The Seven Boxed Set

by Sarah M. Cradit

  When he finished, he patted her hip, almost fatherly, and shuffled off to finish his cigarette.

  Who said it would be easy to save the world? That there wouldn’t be costs?

  One day, soon, she’d know her next step. How to emerge from the dregs of this hellhole and get to where she needed to be, where she could make a difference. Where she could give purpose to this curse of caring.

  Madeline willed the tears back, back inside, where her hope still lived.

  * * *

  Augustus had sworn he’d never use his powers of persuasion for gain, or to shirk responsibility. He’d sworn this so many times, and subsequently broken that promise so many times, that he didn’t know if he could rightfully even claim to be a man of his word anymore. If you couldn’t be true to yourself, you weren’t true at all.

  He didn’t know if it was worth the effort to even fight it. This was who he was to his family: the Fixer. He was the spare, not the heir, and his usefulness began and ended where his willingness to play along resided. He couldn’t see the future like Elizabeth, but it didn’t take a soothsayer to know this would be his role, always. No matter what personal and professional accomplishments he might rack up, they would pale beside what he would do for his family to allow them to move about the world without consequence.

  Augustus couldn’t decide if he was sad or resigned to this fact. He wasn’t happy about it, but when had his happiness ever been of any importance to anyone?

  Except Madeline. When she wasn’t consumed with her insatiable need for philanthropy, she was interested in the things he did and made an authentic attempt to know more. She didn’t understand business, but she tried. She asked questions that demonstrated she was listening and not just pretending, like everyone else. She was curious about his decision to open a magazine imprint and was the only person who knew how Augustus loved to read. The only one who knew of his stack of old New Yorkers under his bed, with the fascinating shorts and serials. It was important to him, so it was important to her.

  In his more cynical moments, he told himself her interest was a byproduct of her empathic senses. That she had no choice but to care.

  But he knew better.

  Augustus might not be the heir, but he had an intrinsic desire to protect. To provide and care for others. Where he lacked in warmth, he made up for in commitment. His mother, his other siblings, looked for his wisdom, but he had more in him to offer. He wasn’t as colorful as Charles, as self-assured as Colleen, as passionate as Madeline, or as smart as Evangeline, as whimsical as Maureen, or as solemn as Elizabeth. Somehow, these traits had come to define them all in ways as important as their name and accomplishments. And Augustus was… he was… just there. Quiet, studious, nothing particularly interesting to offer, at least in their eyes. Until they needed a fixer.

  Well, he’d just ensured Charles would never serve a day for his murder of Peter Evers, so he’d more than earned his salt. And why not keep going? Using this “gift” in the dark alleys along the wharf, amongst the abandoned warehouses from another era, as he searched for Madeline. How was it any different than slipping some of these reprobate down-on-their-lucks an Andrew Jackson for the same outcome?

  These rationalizations wouldn’t make it easier, so he stopped. He had to find Madeline. To suck up his pride and his anger that she’d broken her promise to someone who would have said adherence to a vow was the measure of the man.

  Yet how could it be when Augustus was so easily persuaded himself?

  Most he talked to had no idea where his sister was. They were incapable of lying when under his sway, so he didn’t spend any time separating wheat from chaff. He moved on quickly from place to place, never stopping too long to evaluate his failure.

  The Lucky Seven on Girod finally yielded results.

  “I think she’s with Darko’s crew at the old Darbonne house.”

  “I don’t know it.”

  “Yeah, you don’t know it.” The clerk, Clyde from his nametag, eyed his pressed suit with as much amusement as the spell allowed. “Down on Tchoup. Keep on down Girod, past the church, until you hit it, and then keep going until you see The Warehouse.” He grinned. “You don’t know The Warehouse, do you?”

  Augustus shook his head, for once in his life wishing he was cooler. He’d heard of the place; an old warehouse where the youth went to hear the Grateful Dead, Fleetwood Mac, and others whom he couldn’t name if their music came on the radio. Charles went down there a lot; Madeline had as well.

  The clerk laughed. “Head down Tchoup, past St. Mary and past The Warehouse. Just after the bed, you know, before St. Andrew, you’ll see the house.”

  “Which one?” Augustus repeated.

  “Well, for one, it’s the only house on the block, surrounded by empty warehouses and dockyards. But it’s also the only one that ain’t got no roof!”

  * * *

  Augustus waded through the downstairs of what looked as much part of the outdoors as in. It wasn’t only the missing roof—Clyde hadn’t been wrong about that—but the wide array of litter decorating what was left of the flooring. The walls had been ripped out at some point, likely for the copper within, and an old couch lay tipped on its side. Someone was passed out against the back of it. His intrusion didn’t stir them.

  If Madeline had been here… truly been here, for the two weeks she’d been missing… he’d never forgive himself. Never.

  Or Irish Colleen.

  Yes, but you know it. You can feel it. She’s here.

  Augustus continued. As he moved from room to room, he stopped kicking around the debris in aghast disgust. He was adjusting to his surroundings now, like his pupils when he stepped from the darkness into the light. The shock had worn away, as it always did. Augustus was never out of his element for long.

