Queen of the Magnetland (The Elemental Phases Book 5) (9 page)

It
made her uneasy.  Mara dropped her eyes.

Maybe
she was just imagining the change.

“Mara
would be able to think of something to tell me.”  Chason pressed when she
didn’t say anything else.

For
some reason, that annoyed her.  “Would I?”

“Yes. 
What about nicknames?”

“What
about them?”

“Well,
Mara used to call me one.”

“No,
I didn’t.”  Mara was sure of that.  She never even called him “Chase,” the way
some of the other Phases did.  It had always seemed too informal, somehow. 
Almost presumptuous.  “We never called each other by any nicknames, at all.”

“Yes,
you did.”  He insisted.

He
must be trying to trick her, again.  “If you think that, then you’re
remembering it wrong.”  Mara reached her bedroom door and found it locked
tight.  She looked up at him expectantly.  “Key?”

He
regarded her stubbornly.  “What did she used to call me?”

Mara’s
temper sparked, the situation pushing her emotions much closer to the surface
than usual.  “Oh for God’s sake!  I’ve had a terrible day and I’m tired.  If
you don’t think I’m Mara,
fine
.  I’ll leave.  I don’t want to stay here,
anyway.”  She took a step back, prepared to jump to anyplace and not caring
what Chason might do in response.  “Everything’s changed and I…”

Chason’s
hand quickly grabbed her wrist, stopping her.  “
Of course
you don’t want
to be here.”  He retorted.  “You’d much rather be in the Light Kingdom.  You
always have.  That’s the first thing you’ve said that I actually believe comes
from Mara.  She
never
wanted to be here.  She wanted to be a Light Phase,
but you’re
not
.  You always belonged
here
.”

His
mixed pronouns confused her, but she certainly got the gist of that.  “Meaning
what?  I was a bad Match to you because I missed my home?”

“
This
is your home!
”  It came out as a roar.

His
Magnet powers spiked on the surge of emotion.  Crashing out against his will,
they shook the entire fortress.  Mara could feel the magnetic rock of the
castle pulling towards them and it scared her how quickly he could spin out of
control.  Chason had never been anything but contained and in charge of his
energy.  He was too powerful to let himself be so volatile.

What
was going on with him?

“Let
me go.”  She wrenched against his hold.  “Right now.”

His
mouth parted like he was even more shocked by the outburst than she was.  “I’m
sorry.”  He released her.  “I shouldn’t have… I just didn’t want you to go
and…”

“What’s
happened to you?”  Mara interrupted.  “You’ve never shouted at me before.  You
never lost control of your powers.  Why are you acting this way?”

“I…” 
He trailed off and stared down at her helplessly.  “I’m no longer myself.”  He
finally whispered, looking appalled.  “Forgive me.”

Mara
suddenly saw her chivalrous Match inside of this grim specter.  Buried deep,
but still there.  It made her feel grounded, again.  “Of course.”  She would
have forgiven him anything.  “I’m sorry I lost my temper with you, too.”

Only
she… wasn’t.

She
should
have been.  Seconds after losing her patience with Chason, she
inevitably felt terrible.  Her Match was such a good person.  Such an honorable
man.  He did the best he could for so many people.  It was unfair to expect
even more from him.  But right now, Mara didn’t care about being fair.  She
cared about figuring out how to rebuild her life.

And
about taking a shower.

Chason
hesitated for a moment and then he moved forward to unlock the door for her.  “Mara
called me ‘darling.’”  He reported quietly.

“I
did?  When?”

“On
our first anniversary.  I got her the record player as a gift and she said,
‘Darling, thank you.’”

Mara
thought about that.  She’d been overwhelmed with the present… and that he’d
remembered their anniversary.  It
was
possible that she had called him ‘darling,’
that day.  Ordinarily, she never would have, because they just didn’t have that
sort of Match.  But, it had been early in their relationship and she’d been so
much younger, then.

Still,
saying it once, didn’t really count as a
nickname
.  At least, not in her
mind.  Why would he even recall such a small thing?  “I’m sure you’re right, I
just honestly don’t remember.”

His
jaw tightened.  “It wasn’t important.”

Only
it apparently had been to him.  She could hear it in his voice.

Mara
felt a stab of guilt.  “I do remember getting the Victrola.  You gave me stacks
of records to go with it and I played them all night.  Big Band music, mostly. 
Your father was so annoyed.”

He
pushed open the door.  “My father was always annoyed.”

Mara
might have responded to that, but she was too busy gaping at her bedroom.  The
rest of the fortress had been decimated, but this one spot was exactly the
same.  Everything was clean and cared for.  Even the horrible wallpaper
remained pristine.  It was a time capsule.

Mara
stepped inside, moving towards the bed.

She’d
died in this room.

It
fully hit her, how much had really happened.  She’d missed two full years being
dead, lost somewhere between life and death, darkness and light.  For two
years, the world had gone on without her, while she lay there forgotten.  It
felt like a stranger lived here, now.

“The
last thing I remember is a Time Phase giving me this necklace.”  Mara reached
up to touch it, keeping her eyes on the mattress.  “She was the last person I
saw.”

Chason’s
jaw ticked.

Mara
didn’t notice.  “Her name was Daphne. She came into my room and I closed my
eyes.  And, when I opened them, everything was… different.”

Chason
didn’t like hearing that.  “There’s no such person as Daphne, of the Time
House.  I would’ve heard of her.”

“She
must not be born yet, then.  She said she was from the future.”

“And
she killed herself to travel back in time and give you an ugly necklace?”

Mara
shook her head.  “Daphne said time jumping wouldn’t kill her.”

“It
kills
all
Time Phases who try it.  Every child knows that.  It’s why
they aren’t all selling us stock tips.”

