Mara smiled. They were an odd pair. "I talked to Carol Sandoval. She thinks Suter is out to get us on the pa.s.senger disappearances."

"That's just a pretext. Just like the arrest for breaking into the hangar was a pretext. He thinks, somehow, you caused the plane accident," Ping said.

"Well, in a way, thanks to Howdy Doody here, I did have something to do with it. What do you think we should do about them?"

"I'm not sure there's a whole lot we can do, especially if they connect us to the Gamble disappearances. Remember, the man in the attic may have gotten a look at us."

"Great. Sam may have to break us out next time."

The waitress stopped by, jotted down their orders on a little green pad and left for the kitchen.

"How has your weekend been?" Ping asked, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.

"More eventful than I had antic.i.p.ated. I went to Mount Tabor Park."

"We heard on the radio something about dogs going missing. Is that the park where that is happening?"

"Was happening, I believe."

Ping raised an eyebrow. "Tell me."

"I saw the reports about the missing dogs on the news Friday and decided to go look into it." She shrugged. "I'm not sure why."

"And? What did you find?"

"There was a man stalking around in the woods, hunting animals-and people, it turns out. He spit up this gunk and rubbed it on his body, and it made him practically invisible. I followed him around for a while and watched him hunt down a squirrel, then he went after this little girl."

"I hope she wasn't hurt. What happened?"

"Well, I'm not really sure. He started running toward her, hunting her, and I..." Mara looked down and rubbed her palms together. "I guess I stopped him."

"You pixelated him, didn't you?" Sam asked.

"No. I mean, he was pixelated for a few minutes, until the wind blew him away."

Ping c.o.c.ked his head. "Blew him away?"

The waitress returned with a large tray balanced on one hand and her shoulder. She carried a tray stand in her other hand, which she deployed and set down the tray next to the table.

"That was fast," Sam said with enthusiasm.

She put a dish before each of them, asked if they needed anything else, picked up the tray and stand, and returned to the kitchen.

Ping leaned forward. "So you said something about blowing him away."

Mara held up her hands. "I didn't blow anyone away. I don't think I did. Just as he leaped at the little girl, I guess I froze him. He was trapped in midair, all blurry-like the basketball at the warehouse-then the wind sorta blew away all his pixels, and he was gone.

"And the girl?" Ping asked.

"She's fine. She didn't see a thing. Her back was turned."

"It was probably not a good idea to go there alone. You could have been hurt," Ping said.

"Who would you suggest go with me? You were out of town, and, even if you had gone with me, that puff-of-dust thing you do isn't really much help in a pinch."

"There is nothing I can do about that. It's instinctive," he said. "When I'm around, I can serve as a distraction, if nothing else. In some cases, maybe Sam can help out."

Sam waved a fork, chewed and nodded.

"Also I think it would be a good practice to always let someone know where you are before putting yourself in harm's way. And if you come up missing, someone will know to look for you."

"I suppose that makes sense." Mara took a drink of water and said, "I do have a question about what happened in the park."

"What is it?" Ping asked.

"That guy, the hunter. Where exactly is he now? Is he dead?"

"Where did you want him to go? What were you thinking at the time?"

"I wasn't thinking of a place. I just didn't want him to be there doing what he was doing."

"So you didn't think it would be better for him to be in his own realm, or it might be better for him to be dead or something else?"

"No. Neither of those would have occurred to me. I just didn't want him to be there."

"Hmm... Let's think about this for a minute. If you didn't send him somewhere, maybe you just erased him, probably from this realm. He no longer exists here."

"So I killed him?"

"Not in the literal sense. Remember, this realm is just perception. You erased his pixels. His consciousness most likely continues in other realms just as before, running different scenarios. You simply ended his scenario here in this realm by erasing him."

"I'm not sure I see the difference."

"Look at it this way. He was never supposed to be in this realm. His actions were inappropriate for this place, and you corrected the situation. Don't blame yourself. He could have hurt or even killed someone. You might say you repaired the situation, like a broken gadget." He paused to cut his carne asada. "Next time, though, try to focus on what you would like to happen. Don't give in to panic. Think about what you are attempting to do. That might give you a little more control over your abilities and the consequences of using them."

"Consequences. There is that word again." She turned to Sam, who continued to stuff food into his mouth. "Do you follow all of this?"

"No, but I don't have to." He shrugged.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't erase people, sis."

"I'm not your sis, bro."

"Whatever. You gonna erase that taco, or can I have it?"

CHAPTER 51.

SNOW STILL COVERED the floor of the warehouse late Monday afternoon when Mara arrived early to begin another session with Ping. Soft crunching sounds echoed off the walls as she walked toward the whiteboard and metal cabinet, traversing a crusty island of melting snow that broke apart under her weight. Half the floor remained buried in an inch of ice and powder, the other half a damp dark gray bleeding through from the concrete below. Piles and small drifts persisted along the walls.

Mara stopped and looked down at her feet. Bright neon-greenish yellow grains speckled the entire floor. She kicked at the grit for a minute and wondered if it was put down to melt the snow or to prevent people from slipping. She shrugged and continued onto the makeshift cla.s.sroom.

Pooled water and mounds of snow and ice covered the area where she and Ping had placed their mats from their last cla.s.s. A mound of slush sloped from the base of the metal cabinet. It would be impossible to sit down. At this rate, it would be spring before the place dried out. She glanced up at the aluminum heating ducts suspended from the ceiling and wondered how she could turn them on. Ping had said it would take hours to warm up the place, and that meant it would take days to dry out, especially given the recent cool fall weather.

She looked down at the floor, then back up at the ducts and wondered for a moment. She closed her eyes, furrowed her brow.

