Mother. Mom. Mommy. Mama. Matriarch. Mum. Mumsy.

Those were the words that ran through my head when I was in fifth grade and got the news that my mom got into a car accident and passed away. I got the news at school and it felt like a blur to me, I remember I got taken out of math class and the counselors made me sit in the principal’s office’s lobby. I thought over and over again.

“What do I do now? What happens?”

Understandably so, I was devastated and overwhelmed. A kid doesn’t deserve to go through this pain of losing a parent so soon. I had big drops of water rolling down her eyes. I didn’t know what she felt but what I did know was that she was really overwhelmed and a lot of things were happening and everybody was treating her differently.

The next few days went by in a blur, I just laid in bed all day or watched tv on the couch. I remembered dad having long phone calls at night and my older brother crying a lot but I don’t know why.

The repeating days were interrupted by some lady in a fancy suit and a big box by her side, now thinking about it I think it was a briefcase? I remember my dad sitting all of us down at the dining table and the lady was talking about what my mom wanted before she died. She willed us to do it or something like that.

The next day my dad took me and my brother into the attic with a piece of paper in his hands that the lady gave him. 

Mom never let us go into the attic, I always thought it was because I could fall down the ladder or there were spiders and bugs up there. However, when we went up there it actually was super organized and clean. 

The floor was clean with smooth oak wood planks. It felt cold underneath my feet and there was no natural light coming in at all. After looking, I saw that there was wooden boards covering the windows and drapes covering the boards. Whatever my mom was doing up here, she didn’t want anybody to see I guess. The only light was a single hanging light bulb hanging from the center but it was so bright it filled up the whole room with bright rays of color. The sides were filled up with tall bookshelves everywhere. Tons of and tons of books filled these shelves with all different sizes and shapes and colors. I walked closer and I realized the spines of the books facing out weren’t readable. The words on the spine seemed to be rubbed off after it being used so much. I opened a book and it just had weird geometric shapes with weird symbols on them. 

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Don’t touch those!” My dad snapped.

I was caught off guard and closed the book quickly and went back to my dad’s side. He seemed as though he was looking for something. He strolled through the room, looking at the bookshelves and gently tracing the spines with his fingers. Finally he picked something out and when he opened it, this one actually had words that made sense. They were all names written in random places, some of them upside down, some of them sideways, they where in all different sizes and fonts. And all of them were crossed out. He flipped through the pages and when he reached about a third of the book the pages started being blank. He quickly went back and went to the pages where one of them was partially filled with names and the other one was blank.

I peeked over his arm and saw some names I recognized. Lucy Timber, Andrew Smith-Timber, Alex Timber and Pauline Timber. My mom, my dad, my brother and my name respectively. I was confused but I kept quiet. Not only were our names there but also they weren’t scratched out.

“Hey sweetie, so mom had a really important job and now that she’s gone, it is our turn to do it.” My dad smiled and told me.

“What do you mean?”

And after my question he pulled out a pen and gently crossed out my mom’s name. Afterwards it started glowing blue light gently off the page and after a few seconds it simmered out and looked like a regular piece of writing afterwards.

“Dad…what was that?”

He ignored me and went back down the attic. I started running after him, and I don’t know what just happened but I think I need to start knowing.