Broken Souls (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 2) Read online

  “Sure, Mrs. L,” Abby said, throwing a smirking glance at Mara.

  “I’d like to introduce you to my son, Sam. Sam, this is Abby. She and Mara have been friends since they were little girls,” Diana said.

  “Hi.” Sam grinned.

  Diana continued, “I know it’s a bit of a surprise that Mara has a brother, but . . .”

  “You don’t have to explain, Mrs. L. I understand,” Abby said.

  “You do?” Mara said.

  “Yeah, I get it,” Abby said.

  “What do you get?” Mara leaned forward.

  “Your mom got pregnant after she split from your dad and put the bambino up for adoption,” Abby said. “Now he’s back. You’re Mara’s half brother from a different father.”

  Mara and Diana looked at each other. “Well, that’s not quite . . .” Diana said. “They have the same father.”

  “Oh, I see. You got pregnant with Dr. Lantern and then split, and Sam went to live with his father in San Francisco,” Abby said.

  “No, that’s not quite right either . . .” Diana said.

  Sam perked up in his seat and waved a hand in front of his mother’s face. “Mom?”

  Relieved for the distraction, Diana turned away from Abby’s gaze and said, “Yes, Sam?”

  “I have a father?” He looked expectant, hopeful.

  Mara dropped her head into her hands and said, “I’m glad you said this doesn’t have to get complicated.”

  “So when do I get to meet my dad?” Sam said. “I’ve never had a father before.”

  Diana went pale and looked blankly at her son. After a beat, she shook her head and said, “Sweetheart, let’s talk about that later, okay?” She turned to Abby. “Anyway, Sam’s a part of our family. The details are somewhat—”

  “Complicated,” Abby said. “I understand.”

  “I was going to say personal. I hope you won’t mind if I don’t go into all the details.” Diana stood up and turned to the counter to continue preparing dinner. “Why don’t you girls go hang out in the living room? Sam can stay here, and help me chop vegetables and set the table.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Abby flung a leg over the arm of the chair she flopped into and stared across the living room. Mara took up her place on the couch and picked at her fingernails. After a few minutes of silence, Abby tapped her foot on the stone hearth of the fireplace.

  Mara looked up, annoyed. “Do you have to keep doing that?”

  Abby continued tapping.

  “Abby, cut it out.”

  “Only if you spill the beans. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing is going on. We’re waiting for Mom to finish dinner, and then we are going to eat.” Mara didn’t look up from her fingers.

  “With your little brother.”

  “Right.”

  “A little brother you didn’t have the last time I looked.”

  “Right.”

  “Where’d he come from? Where did he grow up?”

  “I’m not really clear on all the details myself. Maybe he grew up in Arkansas or someplace like that.”

  “I’m pretty sure they have bananas in Arkansas.”

  “So?”

  “Mara, the boy doesn’t know how to eat a banana. Even if he was raised in the jungle by natives, he’d know how to peel a banana.” Abby pulled out her phone and tapped on its screen. “Look, it says right here, bananas are the fourth most common agricultural product in the world. More than one hundred billion are eaten every year. Americans eat an average of twenty-seven pounds of bananas a year.”

  “So?”

  “Well, he sounds American. Who’s been eating his bananas?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Is he learning impaired or something?”

  “No.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?” Mara looked up.

  “Well, what’s the scoop?”

  “Abby, like my mom said, this is a little personal, and we need some time to adjust. This isn’t a juicy piece of gossip from school we can just banter about.”

  “Okay, I’m being too flippant. I get that. That’s me though. I’m your friend, and you should be able to confide in me. I mean, this is a big deal to keep all to yourself, don’t you think?”

  “There’s been a lot going on lately. I’m not trying to shut you out. I haven’t really had enough time to figure out what I think, much less share it with someone else.”

  Sam walked into the living room. “Dinner’s ready, you guys.”

  “That was fast,” Abby said.

  “Mom switched to soup and salad. She said she wasn’t up to dealing with a big entrée,” he said and turned back toward the kitchen.

  “I bet,” Mara said. “I hope she’s up for the dinner conversation.”

  * * *

  A large clear plastic bowl of tossed greens sat at the center of the table with several bottles of salad dressing. Each of the four settings had a plate and a bowl of steaming soup as they sat down to the round table in the small dining area at the back of the kitchen.

  “Here’s a basket of bread. The butter’s on the table on the far side of the salad bowl in front of Sam. Just ask him to pass it,” Diana said as she sat down next to her son.

  Abby stepped around Mara and made a point of sitting next to Sam, across from Diana. That left the seat across from Sam for Mara, which she resigned herself to while eyeing her friend. They took turns with the tongs, placing salad on their plates, and passing the breadbasket and butter in silence.

  “Mom, can you pass me the ranch dressing, please?” Mara asked.

  “Here you go,” Diana said, handing it over and turning to Abby. “Abby, how is your senior year going?”

  “Good. Classes are good. I wish Mara was there, but things are good. After Christmas I will only have three classes, and then I’ll be done,” she said, then turned to Sam. “Sam, where do you go to school?”

  He looked up from his plate and quickly swallowed. “I don’t go to school.”

