The Magic Place (Part 2 of 2)

 Rosa kept my jacket for the night. She didn’t seem to be sleeping as easy as the night before. She kept waking up. I managed to get a little sleep; more than the night before. At about four in the morning, I woke up and heard her sobbing quietly. I got up and rushed over to her.

“Rosa?” I whispered, “What’s wrong?”

“I remembered them,” she said, shivering with the cold. I sat down next to her and comforted her.

“Who?” I wondered.

“In school. I remembered stuff they had said to me before I saw you. But it doesn’t matter. Go back to sleep,” she said through her tears.

“What did they say?” I asked.

“Just started swearing at me again. They pushed me against the wall again.” She lifted her sleeve which revealed bruises and scratches from when she’d be abused by the mad idiots in her class.

“Oh my God. Stand up,” I said. I was shocked they would want to physically hurt her. She got off the rock and stood in front of me.

“So I had to come and see you. It was too difficult to cope on my own anymore which was why I texted you. Now look at the mess I’ve got us into,” she cried more.

“Aw it’s not your fault. Come here,” I told her and pulled her into a hug again. I kissed her forehead. “None of this is because of you.”

“And I lay there tonight wondering why you actually care. No one else does so I don’t get what you see that they don’t,” she sobbed.

“I see a beautiful, perfect girl who everyone is jealous of. You’re my only friend and I don’t want anyone else.” She rested her head on my chest and cried more.

“I don’t deserve any friends. You deserve to be friends with better people than me. I hate who I’m becoming.”

“Stop being so negative. I love who you’re becoming. Don’t be so hard on yourself all the time. I want you to be happy.” I held her tighter. She doubted everything about herself. Those stupid kids had led her to believe she was ugly and stupid.

“You know they’re all right. You know that what they say is true. I am ugly. I don’t deserve to be loved or cared for by anyone. It’s all true and you know it. You just feel like you need to get on with me because we’re stuck here together. It doesn’t make any sense for you to care. You are so perfect. You can cope with the bullies. You probably think I’m so pathetic because I can’t stop believing them but you are strong enough to ignore them. I hate it all.” She cried and cried and I couldn’t help but get a tear in my eye for her as well.

“You deserve the best things in the world. Everything they say is a lie. You are far from ugly and I do care. I really like you, Rosa. I need to help you, and I need to be there for you. You aren’t pathetic at all because it’s all about learning to ignore them. It’s nothing to do with being strong. Your problem is that you are so unconfident and they have forced you to believe that everything they say is true. We both know that’s not right. And even though we have people who hate us, I’m here for you now,” I told her. I lifted her chin a little, “I’m here to make you believe you’re perfect.” She smiled and kissed me on the cheek.

    I got her another drink and then told her to get some more sleep. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore, not after hearing that. I sat on the dank leaves and stroked her hair as she lay on the rock and tried to sleep. I sang to her when she still had problems sleeping. I didn’t sleep anymore. I just sat and watched her as she slept. She was undisturbed for the rest of the night.

    In the morning, I walked over to see our allowance for the day. More fruit, more bread, but had some beef today. We had another cup of water but yesterday’s had disappeared. It was as if we had someone watching down on us. It really confused me but I thought it was easier to just get on with it instead of pondering and making myself crazy. When Rosa woke up, she instantly apologised for “being so pathetic” the night before. I really wanted to help her feel amazing but I didn’t know how. She seemed too affected by them already. I wanted to make her smile. But I couldn’t stop her from feeling the pain they had inflicted upon her. We ate some fruit and drank some water from the lake because we wanted to save the cup as the water in that had been filtered. I put my arms around her.

“How can I make you happy?” I asked. She smiled at me which was lovely to see.

“Just stay here. I’m happy that you care,” she answered and hugged me tighter. “I feel happier knowing I have a friend.”

    The day continued like the one before but without any events. We just talked like we used to. Books, things which had happened. The things that don’t matter. But it was nice to take her mind off everything and see the fire I always used to see in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. I felt happy seeing her like that. It made me feel like I’d accomplished something. I was on my way to making her feel good. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that we’d been “zapped” to this place. I still didn’t know why we were there. I had never even dreamt about that place. And I doubt she had or she would have told me. We skipped lunch and just waited until dinner when we had the beef, bread and she had the filtered water again. She said that she felt selfish taking the water but I insisted. Besides, I only wanted the best for her.

