The Leira Chronicles- The Complete Austin Series

by Martha Carr

“It’s my mother. She’s coming home.”

  Not the words she had expected to start with but there it was. She wanted to tell someone that it was real. It was official. And she couldn’t think of anyone else, besides Correk. He was due back any moment. My cousin. I want all of my family to know.

  “My mother is coming home. Tomorrow.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “Fucking amazing!”

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a month of Sundays.”

  “Beer’s on me!” Estelle was loading up the bar with a beer for each of the regulars.

  “Damn, this is a big occasion. Estelle is buying!” Mike started grabbing bottles and passing them around before Estelle could change her mind.

  “And I quit my job.” Damn, that was not the way I wanted to say any of this. She smiled as a tear rolled down her face. “Oh fuck, I’m not good at happy.”

  “Okay, so, you’re happy you quit. I’m not sure I get that.”

  “I got offered another job. With the Feds. I’m a new agent in paranormal.” She wiped her face on the edge of her shirt. “I start Monday.” Everyone started talking at her at once.

  “That makes all the difference, honey. You should have started with that.”

  “Holy crap, you’re joining the X Files!”

  “Does that make you Fox or Scully?”

  “Scully, smart guy. The woman.”

  “The feds really do believe something’s out there. Wow!”

  “Here, take your beer!”

  “Is it a party?” Correk strolled up next to her as if he was always on this side of the veil, his feet on Earth. He looked well rested and calm.

  “Her mother’s coming home!”

  “Tomorrow!”

  “And aliens really do exist!”

  “And Leira Berens is going to track them down.”

  “Here, take a beer! They’re on Estelle.”

  “Just the first round!”

  “That is a lot of news to take in.” Correk smiled and held up his bottle. “To Leira Berens. May she always know friends, family and all good things!”

  “Hear, hear!”

  She curled her toes, determined not to do the ugly cry. Fucking feelings. She smiled as she took a nice large swig of her beer. To all good things.

  “Correk you ever think about joining a bowling team, you have go to with the Pin Pushers.” Estelle cackled, looking up at the scoreboard. “Damn, boy, you are bowling a near perfect game.”

  Leira got up to take her turn, a lopsided grin still plastered on her face. Everything seemed a little easier. She stepped up to the line and rolled the ball, feeling a whizz of energy course through her as the ball sailed down the alley, curving just so, taking out all the pins. She smiled with satisfaction and went back to sit down.

  “You might want to try and get a couple of spares,” Correk whispered. “Now that you know what you can do, you have to show discretion.”

  “I’m just so damned happy.”

  “That’s a combination of magic, beer and a little good news for a change. You’re high as a kite.” He looked at her sitting there, sipping her beer, smiling and waving at people. “Never mind. Enjoy your night. Life will intrude again, soon enough. Everyone deserves a night like this and you have earned it, and then some.”

  “Feelings are not all bad,” Leira snickered.

  Correk leaned in to tell her, “Like I said, you’re high on magic. Enjoy it. The hangover is a bitch. But I have to say, it’s generally worth it. Just don’t go making strikes from here without getting up. No, Berens, that wasn’t a suggestion.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Leira stood in her mother’s room shaking with rage. Her mother stood quietly next to her, holding her hand as she looked around the room. An old wooden dresser painted white and a single bed with a metal frame. Not much more than a cot with a thin mattress. It didn’t help that she was fighting a magic hangover and was seeing the world through a fog. It felt like she was moving through mud.

  Correk paced around the room, grunting and swearing under his breath as he stopped at various points in the small room. He touched the windowsill, rubbing off grime with his finger, shaking his head.

  He was doing his best not to unleash a fireball and send a horde of nits down the pants of everyone who worked there. Leira considered it but in the end vetoed the idea. Still, she was saving the idea for later, in case she changed her mind.

  Eireka Berens was determined to be very still until she was safely on the other side of the many locked doors. There was nothing worth saying that she couldn’t rant about later. Right now, she just wanted out.

