Chapter Text
Helge stood in the graveyard at the place Ulla Schmidt had been buried. Why hadn’t she told him about their son? Did she think that he would try to convince her to stay in Winden? Did she think that he would leave Winden for them? Or did she want to leave it all behind—anything and everything associated with Winden?
Helge walked over to the graves of his parents. Dwelling on all the potential reasons Ulla might not have told him about Peter would not get Helge very far. Bernd and Greta Doppler—at least they were reunited at last. Would Helge ever join them? It was not easy believing in God, not now that his soul was stained with the blood of innocents.
He looked in the direction of the church warily. Noah had left, but he could always return, could he not? Even worse, Noah might have fled to another time, found a new accomplice, and carried on with his sinister ways. Helge even wondered if Noah, in a final attempt to break his soul entirely, had murdered Bernd. Noah might not stop there. He could always return. He might take Peter next. Helge could see it in his mind—his son a corpse, eyes burned out, another unknown body found in an unknown time.
Helge cursed himself for not killing Noah when he had the chance. Why was he so weak-willed? He’d never be free of Noah, not even in death: Helge might very well be reunited with Noah in hell. He tried to push that awful thought out of his mind and clutched the coin he wore around his neck. He looked in the direction of Mads Nielsen’s grave, then walked over to the graves of the “boys of ’53.” Erik Obendorf and Yasin Friese. Here and now only Helge knew their names. He would not let himself forget.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Helge could save them in 2019—save them from himself and from the man of God who was really a man of the devil. What if Helge could change things? The man with the stone had said he could change the past and the future, and he had already been right about one thing.
Was it wrong that instead of trying to understand his own father better Peter was daydreaming about a girl? It did make him feel guilty a bit. But Peter had tried to learn more about Helge, and he lived with the man, so surely he’d come to understand his father better in time. It felt awkward and forced to ask his father questions about his life, and it felt awkward and forced for Peter to come up with things to say about himself. It was that same feeling Peter would get when, at the beginning of the year, at least one teacher would inevitably ask everyone to introduce themselves and share an interesting fact or two about themselves.
Charlotte was difficult to understand in a different way. Peter hoped that Charlotte and Helge happened to be the two most difficult people to understand in Winden. If everyone in Winden was like this, or even more difficult to understand—no, no, he was letting Winden get to him! Charlotte had warned him; nobody stays an optimist in Winden for long.
Peter told himself that if nothing ever happened between the two of them, if Charlotte rejected him, or if they got together but broke up, it would not be the end of the world. He would be able to get over her and move on. He had gotten over these sorts of feelings before: when things didn’t turn out right, when he made missteps that ruined everything, when his attempts at romance and relationships inevitably failed to last. Peter told himself he only thought Charlotte was different because he had feelings for her. He told himself that he only thought he had a deeper connection with her because he wanted it to be true.
The thought that this could be something truly important was daunting, so very daunting. Peter knew how this would go: he’d be overwhelmed with fear, unable to speak, unable to act, unable to think. He did not want to set himself up for failure or heartbreak.
Yet his father had managed to charm his mother somehow, so Peter still had hope. If Helge had managed to do that, then surely Peter could at least tell Charlotte he liked her. Maybe it would go well, maybe not, but at least he would have tried. He should say something soon. He could play it off as something like this: “Oh, you look cute, and you’re single, and I’m single, and we get along so far. How about we go out together?” It sounded superficial and shallow, but that would be easier for him to say than something like this: “I have an overpowering crush on you; please, will you go out with me?”
Peter told himself he’d tell Charlotte once he managed to find her. He would tell her, right? Right? He could do it. Yes, he’d tell her. He’d absolutely, definitely, totally tell her. Or would he overthink it? Peter decided it would be better to focus on something else, like actually finding Charlotte.
It felt strange showing up at the school to talk to her, and she’d mentioned she usually goes to the woods, so Peter had decided he’d try to find her there. Unfortunately, “the woods” could refer to a large area, larger than Peter had anticipated. The spindly trees felt somewhat threatening, and Peter did not want to feel threatened by trees of all things. He’d been wandering around through the forest for—well, he wasn’t sure how long. He also wasn’t entirely certain that he knew how to find his way out of the forest.
Charlotte had said, “I feel at ease here in the woods, even though I don’t consider myself an outdoorsy sort of person.”
Peter did not feel remotely at ease here in the woods. He didn’t even feel at ease in Winden, not even in the Doppler mansion—which was his home, at least for now. Hopefully this was something that would go away with time. Perhaps Winden was an acquired taste.
It had taken a while, but Peter had finally done it. He had found Charlotte! At this point, she wasn’t just the person he had wanted to talk to. She was also Peter’s only hope of finding his way out of the woods. He hoped he’d be able to find his way home once he got out of this godforsaken forest, but if it was absolutely necessary, he might have to ask Charlotte to walk him home.
“Here to finish telling me about Skinner boxes and the behaviorists?” she said.
“Uh, no,” said Peter, trying not to sound worn out from his trek through the forest. He wasn’t ready to tell her that he had feelings for her. He needed to come up with something fast.
“I’m trying to familiarize myself with this place, you know, just to learn my way around,” he said. “So I’ve just been walking around, trying to get used to this place.”
“Ah, what do you think so far?” asked Charlotte.
What did he think? He hadn’t had time to think of what he should say. Charlotte was looking at him, waiting for an answer. What should he say? Quick, quick, Peter needed to come up with an answer.
“Even the trees here are oppressive and threatening,” he said. Peter immediately wished he had said something else. Did that not sound stupid? Maybe he should wait to tell Charlotte about his feelings. He couldn’t risk saying anything stupid on top of what he had already said, could he?
Peter thought he saw Charlotte smile for a second, but her smile was so slight that he couldn’t be sure.
“I suppose I should’ve given you a stronger warning, but it’s too late now,” said Charlotte, who looked and sounded dead serious. “Welcome to hell on earth.”
“Hell on earth?” he asked, trying not to sound worried. If that was what the people here thought of their hometown, then surely Winden must be even worse.
“Don’t worry, I don’t actually think Winden is hell on earth,” said Charlotte, laughing quietly. “I didn’t even come up with that. Katharina is the one that says Winden is hell on earth. And if I tell her, ‘Go to hell,’ you know what she’ll say? ‘What do you mean? We’re already here,’ or something along those lines. I don’t know, I think it’s kinda funny, but that’s just me.”
Peter felt so relieved that she had only been joking that he didn’t mind Charlotte laughing at his expense.
He said, “Ah, so nobody’s being serious when they say Winden is hell on earth?”
“Well,” said Charlotte, sounding uncertain and choosing her words carefully, “I don’t think anybody believes it in a literal sense.”
That answer was not reassuring.