Returning to No Applause, Only More of the Same

When Jay entered the classroom the next morning, she found a little letter lying on her desk.

Eyes drawn to it, she sat down and began turning it over. For one, it was clearly already opened. The little wax seal that had formally shut it so tightly was loose in parts, though it still clung to the upper flap of the letter. Not that it was addressed to anyone. Feeling her brows furrow, Jay made to open the letter fully only to be startled when she realized Annie was sitting next to her.

“So?” Annie said tiredly. “Will you make up with Gerald now?”

Jay couldn’t honestly answer that. Well, sure, there was an answer, but that answer might make Annie take back the letter. For that matter, this was that letter, wasn’t it? The one. The specific letter written from a certain someone to a certain someone. Her grip on the letter tightened. “This letter will have uses beyond childish friendsh-,”

“Will you stop that?” Annie snapped. “Look, I’m not… You’re not a bad person, that’s not what I’m trying to say, but it’s like you don’t actually care. If all of this was only because you’re on some weird crusade against Mr Wiedermann, then this is just not something I want to be a part of. Sure, maybe some greater goods are worth sacrificing everything for, but this is-, he’s just a guy.” A scowl played across her lips and she pointed at the letter in Jay’s hands.

“With this, it’s over. If you’re willing to break off with Gerald just because you think it might get you closer to some stupid horrible truth that isn’t there, then here. Just take it. With this, you don’t need to hound me anymore, do you? Knowing you, you might even try some underhanded half-criminal scheme just to get it.”

Jay sat there, frozen in place. Was she seriously doing this? Here, in the middle of class? Jay’s eyes darted about, but nobody was paying attention. Her fingers trembled and her mouth felt dry. “I wouldn’t…” But it was true.

“I’m not saying that you’re evil or anything like that. I-, I know you’re just trying to do good here and all that, and in a different time I might have felt the need to help you, but this isn’t that. What you’re doing here is…” Annie turned away. “You really hurt Gerald. And if you try going through with this, you’ll hurt a lot more people.” Annie’s eyes met Jay’s again and Jay felt small and strange. The girl glanced down at the letter with a strange fondness. “But that should change your mind.”

For the rest of the lesson, Annie wouldn’t say anything to Jay, no matter what she tried. The lesson passed quietly and so did the next one. The day simply passed by. At lunch, Jay found herself sitting alone. But she was used to that, wasn’t she? She’d sat alone for years before she picked up Gerald and Annie. This was really just a return to form for her.

She could do without them! As a matter of fact, she might even be better off if they stayed safe and sound in their little wallow-holes.

Then she alone might be targeted.

Yes, that was right. This was her burden to bear. A lonesome heroine trying to show the truth to the ignorant world. Her cross to bear.

She waited with opening the letter until school had ended, at which point she sat herself outside of it atop one of the many leaf-covered benches. All the trees of the school had now turned bright red and yellow, showering the school buildings and the streets with leaves. It was almost chilly, so Jay was clad in a little second-hand jacket and finger gloves.

There, outside the school, she finally got a peek inside what she thought would be the truth she had so longed for.

Instead, she found something of a eulogy for a man she had never heard about. Some Charlie Swallowbird fellow. Though, going by the context, it was probably Annie’s brother. The one she wouldn’t talk about.

The eulogy presented a very strange tale of a man who, alongside four other classmates, was brought to another world. There, he was conscripted into some wacky religion following some strange underground God. In other words, he got brainwashed into some stupid cult. From there on, he apparently lived a pretty typical heroic life by fighting monsters and doing stuff like that.

...And this was supposed to be some sort of final truth? What a scam.

Though, it should be noted that there were quite a few strange things about the letter. For one, it was written by someone who had gone on that same journey with him, though not named as the other three. Since there were only four people other than Charlie who were taken, one of these must still be alive.

No name was signed, but going by the context, Jay could only think of a single person who could have written the letter.

Kreig Wiedermann.

If this story applied to him as well, then it would mean that he was summoned to the Otherworld alongside the four others and was inducted in that religion. From there on, he apparently survived. All four others died but he lived on through some unknown means.

Putting the letter back in her backpack, she got back on her feet, letting her mind run in circles while she wandered aimlessly.

He was summoned ten years ago. Jay could recall reading on some ‘Top Ten Interesting Otherworld Facts’ article that one year on Earth was 13 in the Otherworld. That would mean he had lived 130 years in the other world. Combined with the 17 when he was summoned, he had to have been at least 147 years old. Wow. What a grandpa.

His race must have given him some sort of longevity skill or whatnot. That was the only thing she could think of.

Still… He didn’t seem like a 100+-year-old at all. As a matter of fact, he barely seemed 50! Though, that was all very ambiguous. Now that she thought about it, Jay could even remember hearing some people discussing how old he must be. They placed him somewhere around his late 30’s. About a hundred years off or so.

Jay snickered to herself.

130 years in a world widely regarded as a monster-paradise. That would explain his levels. Being a part of some cooky religion explained his race. With this letter, she might actually have some foothold. With this, she could explain where he came from. Who he was before all this.

Googling his name on her phone brought no results apart from a few celebrities with similar names or fictional characters. Asking around certainly didn’t help. But this… There should be something about this, right? Someone had to have written an article or two about five kids mysteriously disappearing. Sure, it was literally the day before the portals opened, but that’s all the time in the world for a hungry journalist.

