What in the hell makes my mom so strange and why does she care so much about my talisman?

“Take your Talisman, Tula.”

Mom enjoys alliteration. Keeps you grounded, she says. Dressed in a yellow floral print dress and twirling around the kitchen munching on a strawberry, its clear mom needs it. Though today, I’m not going to be grounded. She’s flying me to my grandparent’s house or cabin or something mildly dilapidated, if my memory serves me correctly.

“Our deal is written right here.” I shake my notebook. Our last meal together is bacon. Hot and crunchy bacon. “One year at the g-rents place then you’ll pay for college, right?”

“Mhm,” she nods, “yes. That’s what’ll happen my little sugar bun.” She runs her hand through my hair, catching a knot.

“Ew,” I say. “Stop that.”

“Oh my, oh my,” she says, pulling her fingers from the knot then shaking her favorite bracelet down her arm to look at her watch. “You turn eighteen tonight. And what do you say when the clock strikes eleven in the evening missy?”

I shake my head and push my plate towards her.

“I am worthy.” She takes our dishes and prances to the sink. “Say it with me…”

I mumble along with her, “I am worthy of the great task, though it’s t’gether we protect life,” as I finish stuffing my fishbowl paper pieces into a plastic baggy. I would dwell and tell you all about what nonsense mom is talking about again, grounded is what she never is. Not worth the consideration but my task right now? It’s to pack these little scraps of paper away to take with me. The bowl is full of Latin phrases for college entrance exams I wanted to memorize in case they asked about it and about one-hundred upper-level words commonly found on the law school entrance exam. I’m not going to law school next year, just yet. First, it’s pre-law studies, then the LSAT to get into law school afterwards.

The waft of old aquarium water finds my nose since I didn’t clean it that well after Jonas died. The fishbowl used to have a green beta fish who barely swam around and who I named after my favorite tween idol band. Jonas lived in the one-gallon bowl for about three months until he died and now the bowl serves as my keeping place for little bits of words I write on scrap paper and stuff in here to read when I need to study for college.

But mom likes to pretend she gets messages from it. Like messages. Like Ghosthunters or those television shows. She’s wise I assure you, but a bit mad.

I stuff my bags to the car. It’s a strange arrangement but then again, my mom is a strange bird. So what’s the deal you ask? I promise to take a gap year and hang out with my grandparents and brother whose gap year has lasted at least three years now and in return, she’ll pay for college. Anywhere I want. In reason, I guess. But still a good deal.

It’ll be nice to see my brother too. I haven’t seen him since the day he boarded the plane to Jamestown, California. Well, the plane went to Monterey first and then we stayed in the little town for a few days, sight-seeing and what not, then we drove west to the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the small and eclectic Jamestown.

We went once as kids. The drive is terrifying. I wanted to puke as the car weaved against the mountain road, no guardrails. Death just a six-inch shoulder’s width away.

The sun is bright overhead today, floating in the blue sky. The heat of the outside of the car, warms my back as I wait for mom. My housing division is lined with trees along the street. Our yard has just one. The shadow casted on it moves on the ground, ebbing and flowing, as if the tree is swaying in the wind. But it’s a perfect summer day with absolutely no wind. My attention heads to mom as she pauses on the stoop, brows furrowed. Then she shuts her eyes and inhales, wafting her hands under her nose. And before she even opens her eyes, she skips off the stoop and hurries to my side of the door.

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“Let me pray over you, little canary,” my mom says.

“Just open the door,” I say, yanking on the car door handle but she has it locked. Trapped. Trapped against the car and my mother touching my cheeks, then grabbing my hands. “Tradition is everything.” She whispers, “Close your eyes.”

Fine, fine. I’ll close them.

“Keep your Protector close, let them keep their Leaver close. May your trip be safe and may I see a different you in a year.” It’s her usual prayer. One she refuses to tell me about. Something like Protectors are like Guardian Angels and Leavers are us, little angels on Earth.

