Part 40 (1/2)

She waved a hand toward the cabinets. ”What was all that?”

”The pretender, Suter, I presume,” Ping said.

Standing up, she peeled a wet noodle off her jeans, tossed it into the sink. Movement drew her attention to the hallway leading to the front of the house. Yellow eyes turning away. She ran to the hall, slapped the light switch as she exited the kitchen. No power. The hall remained dark as she entered. No one was there.

She paused and listened, heard a creak she knew was the fifth step leading upstairs. She held up a hand as Ping approached.

”He's going upstairs. Why don't you see what he is up to? I'll check on Mom,” she said, pointing around the corner where soft blue light reflected off the wall.

Ping nodded and headed toward the staircase.

Mara turned the corner, stepped through the wide entryway into the living room and gasped.

A bubble of blue translucent light filled the middle of the room, reaching from the edge of the fireplace to the couch, from the floor to the ceiling, centered over the circular Persian rug. Streaks of darker hues swept tidelike across the floating globe, casting waves of limpid indigo across the walls. Seated within, lotus style and facing each other, were Mara's mother and a wispy transparent figure with her back to Mara. It was a woman, and she faded in and out of focus, rippled in time with the blue streaks flowing on the periphery of the bubble. They held something between them.

”Mom?” Mara stepped into the room. Static charged the air, raised the hair on her arms and on the back of her neck. She walked to the end of the couch, leaned to within an inch of the glowing barrier and called over the shoulder of the transparent woman. ”Mom!”

Diana's slack expression stayed frozen on the object she held with the other woman. Mara stepped sideways around the back of the couch, keeping her eyes on the bubble. Once she stood at the midpoint behind the couch, she looked down at her mother's hands. Mara raised a shaking hand to her mouth. They held the Chronicle between them.

Mara glanced up at the other woman, took another step to the far end of the couch to get a better look at her transparent features. Mara froze. ”Oh, my G.o.d.”

The sputtering, rippling figure sitting across from her mother was her mother. Mara's first thought was it was only a reflection in the bubble or a trick of the s.h.i.+mmering lights, but the transparent woman solidified for a second, and it was clearly her mother. But it wasn't. There were differences. This one had a marking, a tattoo of some kind on her forehead. Her eyes were different, the set of her jaw firmer. Her mother's counterpart faded and rippled again, making it impossible to get a clear look.

Mara inhaled a shuddering breath and quickly returned to the opposite side of the room. Her mother looked pale, even more drawn than a few minutes before. Mara touched the perimeter of the bubble with a finger, sending circles of dark blue light rippling over the static barrier. She had to get her mother free from the bubble and the other Diana. Mara reached out with both hands.

Inside the bubble, her mother's twin turned and smiled. Mara withdrew. The transparent woman turned back toward her mother and stared down at the Chronicle. The central crystal, the sunstone, began to radiate, emitting spiraling rays of gold into the bubble. The golden light intensified, swept along the edges and converged on the translucent woman. She began to dissolve into a radiant mist, reminding Mara of Mr. Sandoval when the Chronicle had transformed him and sent him to his own realm.

The mist that had been the woman swirled within the golden light and flowed toward the sunstone, then into it. Once all of it was gone, the rays of light faded away. Diana sat alone in the translucent blue bubble alone.

Mara exhaled and relaxed against the arm of the couch.

A single ray of light burst out of the Chronicle's central crystal directly into her mother's face. Diana's eyes widened and glowed.

Yellow.

Mara jumped up and threw herself at the bubble. An electrical snap rang out as she was repelled, thrown over the couch toward the front door. The smell of ozone was the last thing she sensed before everything went black.

When she came to, Mara felt the joints in the wood flooring press into her cheek. She blinked her eyes, took a deep breath and waited for the numbness to go away. When feeling returned to her arms, she pushed herself up to her hands and knees. Looking toward the couch, she could only see the top of the bubble. She crawled to the couch, grabbed the back of it and lifted herself up. Standing in the center of the translucent globe, her mother faced the fireplace, her back to Mara.

