"I've been thinking about that. If we simply take a defensive stance, we might be more vulnerable. However, we should take some time and let you develop your abilities a little more, build up your confidence, before we get aggressive."

Sam snorted. "You could always pixelate him." He licked a finger, flipped another page.

Mara rolled her eyes.

"Also there might be some strategic advantage in letting the pretender reveal himself to us. There are over a hundred pa.s.sengers from the flight. It would take months to investigate them, and we still might not be able to determine which is the pretender," Ping said.

"Why do you think the pretender wants the Chronicle?"

"I'm not sure. I had a.s.sumed he wants to use it to return to his own realm, but, without you to activate it, I would think it would be useless."

"Why not just ask me like the Sandovals did? I'd be glad to get him out of here and send him back where he came from."

"Perhaps he has an agenda we are not aware of."

"That still implies it has some value to him. Are you sure there is no other way to activate the Chronicle?"

"There are all kinds of myths and legends about the Chronicle of Creation, but one thing is consistent in all of them-only a progenitor can use it to move people metaphysically from one realm to another. That power comes from the progenitor, not the Chronicle itself. The Chronicle is simply a guide and a focusing mechanism."

"Well, he wants it for something."

Ping looked over at Sam. "What do you think, Sam? Why would the pretender want the Chronicle?"

"Why are you asking me? I'm just an idiot." He flipped another page.

"Look, I'm sorry I called you an idiot. I was upset that you were going to get hurt," Mara said.

"So do I have to stay away when you guys are here in the warehouse?"

"As long as you promise to be careful, you're welcome to come," she said.

"And you're going to replace my basketball that you pixelized, right?"

"Right."

"What was the question?" He scooted his mat around.

"What does the pretender want with the Chronicle?" Ping asked.

"That's easy. He either wants to go to another realm or help someone from another realm come here."

"But how would he do that without a progenitor to activate it?" Mara asked.

"Now that I can't answer."

"Okay, let's put that aside for a minute. What about the other pa.s.sengers? Don't they have a right to go home if they want? Wouldn't it be better for them to return to their realms?"

"I suppose there are some who would want to. On the other hand, like Sam and me, there may be some who want to stay. Either way I don't think it would be a good idea to advertise that you have the Chronicle and the ability to use it."

"What about the pa.s.sengers who are dangerous? Shouldn't we do something about them? I mean, you said I was responsible for everyone crossing over. And just for the record, I have a serious issue with that concept considering the pixel-kicker here and his sister were the actual the culprits."

"You are the same-" Sam said.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Same person, trying out different scenarios in different realms. Whatever."

"Not all mistakes can be undone, no matter who's at fault," Ping said. "As I said before, it is not practical for us to find and a.s.sess every pa.s.senger. Some of them don't even live in Portland. A few may not even live in the country. These people are part of this realm, for now. I think the best approach is to deal with them as circ.u.mstances warrant."

"You're saying this could go on for years." Mara slumped.

"It could go on for the rest of our lives," Ping said.

"So what do we do in the meantime?"

"I think we should go to Mount Hood and see the snow," Sam said. "What's the point of sitting around here worrying about something that might not even happen?"

Mara put her head in her hands and closed her eyes.

"It was just a suggestion. There's no point in pouting about it. I mean, you don't have to go if you don't want to."

Ping raised a hand. "I think Mara is just tired. We can talk about driving up to Mount Hood later. Maybe we should just call it a night." A cool draft blew out of the darkness, sending a shiver down his spine. "Besides, it's getting a little chilly in here."

Mara turned her face upward, her eyes still closed. The right corner of her lips turned upward.

"What are you smiling at?" Sam asked.

Something dappled the light around them, turning it a crisper shade of blue as subtle shadows fluttered over them. Sam looked up and squinted into the fluorescents and could only see broken rays of azure shining through falling tufts of white and silver, drifting aimlessly toward the floor. He caught his breath. As the first snowflake alighted on his forehead, he exhaled, sending a plume of vapor into the air.

