by Etzoli
“The hell was that for?” I snapped.
“Stay focused,” Matt answered firmly. “We need to talk.”
“No kidding,” said Jen mildly. “Carl, you with us now?”
I glared at Matt. That kick was completely uncalled for. I could still feel it on my leg. “Yeah, I’m here. So talk.”
Matt frowned. “Carl, if we’re going to do this…”
Jen cut in. “No, we’re not. Carl, se develd and let Matt talk, selnou ?”
“English, Jen.”
“Dammit.” Jen slapped herself in the face lightly. “Sorry, Matt.”
“It’s okay. Has it been a problem?”
“Kinda,” she answered, with a remarkably straight face. She didn’t want him to worry. No way was she going to let him know the full extent of trouble she’d been having all day. She and I would keep that secret. “Mom thinks I’m taking a foreign language now, but other than that…” She trailed off.
“Well, good enough,” Matt sighed. “She ate the scrambled eggs, right?”
“Eggs!” Jen exclaimed, sitting up rigid. Embarrassment flooded her face, and she relaxed a second later, eating her food with a guilty look.
“Huh?” I asked, genuinely confused.
Matt grinned. “She couldn’t remember the name for eggs,” he explained. Jen picked up a grape and threw it at him. He ducked it easily.
“ Syldavacka, ” she muttered, but a smile crossed her face as well.
They were both so casual. I couldn’t understand it. We had way more pressing things here. Life-and-death things. I dropped my fist in the middle of the table—a bit louder than I’d meant to, but I didn’t make excuses. They both fell silent.
“…Kind of dramatic, Carl,” said Matt. The words were a joke, but his tone was suddenly icy. I didn’t care though. I was fed up.
“Blake,” I snapped.
“I haven’t seen him,” Matt replied, in that same infuriatingly calm voice he’d been using all day. He put up his hand before I could answer. “Doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Could be he just didn’t come in today. You know he skips morning classes all the time. Our first two periods are pretty worthless.”
“I called this morning though, and I didn’t get anything,” I said slowly.
“Not even his parents?’
“No. But that’s not surprising, they’re never home in the morning. His dad’s already gone and Adela’s shift doesn’t end til nine.” Maybe there was still hope. I couldn’t consider the alternative. Not yet.
“He would come in today of all days, though,” said Jen.
Matt nodded. “Yeah, he would. Which leads to the other possibility.”
“Don’t say it,” I said.
“Carl, we have to figure out what we’re going to do if he’s—”
“Don’t you fucking say it,” I snarled. A bit too loud. People at a nearby table looked over, startled. I lowered my voice again. “He’s just at home.”
“Carl…” Matt began, but I was done with this. I stood up and walked away, taking my tray and tossing it into the nearest trash can. Some busybody started in on me about recycling and how the tray shouldn’t be trashed and some other crap. I walked straight through them and out the front doors.
My best friend was alive. He had to be.
Chapter 5 — Matt
“So who’s up first?”
“The parents of the reported missing.”
“Any tips from the academy’s finest Officer Portman on this interview?”
“Keep it clean.”
“No shit. But what about talking points?”
“Same as anything else for now. We need to establish a timeline, suspects, motives. Most importantly, if was this an abduction or a runaway.”
“I dunno, kid sure seems clean from the basics we’ve got. You think he rabbited?”
“You never know with some. Doesn’t matter how nice or smart someone looks. Everyone’s got an animal instinct inside, you just never know how deep it might be buried.”
“I thought we were talking about runaways, not murderers.”
“Fight or flight. Runaways usually start with some kind of fight, with parents or guardians.”
“Then flight?”
“Don’t get cute. Pay attention to the road.”
Carl stormed off, and all I could think about was how much I wanted to do the same.
Not seeing Blake was a hammer blow to my chest, even with what I already knew. I guess some small part of me had hoped—same as Carl—that Blake would just be there this morning. I’d run into him on the way to school as he got off the bus, or in class since we had all the same classes on Wednesday. After first period, doubt crept in.
