CHAPTER 3
1428 Words
CHAPTER 3The blended aromas of coffee and baked treats pulled Mara out of her funk as she navigated past the round tables in the front of Ping’s Bakery and approached the glass counter and display case, behind which stood a gray-haired lady, wearing a name tag that read Roberta. The lady handed a credit card and a cake box to a man standing in front of the counter. After the customer left, she turned her attention to Mara.
“How may I help you?” Roberta asked.
“I’m looking for Mr. Ping. Is he in the back?”
“Yes. Would you like me to get him?”
“That won’t be necessary. He doesn’t mind if I visit with him in the kitchen while he’s working.”
Mara, still carrying the old radio case, rounded the end of the counter and used a hip to push through the swinging doors. In the back, Sam sat at a small table next to the office door, rummaging through his book bag while, across the kitchen, Ping lingered over an industrial-size mixer, its large silver bowl rotating in one direction while a massive beater spun in the opposite, churning a brown lumpy batter that gave off a cloying smell.
Ping smiled and said, “Fruitcakes, for Christmas.” He flipped a switch, and the machine stopped. “Now it needs to set for a few minutes. Then it goes into the pans.” He pointed to a row of a dozen rectangular bread pans lined up on the counter.
“Do people eat fruitcake anymore?” Mara asked. She sat the radio case on the counter next to the bread pans.
“This batch is for a business down the street that’s giving them as gifts to their customers,” he said. “I’m not sure if they’ll get eaten, but the recipe is tasty.” He led her to the table where Sam sat and pointed to a plate of slices. “Try it. Those are from the test batch I baked yesterday.”
“Not without coffee. Do you want some?” she asked. Ping nodded and took a seat while she filled two paper cups at the row of three coffee urns on the opposite end of the counter from the empty pans.
When she handed the cup to Ping, he said, “You’ve got that drawn, stressed look about you. What’s the matter?”
She glared at her brother, who said, “What?”
“You’ve been running your mouth again.”
“I haven’t said a word. I’ve been busy looking for my last assignment for Mrs. Zimmerman, which I can’t remember doing. Seems like the last time I went to her house was months ago.”
“It’s true. We’ve hardly spoken since the boy walked in,” Ping said. “Is something troubling you?”
“What isn’t troubling me? My mother is on the verge of disowning me for losing the body she gave me. Mr. Mason got tired of my disappearing act and closed the gadget shop, and I feel completely out of place because the house I grew up in was burned down by a dragon. Also Sam’s right—time is all screwed up from bouncing in and out of realms for the past few months, or maybe it’s just been a week. I can’t tell. I’m untethered to my life.”
“Beyond commiserating, I’m not sure how much I can help with your first three issues. However, in terms of how much time transpired during our recent trip to other realms, we were gone a week, and we’ve been back for three days.”
“I know that,” Mara said. “It just doesn’t feel like it. I have at least a month of memories from that week.”
“Perhaps you should have returned us to this realm a month after our departure. It might have made the transition less disorienting,” Ping said. “Why did you return us to this moment in time?”
“I wasn’t thinking about when we were returning, I just concentrated on where. Besides, if we’d returned a month after we left, Mom would have disowned me.”
“I’ve been giving it some thought, and it might be prudent for you to concentrate on all the elements of Reality as you engage the Chronicle. Think about Time, Space, Consciousness and Consequence. When, where, in what form, and to what end are you crossing into another realm. That might help you get what you want out of the experience.”
“In what form? What do you mean by that?” Mara asked.
“The element of Consciousness defines the composition of things in Reality. If my hypothesis is correct, besides controlling which realm you visit and at what point in time, you should have the ability to reshape your being when you cross from this realm to another. For example, you could arrive in the destination realm as a grizzly bear, if you wished, or a man or a fruit fly.”
Sam straightened. “Cool. The next time we go somewhere, I want to go as a griffin. Can you do that, sis?”
