Tabop

“Hi! I sensed some broken bindings and –.”

He muffles a scream, a boy not older than a Jay, spins toward me. “Who – what – you can’t be here – is this a trick?” falls out, whisper-quiet in the bedroom. His eyes are wide with terrors.

“Jaysome isn’t a trick and I am pretty good at it!”

“But – my parents – if anyone is over –. I don’t know what you are, but you can’t be here,” and the words are almost magician-like, pleading like a command.

“Huh?”

“I don’t know how you got into my room, but they’ll –.” He stills, fear falling inward. “You have to go.”

A door opens, and it was locked from the other side. A man looms, shadows gathered about him. “Tyler? What is – what in the fuck is this?” and he is only human, but his voice –.

The boy stumbles. He is pale, and brave in terror. “It’s not what it looks like, dad, it’s not –.”

“You are not allowed guests. What if they find out? What if they learn?” is demanded.

Tyler is shaking, and bindings are breaking because of the ones forming.

“You are ten. That is far too old to wet your bed,” the father says, and –.

“Oopses happen you know,” I say, firm as a Jay.

He turns, and his hand is open and solid.

I’m quick like a Jay and tough like a Jay but there are bindings he can do in this room. To hit, to harm. I hit the wall, bounce, stand. He moves in for another blow.

Tyler is in front of me. “I don’t know who this is, or how they got in. I don’t, dad!”

I grab the next blow in bindings before it reaches Tyler, pushing the man back. There is a woman behind him, and Tyler lets out a small wounded sound.

“You’re hurting him, and that’s not jaysome at all!”

They move in. Certain. Sure of their power and control.

I reach into bindings. Touch Tyler’s. I’m not Charlie, to pull out energy. Not Honcho, to see deep into things. But bindings have history, and he’s scared and always scared and hurting and hurt all because he wets a bed. And other things, but I don’t understand them at all cuz there’s nothing jaysome about what they do to their son.

There are other children in the house. Hiding too. Scared.

“Honcho would do terrible things to you,” I say. “And Charlie might do worse. I’m not them. I don’t do human things.”

And I smile, and it’s not a smile a Jay does because there’s too many teeth and they’re sharp and some aren’t teeth at all. There is being a jaysaurus. And then there is being a jaysaurus. And then, too, there is being Jayseltosche. Which is even bigger in all the bad ways of the word.

I reach inside. No binding. Nothing like that, me to me. Hi? Time to wake up, I say. Need you.

And I smile again and it’s not a smile at all and there are bindings breaking and I remake them and twist them into new shapes and I’m breaking the rules Honcho told me about not doing bindings on people but I’m not Jay right now and I don’t care. They twist, and again, and I let go of the smile, and settle back down into Jay.

Even my fingernails hurt a bit.

Tyler is staring at me. Even Honcho has never seen me like that. He’s not afraid. He’s crying, but not afraid, and he knows what I did because I let him sense the bindings.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

The parents have left. To another room, shaken. Broken of their power, for now and ever.

“That was a really bad bindings,” I whisper, and: “There’s others like that, but I don’t know if I can –.” And I don’t because it hurt.

“I’ll be jaysome,” he says and means it and I’m crying and we’re crying and it’s okay.

It shouldn’t be, but it’s okay because he’s tough like a Tyler and a human and his jaysome is a really good one too!

I find Honcho outside. He just looks at me. Hugs me, gently. Offers ice cream, and I know he’s doing lots of helping and fixings too so I eat a lot and Honcho looks at me after.

“That was pretty brave of you, Jay.”

“Nope. I was doing what is right and that’s doing what is right, and –.”

“Jay.”

And he is Honcho and I just nod and follow him outside. I have another good cry at the hotel, and it is a good one and he just holds me and presses a finger to my lips when I try and talk.

“There are hard lessons you’ll have to learn, and one of them – this one – is that there are things that can’t be solved by being jaysome. And no, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But –.”

“You didn’t,” he repeats, and I’m crying again and held again and I don’t understand Tyler’s parents even if I saw every binding they had and Honcho says it’s okay not to, sometimes, that sometimes one can know so much that they can’t be wise and it’s dangerous to learn what you can’t unknown.

And he says lots else I think, but I fall asleep and almost dream.