   She didn’t cry that night which was good. I didn’t dream. She slept silently all night. Then we were on day three. It was apparently meant to be “far from happiness” but the darkness evil atmosphere of the clearing didn’t bother me. I wondered if something bad was actually going to happen. I begged God that nothing would happen. I wanted to keep Rosa safe. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t care about myself then. I just wanted to give Rosa everything. She deserved it after all the people hating her in school.

    Not much happened on our third day either. It seemed to be turning into a routine. Wake up, eat fruit, do nothing, skip lunch, eat meat and bread, give the only good water we had to Rosa, use a spoon to drink lake water, sleep. It was getting really boring. The both of us weren’t getting enough sleep so we were pretty grouchy by day three. We tried to sleep after our breakfast so that we wouldn’t be in such a mood with each other. Eventually we did get an hour or two but it still didn’t seem like enough. We hadn’t washed which was really disgusting but we just looked forward to getting home again. The rocks were starting to depress us because they were so hard and rough.

    The only thing different about that day was that it rained. And being in a forest when it’s raining isn’t fun. It dripped through the trees and when it had stopped there would still be drops which had gripped to the branches. When it was raining, we hid under the only really leafy tree left in the forest. It didn’t make a lot of difference but it was better than just standing underneath a raincloud. Rosa was curled up into a ball next to me and I had my arms around her to try and keep her warm. We were both soaked through and frozen. Once again, she was wearing my jacket; it was ruined. It rained all afternoon and we started to get fed up of it. I wanted it all to go away. It was starting to annoy me how we only had this small area to walk on. There were only the two rocks we sleep on, the lake, a little bit of space around that and all of the trees which didn’t want to block the rain out. I kissed her hair and hugged her, considering there was nothing else to do. We couldn’t go anywhere and the rain was too loud for us to talk.

   The rain stopped at around seven. It had been going for five hours. When it eventually died down, we got up and ran around cheering. It was fun to be stupid with each other. The thought of that always made me smile. Then a droplet fell from the big tree and landed on Rosa’s head and I laughed. I went and hugged her again.

“At last. The rain is over!” I smiled again and then looked at her. Her eyes lit up again.

“Yes, and we can finally relax!” she shouted throwing her arms in the air. We didn’t do much for the rest of the day. We just got back to routine.

    Day four came and we were nearly heading off. I couldn’t wait to get out of there and get Rosa somewhere better. But I dreaded going back to school. I dreaded getting bullied again. I put up with it, but there was no way I was happy with it. Most of all, I dreaded having to see the pain in Rosa’s eyes again. I’d only just managed to get rid of that from her beautiful green irises. They’d sparkled the last two days. I didn’t ever want the hurt in her expression to return.

    Suddenly, a goblin appeared out of nowhere. I took Rosa’s hand instantly and gripped it tightly.

“What the hell is that?” she asked me, quite taken aback by what had popped up in front of us.

“I am here to collect things to cut down the barrier...” the goblin responded. Then he cocked his head to the side. “What are you? And why are you here?”

“We’re humans... And we just appeared here, like you did. Are you saying we could have cut the barricade down?” I explained.

“Oh no, if you are humans then it would of been impossible. Only us goblins can play with the magic. We come from t’other side of forest, ya see. Now, why are you two little beauties in this part of woods?” the goblin explained. He was about three foot tall and a little plump. He had a pointy nose and little round spectacles. He was exactly like the goblins you would read about in books. His speech was a little off, but it didn’t bother me much. I was just purely fascinated by this creature.

“We don’t really know why we are here. We were just in the park and then there was an earthquake-like thing and now we’re in the forest. But we took the wrong path,” I clarified.

“Ah, I see now. What were you doing in park? Shoulda known that the park puts you in forest, you shoulda.” He pushed his spectacles up his nose and started scrambling around for wood. “Didn’t know forest is under park...?” he added, shaking his head as he searched.

“This forest is under the park?” I inquired, confused.

“Yes, obviously had no clue, you little children.” He chuckled and the both of us looked at him, baffled by his existence. “Aha, should be getting off now anyway. Us goblins will be waiting for you little-uns in t’other side of forest, remember.”

