The Elements Series Complete Box Set

by Brittainy Cherry

  It was harder knowing how much I exhausted myself.

  “You okay, sport?” Daddy asked, peeking his head into my bedroom.

  I smiled.

  “Good, good.” He rubbed his hand against his beard, which was now peppered with gray. “Joke time?” he asked. My father was a nerd in the best way. He was an English professor at Harper Lane University and knew more about literature than most, but his real talent was knowing the worst jokes in the whole wide world. Each night he delivered me something awful.

  “What would you find in Charles Dickens’ kitchen?” He patted his legs as a drum roll and then shouted, “The best of thymes, the worst of thymes!”

  I rolled my eyes, even though it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.

  Walking over to me, he kissed my forehead. “Goodnight, Maggie. The world keeps spinning because your heartbeats exist.”

  As I lay in my bed each night, I listened to Calvin playing music down the hallway. He always stayed up late, listening to music while doing homework or hanging out with his girlfriend, Stacey. I could always tell when she was over because she giggled like a girl who was madly in love with a boy. They’d been together for so long that they each wore promise rings that pledged them to one another forever.

  Around eleven at night, I’d wake up to hear Cheryl tiptoeing out of the house to go visit her boyfriend, Jordan. Jordan was the classic bad boy type I’d read about in so many books, and Cheryl was much better off without him, but I couldn’t tell her that. Even if I could, she wouldn’t listen.

  Each of my family members had found a certain way of dealing with me and my silence over the past ten years. Calvin became one of my best friends. He spent a lot of time with me, along with Brooks, playing video games, watching movies we weren’t supposed to watch, and discovering the best music before the rest of the world.

  Mama kind of shut me out after she realized I wasn’t going to speak again. She left her job to homeschool me, but she hardly spoke to me about anything that wasn’t school-based. Truth was, I could tell she kind of blamed herself for what had happened to me. Seeing me each day seemed a bit hard for her, so she built up a wall. She didn’t know exactly what to say to me, so after some time, the blank stares were a bit too much for her. Sometimes, when I walked into a room, she’d go the other way. I didn’t blame her, though. Seeing me was a reminder of how she hadn’t noticed that I’d left the house to meet Brooks all those years ago. Seeing me hurt her.

  Daddy was always the same, though, if not even goofier and more loving than before. I was thankful for that. He was my one constant. He never looked at me as if I were broken, either. In his eyes, I was completely whole.

  Cheryl, on the other hand, she hated me. Hate might’ve seemed like a strong word, but it was the only one that came to mind. She had plenty of good reasons to dislike me, though. Growing up, she was sort of put on the backburner because of my issues. There were family trips that couldn’t be taken, talent shows that had to be missed due to my in-home therapy appointments, money that wasn’t available because of the cash my parents spent on me. Plus, since Mama couldn’t look at me, she was always looking at Cheryl, yelling at her for little things, blaming her for everything. It wasn’t a surprise that when Cheryl became a teenager, she began to rebel against the world. Jordan was her biggest rebellion, her perfect mistake.

  I’d fall back to sleep to Calvin’s music, then wake back up around three in the morning when Cheryl snuck back in.

  Sometimes I’d hear her crying, but I couldn’t check on her, because she liked me more when I acted invisible.

  “Will you hurry up already?!” Calvin said, standing in the hallway and banging on the bathroom door the next morning. His hair stood up on top of his head, and his pajama pants were wrinkled, one leg scrunched up while the other dragged across the floor. He had a towel tossed over his shoulder as he banged on the door again. “Cheryl! Come on! Brooks is gonna be here any minute, and I’m gonna be late. Get out already. No amount of mascara is going to fix your face.”

  She swung the door open and rolled her eyes. “And no amount of water is going to fix your odor.”

  “Oh, good one. I wonder what Mom would think about it, along with the fact that you snuck out last night.”

  Cheryl narrowed her eyes and shoved past him. “You’re the most annoying person in the fucking world.”

  “Love you too, sis.”

