The Box Omnibus #1 (The Box, The Journal, The Sword) (7 page)

“He wants you to open the bag,” Al continues. “He can’t take the magic directly, so he needs you to regain your power so he can strip it from you.”

“Lesson is, don’t open the bag,” Cindy adds.

Her irritation at Al for telling me about the bag is obvious, so neither Al nor I say anything more in hopes of her cooling down. It makes for a long drive, especially once my adrenaline starts to wear off and exhaustion takes over.

“The turn’s coming up,” Cindy says after a long silence. I’d almost fallen into a stupor while staring at the pavement ahead of us. “A few more minutes and I’ll be safe from your driving forever.”

I take in everything around me for the first time in
a while and realize we are only minutes from Gran’s house. It seems unreal we’re so close to our destination. Soon we’ll be able to figure out a way to get Al back home and everything can go back to the way it was.

Exactly what I want.

Isn’t it?

“Thank you,” Al says, interrupting my thoughts

“For what?” The heat of a blush warms first my face and then creeps down to my chest. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You’re trying.”

I shake my head at the misplaced gratitude. “Anyone would try to get you home. But most people wouldn’t nearly get you killed in the process.”

“Most people would have put me back in the box and left me to die.”

I shift uncomfortably as I remember the idea had crossed my mind. The only reason I’m doing anything at all is because of Cindy. If not for her, I’d still be sitting in a corner of my room, rocking back and forth while staring at him on my night table. I glance at the clock on the dashboard and notice it’s after six in the morning. Well, I suppose right now I’d actually be at rehearsal.

“Rehearsal,” I groan.

“What?” Al asks.

“Nothing, it’s stupid.” I sigh. “There goes the lead, that’s all.”

Before Al can ask what I’m talking about, Cindy cuts in. For once I’m actually grateful. I’d have felt like an idiot explaining to Al about dance. He’d probably lose respect for me, like all guys do.

“There,” she says while pointing out the window to a carved wood community sign. “Don’t forget to slow down for the turn this time. And maybe signal. Or not. Whatever.”

“Shut up,” I say while turning my signal on a little too late. “I’m not so bad.”

I switch lanes and pull into the suburban area extra carefully to show how awesome a driver I am. As soon as we’re inside the development, however, I get lost. There are too many side roads and similar-looking houses to remember the right directions.

Cindy takes over navigation without a single snide comment, a miracle in itself, until I finally spot Gran’s house. It’s well back from the road, completely at odds with every other home in the neighborhood. Row after row of residences, all with perfectly manicured lawns and meticulously maintained exteriors, make up the subdivision. All of the buildings are new and there are only half a dozen designs repeated in an irregular pattern.

Gran’s house on the other hand is old, and not afraid to show its age. Mismatching grey paint covers the outside of the house in patches
, and the pavement of the driveway is broken and starting to grow overrun by weeds and grass. It looks like one of the neighbors must have become frustrated with the hay length front yard and cut it back. Otherwise the place looks completely untouched since the last time I visited several months ago.

I shift the car into park and stare up at the house for a minute. We’re actually here. I should be ecstatic. So, why don’t I want to get out?

As soon as the car stops, Cindy leaps out and runs around to my side. Before I have a chance to unbuckle myself, she throws the door open, reaches around me and takes the keys from the ignition. Without a word, she shoves them into her pocket and heads toward the front door.

“I’m
really
not so bad a driver,” I grumble while getting out of the car. “We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

There’s a tiny chuckle from Al, but when I look at him, he carefully keeps his face, and smile, hidden.

When I reach the door, Cindy’s still there, though I have no idea why she hasn’t gone in already.

“You remember there are potentially people following us, right?” I tap my toe nervously on the overgrown stone walkway. “If they happen to drive by they can see us standing here.”

“They’d be able to see our car either way,” she says as though it’s not a big deal.

I contemplate moving the car into the back yard and hiding it behind the house before I’m distracted when Cindy kneels down and pulls a bobby pin out of her hair.

“Really? You know how to pick a lock?” I’m impressed. Until I remember we’re not in a movie. “Who has those kinds of hobbies?”

“Shut up, I’m concentrating.” She straightens the hairpin and shoves it into the lock. “Besides, I’m not the criminal you and Mom seem to think I am. I’ve never actually done this before. Usually I leave lock picking to my date.”

