(song: "Cosmic Love" - Florence + The Machine )
It was four heart-shattering traumas that had torn my life apart. First there was the fall on the kitchen table, which cost me two of my baby teeth.
Then I lost my beloved goldfish Claudette, who I'd overfed. Then came puberty and all its awkwardness, where I was mercilessly teased.
But the fourth trauma was the worst yet; when my beloved grandmother passed away suddenly, it shifted my entire world like an earthquake, leaving me broken beyond repair.
In the past, I'd tried to cope with my struggles by becoming the captain of the girls soccer team, learning how to dance gracefully, and falling for Alex—the boy who owned my heart—but now everything felt almost pointless without Nana here.
My grandmother had always gone to visit my parents and I in San Jose. I hadn't seen my grandmother's hometown of Willowbrook, Washington since I was eight. I could barely remember anything about the visits. My memory felt like it was in fragmented pieces from my time there.
Now at eighteen, it'd been ten years since my last visit.
Black dresses, black suits and black veils surrounded my parents and I, as we stood over the shiny surface of a coffin slowly being lowered into a grave.
Tall firs and pine trees enclosed the tiny cemetery into the woods with a gray ambiance. Dark clouds loomed overhead and rain fell no heavier than sprinkles. The heavyset preacher Thomas held up his bible and delivered a monotone eulogy that blended into the soundscapes around us.
I lifted my tear-filled eyes to stare out at the faces that chose to come and bid their farewells to Nana.
Mrs. Montgomery gently tossed a handful of dirt onto the coffin with broken composure. Mrs. Montgomery was Nana's hairdresser and closest friend. I could remember many stories that involved Mrs. Montgomery and my Nana over the years.
Mr. Walter Goodman was next, a man in his 70's who was Nana's lawyer and first love. They had just started back dating again for the first time in over 50-years until Nana's heart attack.
The next person who approached Nana's casket was someone I had never seen or even heard of.
It was a young guy, who definitely had to be the same age as me. He had deathly pale skin, eyes that were black and void, and messy, fair hair. Another boy equally as pale, but with jet-black hair stood with him. The two of them stretched out their arms and dropped a handful of dirt into the open grave.
"Mom, who are those boys?" I leaned in to ask.
My mother blew her nose against a small, white handkerchief and tried her best to seem more put together than she felt. "I think the blonde one is Mrs. Lena Whitman's grandson, Marcel. Mrs. Whitman is—I mean was your Nana's neighbor."
I squinted my gaze to study Marcel's features.
There was nothing familiar about him.
I thought maybe I could remember something about a neighbor-boy when I was eight-years-old, but the only memories that surfaced were playing with Nana in the old record room.
After the funeral we all rode towards Nana's old lavender painted Victorian home that resided just off the side-road outside of Willowbrook. The only other homes in the deeply wooded cul-de-sac belonged to Mrs. Whitman and Mr. Dunbar. The plant-life was wild and overgrown; it made the area feel creepy and foreboding.
Funeral guests drank sodas and tea in the living-room. Preacher Thomas had his small congregation helping to manage the serving of food and drinks so that we only had to worry about mourning.
I avoided the people offering their condolences by hiding away in Nana's record room.
The room had been intended to be an office, but my grandparents love of music made it become a room lined with walls of vinyls, instruments and musty old music books.
I leaned back in Nana's favorite red sitting chair and closed my eyes as I listened to a Billie Holiday record.
"Excuse me?" A voice quietly called from the door.
I quickly turned off the record player and cleared my throat. "You can come in."
The hair was visible first. His hair looked like it was warring between being platinum or tawny brown. Marcel slipped into the room wearing his suit and a strange expression on his face. In his hands he held a shiny black box. How the box could stay so perfect and smudge-less was strange in itself, but what was even stranger was that he suddenly thrusted out his hands to offer the box to me.
"This is for you," he said awkwardly.
I stared at the surface of the object and found my own reflection staring back on it.
"For me? What—why?" I asked hesitantly.
"It's something your grandmother asked me for and I promised I'd show her this, but. . . well. . . you know what happened. I didn't get the chance to show her."
