Broken Dragon (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 3) (40 page)

Once again the sense of someone shaking her brought Mara back to consciousness, only this time the hand was smaller and the shaking was a little gentler. Mara’s eyes fluttered open, and she felt something hard poking into the back of her neck. Slowly pushing herself up, she looked back and realized she was holding onto the bottom step leading up to the front porch of the house. While the front wall of the house behind the porch remained intact, orange and yellow light danced from the windows. At Mara’s side, Hannah sat on the ground, pointing up in the air.

“It looks like bumblebees,” she said.

Mara blinked, trying to clear her eyes. After attempting to wipe them with the sooty back of her hand, then thinking better of it, she said, “I think it’s just ashes and embers floating around.”

“Nuh-uh, look how it moves in circles,” Hannah said.

Mara looked again and recognized the pattern, the movement of dust in the air as it swirled into a vertical column and condensed. Soon it darkened and shifted into a familiar silhouette. It was Ping undispersing himself.

After going through that strange phase where he appeared to be an immobile mannequin, suddenly he stepped forward, holding out his hand and asked, “Do you think you can stand?”

“I think so.” She grabbed his hand and took so long establishing her balance that he reached out and grasped her elbow. Swiping hair from the side of her face, she said, “Sorry, it’s been a long day. I’m still not even sure what just happened.”

“The dragon ’sploded,” Hannah said.

Stepping from the thick haze that hung over the yard, his hair sticking up in a flattened fan pattern on the left side of his head, Sam said, “Is that what happened? I was just getting up on my feet, when everything went blue, and I got slammed again.” He looked at his sister and asked, “What did you do? There’s a massive crater where the front yard used to be.”

“Daddy!” Hannah ran to her father. He crouched down beside her and gave her a hug. She tried unsuccessfully to press down his hair.

Mara shook her head. “I didn’t do anything. I think I was tapped out, metaphysicalwise. Nothing I tried worked. After this suicidal munchkin decided to make a run for the dragon, all I could do was chase after her, and I could barely do that. I’m not sure what caused the explosion.” She turned to Ping. “Was it your doing?”

“Not at all, but I suspect I know what happened,” he said.

In the distance they heard sirens approaching, and, from the end of the driveway, Diana called to them, “Do you think the four of you could find a better place to stand than next to the burning house? Come over here, so you won’t be in the way when the firemen get here.”

Ping nodded. “Good point.”

As they walked up the driveway, Diana’s eyes tracked Ping and said, “Nice to see you back to your old self, Mr. Ping.”

Mara stepped in front of him and said, “Mom, I know you’re a little POed about the house, but it really wasn’t his fault.”

Ping raised a hand and said, “No, Mara, she’s got every right to be angry. I’ve made a complete mess out of this entire episode, and, while I can’t undo the damage to your home, I can promise you that the dragon will never again be a threat to you or your children.”

“How can you say that?” Diana asked.

“The dragon is gone.”

“What?” Mara asked, turning to face him. “How can the dragon be gone?”

Smiling, he reached down and lifted Hannah’s chin with two fingers. “Because the dragon was touched by its counterpart in this realm. That is why the dragon exploded.”

Sam pulled Hannah closer and said, “I don’t understand.”

“In this realm, Hannah is a little girl. But in some other realm, she’s a dragon, the dragon that shared my existence for a time.”

Understanding swept over Mara’s face. “That’s why she showed up in the crystal when I tried to separate the two of you.” Pointing at Sam, she said, “It’s probably why your Mara brought the dragon back to your mom in the first place—it was not only a meaningful symbol for her cult, it was her own blood, her own granddaughter.”

Ping added, “It explains the danger and jealousy I sensed from the dragon as well. It saw Hannah’s presence as a real threat. It’s also the reason you felt you had to send Hannah back in time—she was the only person who could send the dragon back to its own realm. That’s why the Chronicle of Continuity told you to ignore the dragon’s folly—a solution was already in place.”

A fire engine swung up to the curb in front of the house just a few feet away. Firemen sprang from every side of the vehicle and unloaded hoses and equipment. Within seconds, they were running across the front lawn attacking the fire. An older fireman approached and asked Diana if everyone had gotten out of the house. When she answered in the affirmative, he said a second engine was a minute or two away and asked them to stand across the road out of the way.

