For the first few minutes, Kid-Seth walked carefully, but after he was sure that the road was safe he developed a steady, speedy pace and kept his eyes peeled for the scarred tree. His movements were watched by the present Seth and Josephine as they followed his path. After a few minutes, Josephine said, "Hey, I've been wondering something for a little while now." Seth said, "Yeah, what?" She said, "What the hell happened to you?" He asked her hat she meant and she replied, "When you were a kid, you had the guts to go on some treasure hunt to a place that might not even exist, but when I first met you, you seemed to be the type that would do anything to survive, even if it meant being a complete wuss."
"That's not true. I'm not coward. I never was and I never will be," stated Seth. In response, She asked, "Then why was your head down and why did you try to make yourself disappear from your own desk?" He said, "I don't know, but if I had to guess, it would be because I know the rumors about some of the kids in school and even though I'm not the type to listen to gossip, I know for a fact that some of those rumors are true and I guess I just wanted-actually I'm not even sure what I wanted. In the end, I suppose that I justified my actions to be one of those facts of life that you want to change, but you just can't." She asked him why and he said, "I don't know. 'Cause that's life and you don't always get to be the person you want to be or get to do all the things you want to do."
She looked like she was gonna say something, but stopped because Kid-Seth had found the tree with the cross-shaped scar. It was the strangest thing, in a forest filled only with evergreen trees, there stood the largest oak tree that both the ten year-old Seth and the sixteen year-old Seth had ever seen. It's roots were so big that they reached above the ground and were possible to climb on. It's branches seemed to stretch forever and the trunk seemed to be thicker and wider than a house. And in the center of that trunk was a pale cross that spanned the entire front side of the tree.
Seth turned to Josephine to see what she thought, but stopped when he saw her pale at the sight of the tree. He put his hand on her shoulder to try to turn her to see what was wrong with her, but at his touch she screamed and went into a fetal position on the ground while saying, "Please don't make me go back their," over and over again like some mantra. Normally, he wouldn't have paid attention to things like this, but he had come close to a panic attack earlier today and more to the point, if he didn't do anything he knew that the guilt would make him feel like a complete asshole and he didn't want to deal with that sort of responsibility.
It was this reasoning that made Seth get down and say, "Hey, Josephine... Josephine- Earth to Josephine!" With her eyes filled with fear she looked up and said in a weak voice, "What?" "I'm not really sure what your afraid of, but this is just a memory and we can't even feel the cold here so that stands to reason that whatever caused your fear is also a part of the memory and by default not real in the time and place that both of us are from," calmly reasoned Seth. "Yeah, and what's your point," hesitantly asked Josephine. He said, "No one is coming to take you to anyplace you don't want to go...feeling better?"
At her nod, he helped her up and said, "But it is a surprise. Even someone like you has things that their afraid of." At this she seemed to get mad. Seth knew this to be true because she quickly walked ahead of him and at his cry that she wait, she turned back to him with a glare that could turn the strongest to dust and said, "You may not be a coward, but you are an ass." Seth blanked and wondered what he did wrong and then remembered that she was a girl and that because of this it would be hard to figure out what he did wrong. This caused him to reason that it would be best to keep his distance until she calmed done and then broach the subject. After looking at her angry form again, he thought,"Or I could ignore the subject and hope she forgets about it and then try to get along with her by not mentioning whatever it was that I did."
As this had gone on, Kid-Seth had found the pathway and had already maneuvered through the branches before taking a picture of the tree. When Seth and Josephine came to the tree, they just walked through it as if they were ghosts. The road this time was a lot more ruff and Kid-Seth's pace was a lot slower than it was earlier. This time, there was nothing to pass the time with because Josephine still refused to speak to the Seth of the present.
During this time Seth let his thoughts wander, but decided to concentrate on his younger self when he realized that all he had was a lot of questions with no answers and this made him regret storming out the other night. This, in turn, only made him dread the coming confrontation that he would have to make with his own parents. A fact, which only served to strengthen his resolve to concentrate at the task at hand. After what seemed to be an eternity, All three stopped in front of a castle that looked like either Hogwarts or Dracula's castle. After a moment's hesitation, Kid-Seth entered with the present Seth and Josephine trailing behind.
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