After second period, it crushed my hopes into dust.
Blake was really, completely gone. I’d expected it, but I hadn’t wanted it. Of course I hadn’t. Blake and I were good friends. We should have been playing basketball together tonight. It was a regular thing, basketball in the park on Wednesdays. Blake was never going to play basketball again.
Carl… I felt so awful for him. He wasn’t going to have an easy time. If Blake and I were good friends, he and Carl were closer than brothers. When we’d gotten split up at Skyldr, Blake got me to keep searching for Carl for weeks. So much wasted time, but Blake couldn’t ever give up—just like Carl couldn’t give up on him now.
As he snaked through the cafeteria tables, it was clear just how little he cared. He nearly knocked off some poor freshman on his way out the doors. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to leave. I’d leave too, if I could. I was the leader though. I had responsibilities. I don’t know why it fell to me. Maybe it was just my bad luck, to be the only guy with a car that night.
Whatever it was, I ended up in charge. Decisions were dropped in my lap. No matter how huge or life-altering, they trusted them to a kid from the suburbs in Oregon. Everybody in that whole country was insane. Every last one of them. They trusted me to make the hard choices.
Like now. If Carl didn’t accept Blake’s death soon, I was going to have to make another hard choice.
“Matt?”
My sister’s voice brought me out of my daze. She was still gazing at the spot Carl had vacated, her face etched with worry.
“Yeah?”
“What do we do?”
I sighed. I’d really hoped I’d never hear that question again. “He needs to vent. Blake was his best friend. One day. We can handle that. One day won’t hurt him.”
“What if it hurts someone else ?”
I shook my head. “Carl’s not stupid. He’s not going to start attacking random people. He just needs to work through his grief.”
Jen frowned. “Matt, he’s not sad . He’s angry. And he thinks there’s still a chance.”
“Well there is, isn’t there?”
“ Tol deka danedek so vei , Matt!” Her voice was as harsh as a whisper could get. I was taken aback. What was this about? I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t even know what she’d said . Jen’s eyes narrowed, her expression suddenly fierce. “I know, okay?”
A battering ram against the walls of denial in my mind. “…Know what?” I replied, hoping desperately she was referring to something else—anything else. But I knew exactly what she’d say next
“I was there. In the antechamber. I know why Blake died,” she said, her voice cracking. I froze up, doing everything in my power not to react. I didn’t answer. My eyes were fixed on the wall far over Jen’s shoulder, though I couldn’t make out anything I was seeing. I was trying to block out everything, everyone.
Jen had been there. She’d seen what Blake had done. What I’d done.
After a few moments without a reply, Jen continued. “I get it, okay? I’m not blaming you. You did what you had to do. Blake and I both understood that. The son of a bitch needed to die. He deserved to die. But Carl doesn’t know what happened.”
“Explaining it won’t do anything for him,” I said quietly.
“Mayb
e,” she said, leaning forward on her elbows. “There’s no chance Blake’s alive, though.”
“…No.”
“And Carl will keep trying until he finds that out for himself.”
“Probably,” I said, glancing away. The cafeteria continued to bustle around us, as if everything were perfectly normal. As if we weren’t discussing events so brutal that I was still having nightmares a week later.
“Isn’t it easier to just tell him?”
“I don’t think he’d believe me,” I replied honestly. Carl and I weren’t on teh best of terms, even before we left. He only attached himself to me because Blake and I hung out so much. I’d mostly ignored him, except when he got in the way.
“Well, what if we both—”
“No,” I interrupted firmly.
“No?” Jen asked. She lifted her head a little, surprised.
“You shouldn’t get involved.”
“Matt—” she started, but I stopped her again.
“You’ve got your own life to get back to. A happy, normal, safe life,” I said. Where nothing ever happened to you and you’re just an ordinary teenage girl, I added in my head.
