Seven ~ Chapter One ~ One Mum, Two Brothers, Three Sisters, Four Rooms, Five Sounds, Six Smells, Seven Worries

And as the wand stared her in the face, she was suddenly terrified of the eyes that once comforted her.

'Why?' she whispered.

'You know why.'

I could always count on the first smell of the day to be the smell of my tabby cat, Slinky's, butt right on my face. The second smell came from the lavender smell that was my sister's wafting into our bedroom from the attached bathroom. Every morning I would wake up with Slinky sleeping on my head and the sound of water running as smoke slithered through the cracks under the slightly ajar bathroom door.

On this particular morning, Summer came out of the bathroom, walking small quick steps, one towel around her head and one around her body. Her face broke out in a large grin when she saw I was awake. Even though I was just eleven and she was seventeen, we were the closest of all our siblings.

After putting on a tank top and shorts fitting of the hot weather that summer (excuse the pun), she made her way back into the bathroom, this time to fix her hair and do her makeup. Finally pushing Slinky off me, much to her displeasure, I got out of bed and followed her into the bathroom.

'How'd you sleep little sis?' she asked when I stood next to her at the mirror.

'Good. You?'

'Great,' Summer smiled reassuringly, but I knew she was lying; we shared a bed and I could feel and hear her tossing and turning all night. This happened almost every night.

As I watched my sister apply the makeup, I thought about how she really didn't need it. Summer was already beautiful with her shoulder-length auburn hair, big blue eyes and pretty features. The only thing that ruined the perfect façade was the red lines raised along her arms. At eleven years old, I didn't know what they were or how they'd gotten there. I just had faint memories of nights without Summer in our bed and in a hospital one instead and the knowledge that the many beaded bracelets I had made her made them stop hurting.

After she finished with her own hair, she turned to me and braided mine. She then applied some lip gloss to my small lips and sprayed me with some perfume she bought for me before she left the room to let me get dressed.

I worried about my sister.

Slinky followed me down the hall and hissed as my two brothers, August and Germany bolted past me. Slinky had never liked my brothers; it took me a good six months to teach her not to attack them every time she saw them.

Really, Slinky was a nuisance for everyone in the family. But with my great love for cats and my innocent seven-year-old eyes, how could Mum refuse to let me take in the beaten, skinny, almost hairless kitten?

August was sixteen. He was what most girls described as tall, dark and handsome. He had dark brown eyes and dark brown hair that was swept back and reached just below his ears. My mother always said he had a much "defined" face with "high cheekbones" that made him look "regal".

Germany was twelve and had similar dark brown hair to August, although Germany's was curly and sat flat on top of his head. His blue eyes were the same as Summer's, who were the only two to inherit them from our mother.

Walking into the kitchen and dining room, the third smell I can always expect hits me: breakfast. Then the fourth smell barrels into me: The sweet citrusy smell of my mother.

'Seven!' she screeched and hugged me as if she hadn't seen me in years. She did this almost every morning. 'And Summer, my beautiful daughter!' She let go of me and went to squeeze the life out of Summer. 'Sit down girls, before the others eat everything.'

Mum was completely right in saying this; mine was a family full of big eaters that ate anything and everything. I was the only one that hardly ate anything, which was probably a good thing because retrieving food at any meal was a struggle. Across from me sat my fifteen year old sister Indigo. She had tied up her long light brown hair today, but when she left it out it reached just above her bottom. She had hazel eyes and could do with losing a little weight. Mum was always trying to convince her to go on a diet with her, but every time she suggested this, Indigo said she loved food way too much to go on a diet.

I worried about Indigo. I worried about everyone in this family.

Speaking of Indie's love of food, she and Wednesday were fighting over the last strip of bacon, which made me really hope Mum was making more because I loved bacon. Wednesday was fourteen and had blonde hair and green eyes. She was very beautiful, like Summer was, but Wednesday had always hated the several freckles that decorated her face.

