Mara Lantern: Broken Realms Part 2

A middle-aged nurse wearing a yellow smock walked in and smiled. She thrust a k.n.o.bby hand toward Mara's face, sticking a digital thermometer into her mouth. After a few seconds, the nurse plucked it out and lifted her black eyegla.s.ses to see the results.

"Do you have a headache? Are you dizzy?" the nurse said.

"No. I'm a little confused."

"That's to be expected," she said, bending over Mara and pulling her right eyelid up with a thumb. The nurse flashed a penlight into Mara's eyeball, did the same with the left eye, straightened and held up three fingers. "How many fingers do you see?"

"Three," Mara said, squinting.

"Excellent. The doctor should be around to see you later this afternoon. You can drink some water if you're thirsty," she said. "You'll have to wait for the doctor to give the okay before you can eat solids." She smiled again, turned and walked out the door.

"Very efficient. Not very holistic, but to the point, I guess," Diana said. "I put a small amethyst under your pillow. I hope that doesn't get you bent out of shape."

"The cinnamon stone, how'd it get here?"

"A woman named Maggie saw your name in the newspaper and brought it by a little while ago. Said she was sorry she took it from you." Diana fussed with the covers. "You should have checked the bag. It would have made the flight."

"A magic stone couldn't fix the plane, Mom." Concentrating was taking an effort.

"So you remember the crash?"

"It crashed? I thought, I a.s.sumed it landed." Her tongue stuck to her lips and the inside of her mouth.

Diana grabbed a plastic cup from the nightstand and held it to her.

"No, Mara, the plane crashed into the Columbia River when it tried to make an emergency landing."

Mara coughed. "All those people. How many?"

"Everyone survived. Every one of them either swam to the bank or was fished out of the river. No one died. They're calling it a miracle. No one was seriously hurt. You are the only one still in the hospital."

Mara shuddered, felt panic rising. Her eyes fluttered, threatened to roll into the back of her head. She envisioned drowning, not able to help herself, the current pus.h.i.+ng her under. She held her breath, closed her eyes, trying-but hoping she failed-to remember what happened. Nothing. She could recall nothing, especially being in water.

The fear drained her. Her eyelids drooped.

"Who pulled me out of the river?" She pushed back against the drowsiness.

"The EMTs said a couple joggers found you on a boat ramp, of all things. They said you had already dried out before they got to you, but you had a nasty blow to the head."

"I wonder how I got there."

"I don't know. I'm just glad you did," she said, patting Mara's leg.

"How long have I been here, Mom?"

"Four days. Today's Thursday. They kept you sedated to make sure you were all right. You got a good knock on the head," she said. "I think you better get some rest. We can talk again later."

Mara was already asleep.

The following morning, Mara awoke with a start. She sat up in bed, getting her bearings. She was in the hospital.

The curtain had been pulled back to reveal a second bed next to Mara's. Beyond the unoccupied bed, bands of daylight streamed through vertical blinds in a narrow window that ran the height of the room. A bouquet of pink lilies sat on a table in the corner. Not so beige here today.

Mara turned to the nightstand. The crystal was there, the one from the security screener at the airport. Mara touched her left temple; her hand snapped back as it touched a tender spot. Rotating her head to detect any wooziness, she decided she was good to go.

As she got out of bed, her mother walked into the room.

"Where do you think you're going?" As the industrial-size door hissed closed behind her, Diana ran a finger over her right ear, pus.h.i.+ng her graying brown hair behind it, a gesture she always did when preparing for a confrontation. Despite her Birkenstocks and burlap Earth Mother exterior, she was no pushover.

"There was a plane crash?" Mara asked. "Everyone survived?"

"Yes, now get back in bed."

She crawled back under the covers. "That's hard to believe. A plane crashes into the river and everyone survives," she said. "Did the pilot land it on the water like the one in New York a few years ago?"

"No, Mara. The plane was destroyed. It was not a smooth glide onto the water," Diana said, clipping her words in the way she did when she didn't want to talk about something.

"Your father was here for a couple days to check on you. He had to go back for a patient yesterday morning, but he put your doctors through the wringer, did his own examination and asked that you call when you are up and about."

"I bet he did. Have you heard from Bruce or Mr. Mason? I hope everything is okay at the shop."

"The shop is fine. Bruce called to see how you were. He and his grandfather sent you those flowers. Remember, you were going out of town, so everyone planned for you to be gone anyway. Nothing to worry about."

Diana sat in a chair on the side of the bed, opened a magazine.

"So what caused the crash?" Mara asked.

Diana didn't answer immediately; obviously she debated whether to discuss the accident. "I don't think they know yet. They are still investigating."

"Did something happen in the back of the plane?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like an explosion."

"Do you remember an explosion in the back of the plane?" Diana put down her magazine.

