"Jack, you would not believe the day I'm having," I said when Jack arrived at my dorm before his band rehearsal. They didn't have any gigs set up since Trailfest, and that was probably a little my fault.

I didn't mention that to him, though. Out of all my concerns, that one was pretty low on my priority list.

"What happened?" he asked.

I took a seat on my bed. "Well, to start, it's so freaking hot outside, and it's probably not a coincidence that I asked the talisman for warm weather. And then I also asked the talisman to get me out of a presentation with Dominic, and then my professor had a heart attack. And then-"

Jack interrupted me. "Wait, what? Is he okay?"

I nodded. "He's gonna be fine probably. And then I might have accidentally on purpose told Dominic about the talisman, and now we have to meet with Dr. Reed tomorrow."

Jack didn't respond right away.

I broke the silence with a laugh. "I mean, how crazy is that? That has to be some kind of record for most magical mishaps in one hour."

"Lindsay, we have to figure something out fast before anyone else gets hurt. I'm not sure the talisman is in the world's most stable hands," he said.

"Definitely not, but don't bite the hand that digs you out of the ground and shines you up until you glitter in the sunlight. It's a common idiom."

"Very good point. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to reason with a talisman."

I bit my cheek. Not with that attitude, it wasn't.

"We need to find a way for you to get whatever this magic is under control. And until then, you shouldn't carry it with you when you're going to class or skipping or whatever. We can't risk anything else bad happening," Jack said.

I nodded. "You're right, but what am I supposed to do until we discover how to control it?"

"Practice, I guess."

Practice? I scrunched my nose. I would rather just deal with the unwanted consequences of the things I wished for.

"Don't make that face. I know you've never had to work for anything in your life, so why not start with something you actually care about?" Jack said.

Sometimes I worked hard, like trying to keep the talisman a secret, and it sure as hell wasn't paying off.

"But anyway, I found this cool piece of petrified wood a couple of days ago, and I think it would look good on the window sill," Jack said.

"Is that your way of trying to cheer me up?" I asked.

He nodded. "Is it working?"

I smiled. How couldn't I? "Of course it is. As long as it's not cursed too, I-"

Before I could finish my sentence, Sierra walked into the room. I wasn't sure how much she heard, but if it was only about the petrified wood, we were probably going to be okay.

"So it's true, then. I'm not crazy," Sierra said.

Apparently, she heard a lot.

I didn't have the chance to bring up one more concern of mine with Jack before she jumped onto her bed and gave me a smile. "I knew I wasn't crazy. I knew something was up with the coin."

"Talisman. We're calling it a talisman now," I said. "And how much did you hear?"

"Oh, I was eavesdropping as soon as you started talking about how bad your day was. I thought you were just being dramatic, but giving your professor a heart attack really is a tough way to spend a class."

"I just want everyone to know I didn't ask for that. It just happened, and I think it might be only a little bit my fault," I said.

"I thought you'd be more upset about this," Sierra said. "You know, the whole eavesdropping thing."

I shrugged. "At this point, I don't care. As long as you understand that you can't touch the talisman and that you're not getting any of the money if we sell it to a witch or something, it's gonna be fine."

"Why wouldn't I get any of the money? I helped put the metal detector together."

"Because that wasn't actually helpful. Dominic, Jack, and Dr. Reed aren't getting anything either if it makes you feel any better."

Jack jumped into the conversation. "Wait, you're actually thinking about just getting rid of it?"

I nodded. "I haven't seriously considered it, but would I? For a profit, yeah."

"You can't do that, Lindsay. If you were the one who felt like you had something to find at the pond and it still doesn't give you the exact luck you want, what if it's worse for someone who wasn't supposed to find it?"

I looked over at Sierra, who nodded.

"Fine. I'll email Dr. Reed so we can meet with her before tomorrow. She has to know something about how to control this thing. She was the one who brought it up in the first place," I said.

"Are we inviting Dominic?" Sierra asked.

I shook my head. "I don't want to be harassed the entire time I'm trying to focus. And with my luck, he'll probably just show up anyway."

Sierra laughed, but I really wasn't joking. We had accidentally run into each other too many inconvenient times for it to be a coincidence. Ever since the talisman showed up, there weren't many coincidences at all it seemed.

***

"Why hasn't she responded yet? I marked it as important and put a bunch of exclamation points in the subject, so good luck not seeing that," I asked myself as the afternoon turned to evening.

"Maybe she doesn't check it after five. Lots of people don't," Jack said, which would have been reasonable if I hadn't sent it much earlier.

"Do you think she would care if we showed up at her house? I know she's a little bitchy and doesn't seem all that friendly, but if we tell her the whole story, she might not get mad," Sierra said.

"You don't even know the whole story. You're literally only involved because you're nosy and I can't keep a secret well enough," I said.

Sierra didn't reply to that. She just sighed.

Jack, on the other hand, turned to me. "This really can't wait, Lindsay."

"Oh my god, don't tell me you just want to show up at her house too. That's so rude," I said.

"It's an emergency."

"No one actually died, so it's not an emergency. I'm not just gonna show up at my professor's house without an invite. That's kind of insane."

Jack gestured around at nothing in particular. "So is this whole situation."

"I can't believe you don't think I have this under control."

"You don't think you have this under control. Why else did you email Dr. Reed so we can meet before tomorrow? None of this makes sense at all, Lindsay, and I care about you too much to let you do any more damage, even if we all know you don't mean to."

I looked over at my dresser where I kept the talisman. "I can't believe Jack is disrespecting you like this, baby. I won't let him hurt you."