Walking while lost in her thoughts, Jay eventually bumped into someone around her own age. “Oh, sorry,” they said and went on their way. Jay glanced up.

This school… This was the school mentioned in the letter, wasn’t it?

It was a pretty normal school, all and all, although it had recently been the focus of a lot of attention due to the massive white tree growing in the middle of it. The tree was large enough to peek out over the tips of the buildings, giving the impression that it was absolutely massive, which it certainly was. Dendrologists and botanists from the whole world over had come to gaze at it and take samples of whatever they could think of, including the strange red fruits that had grown on it earlier that summer. Since it was now autumn, the fruits had stopped growing.

Jay had heard many rumours of students climbing the tree just to pick a few fruits to eat. They were neither poisonous nor hallucinogenic, and since they were rather sweet and filling, people apparently liked eating them as a snack.

At this time of the year, though, the tree proved its status as a tree by changing colours and dropping its leaves. It would probably have been less scary if the leaves didn’t turn completely black before falling.

Since it was pretty late in the afternoon, Jay could clearly see kids her own age leaving the school in small, friendly clusters. She elbowed her way inside.

The tree was even larger this close to it. The black leaves on the ground were a bit eerie, but the contrast between the snow-white bark and the black leaves was worth watching for a while.

As she stood there looking at the tree, the final students milled out of school grounds, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

This was where Wiedermann went to school. It was… surprisingly normal, all things considered. Except for a little monument off to the side. She felt herself drawn to it.

The monument seemed to have been made of bronze or some other such metal. It portrayed a row of four roses, each blooming on their lonesome. Each of the four had a little name-plate below them, listing their names. She recognized all of them from the letter, though one more than the rest.

Kreig Wiedermann.

His name was on a nameplate, among the others, as might be expected. But he had no rose.

...No, on closer inspection, the stalk of a rose could be seen sticking out of the ground, though it almost seemed as though the rose itself had been plucked. Who could have done this? It must have been Wiedermann somehow, but at the same time, someone could just have come by and stolen it for some stupid reason.

-Nah, it must’ve been Wiedermann.

Mentally, Jay added ‘Mutilation of a Monument’ to her growing list of Wiedermann’s crimes, alongside illegal immigration.

“Hey, kid, no touching the roses!” someone shouted and Jay whirled around to find herself face-to-face with a raking groundskeeper.

“Uh, sorry,” she replied stupidly. “I was just…”

He squinted at her for a moment, as though he was trying to recognize her. “Hang on, give me a second,” he said in an unplaceable accent. Jay watched mutely how he removed a pair of glasses from within his overalls and placed them on his nose. Then, he approached her, still holding his rake. He blinked at her a few times and burst into a smile. “Hey! Well, I’d be-, I was starting to think you’d never come!”

“I’m sorry?”

His smile turned strange and thin. “I’m here to help you.” He quickly peeled off the glove on his right hand and held out his hand. Jay hesitantly shook it. “Pleasure meetin’ you, I’m Rasmus Jung. Agent Jung.”

Jay retreated her hand, feeling a strong sense of trepidation come over her. She was talking to a looney, wasn’t she? “Uh. Hi. I’m-,”

“No need for that, I already know who you are. We all do, so there’s no… Well, I just want to say, I’m a big fan, Jay.”

Jay frowned. “You… are?”

“Of course! In my honest-to-God opinion, you write much better than all those guys we’ve got on payroll. I’m not much read up on their thoughts or anything, but I’d say that’s why the guys up top wanted us to help you and such.”

She felt her head start spinning. She should probably leave. Maybe even call the police. This man - whoever he was - was obviously psychologically ill. “Help me… how?”

He smiled strangely again and Jay regretted coming here at all. “Yeah, that’s the thing, I… Give me a second, I’m pretty sure I… Oh, nope, not in there, okay, so…” He rummaged through his pockets for a good few minutes. Taking the moment, Jay took a few steps away from him. “-There we are!” He pulled a little key out of some strange pocket on the inside of his thigh. “This baby opens up a little locker out in the-, you know how to get to the outskirts of the city, right? There’s this place called Undulat Park, and if you go there and you find this one tree… It’s easy to spot since it’s not like the other trees, but at the root of that tree you should find a little hole. In there, you’ll find all that you need.”

He stretched out the key towards her, and in the faint hope that it might make him back off, she accepted it. “Th-, thank you…”

With that, the groundskeeper smiled, tipped his hat and got back to raking.

Jay turned around and ran home. Well there, she collapsed into the empty couch, where she laid breathing heavily. Usually she hated this couch since her mother used it for work, but right now, she couldn’t consider collapsing anywhere else. The key hung heavy in her hand. She held it up before her eyes, letting it dangle from side to side.

It was just a key. A modern one, to be sure, but just a key. Maybe it went to a school locker? Or it was for his lunch box. Or the bathrooms.

She clutched it in her hand.

...Or it went into the root system of a tree.

She glanced over at the clock. It wasn’t all that late. Biking to Undulat Park and back again would leave her with ample time before her mother got home. It would set her mind at ease. Maybe the groundskeeper had left some stupid gift there, or a dead body, or…

Jay shook her head.

It wouldn’t be anything. It would be empty, and she would go home empty-handed and in the evening she could tell her readers all about the strange groundskeeper who called himself Agent Jung and wanted her to go chase rainbows in a park.

That was what would happen, Jay decided.

But that wasn’t what happened. Not exactly.