The Magic at the End of the World (Do You Remember, Book 5)

Friday, January 26, 2001

"Christina Brewer, Victim of 1995 Murder, (Finally) Laid to Rest" by Jametta Blackwell

The Life Inquirer

Monday, January 22, 2001

Christina Marie Brewer, a 14-year-old Lochland Middle School student, is finally getting the sendoff that she deserved.

Yet how that happened is largely up for debate.

According to several former Lochland Middle School teachers and a former janitor, Christina was a shy and quiet girl who kept to herself; many people would be surprised if she spoke to any of them. She was kept mainly in the special ed classrooms, where most of the children in the special ed classes were not allowed to interact with anyone else in the school.

The isolation unfortunately led to her being abused by Stephen Browne, Franklin Hamilton, and Declan Caesar. The isolation also led to her tragic death on April 11, 1995.

Shortly after Christina's death, her mother Alexandra Brewer, and stepfather Donovan McPherson set up a charity in her name, which suddenly closed within seven months. An investigation into her death yielded few answers and many questions. Almost no one who knew Christina Brewer came forward. It appeared that Christina's death would become another cold case.

That was, until a mysterious video surfaced on the popular teen website MySpace last week; that video contained most of the answers to the questions that should have been asked when the murder of Christina Brewer was first being investigated. For now, no one knows where this video came from and how and why it appeared on MySpace, but rest assured that thanks to this video, The Brewer-McPherson families can finally give Christina the burial that was denied to her...

*-*-*-*-*

The murder of Christina Marie Brewer (and the eventual fallout from said murder) has sent huge shockwaves throughout the city of Lochland, South Carolina. Many people who knew Christina were horrified to learn the actual truth about her death, as well as the deaths of the other children who she had once been friends with.

In fact, over 500 people crowded into the Holy Fire Church (where my family usually goes to church on Sundays) to say goodbye to Christina Brewer. I stared at the McPherson, Kidd, and Peck families sitting in the front row; Luke held his head in shame, knowing that he had allowed the boy who murdered his stepsister to abuse and kill other children instead of calling the police and getting that boy sent to jail.

Not everyone in the Society could go to the funeral, not if we had to keep up with the pretenses of getting an education. However, that didn't mean that I was at the funeral alone. Jimmy, Jacob, Trevor, Claire, and Chelsea were with me; they too had helped solved the crime. Trevor Browne went to the funeral to face the family of the girl that his older brother Stephen had destroyed and Jacob went to the funeral to get some much-needed closure. (As for Kaprice, he chose to stay away, mainly because he didn't want to take anything from this important day.)

As the pastor spoke about the tragedy of life and death, I frowned, knowing that this particular funeral was different from the funeral of Jakobe Garrett, which most of the community had attended. Jacobe's son Jamarico was one of the students in Lochland High School who was promoted to the tenth grade along with me and my friends.

Just then, Chelsea turned to me and said, "I don't want to alarm you now, but I think there's more to our new "friend" than we both think..."

"You mean Chesley?" I said.

"Yes," said Chelsea. "Ever notice how much he knows about everyone in this city?"

"Well, he most certainly knows Claire and her uncle and your dad," I said. "But to be honest, though, I'm not sure if that's a good thing, though."

"Who knows?" said Chelsea. "Anyway, I heard the name Chester in the video and traced it back to a certain Taylor Chester, who was once a science teacher in Lochland Middle School. There was also the name Joshua Hawkins, who Claire claimed to have been staying with at the time of the tragedy. You also told me that Chesley's real name was Dexter Hawkins, and I can't help but wonder if Dexter and Joshua are related to each other."

"They have to be, in order for this story to work," said Claire as she turned to face us. "Remember, it's always about family at the end of the day. If we can connect Chesley to Joshua and Taylor, then we have the foundations of yet another sad Hollywood story..."

"Or an exciting mystery," said Chelsea.

I pulled out the notebook that I had written in when Chesley gave me his lecture about the history of the hidden cities and read through it several times before saying, "Do you guys honestly think we should check the Hall of Records in Oakmoor to find out the truth about Chesley?"

"We should," said Chelsea. "We should also check over your records and those of Claire's just to be sure. Remember, people always lie, but the records never lie."

I nodded, knowing that while mom and dad had already told me the truth about myself and I read the records that Chief Bingham and given us, I felt that I needed to know for myself whose son I really was. And not only that, I needed to know whose son Jimmy actually was so that I could help him and Hadley find and reunite with their family. Plus, Claire, Nicholas, and Jacob were already spoken for and Chelsea has had enough of the Roberts family, yet it's Chesley who is apparently holding us all together.

But that story isn't over yet.

-----

That night, after I get back from the synagogue, I chanced to see Kaprice, Chelsea, and Mariah sitting in the shed waiting for me and Mary. When I asked, Mariah said, "You're not going to believe this, Jed, but someone asked for you today."

"Who?" I asked.

"Someone named Kevin Mueller, who claimed that he once went to school with you and your friend Milton," said Mariah. "Of course we told him to leave you alone."

"Really?" I snapped. "Him again?"

"You know him, don't you?" said Kaprice.

"Yeah," I said. "Milton is NOT going to like this."

"Really?" said Chelsea. "Why not?"

"Because Kevin pulled a prank on Milton back when we were nine years old," I said. "He tried to make Milton think that he was adopted. Needless to say, though, Milton, Clayton, and I refused to speak to Kevin after the prank."

"Really?" said Mariah. "Wow. That Kevin really WAS a jerk."

"What did he want with me?" I said.

"Kevin seemed to think that you're just drawing attention to yourself," said Kaprice. "Yet he also said some not-so-nice things about Milton, claiming that Milton is a liar and a fraud."

"Well, he's a liar and a fraud if he thinks like that," said Chelsea. To me, she said, "Jed, you don't need to put up with that kind of abuse."

"I know," I said. "But who's going to stop these people when push comes to shove?"

"We will," said Mary. "Kevin may think that he's your friend, but he totally crossed the line when he pried into your business and claimed that you were adopted when you didn't know what it was."

I nodded in agreement, knowing that my past was catching up with me. Just as the people of Lochland had learned that they had willfully ignored the story about Christina Brewer until it was far too late, the Hamilton family was about to learn the story about Jimmy, Franklin, Uncle Zach, Zoey, and myself...