As soon as Jackson rounded the corner into the kitchen, his grandmother, Jane Hunt, gave him a disapproving stare over the top of her glasses. Mumbling a halfhearted apology, he sat down at the table and avoided further eye contact with the gray-haired woman and her withering gaze.

He focused on the food instead and suppressed a grimace of his own — Bovan in gravy noodles (again). Forcing back another sigh, he reached for the spoon and slopped a couple servings of the meat and noodle mess onto his plate.

“By all means, help yourself,” Jane muttered. Jackson hid a small smile. It was an old joke between them. Maybe tonight he’d get away without having to talk about —

“Couldn’t you find something more productive to do with your time than stare at those ridiculous fights all evening?” Jane asked. “Looking at a holo-screen that long isn’t good for your eyes. I was just reading in the news the other day about how a kid in Pollock had a seizure from watching so much holo-vision.”

Jackson forked another mouthful of shredded Bovan and noodles into his mouth to avoid replying to the question. He knew where this was headed.

“Sorry,” he mumbled after he’d swallowed just enough dinner to form the word. “I’ll keep it down, I promise.”

“The volume isn’t the problem,” Jane said. To Jackson’s immense relief, however, she didn’t press the subject further. “How was your day today?”

Jackson brightened immediately and his disposition took a complete turnaround. “Great! This morning we helped move some of the pregnant Bisotaur over to another field now that the grass is coming in.” He left out what they’d spent the afternoon doing now that the Bovan Djinn were out of the barns for the season. He doubted his grandma wondered, though — the smell on his work boots and clothes when he got home was a dead giveaway.

“I’m glad you got to enjoy the sunshine,” Jane said. “It must have been the day for moving — we transplanted some of the roses out of the greenhouse today. The extra hours should help out this month.”

“Oh!” Jackson said, dropping his fork and reaching for the watch on his right hand. He double-tapped the display with his finger and a holo-screen popped up. A small Granite Bank logo — a triangle with rounded corners with a sledgehammer in the middle — hovered above a series numbers. “I almost forgot — it was payday today! How much do you want me to transfer over?”

Jackson’s fingers hovered over the numbers and he looked at his grandma. Jane shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, Jack. How many times do I have to tell you? The whole point of you taking that job was to pay for your advanced schooling. Why else would you spend all of your free time shoveling Djinn manure? I can get by just fine with the flower shop.”

That was a lie — even with Jackson’s income added to the pot, they barely made it from month to month. It had been that way since his mom disappeared.

But rather than bring that up, Jackson tapped the holo a couple times and transferred over 100 suns, hoping it would be enough to cover at least one major bill. They both knew that Jane’s job at the local greenhouse and flower shop wasn’t enough, just like they both knew that Jackson couldn’t care less about spending time shoveling manure, so long as he got to work with Djinn.

“I can send more.” Jackson offered.

Jane shook her head, showcasing that infamous stubborn streak she’d passed on to her daughter and, in turn, her sole grandson sitting across the table. “I’m the one that’s supposed to take care of you, remember?”

“Yeah, well,” Jackson replied, smirking, “until you can figure out how to reject the account transfers I guess this is how it’s gonna be. Doesn’t being old suck?” He said as a ding rang out on Jane’s own holo-watch. “Oh, look at that. Free money,” he said with a smirk.

Sighing, Jane ran her fingers through her gray hair. “I’m serious, Jack. Tuition isn’t cheap.”

The kitchen fell silent as both of them let Jane’s words hover over the table.

Jackson swallowed. Now was as good a time as any. He’d run this conversation over and over in his mind for weeks but struggled to form the words now that the moment was at hand. His eyes dropped to his plate and he stirred around the remaining soggy noodles and gristly pieces of Bovan.

“Grams?” he said.

“Oh, no,” she said, half-listening as she flicked through her tablet. “You don’t call me that unless you’re trying to butter me up for something.”

“I…I’ve been thinking,” Jackson began. He’d sounded much more confident when he’d been practicing with Kay earlier that day in the barns. Swallowing again, he forced himself to be more assertive. This was it.

