My not so heavenly slumber crumbles as the distinctly English voice echoes off the wooden walls.
My mind wants to attach itself back to the dream last night, the forlorn, desolate, decrepit dream . . . but British voice won’t allow it.
“Hallo? Yoo-hoo!”
Ah, yes. My friend. The eccentric lady from down the road.
What was it?
Penelope. Yes.
Penelope Persephone Crisp.
A bit early to come poking about, but perhaps nine a.m. is late for her. My grandmother used to wake up at five in the morning. Sometimes even four-thirty! It was positively grotesque!
“Hello, hello? Anybody home?” Her chipper voice hoists itself up the stairs as I peek over the banister.
“Yeah. Yes! I’m here.” I do sound a bit rude. I feel like I have to be more polite because she’s English. “I’ll just be a moment.”
I’m sure I look like I just fell out of a laundry basket.
“Hi there.” I come down.
She looks at me.
“Still asleep, are we?” she admonishes.
“Yeah. That’s right. Guilty.” I repony my ponytail.
“I must say, those jingly contrivances on the doors make such a fuss. I thought they would surely wake you,” she comments.
“I’m sorry . . .” I squint at her. “Jingly things?”
“Yes, you know. Those exotic tokens all over the doors.”
“Exotic . . . tokens. . . . On which doors?”
I open the front door and take a look.
“Hmm. That’s odd. I hadn’t noticed those before.” I look at the silver jangling things attached to the top of the door. “You’d think I would’ve noticed them.”
“Indeed,” she adds. “You know there’s one on every door.”
I continue inspecting them. At the bottom of each one there’s a blue circle, like a kind of target. Or an eye.
“There is?” I look at her.
“Oh, yes. I’m sure the professor brought them back from one of his many voyages. He’s quite the world traveler, you know. And his wife. Although, at least she doesn’t brag about sleeping on the ground in the dirt with grubs everywhere. The professor tends to romanticize these sort of things, you know. . . .” She trails off.
I notice she’s wearing the exact same thing she was wearing the other day. Hmm. Maybe as you get older it just doesn’t matter. Or maybe you just forget. I know I’d wear the same thing every day if I could get away with it. Or maybe she has multiple identical things. Like Steve Jobs. So she doesn’t have to think about it.
“Well, do you know what they are? I mean . . . are they like . . . dream catchers or something?”
“Dream catchers! Oh, heavens no. I don’t think so. Seems a bit touchy-feely for these academic types, don’t you think?” She peers at me.
“Yeah, I guess. I suppose I can google it.” I smile.
“Oh . . . quite.”
I get the distinct impression she has no idea what I’m talking about. I have the idea to offer her a cup of tea. Isn’t that what English people do? Cup of tea? Have some tea? Put the kettle on? If movies teach us anything, it’s that the English run on tea.
“Maybe a cup of tea?” I ask.
“Oh, good heavens, no! I’m on my way.” She grabs her orange hat from the side table. “I was just popping by on my way into town, thought I’d make sure you were getting on.”
“Um. Yeah. I’m getting on.” In fact, I was getting on so well I was asleep, lady. But I don’t say that. “Doing fine.”
She holds a moment, contemplates. “To be true, dear, the professor did tell me to keep an eye on you. Not in any sort of suspicious way, mind you. No, dear, not at all.”
I’m barely putting this together in my muddled morning head, but she continues.
“He’s just such a kind man, truly. He was a bit worried you might be lonely. So, you see, you shan’t be rid of me, try as you might.” She smiles, a wink in it.
“Oh.” I think about it. “Sure. Yes, that’s . . . fine. Nothing like a little company, I guess. No, please do feel free or whatever.”
She sizes me up. There is something about her that comes across as wise . . . as if you could say anything you’d like and she’d see through it. She just knows. She’s been around. She’s seen it all. Truths. Half-truths. White lies.
“Oh, good. Well, I’m pleased to hear it.” She gives me a pursed smile and a nod, and then makes her way to the front door.
“Bye, then. Nice to see you,” I say, again trying to be polite.
“Yes, dear. Always a pleasure.”
She disappears out the door and the silvery, exotic tokens jangle. It’s strange I didn’t notice them. In a way, it makes no sense.
I go to the back door. Yes, there’s one on that door, too. Yes, it also jangles.
But how could I have not noticed before? Was I so caught up in my infinite musings? The jangling is not subtle. Not in the least.
I certainly didn’t notice them last night in my empty-house dream. But why would I? It was just a dream, Daffodil.
Both my lips are doing that thing where they scrunch up on the side . . . in dubious thought.
It’s only when I open my laptop and proceed to google that I have my answer.
It’s a talisman.
From either Turkey or Greece.
They’re meant to be hung on the outside of the house as a protection from evil spirits.
Well, I can certainly see the professor or his wife picking them up in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. A memento of the journey. A trinket. Nothing more.
And then, despite the fantastical nature of the idea, antithetical to any academic worth their salt . . . I can certainly see them placing the talismans on the doors. Just simply in the spirit of the thing. Not for any specific reason. An exotic token. A conversation piece. A gas!
The professor is not the superstitious type. I’m sure his wife just placed them around for fun, or for possible dinner conversation. After all, just because you place tokens from a souvenir shop, or the Grand Bazaar, all over your house, doesn’t mean you actually believe in whichever spell or symbol they’re meant to represent. It’s just a thing that rich people do. Collect things. Collect items and showcase them.
Nothing more.
Chapter 20
The worker guys are back, pounding away in the backyard. I notice that the boss, Mike, the Little League coach, hasn’t arrived yet. I guess that’s one of the perks of being the boss. I resolve to try to be the boss, no matter what I decide to do. Maybe I will just be the boss of watching conspiracy videos.
Right now, for instance, it seems I am the head honcho of lying in bed. No, no, it’s not really normal to lie in bed for approximately two days. That’s clearly not a healthy thing for a seventeen-year-old person to do. But something seems to have happened to me where my back stays glued to the top of the bed and can only wheedle its way over to gather a few pillows and open up a laptop and start exploring the world inside said laptop, rather than the world outside my bed.
That world is scary. That world has uncertainty and voodoo charms and construction bros and the thing that cannot be mentioned. But this world here, this world behind this blue light, is safe and endless. This world takes me back to ancient aliens, through the fall of the Roman Empire, through medieval times with possible dragons, through a dozen wars between England and France, the discovery of the New World, up until the present. The time when the blue screen was invented to teleport me out of reality. And there is some reading, dear friend, I have taken the time to read a book a week . . . lest you think I’m just eating bonbons all day. But that, too, involves lying in bed. So it’s positive, yes. But not exactly contributing to my cardio.