CHAPTER 6-1
952 Words
CHAPTER 6Sitting at the desk in her bedroom, Mara stared into the screen of her laptop. After checking her email and finding none—no surprise since normal people were celebrating Thanksgiving, not worrying about their gadget repairs—she found herself randomly entering words into a search engine and not getting any meaningful results. She entered aphotis and saw nothing relevant, and so typed in darkling wraith and metaphysics and realms. All returned something, but nothing relevant to her current concerns. Soon she realized she wasn’t reading the screen, just entering random words and hitting Return.
Sitting back, she tapped the Power button and folded the monitor over the keyboard. Behind the laptop, she spotted the small leather book her niece had brought from the future. She picked it up, again amazed at the heft of it. Running her hands over the grain of the leather cover, she turned it over and looked at the back. Just more grain. Opening the front cover, she stared at her own handwriting: The Chronicle of Continuity. The paper looked old and worn, dry and brittle, brown at the edges. It had tiny lumps and fibers running through it; imperfections you didn’t see in modern stationery. Oddly the words appeared to be written with a ballpoint pen. Modern words written on ancient papyrus, almost an affront to the title, a visual discontinuity.
Why would I have a five-year-old bring a blank book to me from the future?
Book in hand, she stood and walked out of the room.
Downstairs she found Hannah, flapping her dragon wings, pacing in a circle in front of the fireplace, tracing the outline of the circular throw rug on the floor.
“Hey, dragon girl, you look like you’ve plumped up since the last time I saw you,” Mara said, taking a seat on the couch.
“I don’t turn into a dragon until I pull on my hoodie.” She pointed to the hood bunched up on the back of her neck, partially hidden by her hair. Patting her chest, she added, “Nana made me put more sweats on under my costume, so I can go outside and terrorize the neighborhood.”
“When’s that going to happen?”
“When my dad gets down here. I might blow fire on some houses and burn them down.”
“I see. Well, before you do that, can I ask you some questions?”
“Okay.”
“Why did you bring me this book?” She held up the leather volume.
“Because you told me to.”
“When I told you to bring it to me, did I tell you what I needed it for?”
“You need to write in it.”
“What am I supposed to write?”
She shrugged. “Do you want to write in it now?”
Sam walked into the living room, putting on his jacket, and smiled at Hannah. “You ready to set the neighborhood on fire?”
Mara raised her hand toward her brother. “Wait a minute.” To Hanna, she asked, “How am I supposed to know what to write?”
Hannah rolled her eyes, walked up to the side of the couch and said, “Gimme.”
Mara handed the book to her.
She batted away the book. “Not the book. Gimme your face.” She held her arms outstretched toward Mara’s head, but her cloth wings limited her reach.
“My face?” Mara raised an eyebrow but leaned forward.
Hannah put her hands to her aunt’s cheeks and said, “Write.”
Electricity nipped at Mara’s cheeks, and her eyes glazed over. Without turning her head, she reached over the arm of the couch to the tiny drawer in the end table and opened it. After retrieving a blue ballpoint pen, she didn’t bother to close the drawer. Opening the leather-bound book that sat on her lap, she flipped past the title page and scribbled a few words on the left-hand page, then a few on the right. She flipped the page and repeated the process—flipped the page and continued.
Sam walked around the end of the couch and looked down at her. “Mara?” He bent down in front of her and waved a hand between Mara’s face and the pages of the book. She didn’t flinch or react at all. She continued writing.
Turning to Hannah, he said, “What did you do to her?”
“She wanted to know what to write. That was the magic clue,” Hannah said.
“Magic clue? What magic clue?”
“When Mar-ree gives me the magic clue, I’m s’posed to prompt her to write in the book. It’s a new game she showed me.”
“When she showed you this game, was it in the future?”
Hannah gave him a confused expression.
“You know, when Mara and I are older.”
“Yes, before she sent me through the bright light.”
Sam crouched and tried to look into Mara’s eyes, but they looked through him. He doubted he could prompt her, while she continued in that state. Mara flipped a couple more pages, while he tried to figure out what to do.
“Daddy, can we go for our walk now?” Hannah asked. “It’s almost dark, and nobody will see my costume.”
“When will your aunt Mara stop writing and start acting normal?” he asked.
“In an hour.”
“She told you how long it would take her to write in the book?”
Hannah nodded. “She said, not to worry.”
“She knew I would be worried?”
Hannah nodded and walked to the front door.
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Mara fell through a dark tunnel. She could hear Sam and Hannah talking somewhere ahead, muffled and barely discernible, coming from the pin of light through which she had plunged. It must be miles away now, but it had stopped receding into the darkness.
From behind her came another voice. It said, “Write.” And Mara felt compelled to write. Looking down, she could see the leather book in her hands, though there was no light. She opened it, and a pen appeared in her hands.
“Write,” the voice said again.
She recognized the voice. It was hers. She wondered how that could be for a moment, but a sudden urgency shoved aside that thought. Words and phrases flooded her head and poured out of the pen. She scribbled and flipped, scribbled and flipped, documenting the notions that came to her mind. All in her own voice.
* * *
- Writer