  Still, standing there feeling the warmth of her daughter’s hand in hers was something to savor. Fifteen years. She had held her hand many times in the years since she was first locked up. But never with the knowledge of freedom just on the other side. She smiled at her daughter, channeling small bits of magic to soothe and calm her. To mother her.

  “Alright, well, your paperwork is certainly in order.” The floor nurse, a large woman with a short bob wore a tight, pinched smile. Her lips were a garish red. She blocked their exit for a moment but Correk stepped forward, willing to lift the woman over his head and throw her like a javelin, if that’s what it took to leave the place.

  She took one look at him and quickly shuffled out of the way, holding the papers to her chest. “Haba, haba, haba,” she mumbled, opening and shutting her mouth like a fish.

  Leira squeezed her mother’s hand and led her out of the room, feeling the pulses passing from her mother and into her palm, and up her arm into her chest.

  “It’s going to be okay, Mom. That bitch will not stop us. Not today. No one will.”

  Eireka smiled at her daughter. At the word Mom. It was worth the wait. It was worth every fucking year. “I knew you’d figure it out. I knew.”

  “Go on out to the car. I want to find the doctor in charge. The man who kept her in here all these years.” Correk was so angry his eyes were flashing light out of the corners.

  “Not a good idea. You’ll turn him into a donkey.”

  “Old wives tale, but if I could… Go on, I just want a word. We’re leaving, but all of these other people are not. Go. I’ll only be a minute.”

  “I’m coming in, fireballs blazing if you get yourself stuck in there.”

  “These motherfuckers cannot hold a fully charged adult male Light Elf,” he snarled.

  “Nice time to finally pull out all the big words. I like it.”

  “I met your father,” said Eireka, smiling at Correk.

  He stopped mid-swear and looked at her, searching her face like he couldn’t have heard her right.

  “It’s true. You look just like him.”

  Leira saw the pain on Correk’s face. “We can all talk about this later. We need to get out of here. I don’t like being here one minute longer than we have to. Go say your piece. Don’t injure anyone, and get the fuck out of there as soon as possible.”

  Leira didn’t wait for an answer. The reprieve felt fragile standing so close to the door. She put her arm around her mother and gently pushed her forward and out, into the air.

  They made their way quickly to the green Mustang but as Leira held open the passenger side door, Eireka hesitated. She threw her head back, closing her eyes and breathing in deeply. “Fifteen years,” she said, softly, barely above a whisper. “The air really does smell sweeter out here.”

  Correk watched them walk down the stairs, stunned at what Eireka had said. “How is that possible?” he muttered.

  “Can I help you?”

  An orderly eyed him up and down as if he was trying to decide if he was looking at a visitor or a new patient. Correk tapped the visitor’s badge clipped to his jacket.

  “I want to see whoever’s in charge.”

  “Do you have an appointment? If you don’t have an appointment, that won’t be possible. I suggest calling on the phone first and then come back.”


  Correk let the magic rise up in him, his eyes starting to glow and the fiery symbols scrolling across his skin.

  The orderly stumbled back, reaching for the wall behind him.

  “Never was, never will be.” Correk spun a fireball over the man, leaving just a few nits in his pants. “A compromise.”

  He spun another fireball and whispered into it, following it as it rocketed down the hallway and up a flight of stairs before stopping in front of a door. He called it back to him, letting it dissolve in his hand and went up, and opened the door.

  “What the hell?” The director stood up, splashing his coffee. “Dammit!” He mopped at it, pulling a wad of Kleenex from the box on his desk.

  Correk quietly closed and locked the door behind him. Without saying a word he spun a fiery red ball of light in his hands, his eyes aglow, the symbols returning. He stepped forward and whispered into the ball, sending it spinning around the director.