"Oh my god, Lindsay. It's like you just shut down sometimes when things get difficult. I know you're really upset, but none of what happened today is your fault. It was an accident."

"I know that," I said. "Why did you tell Harvey that we're dating? I thought it was clear that we're not."

He hesitated. "I didn't think it would get back to you."

"Well, it did. And I don't even like Harvey."

"Should I be listening to this? I really don't think I should. I'm just gonna listen to some music," Sierra said.

Jack looked over at Sierra. "Why do I do this to myself? All I wanted was a normal band and normal college life, but no."

"Why do you do what to yourself? Tell other people that we're together when we're not?" I asked.

"Is there any reason that the idea of it is so horrible to you?"

"It's not horrible at all. It's because you're the first person to like me for me instead of my parents' money."

Sierra put on her headphones. I probably would have too if I was in her situation.

"You really expect me to believe that no one else genuinely likes you? You're a little difficult, but you've always got something exciting going on," Jack said.

Sierra laughed. "A little difficult?"

"Listen to your music. This doesn't have anything to do with you, Sierra," Jack said.

Nothing I was doing had anything to do with anyone, and yet they kept showing up and getting involved and ruining everything (even more than I was already doing by myself).

What the hell was there to believe in with me? All I did in nineteen years was nothing worth a crap, and I was right on schedule to make another mess I couldn't fix on my own.

"Why do you do this to yourself?" I asked. "I'm being one hundred percent serious about this. Why are you tolerating all this crap?"

He thought for a moment. "I should probably go get that petrified wood I promised you earlier."

Was there something wrong with me? I had every reason to let him get away with calling me his girlfriend to his band, but there was something about it that just felt wrong. Not horrible like Jack said, but wrong and a little gross. Lumberjack leprechaun wasn't my type.

"We really should get help from Dr. Reed. At the very least, she'll yell at me and I'll have no choice but to laugh it off, which might make me feel a little better," I said before he left the room.

Jack turned around. "Are you sure you want to?"

I nodded. "I am. And I'm also sure that you need to tell Harvey and the rest of your band that we're not dating."

"To be honest, I didn't think he'd believe me. I mean-"

I interrupted him. "I don't care, Jack. I just want them to know the truth."

He nodded. "I'll tell them as soon as we get back from showing up uninvited with a huge problem to Dr. Reed's house."

"Now."

He got out his phone.

I smiled. That cleared up one of the many issues that had been plaguing me throughout the day, and we were almost on our way to try to fix another.

***

At the front door of Dr. Reed's house, Jack, Sierra, and I all stood on her porch.

"This was a bad idea, guys. She's gonna be pissed that we just showed up here," Sierra said.

"Well, I almost killed someone today, so we could use a little help," I said.

"You say that so casually. It kinda stresses me out."

I crossed my arms and laughed. "How am I supposed to say it? It wasn't on purpose."

But when the door opened, it wasn't Dr. Reed. Instead, it was an older gentleman with a tie in his hands.

"Cora's students?" he asked.

I nodded.

He didn't say anything else as he walked down the porch where all the flowers had died and into his car.

"That's my paleobiology professor," Jack said. "Dr. Reed is kinda hot, so good for Dr. Karlsson. I thought he was married though."

I bit my lip. "Well, Dr. Reed isn't, so I sure hope he's not either."

"Maybe they're friends," Sierra said.

Someone creaked down the stairs inside, and before I could tell everyone that it would be best if we left, Dr. Reed peered through the open doorway with a smoking cigarette between her fingers. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I didn't-I didn't think you'd be busy," I said. "I just had some information about the talisman that I thought you should know."

"Just because your life revolves around that stupid talisman doesn't mean that everyone else's does," she said. "I swear to God, I can't get away from this horrible job ever."

"I accidentally gave my professor a heart attack today."

Dr. Reed blinked and shook her head. "You did what?"

How many times did I have to tell this story? "I wasn't prepared to do my presentation with Dominic and asked the talisman to get me out of it, and it sure did. There's no way it can be a coincidence. It's hot outside."

She looked over at Jack. "Am I missing something? What does the weather have to do with anything?"

He shook his head. "That's a minor detail. The bigger problem is that she's struggling emotionally with a lot of stuff right now."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not a damn psychiatrist," Dr. Reed spat before she took a breath. "Do you want to look at the Kaya family?"

I nodded. "They're just stone carvings, but they look so happy together."

"Then get your ass in here. You're letting all the cool air out." She waved us into her house. "Where's Dominic?"

"I know I said I wasn't going to let him and Sierra get involved, but with what this talisman has been doing, I really don't think it's gonna let me kick them out of the group now," I said.

"That's not what I asked. Where is he?"

I shrugged. "Probably six feet behind me, but he's theoretically not supposed to come."

She laughed. "Damn, I kinda like the kid."

Since when? She was perfectly okay with almost giving him an asthma attack a couple of weeks ago.

"Make yourself comfortable. I was just about to drink an entire bottle of wine so I can make it through my Middle Eastern Culture exams, but that class can wait another few days," Dr. Reed said, and I headed over to the little stone people from Titris Hoyuk that Dr. Reed named the Kaya family.

They were just stone figurines, but they looked like a real family. Even though the weather was only a little cooler than the afternoon, that seemed like the warmest place in the house, and that was where I wanted to be.

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Hello, and happy good morning/afternoon/evening to you! Thank you so much for reading!

So for today's question, what is something that you are so bad at that it's funny?

Mine is navigation. I have to memorize series of directions in order to get anywhere, so if I have a different starting point than usual, I'm so lost.