  The oaken bannister was one of the few things still intact. It wound up around the house, which had once been likely very beautiful, revealing a second and possibly third floor. The stairs themselves were another matter. Made of less sturdy material and covered with a thin, faded carpet runner, every few steps had a crater large enough to ruin someone’s day.

  Augustus unbuttoned his suit coat and ascended.

  The upstairs was teeming with life, both human and otherwise. Sleeping young men and young women littered the halls, curled in unnatural positions, some atop each other, too lazy or high to right themselves after a coital tryst. A permanent layer of smoke hung up there, one of mingled scents. Cigarettes, dope, and other things… with a headier scent, one Augustus knew nothing about personally but still recognized. The kind of drugs taken off a hot spoon, or inhaled through a glass pipe.

  Evidence of these things, the cast offs of burned broken glass and scorched tinfoil, lay in discarded corners, gathering dust.

  A great pit burrowed into his chest. He would say anything—do anything—to get Madeline to come home with him. Anything.

  He stumbled from room to room, mostly unnoticed. Those who did curled their lips in bemusement at the well-groomed man who clearly didn’t belong. He wanted to scream at them, that none of them did! None of them needed to! That they were nothing without their choices!

  But words meant nothing, and his outrage came from a place of privilege many here didn’t enjoy. Madeline was undoubtedly the exception, the lone heiress lost in this haze of drugs and forgotten dreams.

  Augustus decided in that moment he would donate half his first year’s profits to the homeless shelters of New Orleans.

  When he found her, lying underneath a middle-aged man, Augustus for the first time in his life had the urge to take a life. He could, like Charles, walk away unscathed if he chose to follow this urge and choke the drug-addled shock right out of the man as the light in his eyes died altogether.

  A small butterfly, yellow and blue, caught in mid-flight, fluttered from the outside of Madeline’s thigh. His rage shifted to vague, unfocused confusion. He’d never seen that before… but of course he hadn’t. The spot was a place of intima
cy. And yet, she told him everything. She’d always told him everything. Hadn’t she?

  He recovered himself and pulled the man off by his arm. He flung him aside, more gently than the man deserved. Madeline didn’t jump in surprise, or even react at all. She was half-asleep, her face crusted with layers of tears.

  “Dude! That’s my girl!”

  Augustus started to take a deep breath, then stopped upon realizing this was not air he wanted in his lungs. “No, she’s my sister, and you really don’t want to be here when I turn around.”

  The man puffed out a series of affronted protestations, but his voice was already growing distant, and he didn’t need to look to see he’d fled.

  “Maddy?”

  Her eyes blinked open. She licked her dried, cracked lips. “Aggie?”

  “Maddy.” Augustus pitched forward, weighted by the full power of his emotions. “Thank God I found you. Thank God, thank God, thank God.”

  “You came for me.” She sounded surprised.

  “Of course I came for you. Of course,” he repeated, over and over. “Of course I came for you.”

  “I can’t go home,” she whispered. Her voice, hoarse from lack of use, cracked. “She hates me.”

  “No, Maddy. She doesn’t hate you.” Augustus’s eyes clouded from the tears. They’d come quickly and with fierce intention. “She is sorry for what she said.” And so am I. “She misses you so much.” And so do I.

  “Really?”

  “Really times a thousand.” He didn’t want to stay here a moment longer. They could talk about this someplace else, but the longer she stayed here, the more of herself she’d give away. Augustus scooped her thin body into his arms. She smelled ripe with the decay of the place, and the lack of hygiene, but he pressed her into his chest and navigated the house with the urgent purpose of a firefighter pulling someone from a raging fire.

  When he got her outside, she cried out from the sun. How long had it been since she’d been outside at all? He couldn’t ask. Some things hurt too much to know.

  “I can’t go back,” she choked out between her tears. “I love you, but I can’t.”

  “I know,” Augustus replied through his own tears, and he did. He did know. He’d been thinking about this throughout this whole search, and whatever his goals, his dreams, they could wait until after she was safe. “I’ll protect you.”

  “I know you want to, but you can’t, Aggie. You have your own life.”

  “My life will be there, Maddy. It’s not going anywhere. I’ll get you through this last year of high school and give you anything you need when you graduate. Anything in the world. Anything you want. I’ll even drive you to wherever you want to go. I’ll tell Mom… I’ll tell her, I’m your parent now. She has to come through me, and she can’t yell at you. She’s not allowed. And if she does… if she does, Maddy, I’ll get us our own place until you’re out of school, okay? I’ll do anything to get you through this next year. You just need to graduate and then I’ll help you go where you wanna go. I’ll pay your way the rest of your life. All of it.”

  Madeline sobbed against his chest. He held her in his firm grip, unsure if the words were right, even if they were true. His promise was irrational, but to lose his sister would be akin to a death of the part of himself that still held onto the occasional optimism. What little of him saw the value in idealism. She was a mirror and reflected back a purpose bigger than what everyone else asked of him, or even what he asked of himself.

  “You don’t have to do so much for me.”

