The Box Omnibus #1 (The Box, The Journal, The Sword) (3 page)

“No, of course not.” She gestures toward the mini-man and shakes her head at me. “There’s no magic here. You really are slow aren’t you? And you don’t have to worry about how it works. Accept it does and let me deal with the rest.”

“Fine,” I say while waving my hand in a ‘go ahead’ motion. “Fix it. If you know so much.”

“Can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both. Seriously, Lou. Why are you freaking out so much? You can’t tell me this isn’t the most interesting thing you’ve had happen in your entire life. Look at how damn cute he is. With his little leather tunic and knee high boots like they wear in pirate movies.”

“I’m flattered, really,” he says. “And I don’t mean to offend you, but as fun as this is, I would like to go home.”

“See,” I say while I point at him. “He wants to go home. You should give him what he wants.” She doesn’t say anything. “Cindy, please. I need things to be normal again.”

She jumps to her feet and takes several steps away from me before spinning back toward me and throwing her arms up in defeat. “And what’s so great about normal, huh?”

Normal is good. Normal is what everyone strives for. Everyone but Cindy of course. Normal means not sticking out in a crowd for being weird or having a bad reputation or having acted in some stupid way. And most of all, normal means no strange men falling into my lap out of a box.

I must look pretty desperate, because for the first time in my life, Cindy actually takes pity on me.

“Fine. Have you tried putting him back in the box?”

“Of course.” I rub my hands against my head as I pace around the room. If all she can suggest is the obvious, then I’m going to be stuck with this guy forever.

“Yes! No need to try again. No need to shove me in a box.” Al watches us with a hand permanently attached to his sword. He shifts his weight back and forth between legs while keeping his stance loose and ready to fight.

The moment he notices I’m watching, he stops and grows rigid. I can’t help but stare back, and as I do, I notice his stance shift until he no longer looks terrified, but curious instead. He’s so tiny, and though I hate to admit Cindy could ever be right, he really is adorable.

“Did you keep him in for long enough?”

His attention falls from me and he begins his nervous shifting again. His anxiety reminds me of my own and I can’t help feeling frustrated at how useless Cindy’s being.

“Come on, Cindy. You said Gran...” it feels too weird saying the words, especially when a huge part of me doesn’t believe what I’m saying. “...taught you magic. Do whatever only you can apparently do and fix this.”

“No, I said she prepared me for stuff like this. She couldn’t teach me magic, because I don’t have magic to use.”

Something about her casual attitude makes me that much more anxious. How can she be so calm at a time like this?

“There has to be something you can do,” I say.

She seems to ignore me while continuing to study him. I’m about to say more when she steps back.

“Fine. Then you’re going to have to do everything I say, no matter what Mom would think.” Cindy pokes me hard in the shoulder to make her point.

I swallow, forcing a lump down my throat and look over at the table. The miniature guy, Al, glances up at me with a pleading look in his tiny eyes. I swallow again and nod to Cindy.

Cindy’s grin makes me instantly regret my decision as she says, “Great. Let’s go to Gran’s house.”

“What?” I say after a few seconds. My brain is moving too slowly, especially for Cindy who’s already hurrying around the room grabbing stuff, examining it, and tossing it onto the bed. “What? No! Cindy, Gran’s house? Are you serious? It’s a six-hour drive. Six hours. I thought you could fix this. Why do we need to go to Gran’s?”

“You agreed. Do as I say or else you’re stuck with Al forever.”

My mouth hangs open as I watch her dig through each of my drawers only to slam them shut and move on to the next. If she’s trying to pack my stuff for the trip, she’s doing a terrible job. Not like it matters because I’m not going. There’s no way.

Yet, if I don’t trust her, I’ll have to deal with the guy on my own.

Gran’s house. Mom is not going to be happy. I highly doubt she’ll let us go. Besides which, I have a rehearsal tomorrow at 7 a.m. and I cannot miss it. Not if I want to keep my solo in the show in two weeks.

Cindy tries to shut the top drawer on my desk and it gets stuck, as it always does. Instead of shifting it carefully until it slides in, she shoves it with all her strength, forcing it in at a bit of an angle. I cringe at the resulting cracking sound and jump into her path before she destroys anything else.

“Maybe if you tell me what you’re looking for, I can find it for you.”

She shoves past me. “I don’t know.”

“How can you not know what you’re looking for?”

I follow her as she makes a full round of my room.

“I don’t know
specifically
.”

I place myself in front of her again, and this time I don’t let her push past. My arms are crossed and my fingers tap nervously on the tense muscles in my upper arm. She makes a sound more like a growl than a sigh and steps back.

“I’m looking for something we can fit Al in. It’s not like we can shove him in a pocket after all.”

“Why not?” I ask while considering his size. He’s certainly small enough.