  “What? You’re only like thirteen years old. Even Mara didn’t finish until she was almost seventeen.” Abby said, glancing at Mara and Diana.

  “I’m fourteen,” Sam said.

  “Sam has a private tutor in Portland. Technically you could say he is homeschooled,” Diana said. “We’re thinking about enrolling him in high school next year, if Mrs. Zimmerman thinks it’s a good idea.”

  “We are?” Mara said.

  “Yes, dear, we are,” Diana said, pointing to Sam and herself.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t realize sisters get a vote in such matters, or did you want to give me some sage advice on how to be a mother?” Diana smiled, mockingly waiting for a reply.

  “I didn’t mean you had to tell me. I wondered why I hadn’t heard,” Mara said.

  Sam pointed a piece of bread at Mara. “We talked about it today for the first time. What do you think?”

  “I suppose if Mrs. Zimmerman thinks you’re prepared, academically, why not?” Mara said. Turning to her mother, she said, “You realize issues may come up that we can’t anticipate?”

  “What do you mean?” Sam asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know, something like you not understanding that you don’t get out of the car in the middle of the drive-through at a fast-food joint.”

  With a mouth full of salad, Sam said, “How was I supposed to know they were going to hand us the food through a window?” He laughed, holding his hand over his mouth. His face reddened, and then he gagged, coughed and spewed greens onto his plate. He wiped his mouth and said, “Oh, oh, tell Mom about the money machine.”

  “He got very excited about the ATM at the mall.”

  “Can I get one of those cards? You know, so I can get money out of the machine?”

  Diana said, “You realize you have to put money into the bank before it will come out of the machine, right?”

  “That’s what Mara said. Ping pays
me for working at the bakery. Can I put that money in the bank and get a card?”

  “I suppose we can work something out,” his mother said.

  They ate in silence for a few minutes until Abby looked up and said, “So, Sam, where are you from? Where did you grow up?”

  “I grew up in Portland,” he said.

  Mara went pale and opened her mouth to say something, but Diana raised a finger on the hand next to her plate and tilted her head subtly. Mara closed her mouth and concentrated on her salad.

  “Here? In Portland?” Abby jabbed the tabletop with a finger.

  “Well, not exactly here.”

  “You mean, not here in Oregon City, but in Portland.”

  “No, I mean I grew up here—but in a different version of here.”

  Abby pushed her glasses up her nose. “I’m not following you.”

  “I grew up in a different realm, an alternate reality.”

  Mara raised her hands into the air in front of her. “There you go! You can’t go around saying that to people. They are going to think you’re crazy.”

  “Mara, settle down,” Diana said.

  “You’re going to send him to high school? They are going to eat him alive!” Mara said.

  “They are going to eat me?” Sam’s eyes widened.

  Diana patted his hand. “No, sweetie. No one’s going to eat you. Your sister is a little overwrought at the moment. Now pass me the butter.”

  Sam picked up the butter and extended his arm toward his mother. Abby’s gaze locked onto the tattoo on his forearm, an obelisk with a serpent coiled around it.

  “Cool tat. Where’d you get that?”

  Mara tensed up again and put down her fork.

  Sam twisted up his arm to look at it. “Oh, Mom gave me that when I was a baby.”

  “You mean, your stepmom, from the other version of here?” Abby said.

  “I guess you could say that,” Sam said.

  Abby pressed her lips together and nodded.

  Mara exhaled and wished the meal would end.

  CHAPTER 4

  Mara sat lotus-style on the round throw rug in front of the fireplace in the living room waiting for her mother. She picked at the loose pieces of yarn along the edge of the rug, imagined pulling one, unraveling the entire thing, and thought better of it. She leaned back and looked up at the rest of the room. A shiver ran down her spine.

  “Have you started without me?” Diana said from the foot of the stairs in the short hallway that led into the living room.

  “I’m not meditating, believe me. I was remembering the last time this room looked like this,” Mara said, surveying the space. “The night you went all evil serpent queen on me.”

  Diana walked over and sat with her legs crossed on the floor in front of Mara. She placed a green crystal between them. Mara recognized it as the demontoid she had on the Oregon City Bridge that night she had confronted her possessed mother.

  “You’re wearing your swami muumuu. I’m in real trouble, aren’t I?” Mara said. “Why don’t you just ground me like most parents? Why do we have to meditate before you lay down the law?”

  “It’s a caftan, not a muumuu.”

  “It’s burning my retinas. I think that pattern could induce seizures.”

  “Close your eyes and shut your mouth, and your retinas will be fine.”

  “But—”

  “Cooperate or we’ll do a guided meditation instead.”

  “Okay, please don’t tell me when to breathe in or out. It makes me feel like I’m taking a Lamaze class.”

  “Last warning,” Diana said, holding up the green gem to catch the light. “Focus.”

  Glimmers of green played across Mara’s face. She instinctively squinted for a second, then relaxed and stared deeper into the light until it engulfed her entire field of vision. The luminescence refracted and split into solid translucent panes of green light, and Mara could see her reflection bounce back and forth, as if she could see into infinity. She raised her hand, but her duplicates did not. They were not reflections. They were her counterparts, other versions of her in other places. Mara looked past them, deeper into the green light, trying to get her bearings, to figure out where she was.

