matters he understands not. I am no king.”
“Last I heard, there is no king.”
The Stranger nodded in deferential agreement.
“That isn’t true,” John Tompkins added. Patrick was nodding with John.
“And what brings you to our lowly nation, then, King?” Corina continued.
“I only vie to return to my family.”
“Ahh, your family.”
“Perhaps this is neither the time nor place to discuss politics?” Maria interjected. The remainder of the table had gone quiet.
“Anything for family,” Corina continued, but The Stranger only nodded in agreement and continued eating his meal.
John cut in to change the subject. “So what next?” he asked The Stranger. “I never though’ I’d see the day ye’d return to save our hides, but I’m righ’ pleased ya did!”
The Stranger smiled. He never re-encountered the man with whom he’d shared an evening fishing on the nearby lake, and he suddenly wished that Samuel was around to be thanked anew. “What next indeed,” he replied. He eyed Patrick, who stopped eating and smiled.
“You mean …?” the boy asked, too apprehensive to say it aloud.
The Stranger spread his arms and shrugged. “It’s as you’ve said—you’ll need all the aid you can get.”
Brandon and Jake were nodding from farther down the table. “We’re indebted for your grace.”
“What’s this talk?” Maria asked.
“Olivia,” Patrick said. “Our friend.” Lover, he nearly said. “She fell ill after Brandon and Jake were taken … I had to leave her with a healer north of the mountains. He demanded payment …”
John winked at the boy. “We’ll forge some decency into ’im.”
“We?”
“Well, we aren’t goin’ to Reprise without that ’n’,” John said, pointing at The Stranger.
Corina reintroduced herself into the discussion. “What is your aim in Reprise?” she asked.
John looked to The Stranger, who merely shrugged. “My family,” he said. “Beyond that, I know not.”
“Beyond tha’, reparations,” Robert Forlo interjected.
2
The group finished their meal and enjoyed a full night’s rest in the homes of the generous villagers. The following morning, The Stranger and his growing band embarked on the lengthy journey through the Klippa Mountains and into the plains and woodlands beyond. Corina Delgado had apologized for her hostility and requested to accompany the crew to Reprise once their detour foray was complete. She offered to send for an old friend who owned a nag farm near Fordar’s northeastern coast and obtain a small caravan of horses for the latter leg of the expedition.
“That is quite a jaunt to make on foot,” she had said. “If I may make amends for my earlier outburst, please allow me to obtain some horses to make the journey easier.”
“See?” Maria had nudged The Stranger. “Making friends may come with benefit.”
The Stranger offered a smile.
“I ask only one thing in return,” Corina continued. “Take me with you to Reprise so that I may aid in righting this sickness I’ve played a role in spreading …”
“Any who wish to accompany us may freely do so.”
“And on our voyage, I’ve longed to discuss with The King of Reprise.”
The Stranger shook his head. “I return not to Reprise a king. I aim only to find my family. You are welcome on my journey, but our world has changed a bit too dramatically for discussion of foreign affairs to make any advancement in life here in Fordar.”
Corina gazed at him through narrowed eyes while the others shuffled in uncomfortable silence. At last she had turned to Patrick. “So it seems you have a great distance to go to find your friend. When shall we meet again?”
“Oh,” Patrick started. He pondered his time in the tunnels but could never have estimated how long he’d spent there or how far he’d travelled underground. At last he’d shaken his head. “I do not know … Ten days? Twenty?”
“Let’s rendezvous in forty days along Klippa’s Northern Pass,” Corina said. “I’ll wander west along the pass with the horses until we meet again.”
Now, after days of meandering westward alongside the Klippa Mountains, The Stranger wondered how they’d ever pull off running into Corina again. As they travelled, the thin veil of winter settled atop the lands, and each morning grew crisper and greyer than the last.
After days of travelling through the vast desert, the sands gave way to plains. Discrete areas of woodland peppered the horizon. Patrick offered repeated assurances that the group was still travelling in the appropriate direction. Brandon, too, suggested that he would recognize the path along which Resin’s men had dragged them to Fanxel so long ago. Ian and Gregoire plodded along without protest, but it was clear to all that they struggled to match pace.
“This is it!” Brandon exclaimed at last. He gestured along a nearby trail that led northward through a sparse woodland. “If we follow this, we’ll find where Resin captured us in a day’s time.”
The sun was just beginning to set when Patrick led the group west of the path and toward some distant forest. As they approached, the sky had become a deep purple. The coming night’s chill turned the dirt beneath their boots to crunchy, dry gravel. Though the chill rose, the air had grown still and peculiar.
Ian glanced up from his straying thou
ghts and noted that Greggy was no longer beside him. He turned to find the man frozen in place, eyes wide and mouth agape. His pale skin was ashen, and he may have been a corpse if not for remaining upright.
“Brother …” Greggy whimpered.
“What is it?” Ian began, but as he turned to match the man’s gaze, his words trailed off.
“What’s the trouble?” The Stranger asked, turning to look back at the pair. “Shall we take repose?”
“These woods …” Ian muttered, his hoarse voice nearly unintelligible.
“The what?” Maria asked. She lay a hand on the pale man’s shoulder. “The woods?”
Ian’s mouth had grown dry. His lungs quivered within a breathless chest. The hair on his neck and arms stood straight on end. “Hoxar Woods,” he croaked.
3
“How can ye know these are the same woods?” John Tompkins asked.
“I have spent an abundance of time investigating these woods,” Ian spoke. His hand trembled above the dried grass in which he sat. In his mind, his fingers traced the circular symbol minutely in the air, but he willed his hand to remain still. “I have sought them and studied them and learned much …”
After a brief silence, Brandon asked, “What have you learned?”
Ian closed his eyes. His torso wavered, and for a moment he looked as though he may fall onto his side.
Silent tears rolled down Gregoire’s cheeks. His mouth hung agape in silent inquiry, but he could think of no words to ask. He was unable to understand this visceral reaction that transcended conscious memory.
At last Ian spoke. “I learned that rippling the veil that separates life and death accompanies dire consequence.”
The group watched the discomposed pair in uncomfortable silence. Patrick glanced at Brandon, who wore a pained expression of disquiet. Not re-entering the woods was simply not an option for him. He knew Brandon would agree, though neither of them had spoken of the uncomfortable truth suspended between them. He waited—part of him even wished—for Brandon to lash out at him for being so foolish, for leaving his love in these cursed woods. But Brandon said nothing. Did he blame Patrick? Did he blame Olivia? Did he know—deep down—what the two of them must have been doing when their friends were slain and captured?