“He’d get crushed,” she says with another roll of her eyes. She has a knack for making me feel like an idiot.

Her gaze must have landed on something useful, because instantly her sneer turns into smile. She reaches around me and grabs one of my lipsticks. She tosses the actual lipstick back onto the dresser after pulling off the top.

“You don’t expect me to get inside, do you?” Al asks.

“Think you can?” She moves closer to him so he can better see inside the cover. I still haven’t completely figured out what she’s doing, but I do know she’s removed the cover from my favorite lipstick and it’s going to get all dried out and filthy if she doesn’t put it back soon.

“It’d be tight. Uncomfortable for sure.” He looks the container over and his frown deepens. “I doubt I can sit in there.”

I can hear the refusal in his voice, but obviously Cindy can’t. Or else she doesn’t care. She’s already headed across the room focused on one of the paintings on my wall.

“We’ll let you out as often as we can, promise,” she says with only half her attention on what she’s saying.

Cindy pulls the painting down and sets it on the floor. Before I can tell her to stop, she yanks the hanger nail out of the wall, dusting it off on her pant leg.

Too late I realize what she’s doing. She twists the nail into the plastic lipstick lid and manages to create a hole, rendering it completely useless as an actual lid. I clench my teeth together, but stay quiet. There’s no point shouting at her now, the damage is already done. Not that shouting ever works with Cindy anyway; she always manages to be louder, which means ‘instant win’ in her mind.

Cindy blows on the plastic dust, checking out her handiwork b
efore rifling through my jewelry box and pulling out one of my necklaces. She opens the clasp and lets the tiny pink heart slip off the chain and clatter onto the dresser. The chain easily goes through the hole in the lid, leaving it to hang upside-down so the open end points up.

She holds the container up to the night table and gives the mini-man a look clearly indicating he should get inside. Now.

He leans further away and says, “I’d...rather not.”

“Well, I’d rather not squish you.”

He makes a face, but after a single drawn out exhale, he walks over to the lid Cindy’s holding. When he’s lifting his foot to step inside, her hand slips a barely noticeable amount on the table, and I take a step forward to help the little guy before he falls to his death. But his balance is admirable as he steadies himself, and in an instant is safely within the container.

“You two truly are sisters, aren’t you?” he says.

I don’t know what I expected Cindy to do next, but it is definitely not wrap the chain around my neck and lock it into place.

“I’m not wearing this.” I touch a finger to the lid softly enough so I’m sure I don’t jar him too much. “You’re the one who wants to carry him around, so you can be the one who wears him.”

“You probably want to be careful climbing out the window,” Cindy says, ignoring my protests. “If you fall, you’ll probably break a leg. If he falls, he’ll probably die. Just saying.”

My hand instinctively wraps around the lipstick tube and I stare at Cindy with huge, frightened eyes. Of course she put him on my neck. She doesn’t want the responsibility of his life. Not surprisingly, Cindy doesn’t check to see what kind of reaction her warning wins from me. Instead, she grabs her purse from the floor where she dropped it and stretches out the window, reaching for the closest large branch.

As she grabs hold of the tree, she calls back, “Don’t forget the box. We’ll need that.”

I stare at the window for a few seconds, then at my bedroom door. A large part of me wants Mom to suddenly burst through and stop us before this goes any further.

There’s a soft thud outside as Cindy drops the last couple of feet to the ground. She doesn’t call back to me, but her impatience is there in the silence. One more glance at the door. This is really happening. I’m going to sneak out of the house. With Cindy. And a miniature man.

I can still go to Mom. Get her alone and beg her to help. But Cindy is already outside waiting for me. And despite everything I know and loathe about her, she didn’t freak out when she saw the mini-man. That has to mean something.

There’s no choice, not really. I grab my purse and stuff the box inside. It fits easily since the bag is huge, though there’s enough junk in there already, I don’t know how easily I’ll be able to find it again. And then I lean out the window to find the same branch Cindy used.

Climbing down the tree is harder than I expect. The bark is rough and rips at my hands and clothes. Tiny branches keep poking me, especially around my eyes. And besides, I’m climbing one-handed since my other is wrapped securely around the necklace with my thumb covering most of the top to keep the little guy safely inside while leaving enough room for air.

I dangle from the lowest branch for a couple of seconds and then drop, landing easily on the balls of my feet and bending my knees to absorb the impact. I hope I made the landing light so he doesn’t get too banged up inside his little cage.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I—um...” He seems surprised I asked. “Yes. Still miniature, and a little bruised, but it could be worse I suppose.”

“Good,” I say. I attempt to think of something else to add, something reassuring like a promise everything will be okay, but I can’t find the words. Instead all I say is another, “Good.”