  “You will work tirelessly for the rest of your life to improve the quality of care for everyone who comes through these doors or I will return.” The fireball spun faster, finally slamming into the man’s chest and seeping into his shirt, and under his skin. “Think of it as a GPS that will not only tell me where you are, but what you’re doing. I will always know. Veer from your mission and I will get angry. You don’t want to see me angry. Tell anyone, and prepare to join the people you have treated so miserably and become one of their own. This I swear.”

  Correk let the magic subside within him and opened the door, striding out and down the hallway. The director collapsed into his chair, throwing up his breakfast into his metal wastebasket.

  Correk kept going till he got to the parking lot. Once he was there he turned around so that Leira couldn’t see him and sent one more fireball back toward the building. “One outbreak of nits among the staff is not even a start at being enough.”

  Mara Berens was getting better at navigating through the ether, pushing her will in front of her and letting her body follow. The poltergeist kept his word and showed her how to talk to the living still in the world. She kept hers and agreed to hide him long enough for him to visit his family. It turned out he was too afraid to get near them and reveal their whereabouts to the darker forces caroming through the world in between.

  If you want it to work, I have to go with you. It was true, but she also wanted to be sure he wasn’t going to try and drag someone into the world in between with them. That was more than she could bear.

  Suit yourself. They moved through the world in between, pushing aside wormholes that led to different places until they got to one he recognized and went through. She could feel how eager he was to get to where they were going.

  On the other side was a bedroom with faded wallpaper and a matching set of oak furniture.

  That’s my wife. Would have been married fifty-two years this year.

  He found his wife folding clothes and putting them away in their old bedroom, whistling a song from a commercial playing on the TV in the background. Can’t startle her. Need to start slow.

  What are you going to do? Mara still wasn’t sure this was going to end well.

  Watch and learn. He focused his attention and let go of his will, sending it out ahead of himself to the wilted cut flowers in a blue ceramic vase on top of the dresser. They sprang back to life, lifting their heads, the leaves turning green again.

  His wife turned and stared at the flowers, clutching a pile of underwear.

  He turned his attention to the towels still jumbled in a pile on the bed and let his will fold one into a perfect square.

  That should impress her. Couldn’t get me to do laundry when I was alive. I wasn’t the best around the house.

  The woman sat down on the edge of the bed and slowly reached toward the towel, gently touching the edges.

  See? Now she’s ready. He pushed his will out again, his expression softening as he touched her hand. She shivered at the sudden cold blast of air in the room.

  “Edward? Is that you?”

  He smiled, pushing further and a small drawer at the top of the dresser opened. The contents flew into the air, tumbling in a sudden wind until a card separated itself out, falling gently into his wife’s lap. Inside it read, Happy 40th Anniversary! To the most beautiful woman I will ever meet. Thank you for loving me. With all my heart. Edward. xoxo.

  He put his chin down to his chest, smiling, sending out his love to surround his wife.

  “I never… where did this… why Edward,” she said pressing the card to her chest, looking up at the ceiling.

  They always think you have to be up there. Isn’t she beautiful?

  “Drew! Elizabeth! Look what I found!”

  A man and a woman came rushing into the room, followed by small children who climbed on the bed.

  Grandkids.

  Mara looked at him and realized all he had lost. I’m sorry.

  My fault. I stepped off a curb too quick. Didn’t look. Thanks for this. Now I can go.

  Mara turned to go but as she did a bright light opened up a tear in the world in between, bathing Edward in it. His head was round again and his teeth were no longer broken.

  Don’t come too close. It’s not your time yet. Find whoever it is you have to, but be careful. There are always darker things in here looking for ways to amuse themselves.

  He let himself fall into the light and was sucked out of the world in between as if he was drawn into vacuum. Mara was all alone. There’s a way out. The loneliness was overtaking her. Alone.

  Except for the people in the room. They were hugging and holding hands and admiring the card.

  Leira. Mara focused her will and felt herself get pulled back through the wormhole. She moved steadily through the gelatinous ether, searching through different wormholes, feeling for something familiar until finally she found it. She had no idea how much time it had taken or where she would come out.