”Mom?”

Diana turned around and gazed back at her, with yellow eyes.

Mara recoiled.

An inverted serpent coiled down from the center of her mother's forehead, its diamond-shaped head laid across the bridge of her nose, flicking its inked tongue toward her left nostril. Her eyes glittered like mica around black pupils that narrowed into slits as they focused on Mara. Her right eyebrow arched and the corners of her lips curled upward in more of a sneer than a smile.

The bubble sputtered away as if someone had unplugged it, plunging the living room into darkness. On the end table next to one of the armchairs, a single lamp that flanked the fireplace illuminated, filling the room with muted light. Diana stood next to it with her hand held above the lampshade.

Mara walked around the end of the couch but stopped when she noticed the scars and bite marks along the woman's neck. She wanted to look away but was transfixed by the serpent tattoo and the reptilian eyes. ”What have you done to my mother?”

”Your mother is dead,” Diana said. ”You should have come to the Altar of Hyas Tyee Tumwater as you were told. Since you disobeyed, I took matters into my own hands.”

”I don't know anything about any altar. Where is my mother?” Mara's face reddened.

”It is of no consequence now. Soon everything will be in its place.” She walked across the round Persian rug and stepped past the end of the couch where she stumbled for a second. Something skittered across the wood floor. Her mother's demantoid, the green garnet, rolled to the base of the door.

”We'll need to get rid of these rocks if I'm actually going to live in this shack,” Diana said.

Mara stepped into her path, crossed her arms. ”You're not going anywhere until I get my mother back.”

Diana tossed her head to the side. Mara flew over the couch and into the fireplace, striking her head on the mantel and crumpling onto the hearth.

CHAPTER 59.

PING SAT ON the hearth, cradling Mara's head, dabbing at a cut over her left eyebrow with a wet cloth. As she came to, she grabbed his arm hard enough to make him wince and sat up with a jolt.

”Ping, my mother-” Mara slumped back, dizzy, disoriented.

”Slowly. Don't jerk around like that. You took a bad blow to the head.” Ping helped her sit up, grabbed her hand and placed it on the cloth, indicating he wanted her to hold it. ”Where's your mother? What happened?”

”She left, but it wasn't my mother. I think it was Sam's mother.”

”She crossed over? How is that possible?”

”They had the Chronicle. Both of them were sitting right here. Then there was just one, and it was her. My mom was gone.” Mara's voice cracked, tears welled up. ”She said my mother is dead.”

”Wait, wait, wait. Tell me exactly what you saw. If Sam's mother crossed over, then your mother is still around here somewhere.”

”I don't think she really crossed over. She and my mother were sitting there, holding the Chronicle between them. They were in the blue bubble. She was kind of fuzzy, out of focus. You could see through her, like the people on the plane before it crashed. Mom was solid, looked like she was in a trance but not in a healthy way. The other woman dissolved into the Chronicle and a light shot into my mom's eyes. The next thing I know, she is sitting there in place of my mother, solid as you or me.”

”Amazing. So you are sure the woman you saw was not your mother?”

”That woman was not my mother. But that woman and my mother were sitting there in the bubble. I saw both of them. Then Mom was gone.” Mara widened her eyes, tried to clear her vision. ”What do you think happened?”

”I'm not sure. If I had to guess, I would say Diana, Sam's mother, found a way to transfer herself into your mother's body.” He paused a minute to think. ”I suppose there is a certain logic to it, if that's what she did.”

”What's logical about being a body s.n.a.t.c.her from an alternate reality?”

”Sam says his mother is paranoid. She would want to cross over without having to worry about encountering her counterpart, your mother, and being forced back to her own realm. It may be she has figured out a way to do that.”

”You're saying we can't send her back?”

”Not physically. If she transferred her consciousness into your mother's body, sending her back physically using the Chronicle would be sending your mother's body into a different realm.”

”If her consciousness is in my mother's body, then where is my mother?”