“So,” I say, “did you see Levon in one year or was it more like three?”

“Tula Lyla, I’ve gone and visited him and he is different. Wildly and wonderfully different.” She runs her fingers through my hair again but instead of finding a stray knot, she finds the strands that are turning gray.

Yes, turning gray. It’s great. But let’s get back to an important detail which is my mom has never left this house to see Levon these past three years.

“I wish your father was here,” she says. “He’d love to see you too but you know.” She waves her hand in the air. That’s her way of saying, ‘but he’s dead and disappeared and deemed a kidnap but the body was never found but we have an empty urn for him.’ She kisses me on the cheek, bright orange-red lipstick and the loudest noise in the world. She sighs. “But it is what it is and now, let’s get your life started.”

Her footsteps are quick as she rushes to the driver’s side. She never rushes. My mom? She lives on island time which translates too, she’s usually overwhelming late to any and everything. She pulls at a hair strand and wraps it around her finger as she opens the door. Again, my mom and playing nervously with her hair? Not a thing, except right now. Her hands tremble as she buckles.

I slide into my seat by the time she’s already started the car.

“Hurry, hurry my chickadee.” She taps her fingers on the steering wheel and glances behind me, staring seemingly at nothing.

“What?” I say, turning around.

“Just buckle and hurry, pleasey please.”

The doors lock as my buckle clicks in. And just in time too as the she backs out of the drive with way too much gusto.

“You can go the speed limit, you know. We’re already one hour early to one hour early for check-in,” I say.

Her unusually tight-lipped smile, instead of her carefree toothy one, sends a shiver down my spine.

“Mhm,” she says, barely stopping at the stop signs leading out of Canary Protector housing division in the middle of Westerville, Ohio. “If you could stop talking for a few minutes, I need to concentrate.”

At a four way stop, another car taking their turn crossing the intersection, mom presses her pedal to the floor. The car tires squeal and squeak, as she sprints through the stop sign, just passing in front of the other car without getting hit.

My hands are tight around my seat belt and the sting of water in my eyes reminds me to blink. “Wow,” I say. “You’re that frazzled I’m leaving? I can drive if you’d like.”

“Nope,” she says, a little too high-pitched. “Just need to get you to the airport before they find you.”

“Who finds me? What the heck are you talking about?”

Mom is known to mumble and ramble under her breath, lost in her own world. Eclectic thinking, is what dad used to say. She’s totally normal but just a bit eclectic. Typically, I’d be frustrated she just dove into her private thoughts, ignoring me accidentally. But her words captivate me. No, that’s the wrong world. They alarm me.

“Yes, yes,” she mumbles. “They are close by. Can’t you smell it, Edward? Our daughter, they finally discovered her. Oh my, oh my.” She shakes her head, turns the blinker on, and takes a sharp right turn which leads to the freeway entrance ramp. “So close. But Levon, Levon will keep her safe. Can he? Sure he can. Tessa, she can’t help. No, no. Nice girl, Tessa is but dumber as a box of rock candies. So pretty though.” She tsks her tongue. “Oh my, oh my, how I pray her Talisman is smart. Strong enough too.”

Mom speeds past three semitrucks, darts over to the farthest left lane, and presses the pedal literally to the metal. Sixty-seventy-eighty-ninety. Ninety-eight.

“Mom?” A glint of light sits in the median of the road. It’s a white car with lights on the roof. “Mom, police is up there.”

“Yes, yes canary,” she says as the lights turn on, red and blue flashing brighter than the sun outside.

As she flies past the police car, she holds a hand out towards the window. She waves, a little tiny wave I’ve never really seen her do, and the lights turn off.

“How in the-” My words are interrupted as I turn to watch the police car stay exactly where they parked.

And just like that, my mom, lost in her own world of thoughts is back in the real world. She uses her stressed voice, the one where she’s ready to scold me if I forget an item on a long road trip.

“Tula, where’s your Talisman?”