  She flipped him off. “I used all the hot water.” As she stomped to her room, she looked at me since my door was wide open. “What are you looking at, freak?”

  Then into her room she went, where she slammed the door.

  Calvin looked at me and snickered. “What a ray of sunshine she is. Morning, Maggie.”

  I waved.

  My routine for getting ready for school was pretty simple. I woke up, read some of my favorite book, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, and then walked down to the dining room to get to my classes.

  My favorite part of each day was when Brooks stopped by to visit. He drove Calvin to school every day, and seeing as how Cheryl always hogged the bathroom, Calvin was always late getting ready in the morning.

  Brooks was one of those people everyone instantly loved. Even with his hipster edge, he was still one of the most popular kids at his school. It wasn’t shocking; he was such a people person. People were addicted to his charm, which was why he always had a girlfriend. Lacey Palmer was the lucky girl of the moment, but there was a list of girls eagerly awaiting their turn. No surprise there, since he was not only charming, but gorgeous, too. He had the perfect tan color to his skin, muscular arms, and wavy hair that had the perfect amount of shag.

  His smile was perfect, too. He always smiled out of the left side of his mouth and laughed out of the right. His outfits consisted of indie rock band t-shirts he collected from shows he traveled to with Calvin and their two friends, Oliver and Owen. His jeans were always torn and held up with a leather belt that displayed small pins with lyrics from his favorite musicians. In his front pocket, there were always a few guitar picks he’d randomly flicker through his fingers throughout the day, and his white Chuck Taylors were always unlaced and colored in with highlighters.

  Also, he had a thing for mismatched socks. If he was ever wearing a pair of socks that matched, it meant he had gotten dressed in the dark.

  “You okay today, Magnet?” he asked me. I nodded. He asked me that question each day whenever he came by to visit. After the incident years ago, Brooks had promised to look after me, and he held onto that promise. Lately he had started calling me Magnet, because he said he was drawn to our friendship. “There’s this magnetic pull of friendship between us, Maggie May. You’re my magnet.” Of course, the nickname had come after a night of going to some party and getting wasted with my brother then throwing up on my floor, but still, the name stuck.

  “Can I come in?” he asked. He always asked permission, which was weird. The answer was always yes.

  He hopped into my room—even at seven in the morning he was an energized bunny. “I got something I want you to hear,” he said, walking over to me and reaching into his back pocket to pull out his iPod. We both lay down on my bed, our legs hanging over the edge, our feet touching the floor. He placed one earbud in his ear, and I took the other, then he hit play.

  The music was airy and light, but there was a solid bass sound that slicked throughout the song. It felt romantic and free—wild. “‘All Around And Away We Go’ by Mr. Twin Sister,” he said, tapping his finger on the mattress beside me.

  Brooks was my human jukebox. He told me to never turn on the radio to find tunes, because it was a bunch of Hollywood brainwashing bullshit. So, each day, morning and night, he delivered to me what he considered to be music gold.

  We’d lie in my bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to music, until Calvin came dashing into my room with wet hair and a muffin stuffed in his mouth.

  “Ready!” he shouted, getting crumbs on my carpet.

&n
bsp; Brooks and I sat up, and he took his earbuds back, winding them up around his iPod. “All right, I’ll come back with some more stuff for ya after school, Magnet,” he said, smiling my way. “Remember, say no to drugs unless they’re the good ones, and stay in school, unless you don’t want to.”

  Off they’d go.

  My eyes darted to the ticking clock on my wall.

  Sigh.

  Only eleven or so more hours until the music came back to me.

  8

  Maggie

  Each day at five in the afternoon, I took an hour-long bath. I’d sit in the tub with a novel in my grip and read for forty-five minutes. Then, for ten minutes, I’d put the book aside and wash up. My fingers wrinkled like raisins as I closed my eyes, and ran a bar of lavender soap up and down my arms. I loved the smell of lavender, almost as much as I loved gardenias. Gardenias were my utmost favorites. Each Wednesday, Daddy went to the farmer’s market and bought me a fresh new bouquet of flowers to sit against my bedroom windowsill.