“T’other side of forest?” Rosa asked.

“Ah yes, yes. Gooder part. No clue why little kiddies like you are in bad side. Perplexing,” he answered with nods of his head. “Be seeing you, then.” He left then with a quick nod and a bundle of wood. I just looked at Rosa and we laughed.

    So there was another side to the forest. The better side. I guessed that we would have stayed there if we took the other path. I didn’t know what was up with his grammar and speaking. I also wondered why he said that he would be seeing us there. I wondered if that would have meant more time away from home. I hoped not.

     Day five came at last and we had another little goblin up and about the clearing as soon as we woke up. He claimed he’d been told about us having our last day here and decided to set up a little party for the both of us which I thought was pretty sweet. Rosa seemed excited even though it would only be the two of us but joked about not having any party dresses. I liked her sense of humour. She was very sarcastic and I liked that; she was pretty clever when she used sarcasm.

    The same goblin returned later in the day and gave us some shampoo to wash our hair which was funny. Rosa was happy and just dipped her hair over the lake and washed her hair without having to take off her clothes in front of me. Her hair soon dried in the heat of the day because it was pretty warm out. As she sat in the sun, I found some little daisies by the big tree. I started to make a daisy chain out of them to turn them into a headband for Rosa. I thought she’d appreciate it. After I finished, I walked over and gave it to her. I told her that since she didn’t have a party dress, she could have a daisy crown. She wrapped her arms around me and thanked me. I thought it was quite funny how grateful she was about it.

    By seven, the goblins had hung loads of Chinese lanterns off branches. They had decorated the ground with more interesting things than brown leaves and set up lights which spiralled around the trunks of the trees. The night sky was covered with stars and the moon could be seen in the distance. The whole clearing looked magical. A couple of the goblins who had been putting the final lights on the trees grinned and left. I admired their handiwork. It was beautiful. I walked over to Rosa and smiled. She held the daisy crown and I took it from her and placed it on her head. She’d managed to curl her hair slightly again and it looked lovely after being washed. Her eyes sparkled in the moonlight as she looked at me.

“Your eyes are sparkling again,” I whispered. “They only sparkle when you’re happy.”

“I am happy. The goblins have made this cute setting for us and we can leave here anyway tomorrow. I can’t wait to not have to sleep on those rocks again,” she laughed.

“You’re one of those people whose eyes change depending on their mood,” I said. We stood oddly close to each other but I’m not sure if either of us had realised at the time.

“Yeah, that’s why you can always tell when I’m unhappy in school,” she answered.

“Sadly that seems to be all the time.” I looked down and then added, “I’d like that to change.”

“So would I. It’s hard though, remember,” she reminded me.

“But you seem happy when you talk to me. When we talk about books and things you love like that, I see that fire in your eyes return,” I said, looking in her eyes.

“You take my mind off of everything. I couldn’t ask for you to be kinder to me,” she said and wrapped her arms around my neck. I wrapped my arms around her waist and she rested her head on my chest. “Thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me. I’m just always going to be there for you because I understand what you go through unlike other idiots,” I told her again. She lifted her head and looked at me.

“No one else in this world is as perfect and helpful as you are.” Then she added, “You saved me from them,” and leaned in to kiss me. I didn’t really know what to do but I kissed her anyway. Then I was stuck for words. Rosa just laughed at my silence.

“What... What was that...?” I asked. Her mouth curled into a smile.

“I kissed you. You didn’t want me to say thank you so I kissed you instead,” she replied. I had no clue what to say next.

“Oh... Well, um...” I decided that the whole situation was painfully awkward so I kissed her again. Little could my brain figure out that that wasn’t going to change anything and just make everything more awkward again. So I chose to actually be honest with her. “Look, I have no clue what to do now.”

“Neither do I,” she admitted.

“You look really pretty with the daisies on your head, you know,” I said shyly and smiled.

“Thanks. You’ve gone really shy. It’s funny.” She grinned and then the lights went out. All of a sudden it was dark and she suggested that we sleep ready for our day ahead.

    I’d never meant to be friends with Rosa. It wasn’t something I’d aimed for. She hadn’t meant to be friends with me either; wasn’t something she’d aimed for either. It was odd how we’d avoided ever getting close but failed so miserably at it. She was my best friend. My only friend. We always helped each other when things got rough. But I also had never meant to kiss her. But I’m pretty sure I liked it. That was really weird though and it freaked me out a bit that I’d finally kissed someone.