I narrowed my gaze at him with suspicion. "You were close with my Nana? Kinda weird, because as far as I can remember, she hasn't mentioned you ever. Not even once."
Marcel opened his mouth more with surprise than any words. He smiled in a polite, but strange way. His eyes felt like they'd swallow me whole if I looked at them for too long.
"Oh, I guess you don't remember me do you? It was a long time ago," Marcel said.
"Really? We met before?" I crossed my arms. I couldn't tell if he really knew me or was taking advantage of me.
"Yeah, about. . .ten years ago? You were over here playing with your Nana and I live next door with my grandmother. I wasn't used to meeting many local kids my own age and it's a small town. I came over here to play with you a few times."
For the life of me, I couldn't remember anything about a boy next-door. His eyes were deep and haunting, I'd have definitely remembered those. Marcel wasn't unattractive or unpleasant to look at, there was just something unsettling about him that I couldn't shake.
I nodded with a half smile and lied, "Oh, I think I remember you. Yeah."
Marcel tilted his head a bit like a dog does and formed a full-on beautiful grin. "You're lying, but that's okay. It was a really long time ago."
He placed his hand on top of the boxes surface and leaned towards me too close for my liking. His expression became much more serious. "Do not try and open this without me. It's a puzzle box. Unless you know how those work, you won't be able to open it. When you decide you want to know what's inside it, I'm just one house away."
Okay, creepy much?
I humored Marcel with a smile and put the box under my arm. I planned to place it in the box of donation items from the attic that we were going to give away.
"Marcel?" A black-haired teen with strong chiseled features and fierce brown eyes peered into the record room. He caught sight of me and the minute he did he seemed to freeze up.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not prying, honestly. I was just looking for Marcel," the teen explained. "I'm sorry about your grandmother, she was a pillar in our community."
I didn't want to hear anymore apologies for my loss, I wanted to just be to myself and drown my sorrows in old soulful music.
"She doesn't want to hear that kind of stuff, Daniel. She wants to be alone. Let's just go," Marcel snapped at him.
I felt totally shocked because for some reason, Marcel seemed to know exactly how I felt and what I was thinking.
I watched Marcel quickly usher Daniel from the room and I guess I was still too stunned to even close the door. All I could do was watch Marcel head towards the front door. He turned back one time to lock eyes with me and for a moment we stared at one another. He was the first one to break eye-contact and leave the house.
I still kept the smooth black box tucked under my arms and wondered what exactly was a puzzle box?
"Lily right?" A short brunette had approached me. She seemed frigid and flighty like a humming bird. "I'm Audrina Summers, I live in town. Um, your grandma talked about you a lot. So. . .I don't mean to bother you on this day and all, I just saw that you were talking to Marcel Whitman and wanted to give you a heads-up kind of thing. I don't think you should spend any time with Marcel, he's kind of known for the wrong things here."
"Known for what?" I asked. I had no intentions of talking to Marcel again in the first place, but now I was actually curious. What connection did he have with Nana?
Audrina anxiously tapped the tips of her fingers together. "This is going to sound crazy—because it is crazy—but he's kind of nicknamed 'star boy' in the community on account of the local rumors that he was baby found inside a meteorite eighteen years ago."
"You're messing with me," I spoke with total annoyance and disbelief.
Audrina waved her arms around to defend herself. "I'm not! Honestly, look it up at the local library or ask around. I'm not saying it's true, of course it's fake. Most people know it's fake, but the crazier thing is that there's a handful of people in town who believe that he really fell from the sky, and. . .well your Nana was one of them."
"What?"
There was no way. She had to be lying. My Nana was one of the most skeptical and critical people ever. She was an intelligent, educated woman who'd been a science teacher for years before she retired. She didn't believe in little green men visiting earth from distant planets.
"I'm just warning you, don't fall for it the way your Nana did. He may not be from space, but there are a lot of strange occurrences in Willowbrook, and somehow he's tied to a lot of them. I don't want you to get sucked into it the way she did."
I felt the cold, smooth material of the mysterious box in my hands. Somehow this was tied to whatever it was Nana was involved with.
I knew that I had to open it. . .