  The first time he brought the gardenias, he could tell I loved them most, maybe by the way my lips turned up, maybe by the number of times I nodded my head as I breathed in the scent, or maybe simply because he had learned how to read my silence.

  My father knew almost everything about me, based on my small gestures and tiny movements. What he didn’t know was that each day at the end of my bath, when the scalding hot water became chilled, I’d slip my head under the water and hold my breath for the last five minutes.

  Within those five minutes, I remembered what had happened to me. It was important for me to do it—to remember the devil, how he looked. How he felt. If I didn’t remember, some days I’d blame myself for what had happened, forgetting that I had been a victim that night. When I remembered, it wasn’t so hard to breathe. I did my best thinking when I was beneath the water. I forgave myself for any guilty feelings when I was submerged.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  My throat tightened as if the devil’s fingers were wrapped around my neck instead of the woman’s.

  The devil.

  He was the devil in my eyes, at least.

  Run! Run, Maggie! My mind kept screaming, but I stayed still, unable to look away from the horror before my eyes.

  “Maggie!”

  I emerged from the water at the sound of my name and released a deep breath before taking a deeper inhale.

  “Maggie, Mrs. Boone is here to see you,” Daddy hollered from downstairs. I stood up in the bathtub and unblocked the drain, allowing the water to swirl clockwise down the pipes. My long, stringy blond hair hung down to my buttocks, and my skin stayed ghostly pale.

  My eyes met the clock on the wall.

  6:01 p.m.

  Mrs. Boone was late. Really late.

  Years ago, when she had heard about my trauma, she’d asked if she could meet with me once a day so I could interact with someone. Secretly, I thought she met with me each day to hide her own loneliness, but I didn’t mind. When two lonely souls found one another, they held on tight, no matter what. I wasn’t certain if that was a good or bad thing yet. One would think when two lonely people came together, the two negatives would cancel out and make a positive, but that wasn’t the case. The two seemed to make an even deeper level of loneliness, one they loved to drown in.

  Mrs. Boone often brought her cat, Muffins, along with her to entertain me at lunchtime. She always came by at noon, and we’d sit down in the dining room for sandwiches and tea. I hated tea, and Mrs. Boone knew I hated tea, yet each day she found the need to bring it to me from the local bakery, Sweetest Addictions.

  “You’re young, which means you’re stupid, so you don’t truly understand how wonderful tea is for you. It will grow on you,” she promised—a promise that was always a lie. It never grew on me. If anything, I hated it more and more each time.

  She had lived in Britain when she was young and in her prime, and I had to assume that was where her love for the mucky drink came from. Since the death of her husband years ago, she had always dreamed of moving back to England. He was the reason she had come to America, but after he passed away, I guessed as time went by she’d lost her nerve to go back to England.

  “Stanley was home,” she’d always say about her late husband. “It didn’t matter where we lived, because as long as he was there, I was home.” After he passed, it was almost as if Mrs. Boone became homeless. When Stanley packed his bags and went off to the afterlife, he took Mrs. Boone’s safe haven with him—his heartbeats. I often wondered if she ever closed her eyes for a few minutes and remembered those heartbeats.

  I knew I would.

  “Maggie!” Daddy shouted, shaking me from my thought.

  I reached for the oversized white towel on the counter and wrapped it around my body. Stepping out of the tub, I moved in front of the mirror and grabbed my hairbrush. As I began to get the knots out of my hair, I stared at my blue eyes that matched Dad’s and the sculpted cheekbones I had also received from him. The small freckles across my nose came from my grandma, and the long eyelashes, my grandpa. So much of my ancestry could be seen each day simply by staring into a mirror. I knew it was impossible, but sometimes I swore I had Mama’s smile and her frown.

  “Maggie,” Daddy hollered again. “Did you hear me?”