“It’s not like I can just go back, Matt,” she said, her expression dark.
“Why not?”
“Well, for one, vei suselenas wenda daned Etoline valenas envil. Or did you forget?”
“No,” I replied quietly. “Of course not. That’s on me.”
“ Dov? ”
“It was my fault, Jen,” I said, still determinedly refusing to meet her eyes. I couldn’t bear to see her face right now, even if it was the little sister I’d grown up with, and not the scarred Sylvandar warrior I’d come to know. “All of it. You wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t let you—”
“Stop. Right now.” Her hand grabbed mine. I looked at her finally, at her face that had reemerged from my past, and felt such despair that it could have consumed me—except that her expression wasn’t sad or dark anymore. She looked determined. “You are not to blame. How the hell could you have known?”
“But even after we got there—”
“We got split up. All of us. And you are not responsible for what happened to me.” A few people were walking close by, giving Jen pause. My eyes were watering up with tears. I brought up my sleeve and brushed them away before she could notice. I couldn’t afford to show weakness. I was the strong one, the center of the group. The fearless leader. I had a role to fulfill.
By the time the kids moved on, my eyes were clear, my expression controlled.
“It’s okay, Matt. I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re home,” she continued in a low voice. “I’m back to normal. Ish.” She smiled. “So what if I’ll be a bit kapar-litashavec for a while? No big deal.”
“In English?”
“Oh, screw you.” Jen tossed another grape at me. “Uhh… scatterbrained. Kinda. It’s not really a direct translation.”
I shook my head, amused. I’d never learned the language. I knew a few words, enough to understand some of Jen’s lapses, and I knew some short phrases we’d practiced. They were useful for quick directions in combat. In a rebellion, the ability to communicate on the field without being understood was invaluable. I’d also learned how to answer a few insults, like the one Jen used the night before. I’d heard it far too many times from random elves, so I’d had Jen explain it to me. It was… pretty racist. Elves and humans don’t get along very well.
Carl went on and on about the language being beautiful and special, but I honestly didn’t really see what he was talking about. Etoline sounded pretty much like any other tongue to me. I mean, I couldn’t understand what was being said most of the time, but it was no different than listening to something like French or Spanish or Japanese. All gibberish, even if it might not be human gibberish like the rest of them.
The language held a profound importance to Jen though. That much I got. Living with the elves had changed her in so many ways. Deep in my mind, I feared she’d never be able to return to normal. But damned if I wasn’t going to try to get her there.
“Are we good?” Jen asked. That phrase I understood in both, but I could tell she was trying to make an effort. I appreciated it.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “We’re good.” I returned to eating, as did Jen. We’d both gotten distracted—for obvious reasons—and the lunch hour was running down fast. I dug into the lunch I’d thrown together that morning. It wasn’t my best work, but for the first meal back, it wasn’t bad.
I always put together our lunches. Mom used to, a long time ago, but all that changed when our father up and left. Jen was too young at the time to remember him well, but I remembered him. We were better off without him. Still, that left our mother picking up a second job, suddenly never able to spend much time with us except on the weekends. During the weekdays, unless we stayed up late, we were lucky to see her at all beyond the wake-up call I grudgingly gave her at breakfast.
But she kept the money flowing, and somehow kept the rest of the house clean and tidy on top of that. (Our bedrooms were another matter entirely). On weekends, after she got home in the evening, we’d always eat dinner together and do something as a family. Watch a movie or some TV, or play a board game. When we were younger, we’d go down to the park a lot. Early on, it was mostly just Jen, me, and the other neighborhood kids on the swings and playground. When I got older though, I spent more time just sitting on a bench with Mom, watching.