“I really like working for Sato Breeders…there are a lot of trade jobs I could apply for that —”

Jane looked up at her grandson over the top of her reading glasses. “No, Jackson. We’ve talked about this before.”

A surge of irritation ran through the seventeen-year-old, and he felt a heat begin to extend to his ears. “We never talk about anything — you just tell me no! Listen, there’s a reason I haven’t heard back from the academies yet. I’m just not cut out for it and that’s fine with me. There’s dozens of different Djinn trades I could go into that pay just as well!”

Dropping her tablet next to her plate, Jane fixed her grandson with a steely look and pulled off her glasses.

“Jackson, no. I promised your mother I’d make sure you got a proper education and that’s what I’m going to do. Djinn are dangerous. There’s a reason those trade jobs pay so well — people get hurt around monsters.”

Clenching his napkin in his hands, Jackson rolled his eyes. “People get hurt every day doing all sorts of things that have nothing to do with Djinn. What, you want me to get a tech job and stay in my room working on a holo-screen all day with the blinds closed? If you were so worried about my safety, why’d you sign off for me to work at the breeders, anyway?”

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“Because it’s the only decent job in this town and — believe it or not — I actually care about your happiness,” Jane said. “I thought you had enough sense to realize you couldn’t make a career out of shoveling manure, but I guess I was wrong.”

“You know Mom would —”

“And look at what happened to her!”

Jackson ground his teeth but instead of responding, picked up his plate and dropped it none too gently in the sink. Behind him, he heard Jane swear under her breath.

“Jackson, please…you know I didn’t…”

He ignored his grandma’s quiet plea and left the kitchen in a rush. Although he knew she hadn’t meant to hurt him, even after six years the gaping hole left by his mom still ached.

Rather than pound up the stairs and locking himself in his room, however, Jackson continued down the hall until he came to a closed door off to the right. Before his grandma could give pursuit with an apology, he pushed the door open and shut it quickly behind him. Inside was almost pitch-black. The lights were off and the curtains on the window across from the door shut out the faint light still lingering in the spring evening outside.

That didn’t matter — Jackson knew every inch of this room. His hand stretched out blind and flipped the switch. The light revealed a well-kept, if not slightly dusty, office space fashioned to look like a professor’s study. Jackson dropped down into the soft leather chair behind the desk and blinked back the last tears. He’d forced himself not to cry about his mom anymore — especially not in front of other people.

Expensive mahogany shelves filled with old tomes — more for effect than actual use, hardly anyone ever read real books anymore — covered one wall of the study. Most were Djinnology books filled with dry information about the migratory patterns of Rospars, the social structure of Felinx prides, and other bizarre facts about various Djinn. Across from the library, a series of pictures and framed certifications covered the other wall. Jackson’s eyes lingered on two diplomas awarded to Jessica Hunt: an undergraduate degree in advanced Djinnology from Hilkens University and a Ph.D. in Djinn Evolution Studies from Crevajo College.

The adjacent photographs showed a bright, energetic woman at various stages of young adulthood, telling the story of Jessica Hunt’s short but brilliant life.

His eyes lingered on a particular frame that sat crooked on the wall behind her desk. For some reason, that one wouldn’t stay level. Jackson walked up to it and carefully straightened it, as he’d done so many times before. And as he’d also done so many times before, he lost himself in the images as the digital frames transitioned from one photo to another: a girl blowing a kiss goodbye on her first day of advanced school, an intrepid explorer studying abroad in some tropical jungle, pointing excitedly to a red and black speckled Freetog on a fallen tree next to her, and of course, a mother playing on the floor of the living room with her then-three-year-old son. She held up a stuffed Djinn of a Lyote, one of the rare species of Djinn she’d studied most before her disappearance. A young Jackson smiled as he reached up for the toy. He wondered what had ever happened to that toy.

Jackson’s eyes wandered to the right and the years passed by with him, another photo showing an excited Jessica in her graduation robes, brandishing a diploma, followed by several pictures of the budding scientist out in the field — in this particular instance, the High Plains. Jackson came to another photo with him in it — sort of. It showed Jessica speaking at commencement upon receiving her doctorate at Crevajo. From the side shot of the lectern, you couldn’t miss the large bump under the purple robes that would soon become Jessica’s pride and joy.