  I debated not responding, because I was pretty irritated that Mrs. Boone thought it was okay to drop by so late in the afternoon as if I hadn’t other things to do. Twelve noon was when she was supposed to come. We had a routine, a planned schedule, and she had gone against it that afternoon. I didn’t even truly understand why she bothered to stop by each day, or why I allowed her to come over for lunch. She was ruder than rude most of the time, telling me how stupid I was and how ridiculous it was that I wouldn’t speak a word.

  Childish, she called it.

  Immature, even.

  I guessed I kept dealing with her each afternoon because she was one of my few friends. Sometimes her rude comments were so harsh they’d pull a reaction from me—a small grin, tiny, silent chuckles only I could hear. The seventy-year-old fart was one of the best friends I ever had. She was my favorite enemy, too. Our relationship was complicated, so the best word to described us was frenemies—friendly enemies. Plus, I still loved her cat as much as I had when I was a child, and she still followed me around the house, rubbing her soft fur against my legs.

  “Maggie May?” Daddy hollered again, this time knocking on the bathroom door. “Did you hear me?”

  I knocked on the door twice. One knock meant no, two knocks meant yes.

  “Well, let’s not keep Mrs. Boone waiting, okay? Hurry downstairs,” he said.

  I almost knocked once against the door to show my sassiness, but I refrained from the act. I braided my still soaked hair into one giant braid that hung over my left shoulder. I put on my underwear, then slipped my pale yellow dress over my head. I grabbed my novel from the side of the tub before opening the bathroom door, then hurried down the stairs toward the dining room to see my favorite frenemy.

  Mrs. Boone always dressed as if she were off to meet Queen Elizabeth. She wore jewels and gems around her neck and her fingers, and they always sparkled against the faux fur she wore around her shoulders. She always lied and said it was real fur, but I knew better. I’d read enough books based on the forties to know the difference between real fur and fake.

  She always wore dresses and tights with sweaters and short heels, and then she’d place a shimmering colorful collar around Muffins’ neck to match her outfit.

  “It’s rude to keep the elderly waiting, Maggie May,” Mrs. Boone said, tapping her fingers against the cherry oak table.

  It’s rude to keep the young waiting, too, Mrs. Boone.

  I gave her a tight smile, and she cocked an eyebrow at me, displeased. I sat down beside her, and she pushed my cup of tea toward me. “It’s Black Earl Grey tea. You’ll like it this time,” she said.

  I took a sip and gagged.

  Once again, she
was wrong. She smiled, satisfied by my displeasure. “Your hair looks awful. You really shouldn’t let it air dry like that. You’ll catch a cold.”

  No, I won’t.

  “Yes,” she huffed. “You will.”

  She always knew the words I didn’t say. Lately I wondered if she were a witch or something. If perhaps when she was a child, an owl showed up to her windowsill and dropped her an invitation to attend a school for witches and wizards, but then somewhere along the way she fell in love with a Muggle and came back to Wisconsin to choose love over true adventure.

  If it were me, I’d never choose love over adventure.

  I’d always accept the owl’s invitation.

  That idea was ironic, seeing as how the only adventure I’d ever lived was through the pages of novels.

  “What have you been reading?” she asked, reaching into her oversized purse and pulling out two turkey sandwiches. I couldn’t see the sandwiches because they were still in the brown paper Sweetest Addictions wrapped all their food with, but I knew they were turkey. Mrs. Boone always kept our sandwiches the same: turkey, tomato, lettuce, and mayo on rye bread. Nothing more, nothing less. Even on the days I wanted tuna, I had to just pretend my turkey was fish.

  She set one in front of me and the other she unwrapped, taking a large bite. For a tiny lady, she sure knew how to take big bites of food.

  I placed my novel in front of her, and she sighed. “Again?”

  Yes, again.

  For the past month, I’d been rereading the Harry Potter series, which might’ve had something to do with the fact that I believed Mrs. Boone to be a witch. To be fair, she did also have the classic witch mole next to her nose.

  “There are so many books in this world, and you find a way to read all the same ones over and over again. There’s no possible way the stories still surprise you after all this time.”

  Obviously she hadn’t ever read or reread Harry Potter.

  Each time was different.