Late the next morning, Mara’s Outback pulled up to the curb in front of the house, or rather, in front of the lot where it used to be. Now there was just a pile of wet blackened debris standing on top of a concrete foundation. All that remained were the front steps leading up to a platform that used to be the front porch and, oddly, the frame of the front door, though the door itself and the front wall of the house were gone. It stood like a portal, mocking them to enter the devastation that used to be the only home Mara ever knew.

Shifting the car into Park, Mara glanced over to the passenger seat at her mother and asked, “Are you sure you’re up to doing this?”

Diana nodded and smiled. “It’s just a house, Mara. Once we get the insurance squared away, we’ll build another one just like it. To be honest, you look like you’re dreading this more than I am.”

“Not really dreading, just mourning, I guess,” she said. “All the memories we have of this house, it’s almost like we’ve lost our entire past.”

Diana opened the car door, turned back to her daughter and nodded toward the backseat where Sam and Hannah sat. “The memories weren’t lost in the fire, sweetie. Besides, you’ve got a lot more memories ahead of you than behind.”

“Even so, I still wanted to look around and see if anything was salvageable,” Mara said.

Sam exited the backseat on the driver’s side, as Mara did too, and said, “You think the book survived the fire? The Chronicle of Continuity? That’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it?”

She looked doubtful. “I don’t know, but there were still a lot of blank pages in it, a lot of haikus that hadn’t been revealed yet. Maybe with a little practice, I could actually get some guidance from them.”

They all got out of the car and stood at the curb, staring at twenty-foot-wide crater in the front yard and the lonely door frame. Without saying anything, they walked up the driveway and took the path to the front steps. Mara stomped her boot on the first step, and it sounded solid, so she took the rest of the steps in rapid succession and walked onto the remains of the porch, kicking some charred wood and shingles out of the way.

“Feels stable enough to stand up here,” she said.

Sam crouched down next to Hannah and said, “Why don’t I give you a piggyback ride, so you don’t step on anything sharp?”

Diana smiled at him.

While Hannah crawled onto his back, he caught his mother’s expression and said, “What?”

“Just a couple weeks ago I met her running through a shop full of broken glass, and you didn’t have a clue about taking care of a daughter. You’ve learned a lot in a short time,” she said.

He reddened and cocked his head toward Hannah, whose chin now rested on his shoulder from her perch on his back. “I’ve had a good teacher.”

After walking under the charred door frame, just beyond it, Mara found a small piece of floor space that was not buried in a tangle of burned furniture, collapsed walls or fallen fixtures. Turning to the right toward the fireplace in the living room, her footsteps sounded oddly muffled. As the burned flooring compressed under her heels, the soft crunch of ash accentuated each step. After six steps her way was blocked by debris piled about a foot taller than she was.

“Where did all this come from?” Mara asked.

Diana walked up to stand beside her and said, “Most of this looks like it came from your bedroom.” She pointed to a large burned plank, wedged into a pile to their left. “That’s the headboard from your bed. I think that might be your dresser under it. When the ceiling gave way, your stuff ended up down here on top of the living room.”

Sam, still carrying Hannah, walked up behind them and asked, “Did you leave the book in your room?”

Mara nodded. “I think I put it in the top side drawer of my desk.”

“Come to think of it, that might be your desk, on its side,” Diana said, turning her head sideways. She walked up to it and pushed a mass of wet drywall out of the way. She rubbed a couple fingers over a brass fixture, turned back to Mara and said, “That’s definitely the knob on your desk drawers.”

“Let me get in there,” Mara said. When her mother stepped back, Mara shoved more debris from the front of the desk and crouched down. Tilting her head, she grasped the knob on front of the top side drawer and pulled. The drawer wouldn’t budge, so she planted her foot on what would have been the left corner of the desk, now sitting on the floor and yanked. The front panel of the drawer broke loose, leaving what looked like a cubbyhole. She tossed away the charred piece of wood and reached into the opening. When she pulled back her hand, she held a small stone covered in soot, the memory stone she had gotten from Stella Reese.