She
shot him a glare.  “I thought I knew that, too.  Until
yesterday
, when I
saw Daphne time jump and not die.”

“Yesterday? 
According to your previous story, that happened two years ago.”

“Maybe
from
your
perspective.  From
my
perspective, this is all like a Washington
Irving story.  Daphne was in this room with me
yesterday
, only now two
years have passed.”  Mara rubbed her arms, aware of a chill.  “Look, I’m sure how
she did it.  I just know what happened.  But since I was here and you weren’t,
I think
I
should be the judge of what I saw.”

“Or
you’re lying.”

“You
didn’t used to be this suspicious.”

“I
didn’t have to be, did I?  The world’s a different fucking place, since Mara
died.”

“Don’t
you swear at me, Chason!”  Being upset was one thing, but Mara refused to
tolerate rudeness.  “I put up with it from Kahn, but you know better.  Now,
obviously, you’re going through something.  And I’m sorry about that.  I’m
sorry if all this has inconvenienced you.”

His
eyes narrowed.  “
Inconvenienced
me?”  He echoed softly.

“Yes.”
 She let out a shaky breath.  “You’re upset.  Obviously.  But, try to look at this
from my point of view.  I went to sleep and woke-up in a disaster film.  If
you’re not sure who
I
am, imagine how hard it is for
me
to adjust
to
you
.  You’re swearing and shouting and I think you’ve been drinking.  You
don’t even look like you, anymore.  When’s the last time you ate?”

Silence. 
“I don’t know.”  He finally admitted.

“Well,
you’re too thin.”  He’d probably lost forty pounds since the Fall and he’d
never been a heavy man.  His clothes hung off of him.  “You look terrible,
Chason.”

“I
know.  And you look exactly the same.”

She
nearly rolled her eyes at that.  “Since I was dying of the plague the last time
you saw me, I hope I look at least marginally better.  I
know
I smelled
better.”

Chason
never really appreciated her occasionally morbid sense of humor.  He glanced
away.  “You always look beautiful.”

Mara
nearly smiled at that.  “Thank you.”  He was so rarely open with compliments
that…  Wait.   She glanced towards the bed, remembering the final moments they’d
spent together before she died.  “You’re the only light in my world.”   She
repeated from memory.

His
head snapped around.  “What?”  It was barely a sound.

“You’re
the only light in my world.”   Those were the final words he’d said to her. 
She met his eyes.  “Who else but me would know you said that?”

Chason’s
lips parted.  Something desperate and wild flashed in his purple gaze.  Something
not sane.  “What’s the last thing you said to me?”  He demanded, prowling into
the room.

It
took everything in her not to back-up.  “I called your name and asked you not
to go.”

“And
before that?”

Mara
tried to think.  That period was so clouded with pain and delirium that,
honestly, she didn’t want to relive it.  “Umm… I told you that I wished we
could have been happier.”

Chason
squeezed his eyes shut.

“And
that I love you, Chason.  Forever and then some.”

“Oh
God.”  It came out on a shudder.  The heels of his palms pressed into his eye
sockets and he gave an off kilter, slightly crazed laugh.  “It’s finally happened. 
I knew it.  I’m finally insane.”  When he looked at her, again, his gaze was
swimming with longing and something close to madness.  “Christ, I don’t even
care.”  He stalked closer to her, only to stop when she unconsciously retreated
a step.

“You’re
not insane.”  But, he was doing a pretty good imitation of it.  She’d been
wrong earlier.  Apparently, Chason
could
frighten her.  Mara didn’t know
what to make of his careening emotions and instability.  “I’m real, not a ghost
or some figment of your imagination.  I promise you I’m
really here
.”

“Prove
it.”

Mara
frowned and then moved towards the bed.  “Did you change this mattress after I
died?”

“No.”

“Great. 
And I get to sleep on it.  That’s not creepy, at
all
.”  Mara reached under
the pillow and extracted her favorite notebook.  She always had it with her.  One
of the final things she’d done before she died was to write that list of her
unfilled dreams.

Chason’s
eyes widened in something like amazement.

Mara
had no idea why.  Most of the notebook was just filled with word puzzles and
random scribbling that no one else could ever hope to understand.  She liked
playing with codes and languages.

Tharsis,
of the Water House had once tried to hire her as a translator for the
university, but Chason’s father wouldn’t hear of such a thing.  The Magnet
Queen didn’t work at anything except being the Magnet Queen.

Another
instance where she should have rocked the boat.

Unclipping
the pen, Mara flipped to a blank section and scrawled three words in looping
cursive letters.  “Here.”  She tore the page free and held it out to him.

He
slowly reached out his hand.  His fingers shook and they very gently brushed
against hers as he took hold of the paper.

Mara
felt a jolt shoot through her.  Their energy was different now, but for some
reason, the brief contact with his bare skin was far more distracting than it
had ever been before.  She sucked in a surprised breath, her whole hand tingling
and her powers automatically tuning towards his.

Chason
flinched as if he felt it too and was still convinced he was crazy.  He quickly
turned his attention to the paper.  “Mara is real.”  He read aloud, his voice
flat.

“Yes.” 
She cleared her throat and tried to concentrate.  “I’m real.”

“I
no longer see ‘reality’.”  He said starkly.

“
I’m
real
, Chason.  That note’s in my handwriting, not yours.”  There was no
way to mistake his neat copybook penmanship for her large free flowing script. 
“Whenever you start doubting if I exist, you can look at it and
know
I’m
real.  I mean, it says so right there in black and white.”  She hesitated and
looked down at her sparkly pen.  “Well, lavender and white.”

Chason
didn’t say anything to that.  He just stared down at the words and then swallowed
hard.

He
needed her.