"Was there one?"

"The news said witnesses saw a big hole in the back of the plane. What do you remember?"

"The flight had just taken off," Mara said. "There was something going on in the cabin, strange lights. And I saw this boy. Someone was chasing him. He had something she wanted."

"Someone was chasing him in the plane?" Diana said. "Who was chasing him?

"I was."

"You were what, chasing the boy? Why would you do that?"

"It wasn't me. It was someone who looked like me."

"Someone who looked like you was chasing a boy."

"I ran after him, to the back of the plane."

"You mean the person who looked like you did, right?"

"No, we both did. She was trying to get something from him."

"Him, who?"

"The boy, Sam. That was his name."

"Okay, what was she trying to get from him?"

"It was a blue ball of light. That was all I could see," Mara said. "I followed him to the back of the plane, and she came after us."

"And then what happened?

"She knocked me out of the way and grabbed the light from Sam. I tried to stop her."

"And then?"

"Something exploded. I blacked out after that."

"Hmm... Maybe you should sleep on that."

"You don't believe me?"

"It's not that, sweetheart. After a couple days, you might be able to sort it out. Maybe you had a dream that got mixed up with your memories. I'd meditate on it."

"You would."

"Maybe this will help your memory." Diana walked to the nightstand and opened a drawer. "I found this in your pocket after they brought you into the emergency room."

She lifted a charred copper medallion that filled her palm. The face of it featured a central pyramid-shaped jewel, a dark orange crystal, surrounded by four large crystals alternating with four smaller ones. All but the central stone and one of the larger ones encircling it were black, appeared burned. The unharmed crystal was sea blue. Though the object was blackened with soot, etched details stood out from its copper face.

It featured three concentric circles. The smaller central one held only the orange crystal. The second circle was divided into quarters. Each quarter featured a different glyph of five parallel lines. The outermost circle contained four pairs of icons that bracketed the larger crystals along the periphery of the medallion. The symbols looked unfamiliar, unlike any other writing or drawings Mara had seen before.

"Where did you get it?"

"I have no idea. I've never seen it before," she said. She reached for it. "Are you sure they didn't mix up my stuff with someone else's?"

"They just bagged up your jeans in the emergency room, and this was in the pocket. I took it out myself. The jeans were definitely yours. The other pockets had your keys and phone in them."

Mara shrugged. "No clue."

She flipped it over. It had heft, clearly solid metal and mineral. The back had no ornamentation other than a groove along the circ.u.mference inset about an eighth of an inch. She tried to rotate the inner circle of the backing with her fingertips, like removing the back of a watch. It didn't turn.

"What are you trying to do?"

"Open it."

"Mara, you don't have to disa.s.semble it right now."

"Won't open anyway."

"It's quite a remarkable piece. It feels powerful to me. That center crystal is a sunstone, I'm sure. Oregon's state gemstone, you know."

"I wonder what power the legislature gave it. Probably the ability to ward off migrating Californians." She handed it back to her mother.

"I see your snarkiness remains intact. What are you going to do with it?"

"What I do with everything, I guess. Fix it up, put it on a shelf at the shop and see if anyone turns up to claim it."

Diana placed it back in the drawer, returned to her seat and her magazine.

"Great. So when do I get out of here?" Mara asked.

"Let's let the doctors decide that. Why don't you just relax and get some rest?"

"How about a couple newspapers to read? I can catch up on what happened, save you the trouble."

"I don't want you to get upset," Diana said.

"What's to get upset about? You said everyone survived. It was a miracle."

Eventually her mother relented and went down to the hospital gift shop to buy newspapers. She returned with editions from the past three days, all with screaming headlines and large photographs of airplane wreckage.

As her mother handed them to her, Mara's eye caught the image of a crane on a barge pulling the main fuselage of the plane out of the river. Her breath caught. She casually placed the stack on her lap.

"I've got a few errands to run, so I'll leave you to read for a bit," Diana said.

"Haven't you forgotten something?" Mara asked, eyeing the rock on her nightstand.

"Considering everything, I think you can humor me. That one stays as well as the one under your pillow. The last time you abandoned it, you fell out of the sky. Maybe it'll keep you from falling out of bed."

"Whatever."

"You know, a lot of people come out of experiences like this with a new appreciation of spiritual matters."

"Or a new appreciation of gravity."

"Whatever, back at you." She kissed her daughter's head and left.

Coverage of the crash filled the newspapers. While the accident remained under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, some articles speculated that someone had placed an explosive in the rear of the aircraft. Officials refused to rule out terrorism, but they felt it was unlikely. Volunteers from local religious and service organizations, who had helped recover survivors, marveled at how anyone could have survived such a catastrophic plunge into the river, much less everyone on the flight.