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Wirt stares at his ceiling in silence for most of the day. His phone buzzes and rings with texts and calls from friends and family who insist on checking up on him. He lets every call go to voicemail. He lets every text stay unread.
The notebook that was once filled with poems is ripped to shreds and thrown away. The clarinet remains in the corner, untouched and layered with dust.
Coming home from The Unknown should have been the end of it. The end of the grief. The end of fearing he’d lost his brother forever.
It only solidified those feelings.
Wirt would never see Greg again. Never hear a stupid rock fact. Never roll his eyes at something stupid Greg made up, like magical purple tigers with unicorn horns and dragon wings. Never play a dumb game that nobody but Greg knows the rules of. None of it.
Wirt blames himself. He always will. No matter how much therapy his mom and step-dad put him through, it’s not going to change that it’s his fault.
It’s Wirt’s fault that Greg is dead.
His phone buzzes again. Wirt sighs and grabs it from the night stand. He looks at the number of unread messages and missed calls and grimaces. He reads the texts, but doesn’t respond to any of them.
Sara: Wirt, everyone has been trying to reach you for almost a week.
Sara: Please respond.
Sara: We miss you, Wirt.
Sara: The school district is planning a memorial for Greg. They want you to be there.
Jason: Hey man, I know we’re not on the greatest of terms, but I’m worried about you.
Jason: We all are.
Jason: I know how it feels to lose someone you care about.
Jason: Please just talk to us.
Jason: I know Sara told you about the memorial, but you don’t have to go. I’ll do my best to make sure people don’t bug you about it.
Mason: Wirt, please answer.
Mason: It’s been a week and you haven’t read any of our messages or answered any of our calls.
Mason: My sister is about ready to bust down your door right now.
Mason: She’s really worried.
Mason: Please respond.
Kalie: I know we don’t know each other very well, but if you need anyone to talk to, you can talk to me.
Kalie: I lost my sister a while back, so I know how it feels.
Kalie: You don’t have to, though. I know how it can be when people keep trying to help when you don’t want it. Just think about it, okay?
Kalie: Coming from someone who’s been there, they really do just want to help, even if it just feels like pity.
Kalie: I don’t want to pressure you to talk or respond if you don’t want to.
Kalie: Just try to feel better, okay?
It takes a while for Wirt to read the messages of almost a dozen people, but by the time he’s done there are tears streaming down his cheeks.
Wirt sits up and pulls his knees to his chest. He’s tired. Why are they worried about him? He’s not the one who drowned in that lake. He’s the one who caused Greg to be in that lake in the first place. He’s the one who left Greg alone in The Unknown. He’s the one who gave up.
Even the knock on the door doesn’t get a response from Wirt. He just sits there, sobbing quietly and ignoring the outside world.
The door opens and his step-dad steps inside.
Wirt doesn’t even glance, just hugging his knees tighter.
Dan sits down on the edge of the bed silently, placing a hand on Wirt’s back. He doesn’t speak, just quietly rubs Wirt’s back comfortingly.
It’s not comforting. It makes Wirt feel even guiltier because it’s Wirt’s fault that this man’s son is dead. Dan should be yelling at Wirt. It’s Wirt’s fault, so why doesn’t Dan yell? Dan lost his son because of Wirt, why isn’t he angry? Why does he try to comfort Wirt when he should yell at him instead?
“It wasn’t your fault, Wirt. Please understand that. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. I should have taken him trick-or-treating. It’s my job as a father. I wasn’t busy with anything, just lazy,” Dan says quietly, pulling Wirt into a hug, burying his face in Wirt’s hair and stroking his arm.
Wirt goes limp in his step-father’s arms, sobs growing in volume, “I’m sorry, Dan. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have climbed the wall. I shouldn’t have taken him with me when I did, either. I shouldn’t have left him alone in The Unknown when I knew there was something out there taking people. I abandoned him just because I was upset with Beatrice and I was selfish.”
Dan goes still, lifting his head from Wirt’s hair and looking down at him, “Wirt… what’s The Unknown? Who’s Beatrice?”
Wirt hugs himself tightly, “I don’t know what the Unknown is. I just know that we were trapped there for almost a week, even though almost no time passed here. Everyone we met there ended up being a dead person. I found Beatrice’s grave when I ran off from the funeral. She was stuck in The Unknown too, same with her family. She promised that Adelaide could bring us home but it turned out that Adelaide was going to force Greg and I to be slaves.”
The arms around Wirt become tighter, “Were there lots of trees and weird people, and a woodsman with a lantern he refused to let out?” Dan asks quietly.
Wirt nods, looking up at his step-father. How did Dan know? Did anyone else know about the unknown?
Dan continues to stroke Wirt’s arm, “My ex-wife told me about it when she was in the hospital. After her heart stopped for the first time and the doctors brought her back. She wouldn’t stop talking about what happened in the two minutes she was dead. She wanted me to know how to make it back if I ever got trapped there.
“I guess I should have passed the message along. I’m sorry, Wirt. I should have told you how to get back.”
—
Wirt still believes it was his fault, even after that talk with his step-father a week ago. Even after Jason Funderburker showed up to his house with gifts from his classmates and teachers. Even after a week and a half of therapy.
It’s dark, rain pouring down and the sky so cloudy that the street lamps are the only source of light.
The graveyard is quiet. Quieter than it should be with rain this heavy. Wirt visits Beatrice first, leaving a rose and a wooden carving of a blue bird. He knows it’ll be stolen by tomorrow like every other carving he’s made for her. He spends about an hour just sitting there, cleaning off the weeds that keep coming back, pooling rain water in his hands to rinse the dirt from the grave and making sure her name is visible.
Greg’s grave has no weeds yet and is still clean since it’s new, but Wirt still tries to make it cleaner. He spends an hour there talking to Greg, telling him the things that have happened and the things he’s seen that Greg would like. There’s not much, though, so most of the time is spent making things up to entertain his brother, if he can even hear him.
He leaves a bundle of the most colorful flowers he could find and a carving of a frog for Greg. “I’m so, so sorry, Greg. It’s all my fault. I’m a terrible brother,” Wirt sobs as he gets ready to leave, wanting to stay but knowing he’ll get hypothermia if he does.
Wirt doesn’t care about getting hypothermia. Not really. He just knows that he can’t be self destructive because it’d kill his mother to lose another child. It’d kill Dan to lose Wirt to the same mental illness that took his ex-wife.
“I’m sorry.”