  But she knew. Leira was near. The energy was strong.

  She peered through the ether and saw the green Mustang in the parking lot of the hospital. Leira was sitting behind the wheel.

  Focus.

  She sent her will out ahead of her, through the windows of the car, moving around Leira and the other occupants.

  There’s something else here that’s familiar. The memories flooded back into her. She pulled herself closer until she could see who else was in the car.

  Eireka! She tried to focus and send her will around her family but it was gone. The wormhole pulled her in, spinning her around and dumping her in an old train station somewhere in New Jersey.

  In the Mustang, Eireka felt the swirl of cold energy move around her and looked up, recognizing the traces of magic it left behind. “Mama.” She reached out, putting her hand on the window but it was too late. The feeling was gone.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I get it. It’s okay. You didn’t have to buy me breakfast tacos.” Hagan and Leira were sitting at one of the picnic tables set up around the food trucks in the lot on Rainey Street.

  “Think of it as more of a celebration breakfast than anything else. I didn’t get to buy you that drink last night.

  “Date night with Rose, you know,” said Hagan.

  Leira gave a crooked smile. “Thanks for meeting me here. I don’t want to get too far away from my mother for a few days. She may have magical abilities but she was still confined for fifteen years.”

  “I get it, kid. You know, it takes time. The worry. It’ll take a while before you stop tensing every time you don’t find her right away or she doesn’t answer the phone. Phones! Have you shown her your iPhone yet? For that matter did you show the big guy one of those? Blow their minds!” Hagan took a hearty bite of his taco. “Still, I get it. It was a nice change of pace clearing those cases like we did.”

  “Chew a little more, would you?”

  “Sorry. So used to getting five bites and then having to dump the whole thing and run somewhere.”

  “I�
�ve never seen you dump food the whole time I’ve worked with you.”

  Hagan laughed, taking another bite. “Sounded good, though, didn’t it?”

  “You know it’s not about the government job.”

  “I hear those jobs pay well. Better than here. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not the job. It’s the magic. Eventually, I was going to get found out. I couldn’t use magic on the force and I was finding it impossible to not help someone by pulling out a little something. This way I can use the magic and do some good without getting into some kind of bad situation.”

  Hagan stopped eating and licked his lips. “You got them to let your mother out, didn’t you? That was what you wanted.” He nodded his head. “Well done, kid. I like a partner who sticks up for their family first. I would have done the same.” He took another bite, pulling Leira’s tray toward him. “You still made them pay you some real cha-ching though, right? Good job!”

  “No, go ahead. I can get more.” Leira watched him take one of her tacos. “Surely, Rose lets you eat.”

  “I was in a hurry this morning. The captain said I had to find you before I could come in. I didn’t know if it was good or bad news. Found it hard to eat.”

  Leira raised an eyebrow. “That is news.”

  “You gonna stay in touch? Send me a picture from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.”

  “I’m not going to D.C. Another condition of mine. I’m staying right here. You and I can still catch a beer once in a while.”

  “And if I ever need some help?”

  “If you or Rose ever need help, I’m your first phone call. Don’t insult me. If you mean, with a case. I’m sure there will be times we need to work together again.”

  “Then we’re all good. Hey, do you have to leave the car? Don’t tell me. Another condition. I taught you right, kid. You went for the gold.” He licked each of his fingers, smacking his lips. “I only have two problems left. Whatever mook they stick me with next that I have to break in and well,” he looked down at his lap before looking up at Leira, “I might have run over a section of Rose’s flowerbed. She is not happy with me. Mostly because I tried to replace them with some flowers I got at Lowe’s. Apparently there was more of a system to the whole thing than I realized. She said I messed up her placement. Anyway, I’m in the doghouse for now.” He rolled his eyes, and shrugged. “What are you gonna do? She’s stuck with me.”