He jumped to his feet, extended his arms and twirled with his face turned toward the falling snow.

Mara opened her eyes. The cold air kissed them, and she wiped away a tear. She looked over at Ping who smiled, nodded and held out a hand to catch a flake in the dusting that fell between them. She did the same. A flake landed on her palm and melted. Soon another took its place, then several more.

The snowfall became steady, dense enough to form eddies and currents in the air as sheets of fluff swirled and coiled, formed blankets that whipped into the light from the darkness of the warehouse. Mara felt it blow across her face, sensed the tingle as pins of coldness dissolved on her cheeks.

She looked down at her legs, still crossed in a lotus position, and realized they were covered. The floor around her was cottony.

"Look, it's starting to acc.u.mulate," Sam said, kicking at the floor. He turned and ran into the darkness. "Watch this," he called back to them. He ran toward them, jumped as soon as he entered the light, landing flat-footed, sliding between Ping and Mara, throwing off a wall of snow in his wake that fell in their laps.

"Hey! Watch it!" Mara jumped up and leaned over to help Ping stand and dust himself off.

Sam laughed from the dark on the other side of the cla.s.sroom where he had slid. "Hey, Mara, come out here for a minute. You've got to see this."

Mara glanced at Ping with a look of mock exasperation and shuffled through the snow, already several inches deep, leaving parallel furrows as she slid her feet toward the boy in the dark. Sam stood forty feet away from the lit area in the center of the warehouse.

"What do you want me to see out here in the dark?" she said.

"Turn around."

She looked back at the illuminated center of the warehouse. Dense snowfall filtered and refracted the light into a frosty blue, and softened its edges into an ambient dome over the makeshift cla.s.sroom. As snowflakes fell from obscurity into the light, they glinted and sparkled, whipped around inside as if riding liquid currents. Ping stood in the middle of it, looking unseeingly toward them, unaware of the tableau in which he stood.

"It's like a life-size snow globe," Sam said.

"It is kinda cool." Mara stared for a couple minutes. "Better than blowing something up, you think?"

"Hmm. I don't know about that, but it is a lot more fun." He took off running toward Ping.

"Watch out, Ping. Here comes trouble."

Ping raised his arms to cover his face as Sam slid past, spraying Ping with another wave of snow. Sam stumbled on a snow-covered mat, tried to regain his balance but fell into a roll, spraying slush for several feet until he slammed into the metal cabinet next to the whiteboard.

"Are you hurt?" Ping called after him.

Sam laughed and got up, wiping crusted snow off his clothes. "I'm good."

"Okay, I think it's time to get going. How about if I buy you guys dinner?"

Mara emerged from the darkness packing her hands together, a gleam in her eye. She threw the s...o...b..ll at Sam just as he bent over to wipe snow from his pants legs. It flew over his bent back, splatting into the cabinet door.

"Oh, you shouldn't have done that." Sam scooped up two handfuls of snow and packed it together. He reared back with the s...o...b..ll in an overhand stance with one leg raised for added momentum.

Mara waved her hands in front of her. "No, no, don't. You heard Ping. We're going out to dinner. I can't get all wet."

Everything stopped.

Snowflakes hung in the air, paused in their descent. Sam stood frozen like a paused video, bent forward with his arm extended, a s...o...b..ll and its icy contrail suspended in the air two feet from his fingers, on a flight path for Mara.

"Ping!" Mara stared at Sam, and Ping followed her gaze. "I think I froze him."

Ping batted at suspended snowflakes in front of him. They fluttered around his hand but did not continue their descent to the ground. "It's the element of Time. You didn't freeze Sam. You froze Time. Look, even the snowflakes have stopped."

"Why aren't you frozen?"

"I'm not sure. Perhaps you weren't focused on me."

"What do I do?"

Ping shrugged. "Unfreeze it. Concentrate."

Mara closed her eyes, pictured the snow falling again. She heard Sam laugh and opened her eyes to see the s...o...b..ll arc at her. She raised her hands and yelled, "No!"