“Of course you do.” It wouldn’t surprise me if she wasn’t joking. “Don’t you have a copy of the key to this place? Couldn’t you have thought things through for five seconds and have grabbed Mom’s key? But no, you never think anything through. You do whatever you
feel
like.”

She ignores my rant and absently says, “Don’t see you with a key either, princess,” while continuing to fiddle with the lock.

I look back at the road to make sure the bad guys haven’t caught up. No sign of Stewart, but there are a lot of cars around in the driveways along the street. Kids are out playing in the morning sun while parents fuss over their lawns and gardens and take their dogs for walks. All we need is one of those people to grow a little too suspicious of a couple of teenagers hanging out at an empty house and the cops will be here in minutes.

“Didn’t Gran keep a spare?” I ask a bit louder than necessary. I’m half hoping people will overhear and
realize we aren’t actually thieves or hooligans or whatever they’re thinking.

“
Shh. Concentrating.”

“Wait! No, there
is
a spare.” I glance around the front yard, trying to picture the time Gran showed me the extra key. “I can’t...remember...”

“Under the roof of the well.”

I look down at Al who pulls himself half out of the lipstick lid to stare at the house.

“The well?” Right, the old wooden structure in the back yard. It was filled in years ago when the whole area made the switch to the city water line, but Gran left the wooden structure surrounding the old hole. She said it was as much a part of the house as the roof, so it stayed. It’s completely useless except as one thing; a perfect hiding spot for spare keys.

I take another look back toward the road before jogging around to the back of the house. There it is, half hidden among the long, scratchy grass. I reach my hand underneath the rotting roof and pull the set of keys off the rusted nail hidden in the shadows.

Cindy steps aside as I open the lock on the front door and enter Gran’s house.

“Yes, I’m sure you could have gotten it eventually,” I say to her when I notice the look she’s giving me. No, not me, Al. “What is it?”

“How did he know where the key was?”

I hadn’t thought of that. How had I not thought of that?

I lift the necklace so I’m eye level with him. For the first time since he fell onto my shirt, I can see his face and every expression he makes clearly. He glances at Cindy first, as though he’s afraid to meet my eye. Which I can kind of understand. I must be humungous to him.

Finally, he turns back to me. “I know this house. I’ve been here before.”

“What?” I say.

“What?” Cindy says a little louder. “I thought you weren’t from this world. How could you have been here before?”

“It doesn’t make sense to me either.” He rubs his chin and stares off in the distance while he thinks. “I’ve been to this house, but not to this place. Those other houses, those roads, the machine you travel in, none of it exists where I’m from. None of it except for this house.”

He sounds too freaked out to be lying. I glance at Cindy to see what she thinks but she’s stopped paying attention and is headed toward Gran’s study at the back. I hurry to follow her since I don’t know what to say to Al and there’s nowhere else I can think of to look for answers.

“Why were you here?” Cindy rifles through some papers in the sturdy wooden desk. “At this house.”

“Exploring,” he answers after a second. “Kid stuff.”

I expect Cindy to growl at him and demand he tell us more, but instead she moves to one of the many bookshelves lining the walls of the room. She checks a few old book covers before shoving them back into place. They’re all so old if there were ever titles on the spines, the words are long gone.

“What are you looking for?” I ask.

“This.”

She pulls out a book and opens it to reveal its handwritten contents, though the cover looks like every other old book in the room.

“A journal?”

Cindy nods. “Gran never let me read it before. She said it was stuff I didn’t need to worry about.”

“What’s in it?”

“I don’t know,” she says while giving me a look like I’m a moron. “She never let me read it.”

I roll my eyes and walk over to the shelves. Maybe I can find something useful on my own. Although I have no idea what I’m looking for.

“Here,” Cindy announces with a smack of her hand on the table. “Bring him over here to look.”

I go over to the desk and carefully unlatch the necklace, setting it down so Al can climb out. When I’m sure he’s safely on the desk, I turn my attention to the page Cindy’s so excited about. It looks like an old map. There’s not much on it, a few blobs with scratches beside each labeling them as things such as mill, blacksmith, and tailor. At the top, there’s a bunch of symbols a lot like the ones Cindy pointed out at the bottom of the box.

“What is that?” I ask, pointing out the symbols. “Some sort of magic spell?”