Wednesday, Germany and I got the worst end of the deal when it came to names, my name being Seven. And before you ask, just like the rest of the world does, yes like the number. My mum was a little crazy, to say the least, and wanted to give us unique names. She named one of us after a season (Summer), one of us after a month (August), one of us after a colour (Indigo), a day of the week (Wednesday), a country (Germany) and a number (Seven).

My hair was naturally light brown with dirty blonde streaks running through it, mostly underneath and at the tips. My eyes were brown and everything about me screamed shy and small. I was officially the shortest girl in my year at school and I knew that because one lunch time the whole year gathered around to find out who was the shortest and who was the tallest.

My brothers, my sisters and I looked nothing alike and the only ones you would peg to be my mother's children are Summer, Germany and Wednesday. The rest of us looked like what we imagined our father to look like, although Mum always said August looked like her brother.

Summer explained to me when I was around eight that we once had a father but he died just months after I was born. Even she and August only had very few memories of him and the rest of us didn't remember him at all. Mum didn't like to talk about him for some weird reason and I had never dared to ask her again after asking her once. Only bad things came from that question.

The only thing I had of his was his last name, McCarthy. Mum kept his last name too and still wore her wedding ring, but other than those two things, it was like he never existed.

I worried about my mother. Summer always said she kept too much bottled up inside.

Just as Mum was putting some bacon on my plate (she ended up making some especially for me), Germany started up the game we played every morning at breakfast. Somebody started the game by telling the rest of us about a dream they had had the previous night. The winner (which everyone voted on) got to pick either a game we played that day or what we would have for dinner that night. None of us ever made up a dream either, even if we wanted to; every single one of us was horrible at lying. Admittedly, it wasn't much of a game, but we all enjoyed it and it was something that kept the bickering at a minimum.

Germany was the winner this morning with his dream about a room full of green goo that you got stuck to every time you made contact with it which made it extremely difficult to defeat the dragon he was battling with. He eventually did though.

We would probably end up playing Jenga, Uno, Snakes and Ladders or some game like that. Germany loved those games and he was good at them.

After breakfast, mum left for work and the rest of us sat in the living room to play the predicted game of Uno.

According to Mum, she did have a proper job, but Summer and August always said that selling paintings on the street and having no real or reliable income did not class as a proper job. She usually left after breakfast and got back in time to make dinner, so it wasn't like she completely abandoned us. Plus, it was kind of fun to just spend time with my brothers and sisters during the day even if we did fight almost every day.

But there were downfalls to having no mum around during the day, especially when it came to how little she was making for not being at home. The main downfall was that our house was tiny. The kitchen, dining and lounge room was all just one room and there were only four bedrooms. Summer and I had scored the biggest bedroom after winning a game after beating Wednesday and Indigo at a game of rugby. Wednesday and Indigo also shared a room, as did August and Germany. Mum got the last one to herself. This was admittedly better to what some families lived in, but it still wasn't ideal.

After Uno, which Germany won, the others stayed inside to play some other card game that Germany and I found too hard to play, so we went outside.

Our yard was fairly big, bigger than the house, and it was all carefully cared for grass and garden. It always smelt absolutely wonderful. Gardening was a passion both Wednesday and our mother shared.

Out of my two brothers, I was closer to Germany than I was to August. Most of it was probably due to the age difference, but a lot of it was also because of our shared interests. For as long as I could remember, the two of us had bonded over our love for the world of fantasy. We both read similar books about it and always talked about dragons and wizards and witches and all those magical things that everyone else insisted didn't exist. When we were younger, we used to come outside and pretend to duel with sticks or pretend to slay dragons. We didn't do that anymore though because Germany reckons he's too old for that sort of stuff. But I didn't see how that could be true; you're never too old to pretend.

Today we laid in the grass and made up stories based on the shapes of the clouds. We were great at making up stories. We used to put together epic tales of adventure and romance and perform them for the rest of the family but then August and Indigo decided to be jerks and began making fun of us. Needless to say, we didn't do it anymore. He then told me more about the dream he had the previous night and I told him about the book I was reading, Dragonflight. It was the first book in a series and I was quite enjoying it.