She and Sam disappeared in a flash of light, then reappeared in each other's place. The s...o...b..ll arced downward and struck Sam in the temple.

"Hey! No fair." He laughed, wiping sludge from the side of his face. "That was cool. Did you do that on purpose?"

Mara looked at Ping, dazed.

"I think that was the element of s.p.a.ce," he said.

Mara's eyes grew wide. She held up her hands and stared at them. She disappeared and reappeared three times in less than a second, sputtering like a bulb about to burn out.

Ping jogged toward her. "Mara, you're definitely flickering. Are you okay?"

She fell to her knees. "I'm not sure."

The snow stopped falling.

CHAPTER 47.

THE TURN SIGNAL of a white Ford F-150 blinked at the curb in front of Mason Fix-It Shop-just after Mara drove past, thinking she would have to park on a side street. Since it was gray and misty, and the forecasters were saying it would be heavy rain that evening, she decided she'd rather loop back around the block and snag the Ford's spot instead of trudging through the rain at the end of the workday. As she pa.s.sed Ping's bakery, she glanced over and saw him looking out his front window, a worried look on his face. He didn't recognize her car as she turned off Woodstock and cut through the alley behind the shop. Less than two minutes later, she slid into the still-empty parking spot.

Ping walked up to her as she got out of the car with a basketball under her arm. "There you are. I was getting a little concerned," he said.

"Concerned about what?" Mara asked. She walked up to the shop door. Ping followed.

"You are late coming into work, and, with everything that happened last night, I was concerned. How are you feeling this morning?"

She jiggled the lock, trying to unlock it with one hand. "Believe it or not, I have nonmetaphysical things to do. I had to drop off some machine parts at the fabricators. Here, hold this." She handed him the basketball. "As a matter of fact, why don't you keep it and give it Sam."

"I think you should give it to him. It'll be a good reason for him to stop by and see that you are okay without showing any obvious concern."

"What?"

"He's worried about you too, but he won't want to make an overt display of it."

She shook the doork.n.o.b while twisting the key a few times. The door gave way with a loud rattle punctuated by the jangle of the bell hanging above it inside. She stepped in, flipped on the lights and turned the Open sign to face outward. Ping followed.

"I don't really understand why you men go to such lengths to hide your feelings, but whatever. Anyway, I don't think there is anything to worry about. The tiredness seems to go away after a few minutes. It's sort of like how you feel after running a sprint. You're winded for a short time, but you bounce back quickly," she said, taking off her jacket. "I'll be right back." She walked into the rear of the shop and returned almost immediately without the jacket.

"Mara, you don't flicker like that after you run a sprint," Ping said.

"Yeah, that does freak me out a little." She held out her hands, looked at them, then patted her shoulders. "But I'm feeling pretty solid right now, so I don't think there have been any long-term effects."

"It might be a good idea for you not to overuse your abilities until we understand what is going on a little better."

"Fine by me. I've got too much work to do anyway-which I need to get to, if you don't mind."

Ping nodded and bounced the basketball one time on the floor toward her. "Sam will stop by in a couple hours. His tutor, Mrs. Zimmerman, is taking the afternoon off."

Mara caught the ball, walked behind the counter, crouched down and rolled it onto a shelf. The bell above the door jangled, announcing Ping's departure. She noticed a few things out of place and began reorganizing the shelves: sliding tools, parts and boxes of screws and nuts around so they were easier to get to. When she stood up, a brown-haired young man wearing a gray Portland State University hoodie stood before her. He carried something under his arm.

"Oh, hi. I didn't see you there," she said. "What can I help you with?"

He sat a dark gray platform slightly larger than a shoe box on the counter. Mounted on one side of the platform was a stumpy cylinder. On the other was a shallow bowl squatting on top of a circular stand. It looked like a homely trophy forced to live out its existence affixed next to a gray can of stew. A thick black electrical cord snaked from the cylinder over the edge of the counter.