“I’ll show you,” Cindy says before turning to Al. “Step onto the book.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

I bite my lip while examining Al. It would be bad I managed to not hurt him this far
, only for a spell to get him at Gran’s house.

Cindy gives me a puzzled look, which quickly shifts to something more like disgust.

“Of all guys for you to get your first crush on,” she says.

“What?” I half laugh. “I don’t have a...” I laugh again to cover up the fact I can’t say the word. “He’s the size of my thumb. I don’t know him.”

I don’t know why my heart started racing when she said that, or why I’m so flustered. It’s true he’s tiny and I don’t know him. But when my eyes flick over to him and I catch him turning away from me, I feel the heat rise in my cheeks.

“Fine, whatever,” Cindy says. “It’s a harmless illusion spell. He’ll be fine.”

He glances up at me at the same moment I sneak a peek at him to see how he’s reacting to Cindy’s accusation. As soon as our eyes meet, he turns and climbs onto the book, giving me no chance to read what he’s thinking.

“Off the blotches,” Cindy tells him. “There. Don’t move.”

She pulls enough dust from her pocket to cover the tip of her finger, and blows it so it spreads out over both Al and the book. Slowly the ink splotches on the page shift and grow and take shape until they’re no longer pen marks but ghostly tiny versions of buildings. Between the buildings are roads and grass and trees and everything else you might find in life-like perfect detail. It’s as though a real village was shrunk to match the size of Al.

He turns in a circle and takes in everything around him. The grass shifts as though blown by wind and something like a cross between a butterfly and a bird unfolds from a flower and flies upwards until it vanishes. His face turns ashen as though he’s staring at a ghost.

Cindy points to a familiar building. “That’s Gran’s house. But what’s with the rest? I don’t recognize anything else.”

“I do,” he says. “It’s my village.”

“This is your home?” I study the map a little more closely.

Al nods. “At least part of it. There are a few more buildings than this, including my parents' house, but this is more or less home.”

“How new is your parent’s house?” Al and I both turn to give Cindy a confused look and she continues. “Was it built within, say, the last thirty or so years?”

He considers her question before saying, “They built it before I was born, twenty years ago I guess.”

Cindy nods. “The date on this journal is well over thirty years ago. Things change. They definitely have here.”

“So what are you saying?” I try to touch one of the buildings, but when my finger goes through, I pull back. “Gran was in this other world thirty some years ago and happened to draw this map?”

“Probably. Maybe she was there a few times since.” Cindy seems a little too pleased by the idea. “You know how she used to get out of touch for weeks at a time. She probably says in her journals, but it’ll take some time to read them.”

“Great. So your amazing plan is to read Gran’s journals until you find a spot where she happens to mention her magical secret to jumping between worlds?” I pull a face to show just what I thin
k of such a plan, or lack thereof.

Cindy smiles at me. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“Can’t you do some sort of spell to move things along faster?” I pick up one of the books and wave it in her face to force her to pay more attention to me. “If Al’s right, it’s only a matter of time before Stewart and Borin come for us.”

She swats the thing away and glares. “I’m not a sorceress, Lou. I don’t have magic coming out of my ass. I happen to know a few spells, and they’re simple perception tricks.”

“So, no to using magic.”

She yanks the book from my hand and stuffs it under her arm before heading toward the door. “I think I remember Gran keeping her more recent journals upstairs. I’ll be there, being useful. Why don’t you try doing the same?”

I glare at the door for several seconds after she’s gone. Once I can no longer hear her footsteps, I turn away.

“I can’t wait until this is over,” I grumble. “I’ll never have to talk to her again.”

I realize what I’ve said and turn to Al with an apologetic smile. He’d probably give anything to argue with his sister. He runs his fingers through his hair as though he’s attempting to brush away some feeling of remorse, and then half-smiles up at me.

“You two normally don’t talk much?” He’s careful to sound as though what I said doesn’t bother him, but I can tell it does.

“I’m sorry, about your sister.” I want to touch him, or pat his shoulder. But when I start to move my finger toward him, I realized what a dangerous idea that is and drop my hand. “I don’t know if I said as much already.”

He shrugs my words away and turns as though to study the map a bit more closely.

“We weren’t close either,” he says unexpectedly. “I hardly knew her; I spent most of my life...elsewhere.”