'Oi, Summer?' Germany said when all was quiet.

'Mmm?'

'What's that cat on the wall?'

I sat up and turned my body to where a tabby cat was sitting on the broken, chipped and shabby brick wall that lined our yard. I knew it wasn't Slinky, because this cat had square marking around its eyes. It sat very still, staring at us. A mini staring competition went down before the cat turned its head and jumped from the wall.

At around that time, the other four joined us outside, August twirling a rugby ball in his hands, Wednesday carrying lemonade and Summer and Indigo carrying sandwiches and cookies.

We sat down in the grass to eat lunch. Summer had made a sandwich for each of us, and the cookies were from the baking we did yesterday. The lemonade was something Wednesday must have whipped up; she was the master of all things lemon.

Afterwards, August took the ball out from underneath him (he was sitting on it) and threw it up in the air before catching it again. 'Who's up for a game?'

We were always playing rugby. We loved it and we were good at it. August was the best at it. He even played on the school's rugby team. Indigo was also good at it, but only because everyone wet themselves when she came running at them.

It was great having her on our team. Along with Indigo was myself and Germany, while August, Wednesday and Summer made up the other team. Our teams were often variations of this, with one boy on each side, one of the two best players on each side and one of the older kids (Summer, August and Indigo) on each side. Our yard, as I mentioned before, was big, and big enough to play a good game of rugby. We played for longer than a normal game goes for (most days we did), and by the time we called it quits, August's team had won.

'You guys so cheated,' Indigo mumbled as we went inside.

'We did not!' Wednesday argued.

'Did too!'

'How would we have cheated?' August said.

'Adding on points you didn't earn, breaking the rules throughout the game ...'

'If we did cheat, why didn't you call us out on it during the game?'

Having no good comeback to this, Indigo did what she always did; turned to violence. Summer stopped it though before someone really got hurt. Indigo had broken her arm twice fighting before.

Most of us sat in the lounge room, but Summer and August sat at the dining table. We all assumed they were writing letters to their respective partner. Summer was dating a boy named Ryan, who was the same age as her. They had been dating since the end of school in June and he was on vacation in France at the moment. August was writing to his girlfriend, Valerie, who was very pretty but also very annoying. August doesn't think it'll last very long.

'Good evening!' Mum trilled as she danced in. 'Did we have a good day? I know I did! We'll be swimming in money soon enough, if we more days like this one!'

We all just looked at each other and rolled our eyes. She said this almost every day, and most days, she didn't make half as much as she thought she did.

After dinner that night, at around seven, we all sat in the lounge room again, pretty much quiet except the crackling of our radio. Music was playing but there was also a faint crackle here and there that told us we really needed a new one. Mum was sitting on the floor and working on her mosaic. My mum was one of those artists that liked to experiment in all different areas of art until she mastered it and mosaic was her newest thing. There was the occasional clatter as she dropped one tile onto her pile and rustled around for another one. August and Summer were playing Scrabble at the dining table. You could hear the occasional giggle from August and know that he had just made up a naughty word; no matter how mature he thought he was, he always got a kick out of being cheeky in Scrabble. Or in life for that matter.

Wednesday, Germany and I were reading. Wednesday was reading a book about cooking. She really enjoyed all that stuff and spoke about being a chef when she was older. Germany and I, however, were reading our fantasy novels.

As if we were one person, we all turned our heads towards the front door when we heard a knock. We then stared at each other for a while before my mother stood up and walked over, muttering about who in their right mind would be calling in for a surprise visit at this hour.

I had to agree with her. Who was that at the door?

Curious, I followed her and stood a few feet behind her when she opened the door.

I was shocked. The woman standing there was unlike any other woman I had seen before. Her hair was pulled up into a bun so tight it looked as if it might be hurting her head and she was wearing robes of emerald green. The eyes behind the square glasses found mine and stared at me for what seemed like an eternity before flicking back to my mother.

'Ms. McCarthy? I'm here to speak to you about your daughter, Seven McCarthy.'