The night she said goodbye, Mama whispered in my ear, "Hush now, chikno. Take this amulet for good luck and remember that I'm always with you."

She tucked the object into my hand and folded my fingers around it. I can hear her husky Romani accent as if she were still kissing me goodnight for the last time. As if the bounty hunters didn't take her away from me. As if she didn't leave me alone in this world with only an amulet for protection.

I can still see the man with the broken nose pressing his gun to her temple. Her headscarf is torn; her dark eyes are wide and desperate. I don't know why the bounty hunters wanted my mother. We are nothing but poor gypsies; no one cares about us. They taunt us and make fun of our clothing and our amulets and our magic.

We are nothing, and yet they still took my mother.

Is she dead? Is she alive? I don't know.

I reach for the amulet she gave me, the black obelisk I keep in my pocket. I need to feel it to remember that she's still with me, but when I try to move my hand, I realize that I can't move. I force my eyelids to open, but they're as heavy as a sack of flour. Cold seeps through my thin clothing.

Where am I?

Panic races through my bloodstream. I can't move. I try to wriggle free from the monster holding me down, but metal cuts into my skin. When I force my eyes to open, a fluorescent light overpowers me and I shut them again.

That's when I hear the voices. They sound thousands of miles away, but I force myself to listen as I try to open my eyes, squinting against the bluish light.

"Is he waking up?"

The man speaking has a strange accent as if his words are tilted sideways. It doesn't sound like the lilting Parisian accent I'm familiar with or Mama's Romani accent. Who are these people that have tied me down to a metal bed? What do they want with me?

Then a thought hits me: Are they the people who took Mama?

My eyes fly open and I fight against the shackles binding my forehead, wrists, and ankles. The metal gurney beneath me rattles but the bands around my body don't relent; they only cut deeper into my skin, and I feel blood trickle down my forehead and into my eyes.

I blink it away and try to search for the voice. I see a man approaching me in a white coat buttoned up the front. He peers at me through black wire-rimmed glasses, and his eyes are curious, not hostile.

"Ah, the child awakes," he says, gesturing with one hand.

A woman and an older man approach us, all peering at me with the same frank curiosity. "So this is him," one of the women says, a dark haired women with ruby lips. "I never thought he really existed."

The older man with a gray goatee huffs. "Don't get your hopes up. Liam Arquette wouldn't have led anyone escape, much less some gypsy woman with the map and a kid."

My mind sputters as I try to understand. None of these words mean anything to me, but I assume Mama is the gypsy woman, and I am the kid. I open my mouth to speak and find it dry as if someone cleaned it with a cotton swab.

"Please," I croak through cracked lips. "Mama, is she alive?"

"So, he speaks!" the goateed man says with a laugh.

The man with the glasses and the dark haired girl trade a look, their eyebrows knotted. "We haven't been able to recover your mother yet," the woman says. "We're still looking. Do you know where she went?"

The hope that started to grow inside of me crashes at their words. I thought they'd saved her, that maybe she would reappear and kiss my forehead and tell me everything will be okay. But no--she is still gone. Tears well in my eyes and I try to blink them back. I don't want these people to see me cry.

"Unlock the boy, Cesar!" the woman cries to the goateed man, and he grumbles as he starts to undo the metal bands locking me down. She slides closer to me and takes my hand. "I am Catalina, child. Can you tell me your name? And what happened to your mother?"

"I'm Jal," I murmur as she helps me sit up, my joints stiff. "The bounty hunters took her. I thought...I thought they were working for you."

"We don't have her," Catalina says, "but we'll try to find her."

"Why am I here?" I ask, my bravery growing as I stretch my limbs.

The kind-eyed man in spectacles approaches me. "We are...friends of your mother's. She has something that belongs to us, and we're trying to get it back from her before anyone else does. It is very important and very powerful."

"What is it? And who is Liam Arquette?" I ask them.

"He was a French Minister of State," Catalina explains. "A scientist and astronomer who was searching for a safe haven for all of us, away from the poverty and desolation in the world. His research was lost just as he was close to a discovery."

I think about all the people that live in Paris, the overcrowding, the lack of food, the bounty hunters and the men with guns. Has it not always been like this? Is there hope for something better? Can Mama and I escape?

"What does this have to do with Mama?"

"Everything," the bespectacled man says. "Did your mother ever give you anything? A disk or a drive? Anything that could include secret files with all of Arquette's work on it?"

That's when I understand--Mama stole Liam Arquette's research. But who was he, and what did Mama have to do with him?

"The kid doesn't know anything!" Cesar exclaims, turning away. "He's too young to remember his father anyways. Just let him go."

The pieces fit together in my brain. His father. My father was this Liam Arquette, and my mama stole his research. But where would she put it? We have only a few meager possessions, nothing of such value. That's when I realize. The amulet. Everything is hidden on the amulet, the one thing Mama told me to hold on to forever. But should I give it to them?

Catalina leans closer to me and takes both of my hands in hers. "Jal, I promise we want to help you. Your mother protected those files from some very bad man, but we want to use them to help people. To save them. But we can only do that if you give them to us."

"Help people? How?"

Catalina smiles at me, brushing my face with her thumb. "If you give me the device, I'll show you."

Maybe I shouldn't trust her, but her round doe eyes remind me of Mama. I can feel the amulet, burning a hole through my pocket. A tense moment passes as I stare into Catalina's eyes. I don't look at the glowering goateed man or the man with the glasses. I have to trust Catalina and her kind eyes. I nod once and fish in my pocket.

"Here," I say, laying the device in her hand. "This is my amulet."

Catalina smiles. "Come with me and let's see what secrets it holds."

She inserts the device into a large box sitting beside us and the box projects a three dimensional image before us.The image is black with a set of white dots that glitter scattered through the darkness. It's almost as if the entire world appears before my eyes.

The man in the glasses gasps. "A hologram."

"Darane," I whisper. Magic.

I walk through the picture and spin, trying to touch the dots, but I can't. The image is made of nothing but air, yet it's beautiful and intricate. What can it be? Then I recognize something.

"Perseus!" I cry, pointing at a conglomeration of dots. "It's the constellation, Perseus!"

Mama always told me Perseus, the huge constellation of a man in the night sky, was a famous fighter, and that just like her, he would always be there to watch out for me.

"It's a map of all the constellations!" Catalina cries, walking through the image until she comes across a glowing red circle. "That's a planet, right there! He found it, a planet that can sustain life! We're saved!"

The men and women start to chatter excitedly. They've found a way for humanity to survive, but I don't care. I care about Mama and her promise to be with me. My amulet had a map of the stars. The amulet might have been just a scientific device with a secret file on it, but to me it is magic.

~~~~~

Word Count: 1500 words

Entry for the Sci-Fi/Magic Indistinguishable Contest