Since he’s obviously uncomfortable talking directly to me, I start rummaging through Gran’s stuff, and pretend I’m not interested in what he’s saying. “What do you mean? You didn’t grow up at home?”

“I went to this place, where they sort of trained boys like me.”

“Like a boarding school? Really?”
I get a little too excited as an image of Al dressed in a tiny school uniform pops into my head. Adorable. I clear my throat and force myself to calm down. “Was it all boys there, like in books and stuff?”

He looks at me for a moment and appears to be about to say something before he stops himself. When he does speak, it sounds like a half-truth, though I have no idea what he’s hiding. “It was only boys, yes.”

“Mom used to threaten to send Cindy off to one.” Maybe if I talk a bit more about my family he’ll feel more comfortable saying more. “I always wished I could go.”

He seems genuinely interested when he asks, “You wanted to leave home?”

Now it’s my turn to pretend to be busy in order to avoid looking at him directly. I don’t usually talk about my family. Not even my friends know about Mom’s threat and my wish to get away. “I don’t know. I guess. With Cindy and Mom always fighting, it was up to me to be the good little daughter.” Reliving the fights and bickering again is not something I’m interested in doing. Instead, I remember the early morning practices and all day shopping trips to find the perfect, preppy outfits. “I would help with all the cleaning and I would join the ballet lessons and do everything a normal girl would do, because Mom wanted it so. She was so afraid of becoming like Gran.”

He gives me a curious look I see out of the corner of my eye. “What was wrong with your grandmother?”

My mom and sister fighting is one thing. There’s no way I can talk about Gran to a total stranger. Who knows how he’ll react, and I can’t help but care what he thinks about me. Still, there’s something comforting about him, as though he actually wants to know, and not just so he has something to laugh at and judge me for later.

“Not exactly all there,” I say against my better judgment. “Never mind the magic, I never knew about that, but there was all this other stuff. Such as why would anyone fold old chocolate bar wrappers and place them into a drawer underneath a pile of papers?” I pull out a wrapper and hold it up for him to see while touching it with as little of the skin on my fingers as possible.

He grins. “Fair enough. But I’m sure there are worse things people have kept in their drawers.”

Something about his reaction sends warmth through me and spurs me on.

“Oh, but it’s not only things like the wrappers. Gran would have rituals for everything. If we wanted canned peas for supper, we’d have to spin around three times and spit in a bucket set aside in the kitchen specifically for the occasion. Every time we used the toilet? Click your heels once and pull your ear.” I demonstrate the ear tug with a mocking smile before giving him a desperate look. “Have you ever heard of any of those rituals before? Please tell me it’s some sort of spell to ward off demons, because I would feel so much better about everything if it is.”

His laugh isn’t cruel like when some of the kids in my class found out about Gran’s rituals. In fact it was infectious. For the first time ever, I actually find myself laughing about the whole thing. Mom always worried about what people might think, and after my so-called friends’ reactions, I did too. I never thought about laughing.

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard of those spells,” he admits.

“And I’m not going to get into the whole toenails in a bag.”

I continue laughing until I notice Al’s become silent. He stares at my purse as though it contains the answer to a puzzling question. I follow his gaze to the bag thrown onto the chair when we first came into the room, though I know it’s the blue bag inside he’s actually thinking about. “A container used to trap a sorceresses power,” Al thinks aloud. “I’ve never heard of it being done before.”

It’s obvious he wants a closer look, though he’s too polite to ask. I’d usually be too embarrassed to even think about showing someone a pouch of my old disgusting toenails,
but I can’t help being curious too. Besides, the same urge to touch it I’d felt in the barn is back, and this time it’s too strong to resist.

My arm reaches out and, before I know what I’m doing, I have the blue bag in my hand.

“You said they’ll never stop chasing us,” I say with my attention on the bag. “We’ll never be safe. Not really.”

He doesn’t answer at first. “I suppose.”

“There’s been a lot of magic thrown around me in the past few hours. Powerful stuff. While Cindy’s completely outmatched, at least she’s able to fight. She got rid of the creature after all.”

From his hesitation, it’s obvious he knows where my line of thinking is headed and he doesn’t approve. “Maybe, but it’s not like you’re helpless. I’ve never seen anyone fight a chimera like you did.”

“And I still lost.” My fingers find the ends of the string binding the bag shut. I tug so gently I’m not at all surprised nothing happens.

