Dawn breaks quick. I roll out of bed, the fishbowl note of, Flectere, drifting towards the carpet reminds me.

“Talis, Tessa carved a latin phrase into a picnic table yesterday.” I rifle through my bags mumbling under my breath. “I recognized flectere but not the rest of it.” Today will be a jeans kind of day and my favorite oversized shirt. It hangs off the shoulder nicely, collarbone really accentuated. “Thought it was weird and actually, Levon said he was afraid of her but I think it’s just another one of his stupid jokes.”

If I was going to college, living in a dorm, I imagine I’d be doing this every day. Not the mumbling to my Protector thing, if he actually can hear me but the standing in front of a mirror and checking out my profile thing, hoping to attract a boyfriend or just keep up with my roommate who I always thought would be Priya. Actually, I might still room with her since she’s coming here today. Which drives a simple question. How the hell does Priya even know how to get here? She didn’t ask or anything.

I rifle around my bags because another thought pops up. Hope the mouse creature doesn’t come up to this room. All my clothes are here. My dad’s letter is tucked in my pants pocket from yesterday so I pull it out and tuck it in my new pair. How did my dad write this letter and know what’s going to happen if he died way before now?

Oh my, oh my.

I call my mom again too.

Ring, ring. No voicemail, done.

Knock, knock. “Good morning sis. Let me the hell in.”

The door knob is cold against my hand, the door loud as it creaks open. Levon, his bruise creep sup his cheek, nearly black. The skin around his neck trembles between gray and black. His necklace? No where to be seen.

“Got to get you ready this morning for training. So,” he says, “I have three items for you from a braid of leather I made for you.” He holds his fist over my hand and drops three little leather charms. “This one,” he points to an eagle. “This is a bird, of course. The second one is the roman god of literature, whatever his name it. I don’t know. And this one, this one is my favorite.”

The details are clear on the third, it’s Levon’s smug face.

“Okay, what is this all about?” I ask, checking for details in the other two charms but they lack.

He plucks a strand of my gray hair and I smack his hand.

“What the hell?”

He smirks as he guides the hair through a little hole in each charm. Then he sets it back into my hand.

“Tradition is everything, Lyla. These three tokens are me, mom, and dad. Every family of Leavers and Protectors always have a keepsake on them. It binds us in this life. Mom was here the day I turned eighteen and she asked me to pretend to be her for you now. Did you say the chant when you turned exactly eighteen?”

“Nope,” I say, squeezing the tokens in my hand.

He sighs, loud and phlegmy. “Repeat after me, ‘I am worthy of the great task, though it’s t’gether we protect life.’

I mumble through like always, a spark of magnificence runs through my mind. And what do I mean by that? I mean, a moment where it clicks. The realization moment. The ‘aha’ Einstein said for every equation. The moment you understood how life works. Like the time I was twelve and finally, at an embarrassingly old age, understood how the bicycle worked once the training wheels came off. Or when right and left became obvious. Or the Pythagorean theorem clicked. But this moment doesn’t just fit to things together, it binds them. It binds the absurdness of mom, the imaginationness of dad, and the peculiarness of Levon. It binds them with me. I’m all of those things now. I do all of those things now. I believe all those things now.

Clear my throat, blink my eyes. Levon pats me on the shoulder. “You’re officially a Leaver now, sis. It’s official. I’ll see you at training. Breakfast is waiting on you outside.”

Levon gone, door shut. A draft of air blows in from between the window and the sill. It stirs up the fishbowl papers strewn all over my floor and the bed. Three little papers land side by side. Pick them up then stuff them in the baggy with the rest.

Engender: To call forth Esoteric: Understandable only by an enlightened inner circle Ineffable: Defying expression or description Ambrosial: Worthy of the gods

Oh my, oh my.