  “It’s not so much, really.” He exhaled into her filthy hair. His breath hitched. Augustus suspected he would never know what it was like to fall in love, and that was okay. There were other kinds of love. To save someone who needed you was the most powerful kind of love there was. “It feels like almost nothing, to know you’ll be safe.”

  “What if I fail you?” Her lips quivered, and she looked so young, so vulnerable.

  “No,” he said. “No, you could never. I failed you, and it won’t happen again.”

  “That’s not true. I should have listened to you.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Maddy.” He kissed her dirty forehead, cutting through the grease. “You’re coming home now, and none of that matters.”

  * * *

  Madeline was swallowed whole before the door was halfway open. Her mother, sisters, even Charles, swarmed around her, enveloping her in forgiveness and love, love without judgment, the family she’d been born into and survived; the family she’d suffered through, and ultimately left.

  Her family.

  Through a crack in the swell of arms and faces, she watched Augustus climb the stairs, gripping the bannister as if no longer able to carry his own weight.

  She could do this. For him, she could do it.

  WINTER 1970

  * * *

  NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

  Sixteen

  But Then What?

  Colin Sullivan sat across from Charles at Giraud’s Pub. He didn’t look as surprised as he should.

  Long sigh. “The truth is, Charles I knew.”

  Charles threw his hands up. “You knew?” Of course he knew. Rory knew and had been using that information to try and win Colleen back, which was a lost cause if Charles ever saw one. His sister was the ice queen on ice steroids, and she couldn’t kick that habit any more than Charles could kick the China White. She didn’t even talk to her best friend Carolina anymore. Or any of her siblings, for that matter.

  “Dad has me on a part-time internship at the firm.” In contrast to Charles’ aggressive gesturing, Colin looked ready to retreat. “Your mom used us to complete the payoff and the contract. When I overheard, Dad told me I had to practice attorney-client privilege and keep it to myself. In this case, your mom was the client.”

  “And I’m your best friend and, oh, that’s right, the fucking heir! I outrank my mom, punk.”

  Another sigh from his long-suffering best friend. “That’s a two-way street, Charles. You could have come to me, too. You didn’t.”

  Charles sputtered through a few more obscenities before he said, “Well, I’m here now.”

  “You know as much as I do,” Colin said.

  “Tell me what the fuck you know and then I’ll confirm whether that’s true.”

  Colin shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know much. I know her name is Shelly Cointreau. Seeing as I don’t know anyone by that name, you already know more than I do.”

  “Go on, man. What else?”

  Colin’s eyes darted around. “Um, well… they’re from Algiers, but after the payout they moved out of state. Don’t know where. Shelly’s just a kid.”

  “I did not fucking know that salient fact when she was riding me into the eclipse.”

  Colin closed his eyes. “Gross. And anyway, I believe you. Even you have standards.”

  “Did I tell you I think I was raped, man? That’s what it means, right, when someone has sex with you and you don’t even know it’s happening?”

  “Yes, if that’s what happened.”

  “It is!”

  “Fine.” Colin raised his hands. “That’s what happened.”

  “What else?”

  “The payoff was a quarter million dollars.”

  “The fuck?”

  “Irish Colleen really wanted to make this go away,” Colin replied. “She made that clear. She asked what it would take. That was the number they gave.” He shook his head with a laugh. “If only they knew they could have added a zero and she would’ve still paid it.”

  “Well, it didn’t go away, Colin.”

  “Maybe Elizabeth is wrong.”

  Charles glared at him. Elizabeth was never wrong.

  “Fine. Okay. She’s not wrong. What are you hoping to get out of this?”

  “Get out of this?” Charles boomed. “Get out? I’m going to be a father, Colin!”

  Colin leaned in and opened his eyes wide. “And unless you want all of Uptown to know, I sugge
st keeping it down.”

  “That’s the most helpful advice you’ve offered. Can you help me with something more important now?”

  “You didn’t answer my question, Charles. What do you want from this? Don’t yell at me, I want you to really think before you answer. Do you want to raise this child with Shelly? Take her from her mother?”

  Charles recoiled. “Are those my only choices?”

  “I suppose there are others, but… look, the contract specified Shelly had to abort the child in order for her family to accept the money. Of course, that sort of language is easily disputed in court, because you can’t accept a bribe for what equates, legally, to murder, but—”

  “Do I give a shit? Fuck my mother’s payoff. I have access to far more money than she could wish up in her wildest dreams. I jack off with more cash than she has in her bank account.”

  Colin winced. “Not until you’re twenty-one.”

  “I’m twenty, nimrod. We’re practically dancing in that backyard.”

  “And yet, you still haven’t given me a direct answer.”

  Charles fell back against the peeling plastic seat. What he wanted… well, who the fuck knew what he wanted? What he knew was there would very, very soon, any day now if his math wasn’t a complete waste, be a little girl in the world who was half his. A baby Charles. Charlotte was a nice name. And what else did he have? Everything, if you looked at it from one point of view. Nothing, from another. The yawning void separating Charles from his siblings had become too far to vault across. This hadn’t started when he murdered that pedophile teacher, but it sped things along, for sure. And now, nothing was okay. Something had to change… to make it all right again.