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Al says. “Remember what your sister said.”

I can’t take my eyes off the bag and the urge to open it is so strong I can’t think of anything else. Cindy’s warning is in my mind somewhere, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is the pouch.

“All of these books, this house, will any of it help? Even if we find a way to get you back, Gran was a sorceress. She could do things none of us can.”

“Magic might not be the solution.”

“Maybe not this time,” I admit. “But without it, I’ll never have a chance of defending my family from Stewart or wizards like him. It was luck we got out of the barn. With magic, we’d be on equal fighting ground.”

I test the binding again, this time yanking at the knot much harder. Nothing. It doesn’t budge. I need to cut it open. A search of the table uncovers old silver scissors stuffed into a container full of pens and pencils. Even though the scissors seem sharp and open easily, no matter what I do, they won’t cut the string. I try cutting the bag itself. Again, nothing.

“But it can’t be. What if I...” I use the scissors to cut a small hole into the bottom of my shirt, no problem. “So why won’t the bag cut?”

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Al says.

“Your sword.” I’m almost ashamed at how obvious the solution is. “You said it would cut through anything.”

I hold out my hand to him, but he makes no move to pass me the tiny blade.

“Please?”

When I realize he’s still not going to give it to me, I lean over the desk and bring myself face to face with him. From this close, I can see how worried he looks. It doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t he be happy? He must not understand.

“If it works, then I’ll have the power to send you back home,” I say.

“Lou.” He shakes his head in refusal. “Don’t do this.”

Hearing him say my name with so much sympathy and worry, it makes me need to help him that much more.

“Please,” I say again.

His hand slips around the hilt as though he’s about to draw the sword, but he stops before actually pulling it free. The need to open the bag is so strong his hesitation has me almost in tears.

“Please.”

A single nod. No words. He draws out the sword and carefully sets it onto my index finger. It’s almost impossible to hold without touching the blade and I end up cutting myself on its edge. Once I have it held between my fingernails, I slice it against the side of the bag. The blade cuts through the fabric easier than I expect and I end up making a hole much bigger than I intend. The contents of the bag spill out around me. While I scramble to keep everything inside, I drop the whole lot.

I groan. “I’m not cleaning that up.”

“Any change?” Al asks.

I think about it for a minute and shake my head.

“I don’t feel any different.”

But as soon as I say the words I look at Al and I realize how wrong I am. He’s there, same as before, but there’s a strange net surrounding him he doesn’t seem to notice. Every move he makes, the net moves with him, pressing against his skin. But it isn’t made of string or rope or anything I’ve ever seen before. I lean in until my nose is almost touching him to get a better view of him.

“What is that?” I ask.

He looks down at himself and nervously brushes nonexistent dust from himself before returning his focus to me. “Um... my clothes?”

He shifts nervously, but he doesn’t step back, though I can only imagine how intimidating I must be right now. I’m glad he doesn’t move, and not just so I can see him better. There’s also something about being so close to him that causes my skin to tingle in the best way.

I ignore the feeling and concentrate on the stuff surrounding him.

“No, it’s all around you. Can’t you feel it? Some sort of pattern of light and dust and shadow and I don’t know what, and it’s pressing down on your skin, like it’s trying to...” I take in a frightened breath when I
realize exactly what it’s doing. “Like it’s going to crush you.

“What?” There’s a panic to his voice I’d only heard once before; when Cindy forced him inside the lipstick container.

His fear justifies my own alarm. “I have to stop it.”

“Please do.”

I point his sword at him and say, “Don’t move.”

He doesn’t, not even to agree with me. Probably he’s too afraid to speak. I know I can’t say anything encouraging like ‘I promise not to kill you,’ because any distraction and the sword I have pressed against the magic web might slip. If the blade can cut anything, it could easily kill Al. I drag it down, careful to slice only the web and not his skin. I hope.

Once enough of it is cut, the net gives away and falls from him. I laugh in triumph as the stuff curls away from his body, shrinks into itself and disappears.

But then something odd happens.

No longer is my nose almost touching a tiny person, but smashed against something solid and warm and smelling a whole lot like dirt and leather.

I take a small step away from the table with my hand rubbing my face and peek to see what hit me. Some new spell, perhaps? Or let me guess, with my
luck, it’s probably another chimera.