But even having a child hadn’t slowed Dr. Hunt down. For as long as Jackson could remember, he’d spent weeks along with Grandma Jane while his mother went off on expedition after expedition all over the globe. When she’d been home, Jessica devoted herself to her son…but those days were few and far in between.

Jackson knew his mother had loved him but he’d come to the realization that she might have loved her work just as much (maybe even a little more, but he dared not to say that aloud). He still remembered the last expedition, just days before his twelfth birthday.

“I’ll be back a couple days after your birthday and we’ll celebrate then!” his mother had promised him. “Baby, I’m sorry — if there was any way I could leave later or come home earlier I would, but we’ve got a small window while the weather is good and I’ve got to take it.”

“Then take me with you!” Jackson said, then already a young kid eager for the adventure his mother enjoyed on a near-daily basis. He could still recall the following moment: his mom taking him into her arms and pulling him tight before whispering in his ear.

“Then who’ll take care of Grandma while I’m gone?” she’d said. “I’m depending on you to make sure she’s okay until I get back. Can you do that?”

Sitting in the study, Jackson’s head gave a slow, unsure nod as he recalled the conversation.

“I promise.”

“That’s my boy,” Jessica had said, grinning and kissing him on the forehead.

“Okay,” the young Jackson said, rubbing his forehead in mild annoyance. Sure, he loved her, but it wasn’t like she was leaving forever. Nothing warranted a kiss from your mom at his age.

Jessica chuckled. “I’ll be back before you know it. And I’ve got a surprise for you then, too!”

But the only surprise to come had been the knock on the door on his birthday. He’d been watching a Djinn duel on the holo in the living room when Jane answered the door. The cries from his grandma sent Jackson running to her. And then the uniformed man walking up to their doorstep shattered his world.

Emergency alert from the plane. Veered off course in the storm. Crashed into the ocean. Found the wreckage. No life rafts deployed, no way anyone could have survived the impact. We’re sorry.

Thinking back to the final conversation with his mother, Jackson shook his head. At the time, it had been an empty task given to a little boy to make him feel important. Even at his age, he’d felt he was too old for that tired cliché. But, yeah. Her death changed things. He doubted she knew the responsibility she’d placed upon her son’s shoulders that day. Five years later, Jackson could say he’d done his best to live up to his promise.

I’m depending on you to make sure she’s okay until I get back.

Ugh. Why was he placing so much importance on the words that even his mom probably didn’t put much thought into?

As much as he hated to admit it, they were still important to him.

Somehow, Jackson and Jane had made it through those terrible days and, although the pain faded, it refused to leave. Grandmother and grandson dealt with the loss in different ways. Jackson, already an avid Djinn taming enthusiast, filled his time as a fan of the sport: televised matches, action figures, trading cards — anything he could lay his hands on. Although his mother’s interest in the monsters had always been academic, he somehow felt closer to her when he was around them, as if a kindred spirit could somehow bring a part of her back.

Jane, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with Djinn. Still deep in mourning, she’d given away Jessica’s entire research portfolio and rare Djinn specimens before realizing the money she could have made from the body of work. Seeing how Djinn taming distracted Jackson from his own pain, she’d let the boy indulge in the hobby. But much to her chagrin, it hadn’t faded away like she’d hoped and served instead to create a fissure between the two of them.

At times, Jessica’s absence pulled them apart as much as it brought them together. The ghost of Dr. Hunt loomed in the house at every moment, every birthday, every holiday — the emptiness refused to leave.

Just like the bills.

Without a body, the insurance cited some bogus clause allowing them to pay out a meager portion of Jessica’s life insurance policy. To make matters worse, the university had refused to sanction the expedition but that hadn’t deterred Jessica. She’d been so sure this was her big breakthrough that she’d dropped almost all of their savings into funding the trip, leaving her mother and young son in dire financial straits. Which brought them to now: living paycheck to paycheck, hoping for a break that never came.

Jackson’s elbows dropped to the desk and he buried his face in his hands.

I miss you, Mom.