“What’s that?” Diana asked.

Mara rubbed the grit off the stone, stuffed it into her jacket pocket and replied, “The memory stone.”

Reaching deeper into the opening, she grabbed what she was sure was the cover to the book, but, as she retracted her arm, it felt a little too light and flimsy. Straightening, she held it out in front of her. It was the leather cover of the book, scarred and darkened by fire. When she flipped open the front cover, a plume of ashes fanned into the air.

Sam’s eyes widened and said, “Is that the Chronicle of Continuity? Is that all that is left of it, the cover?”

Mara brushed away the ashes and found one burned page sitting against the back cover. It easily slipped loose of its binding, and she held it up in the light. Though crinkled by heat and clouded by smoke, Mara could still make out her own handwriting on the page:

Continuity

now travels through other realms.

Therefore, so must you.

“Can you make out anything?” Diana asked.

While trying to look casual, Mara slipped the page between the two leather covers, placed the thin bundle into her pocket with the stone, and said, “No, just a burned piece of paper. That’s all that’s left. I guess that’s the end of the messages from the future.”

Sam looked like he wasn’t buying it. “Just like that? What about all the blank pages, all the haikus you haven’t read yet?”

“Obviously there aren’t going to be any more haikus.” Turning to her mother, she asked, “Is there something you would like to look for, while we are here?”

Diana glanced around the ruins and said, “I don’t think there’s much left. I’ll probably come back, when we begin clearing the lot, and look for some of my crystals, but I’d prefer not to be digging around in all this mess. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

They each turned and walked back through the empty door frame, over the remains of the front porch and down the front steps. When they were about halfway down the driveway, Hannah, who was still riding on Sam’s back, reached over his shoulder and pulled on his chin, turning his head to the left. “Look, Daddy! Look at the doorway!”

Sam paused and turned back toward the remains of the house. A brilliant white light poured from the vertical rectangle that once held the door. It was so intense that it washed away the planks of the porch and turned the front steps into three shadowy lines. After squinting directly into the light for a moment, Sam leaned to the side to see beyond the opening, searching for the source of the light. Behind it, there was nothing but the piles of blackened debris. The light did not emanate from within the burned-out house.

Mara and her mother had continued walking up the driveway.

“Hey, you guys. What do you make of that?” he said.

They turned and froze at the end of the driveway. Mara gasped and said, “The grandfather clock.”

Diana frowned at her. “What?”

Mara reached out for her mother’s arm and said, “Come on.” She led her back down the driveway to where Sam stood with Hannah on his back.

“What is that all about?” Sam asked, nodding to the door frame.

“It’s Mar-ree, my Mar-ree! It’s time for me to go back,” Hannah said, kicking Sam’s sides. “Let me down. I have to go when the light comes back.”

“Now hold on a second,” Diana said. “You’re not going anywhere, until I know it’s safe.”

“Mom, how can we know that?” Mara asked, pointing to Hannah. “She came out of a grandfather clock in a flood of light just like that. It seems logical that’s how she would go back.”

“Yes, but—”

Now standing next to her father, Hannah said, “It will be all right, Nana. I promise. My Mar-ree told me to go back when I saw the light in the door.”

Diana’s eyes watered, as she crouched down and held out her arms. “Come give your nana one last hug before you go.”

Hannah skipped up to her, threw her arms around her neck and, while they hugged, said into her grandmother’s ear, “It’s not really the last hug, you know.”

“I know, baby. I know.” Diana let her go and wiped a tear from her cheek, as she stood.

Mara bent down for a hug and said, “You’re my little hero and tell your aunt Mara that her haikus suck.”

Hannah giggled, stepped back and held out her arms to hug Sam. He shook his head, held out his hand and said, “I’ll walk you over there.”

She took his hand, and he led her down the path toward the front steps and the light. Halfway there, she turned and waved to Mara and Diana. At the front steps, Sam crouched down in front of her, placing his hands on her waist and said, “You know, bean, before you came, there was nothing in the world I wanted more than having a father. Now I can’t imagine wanting anything more than being yours.” He tried to blink back a tear, but one got away and ran down his cheek. “I can’t wait to be your daddy again.”