Aluminum ductwork popped and groaned, bouncing complaints from the rafters to the floor and back again. A rush of air rattled across the ceiling, through the conduits, bellowed past shaking vents that screamed like jet turbines. A hot gale blasted across the warehouse just below the ceiling until it collided with the walls and cascaded downward like an inverted tidal wave, whipping up the thickening air as it created thermals that rose again.

Heat rolled across Mara's face, fanning her hair behind her head. In her mind's eye, she stood in a desert leaning into a warm breeze, feeling grains of sand p.r.i.c.king her cheeks. Except this air did not feel dry. It felt moist, heavy. Humidity clung to her skin as if she stood in a sauna.

She opened her eyes to rolling clouds of fog. The snow was gone, but the floor remained wet and the air soggy. Hot drafts stirred ribbons of steam so thick she could no longer see the walls of the warehouse. Above her, streams of vapor flowed and swirled, blocking a view of the ceiling, diffusing the light from above.

Sweat rolled from her temple. She brushed it away with a finger and waded into the atmospheric soup. Holding out her arms, she wandered around the floor, trying to get her bearings. Squinting, she thought she spotted the bay doors at the back near the loading dock. She headed that way. The mist grew thinner as she approached the doors. They were typical garage-style, roll-up bay doors. There were five of them, each with a padlock secured through aligned metal loops in the doors and their frames.

Mara arched an eyebrow and concentrated on the lock nearest to her. A moment later it blurred. She took a step closer, at first thinking a wisp of fog had pa.s.sed by, distorting her vision. A closer inspection revealed the lock was now a blob of silvery pixels. She batted at them with her fingers. Tiny translucent cubes tumbled away. The lock was gone.

She bent down to lift the door. It would not budge. After inspecting the far side of the door for another lock, she determined it was too jammed or too heavy for her to lift. She stood back, letting her eyes close and her head roll in frustration. "Come on."

Metal clattered in front of her. She opened her eyes. They widened as the bay door raised itself with a loud rolling rattle. Stepping away from the open loading-dock door, she glanced at the other four. The locks were already falling away, and they began to rumble open.

Fog slowly rolled toward the open bay doors. Mara closed her eyes again and recalled a strong breeze she had felt the last time she had visited Cannon Beach, how it had felt as the cool air gave her goose b.u.mps, how her jacket had flapped in the breeze. Currents began to form within the vapor, driving it toward the bay doors. They merged into a steady breeze accentuated with gusts, just like it does at the coast. Turning into the wind, Mara watched as the clouds engulfed her on their way out the open bay doors.

Minutes later, she stood in the dry warehouse, reveling in the gusts, now so strong she had to lean into it to maintain balance. Gusts buffeted, threatening to push her over.

"What is going on in here?" Ping raised his voice over the noise.

The air stilled.

Mara brushed back her hair and smiled, a little embarra.s.sed.

"The floor was wet, and there was still some snow, so I decided to clean it up."

"And the wind? That was you?"

She nodded.

"Impressive. Let's close those doors. It's kind of cold to leave them open." He stepped toward the bay doors.

"Let me." Mara tilted her head toward the doors. They clattered closed.

Ping stopped and turned back to her. "You seem to be coming along."

"I'm still having trouble believing it."

"I think you believe it just fine. What you are having trouble with is admitting it." He smiled. "How do you feel? You do not appear to be flickering."

"I can feel exertion but not to the point of exhaustion. Does that make sense?"

"Just be mindful of overdoing it." He waved toward the center of the warehouse. "Shall we?"

Ping picked up their mats on the way. They had been blown from the floor in front of the whiteboard. He shook them off. "Did you have anything to do with this yellow sand all over the place? It looks like fish tank gravel."

"No, it was on the floor when I got here. I couldn't figure out why you would spread sand on the floor inside."

"I didn't." He placed the mats on the floor.

"Perhaps the landlord?"

"The landlord is a corporation in Sacramento. They don't have an office here, and I doubt they flew up just to spread fish-tank gravel in the warehouse." He sat down on his mat and pointed to hers.

She took her place. "That's odd, don't you think?"

"We'll worry about it later. Do you have the Chronicle?"

She tapped her front jeans pocket where the medallion made a circular impression. "Why did you want me to bring it?"

"I think from now on, you should carry it with you. It will be safer, and, if the need arises, you will be able to use it." He locked eyes with her, expecting resistance.

"Use it for what? I'm not interested in visiting other realms at the moment."

"No, but if you'd had it with you at the park this weekend, you might have been able to use it to send that man back to his realm."

"You mean instead of erasing him."

"I don't mean to be critical. It just seems that, if you have the opportunity to send someone back to where they came from, you should do so. That way, you don't have to feel guilty about using other means."

"What about the pretender who's out there? Isn't it risky just carrying it around?"

"There's risk no matter what we do. The Chronicle belongs with you. My advice would be that you keep it with you. Locking it away in a safe is not going to keep a pretender from getting it, if he finds out it's there."

"I don't know." Her voice trailed off as she looked down to avoid Ping's gaze. The argument forming in her mind was interrupted by a soft rasping sound like grain shifting in a bag as it was being lifted to pour. "What was that?"

"What?" he said.

She raised her finger to her lips. "Listen."

Something skittered, then went silent. A whisking sound, dry hands rubbing together filled the air around them. Movement drew Mara's eyes to the warehouse floor. The fluorescent yellow-green sand moved. It jittered as if it emitted a charge opposite of the floor, compelled to shift by some unseen magnetism. Granules slid to and fro, aimless, b.u.mping into each other, clumping together and breaking apart, filling the warehouse with the hiss of a slow scouring.

Mara jumped to her feet and pointed. "Ping, the sand is moving."