    In the morning, we drank some water and ate the whole allowance for the day because we would be leaving. It felt like we’d almost eaten a proper meal at last. The two of us had lost weight over the five days which wasn’t good. But we were glad to leave. We were glad to head off to the other side of the forest. The nice side, apparently. Even if it was run by goblins...

    We set off in the late morning after the barricade had been destroyed. The setting of the forest was pretty similar to what we’d seen before which wasn’t at all relieving. But after about an hour, the scenery transformed. The trees held more leaves in their branches and the path was clear. As we ventured further, we noticed another clearing. This clearing was jollier looking. It looked as magical as our tiny loner’s party which the goblins had prepared the previous night. Another giant lake was situated on the side of the clearing but the water was clear and fish were happily racing each other through the lake water. The larger fish would plummet down to find things on the seabed. A goblin emerged from the water and welcomed us. God knows what he had been doing down there. Soon, another goblin appeared and they started rambling on to each other about the sunny weather in the “good forest”. A stag galloped around the forest, weaving in and out of trees. Squirrels and other forest animals climbed trees and sprinted around the bushes and plants. Besides there being goblins, elves and fairies were dancing and prancing around the lake. All the creatures cheered in celebration and raced over to hug us. They congratulated us for getting to the good side of the forest. But then they told us we had to rush off before the darkness of the evil forest tried to take us back. So, unfortunately, we had to say farewell to the fantasy creatures and were forced to set off again. It had been a shame that we couldn’t have picked that path instead of the evil one we had picked.

    A few hours later, we reached the end of the path where we were back at that annoying junction at which we’d had to pick the right side of the forest. Obviously, we had failed to pick the correct path, therefore having to live in pretty bad conditions. But, although we were relieved that we were out of the horrid side, we still didn’t know how to leave the forest all together. We sat on the floor again, agreeing that we should just wait for something to happen. Eventually, after about an hour of complete silence, a final sign became visible before us. It was a torn piece of paper which had fallen from the sky:

You have done well. I knew you would be friends. It was so obvious. I guess I will have to release you now. Sorry that I put you through this; I just needed you two to become friends.

Sincerely,

                              Dr. H.E. Goblin.

P.S. Sorry I didn’t give you any guidance towards which path to take...

So it turned out that it was one of those pesky goblins which we thought were nice to do this to us. I figured that they were just trying to do the right thing but it hadn’t worked out as they’d planned. Not soon after the first, another piece of ripped paper fell:

Sorry again, and goodbye. Our little world here will miss you and I hope you enjoy your time back at Earth, Tommy and Rosa. We will always look over you,

                             Dr. H.E. Goblin again.

We sighed with relief as the forest opened up to reveal a grey, swirling portal. I took Rosa’s hand as we jumped into it. Rapidly, we were back in the park. It began to rain and we huffed as we remembered that we were now to be dealing with British weather. We awkwardly said bye to each other and we walked home. I dreaded what my parents were going to say. I had to think of an excuse because I instantly knew that telling them the truth about randomly being zapped into another world would sound totally unbelievable. I strolled regrettably into the house, trying to completely avoid the whole of my unloving family. Unluckily, my father found me soaked and particularly thin.

“What has happened? Why weren’t you at the farm!?” he exclaimed. His bald head was red with rage and you could see the veins on the sides of his face.

“I went to stay at a friend’s house on the mountains and there was a diabolical amount of snow. Therefore, we were snowed in for days!” I evaded.

“Snow? In March?” he questioned, unconvinced.

“Oh yes, they get a lot of it up there in late winter and early spring,” I tried to prove.

“Wait... I didn’t know you had friends,” he asked, sounding surprised. That hit a nerve.

“Exactly! I knew that you didn’t care! This is why I hate living here! I know that all four of us were only born to do the work that your lazy backsides couldn’t be bothered to do! You favourite them and hate me and you don’t want me to have any friends in case I leave the farm,” I shouted at him. It sounded disrespectful but I’d been obeying everything he told me for fourteen years, receiving no love or respect back. They deserved to hear how much I hated them all.

“How dare you say that to me!? I give you food and education and I deserve this?” he replied.