  In the distance an obelisk glowed, light pulsing through it from base to tip, thrumming to an unheard beat. An arm reached from behind the pillar; a hand slid down its side, caressing its shimmering surface. A leg stepped out of the darkness, writhing between darkness and light to the timing of the thrumming obelisk, pulling forward the torso of a woman who twisted side to side, flinging her long hair in dark waves across her face.

  Mara could hear a whisper, more of a moaning chant, as the dancing figure slid her back alongside the obelisk and slinked around the corner. Now facing Mara, the figure became a twisting silhouette against the backlit stone. The chanting grew louder, and the woman bent forward, the green light catching her features: a serpent tattoo coiled on her forehead, its head diving down the bridge of her nose. It was Diana, not chanting but calling to her.

  “Mara! Mara!” her mother shouted.

  Mara’s eyes snapped open. In front of her face floated the green demontoid, spinning in midair, casting off beams of bright light that filled the room with an emerald glow.

  Her mother sat across from her wide-eyed, her expression shifting from fear to wonder and back again. Diana stared into her daughter’s eyes and said, “What are you doing?”

  Mara closed her eyes, shook her head and said, “Nothing.”

  The glowing gem winked out and fell from the air into Diana’s hand. Diana leaned forward and touched Mara’s cheek. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I drifted off there for a few minutes, I guess.”

  “I almost fell asleep too. I opened my eyes, and the entire room was filled with a dense green light. It almost seemed as if it had substance, like panes of glass reflecting thousands of images of us. For a moment, I was sure we were standing inside the crystal itself. Absolutely incredible! Did you do that?”

  “I guess. It seems to happen if I focus intently in what feels like a daydream. It’s like I slip into the essence of the object or something.” Mara blushed and looked away. “I’m starting to sound like you. Pretty soon I’ll be burning incense and going into trances.”

  Diana smiled. “I’m no expert, but that daydream of yours looked a lot like a trance to me. This happens when you focus on crystals? Are you tapping into some kind of energy?”

  “It happened with a crystal before, but the last time it happened was with a bowling ball. It sorta floated like this crystal, but it caught fire instead of glowing.”

  “A bowling ball? You were meditating over a bowling ball?”

  “I was working on a bowling ball spinner at the shop, and it happened. Sam saw it. It’s a long story. Anyway I don’t think it’s just crystals, but I have to admit the experiences with the crystals are more—”

  “Powerful? You’re drawing energy from them?”

  “I’m not drilling for oil, Mom. We’re not talking Exxon Mobil here,” Mara said, rolling her eyes. “I was going to say intense. The crystals seem to help me tap into something. It’s like I can see into reality, into infinity, beyond the perception of this realm.”

  “Now you’re starting to sound like some of my New Age friends. You’re practically spouting metaphysical dogma, if there were such a thing.”

  Mara sighed. “Ping seems to think there is. He’s been helping me understand some of this stuff. You know, he crossed over from a different realm during the plane crash, right?”

  Diana nodded. “Like your brother. I talk to Mr. Ping when I drop Sam off at the bakery. He’s a wonderful man. He took great care of Sam after they first crossed over. I’m sure he is a great mentor for you.”

  “Why do you say that? What did he say about me?”

  “No need to get paranoid. We haven’t discussed you at all. We mostly talk about how Sam is adjusting to his new reality, his tutoring with Mrs. Zim
merman and his work at the bakery. Mr. Ping told me that he is a professor of metaphysics and philosophy, or he was before, but he has not gone into any detail about it. Has he been teaching you some of his beliefs?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “And has it helped you understand what happened during the plane crash and what we went through on the Oregon City Bridge?”

  “Yes, it has helped a lot. I’m not sure I understand all of it, but it has helped me put some context around everything.”

  “So teach me what you’ve learned.”

  “I’m not sure I’m up to talking about it right now. I think I need a little more time to absorb all of this. I know you’re trying to help, but—”

  “This might come as a bit of a surprise to you, but everything I do and say isn’t designed to serve your needs, to help only you. You’re old enough now to understand that, don’t you think?” Diana pushed her hair over her ear with a finger, a sure sign she was getting her dander up. The set of her jaw left no doubt.

  “Whoa, where did that come from?” Mara leaned back a little. “Maybe a little more meditation is in order.”

  “Don’t push this off with a quip. I’m serious. You’re not the only one around here who’s gone through a lot lately. Sam’s living in a whole new world, and I have a fourteen-year-old son who I’ve only known for two weeks. You’re not the only one having to make adjustments, young lady.”

  Mara looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. Why didn’t you say you needed to talk about it?”

  Diana glared at her.

  Mara raised her hands in front of her. “Right. You did. I assumed you were trying to manage me, and it never occurred to me that you needed to work it out too. You seem so grounded and accepting of everything. I mean, this stuff is right up your alley—all this metaphysical hinky hoodoo. I thought you were all copasetic with it.”

  “Well, you were wrong. The notion of things beyond this physical world I can deal with. However, trying to kill my own daughter takes a little more time and effort.”