I follow Cindy’s shadow as she expertly dodges around the lights from windows and the neighbors’ houses. We make it to the car and close the doors as silently as we can. Cindy does a quick check of the mirrors, then in the same moment starts the car and guns it out of the driveway. I lurch in my seat and desperately find my seatbelt to strap myself in.

“Are you trying to kill us?”

“Can’t give Mom time to come out and stop us by being slow. She always comes running out the door the second she hears the car start. See, there she is.”

I glance first at the mirror, and then twist around in my seat. She’s right. Mom has run out the door and is staring at the car with a look I don’t recognize from so far away in the dark. We turn a corner with a screech and lose sight of the house and Mom. Before we do, I spot Stewart and could swear he smirked at us. It must be my imagination.

I turn back around and we drive in silence for a while. Well, as silent as a car can be with Cindy’s music blasting away. I can practically feel myself going deaf. And the car smells like cheap cologne.

Suddenly there’s a weird sensation from my lap and I would have jumped if I weren’t strapped in. I look down in fear. It’s the box. It has to be. And it moved.

My purse gently vibrates again and I relax. Of course it isn’t the box. It’s only my cell. I always keep it on vibrate so it doesn’t go off during a recital to embarrass me and annoy everyone else in the room.

I turn down the music and answer my phone without checking to see who it is. But before I can say more than “hello” Cindy grabs it and smashes her thumb against the ‘end’ button. Does she not know how much the phone cost?

“Hey!”

“Are you an idiot?” Cindy says. “We’re running away from home, and obviously Mom was calling to tell you to come back. What were you planning on saying? ‘Oh, yes, of course. I’ll be home in a minute. So sorry I left without
asking. Please ground me for three months for my disobedience.’”

“First, I do not sound like that. And second, you don’t know it was Mom.”

“Yeah I do.” Cindy says as though it’s so obvious even a child would know it was Mom.

“How can you possibly know?
I
didn’t have time to look at the caller display, so how could you have seen it while driving.” I stroke my phone and attempt to rub away the finger smudge on its otherwise shiny case.

“Oh please. Who else would it be? It’s not like you have any actual friends.”

She nods toward my hands as though cleaning my phone is proof she’s right.

I sit there with my mouth gaping open for a few seconds before turning away to stare out the window. I have friends. I have lots of friends. I mean, they might not call all of the time, but only because we see each other almost every day at practice. I might not have a reputation like Cindy, but I’ve had a couple of boyfriends.

Grade seven there was Casey. We held hands every day at break for a week. And last year Pete—or Pirouette Pete as the girls in my advanced ballet class call him—and I went on at least half a dozen dates. Kissed a bunch of times and everything. Of course now he’s going out with Sean, but not because of me. He was always gay; he just didn’t realize it until after we went out.

But because I don’t need to spend every waking moment with my friends, Cindy has the nerve to say I don’t have any. Yeah, we’re always competing with each other for the lead in the next show or for the first place trophy in the latest competition, but we get along. Usually.

“Hey Al, how old are you?” Cindy asks over the music, which thankfully she left down.

“Nineteen.”

“Hot. College student?”

“Cindy!”

I pull a face. Really? She’s going to hit on a guy the size of her thumb. That’s messed up.

“College.” He repeats the word carefully, as though there’s some hidden meaning behind it. “I don’t think it’s the same thing here as in my world.”

“Your... world.” Cindy mulls over the idea for a minute while I very carefully try not to. Miniature men are hard enough to deal with. Add in magic and now other worlds, I’m surprised my brain hasn’t exploded. “Of course!” She slams her palm against her forehead. “It explains the clothes. And the accent.”

I turn back to my window and pretend the conversation between my sister and the man in my necklace isn’t happening.

“Gran would sometimes tell stories about another world, remember Lou?”

I do, but I don’t acknowledge the fact. I tried to block those stories from my mind a long time ago.

“Another world,” Cindy says more to herself than either of us. “Where all the things from myths and legends are real and life is dangerous and exciting and amazing. Gran told us she was from another world, remember? I wonder if it’s the same one.”

“Gran wasn’t exactly in her full mind,” I say. “Mom said Gran has always been a little strange. She should have been on medication.”

“Of course you’d believe Mom over Gran,” Cindy says. “But I remember when you were a kid you used to love her stories. You’d act like an idiot, running around her house with a cardboard sword saying you were a knight on a quest to save the princess. Until Mom convinced you to be the princess instead.”

I watch the buildings flow past, and don’t argue. It wasn’t only Mom who wanted me to be the princess. I did too. Mostly.

“Please tell me you’re a knight,” Cindy says. “Or a pirate. I love pirates. Especially the Johnny Depp kind.”

“I’m not sure what you mean, but I’m not a pirate.”

“So you’re a knight?”

He hesitates. “No.”

“Okay, so you don’t go to school, you’re not a knight, and you’re not a pirate. What do you do?”