We’d talk about anything and everything. Mom was always there to listen to me complain. She’d listen to how school was going, or anything else that came to mind, no matter what it was. Once, I started ranting about some problem I was having in a video game for over thirty minutes straight. Something about how I was having trouble figuring out how the enemies did a particular move, and how I couldn’t beat them. I can’t remember the specifics at all anymore, but Mom just sat there calmly and listened. When I was done, she asked if I had figured out the problem in the end, which I still hadn’t.
She smiled, and told me, “Sometimes solutions can show up where you least expect them. Never forget that everybody in a fight has a reason they’re fighting. Everyone wants to think they’re the good guy in the end.”
It didn’t apply to the videogame in the slightest. I don’t know if she missed what I was talking about and assumed it was a book or something. Her advice was completely useless at the time. But, in Cyraveil, that simple piece of advice saved my life more than once, and helped me build an army. It saved the entire kingdom more than once.
I wished I could somehow express that to my mother someday. But I never would. It’d be far better if my mother never had to learn about that place.
“Hey, Jen.”
“Mmmph?” Jen mumbled through a mouthful of pretzels.
“We should do something for Mom.”
She swallowed them down before answering, thankfully. “ Anala ?” I started to remind her, but she caught herself first. “Sorry, sorry. Like what?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“We could bake her a cake,” she added, her mouth slowly widening to a grin.
“…You just want cake.”
“That wasn’t a no,” she shot back.
I sighed. “Fine. We’ll pick something up.”
“ Do se nara sevensyl, Matt.”
“You’re not even trying anymore.”
“ Masal ,” she said, giggling.
“You never change,” I grumbled. “Speaking of which, where’d your partner in crime run off to?”
“Oh.” She frowned. “She had some stuff to take care of during lunch.”
“Ah,” I said noncommittally. I was actually a little disappointed. When I’d walked up, Sara had been sitting next to her, and the moment she’d turned to look at me, I’d remembered exactly why I’d always wanted to ask her out.
We’d been chatting and talking for the last week or two, all the way up til last night, when Blake had called and everything went wrong. She
’d been Jen’s best friend for years and years, but somehow we’d never crossed paths much. Jen never seemed to invite her over; they always just hung out at Sara’s or somewhere else. But lately, I’d started noticing her more. She was intelligent and confident, and good-looking on top of that. I’d wanted to ask her out, but I’d always been held back by something. Caution, maybe, or fear of rejection.
Now that just seemed silly. Sara was worth the risk. Better yet, she was normal. Ordinary.
Human.
“Why, what’s up?” Jen asked.
“Nothing,” I answered quickly. She seemed suspicious, but I was saved by the bell. Lunch was over. Jen glanced up, disappointed, and started to gather the remainder of her lunch back into her bag. “You should probably finish that. It’s still going to be a long day.”
“You’ve still got the headache too?” she asked, zipping up her bag.
I nodded. “Leftovers, but it’s there.”
“Bunch of keldaphut .” Jen stood up, pulling on her bag.
“Seriously, Jen. English,” I warned, but she only grinned and wandered away.
The last thing I needed was Jen spouting off curse words in a language that didn’t belong in this universe. I doubted anyone would take it as anything other than gibberish, but the more she lapsed, the more she’d probably continue to lapse, and the more attention would fall on us. It was already bad enough that Blake was missing. I still didn’t know how to handle that.
I watched Jen leave, joining Sara at the opposite end of the cafeteria and vanishing down the hall. My only plan at this point was just to pretend we knew nothing. What else was I supposed to do? No one could prove anything about Blake’s disappearance. All the evidence was safely tucked away in an alternate dimension—or whatever the hell Cyraveil was. Without any leads, and with us resuming normal lives as if nothing had happened, any investigation would just fall flat.
With that comforting thought, I finished my lunch and headed out for my next class.
***
My other classes went by without anything else going wrong. After the mess at lunch, I barely even noticed the rest of the day drift by. I was too busy worrying about what Carl might be up to. I wasn’t lying when I told Jen he‘d probably be fine for a day, but he’d lost more than I had. Could I really understand what he was going through?