Mara rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t you have to get to your lessons?”
He glanced at his phone and jumped from his seat. “Shoot! You’re right.”
They watched him clatter through the swinging doors, running while slinging his book bag onto his shoulder.
Mara turned to Ping and asked, “How do you come up with this stuff?”
“It is a reasonable assessment based on observations of your interactions with the Chronicle. Your limited knowledge of metaphysical principles is stunting the application of your abilities. Some of that is my fault. I can teach metaphysical theory as well as the next academician, but applying those principles to real world situations is more challenging.”
“You’re telling me.”
“I would encourage you to seek opportunities to experiment with your abilities, always keeping in mind the elements of Reality. Also, don’t forget about the elements of Perception—Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. While they are not the exclusive domain of progenitors, you still have—or can develop—the ability to work with them.”
“Haven’t I made a big enough mess of my life already?”
“You will one day think of your abilities as a potential solution to the problems you face, not the cause.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“At some point in the future, you send your niece back in time to help us deal with the aforementioned dragon, so I must assume you fully embrace your abilities.”
“And burned down the house. That worked out just great.”
“Notwithstanding the house, it did work out,” Ping said. “But you didn’t stop by to talk about metaphysics or even your lost home. Are you upset about Mr. Mason closing the fix-it shop?”
“It’s not that. I’m disappointed about it, but I knew he’d close it eventually. He’s been talking about retiring the whole time I’ve worked there,” she said.
“You mentioned your mother.”
“Yes, we told her about my synthetic body this morning, and she didn’t take it well.”
“I hope you didn’t do the hand thing.”
Mara looked sheepish. “She fainted.”
“Is she okay?”
“Physically she’s fine. It was a bone-headed thing to do, but she couldn’t believe I was synthetic without seeing proof. The thing is, I never imagined how hurt she would be, how much pain it would cause her. As much of a free spirit as she is, I think I have hit the limit of her open-mindedness. She will never—deep down inside—accept that this synthetic body is the daughter she raised. Oh, she’ll deny it, and she’ll play the role of mother, but she’ll never get over it.”
“Perhaps she needs time to adjust to the idea.”
“No, I know my mother. She’s open to just about anything, except in those rare cases when she isn’t. And when she’s closed her mind to something, there’s no opening it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. There’s still the possibility she’ll come around. A mother’s love isn’t something that just goes away, and you are her daughter, even in your synthetic body.”
“I’ve been thinking there might be another possibility, a solution with a metaphysical twist.”
“If my theory is correct, and you could learn to better control the Chronicle, you could use it to turn your synthetic body into a biological one. That may take time and practice. Is that what you mean?”
“Wouldn’t that just be me rearranging my pixels to fool myself and my mother into thinking my body was biological?”
“For all intents and purposes, you would be biological. Remember, you have the ability to shape Reality.”
“It can’t be something I whip up metaphysically. That would not be acceptable. It has to be biologically connected to Mom, a body that could not exist except for its connection to her.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I think there’s someone who can help me do this.” Mara stood and slipped her hand into her jeans pocket. She removed the bejeweled copper medallion.
“The Chronicle?” Ping asked. “What are planning?
She held out the disk on her palm, and it levitated. Spinning and gyrating, the lines of the Chronicle blurred, its blue crystals emitting a blue light that melted the copper into a blue molten orb.
“Mara. Please explain,” Ping said.
“Show me creation,” she said. The spinning blue light exploded into a translucent globe of lines and nodes that filled the bakery’s kitchen. She glanced at Ping, a sheen of blue light reflected from her eyes. “I will get my body back.”
“Your body is dead. Even if you find who took it, there’s nothing you can do.”
“I know.” She looked away, into the center of the giant map of Reality.
“Take me with you.”
“Sorry, not this trip.” She reached out and grabbed one of the nodes. The blue sphere collapsed and disappeared, taking Mara with it.
- Writer