“You give me food so I have enough energy for the farm work and you give me education because school is a legal requirement. You don’t mind my brothers; they don’t get as much work to do as I have. But you can’t stand me. I can tell how much I’m hated by everyone except Rosa.” A tear rolled down my cheek. “You don’t care that I cry myself to sleep and sit on my own in school. You don’t care that I hate you and all of my family because all you really care about is whether I clean out the animals on the farm and do all the things that you don’t want to do yourself.”

“If you hate me so much then why did you return? Oh, I remember. We give you a home!” he screamed at me.

“This is just somewhere to live. But there is no way in Hell that I could call this place home,” I told him. I stormed up to my room and flopped onto my bed. I was so wound up. I got my phone out of my pocket and I finally had signal. I texted Rosa, which is something I never would have done before, and asked her how her parents had taken it. She replied telling me how they were annoyed but relieved she was home. I told her how I’d argued with my father and he hadn’t cared about whether I was safe or anything like that.

    I hated my house, my family, my school. Rosa was the only thing that made my life worth living. She was the only one who cared. The only one who would listen and understand. To be perfectly honest, I needed her and she needed me.

    Monday approached and we had to go to school again. The teachers asked where we’d been for a week but we just told them the story about the snow on the mountain. It didn’t make much sense but it was easier than trying to tell the truth. Inappropriate rumours began to spread around our year group about where we’d been. I’d hear immature things like “Ginger and Farm Boy sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G.” They annoyed me but I tried to not let that show in front of Rosa. Some of them managed to find out that we sit in the library together at lunch so they would come up to us and start saying things to me like, “How can you be friends with an ugly ginger?” and, “Farm Boy, you fancy that stupid ginger?” and they all would laugh. It annoyed me so much that they were mean to her. I didn’t understand why her hair colour could make any difference to whether people would like her or not. And the fact that they called her ugly annoyed me even more. She was far from ugly and it didn’t help her confidence when they would tell her otherwise. I’d been so annoyed generally since we’d returned from the forest and I couldn’t keep my anger in. I just couldn’t handle having to cope with reality again.

“How dare you say that she’s ugly? She’s not at all ugly! What gives you the right to say that to her? Have you seen yourself?” I shouted. They just laughed at me and made impressions but I hit one of them. They stopped laughing and their eyes widened at me. “Don’t pick on Rosa. She doesn’t deserve to be bullied by idiots like you.”

“Go back in your hole, farm boy,” they replied and just rushed off laughing. After they’d left, Rosa smiled at me and thanked me for defending her. I just told her that it was no problem and we got on with our conversation. We’d been gone for a week so there were a couple of books that had been returned to the library and we were looking at them.

    I was surprised that my parents didn’t ask me to leave home. But I never talked to them. I would only sit in my room and Skype Rosa every night. It never seemed to be enough that I talked to her all the time in school. I always felt like I had to talk to her, even at home. And when we were in lessons, because we weren’t in the same class, I would just think about her. I’d think about how great it would be after I got out of class and talked to her. Whenever I was with her, I’d forget the idiots in my own class and focus on helping her with the ones in her class. I loved her. But I loved her as my only family. As if she was the family that I’d always wanted but never been able to have. And I couldn’t get enough of it. It was odd how things had worked out but I got on with it and continued to love Rosa instead of my parents and brothers.

    It was a typical Sunday evening on the farm; the Sun was beginning to set and I heard Rosa shout to me, asking what I wanted for dinner. It had taken a whole afternoon to tell my grandchildren the story of my life. They’d been very interested in that magic place which no one would believe me about. My two grandchildren had been wondering about how I dealt with bullies and being alone. I’d moved out of my parents’ house at seventeen when I headed off to University. After getting my degree, I received a text from Rosa. I hadn’t talked to her since I’d left home. But we agreed that it was probably a good idea to move in with each other, as friends, because of how rejected we were by our family.

    So we had been looking after the grandchildren today. It was a pretty warm day and we sat by the small pond in our garden. We’d bought fish that looked remotely like the ones in the good side of the forest to make it look like our magic place. The two kids actually believed my story of the forest. And they named it The Magic Place. But anyway, now Rosa and I have been married for fifty-two years.

    And, as I always say, it’s weird how things turned out.