by Martha Carr
Mara looked back over at Eireka again but Eireka looked away. She wasn’t ready to let it go as easily.
“Okay, fair enough. Frankly, this is actually a better reception than I thought we might get. It’s true, Leira is not a Light Elf. She’s part Jaspar Elf, a large part, which explains the power she possesses.”
“And takes a few rules to get the energy to work with you. Otherwise, it can get away from you pretty quick and cause some damage to the user as well as the surrounding countryside.” Jackson pulled out a slice of pizza and bit, slurping up the melted cheese. “Damn, that is good,” he said, as he took another large bite.
“There’s a twist, though. It’s why I was in such a hurry to get Jackson. Leira is also part human on my side of the family. Not all magical beings come from Oriceran.” Mara let the boxes stop in front of her as she folded her hands over her plate. “There’s an old legend about human beings that some have one different chromosome that acts like a sentinel waiting for the right mixture of DNA to turn it on like a switch.”
“Wait! I’ve heard this story before. Toni told me about it one night at the Jackalope. But it’s supposed to be a myth.” Leira rubbed the top of Yumfuck’s head, wiping off as much grease as she could from his green fur.
He kept on chewing as his head bobbed around and Leira moved on to wiping his ears. “Yummmmm…”
“How did you manage to get it under your arms?”
“I’ll show you,” he chirped. The troll lowered his head and started biting at the piece in front of him, doing a slow crawl through the pizza. Leira plucked him out of the middle before he could get to the end, wrapping him in a paper towel and setting him back on the table. A large grease stain steadily spread across the brown paper.
“That one’s on me. I did ask you.”
“It’s not a myth,” said Mara. “But most people never know they have it. It lies dormant till it’s mixed in the right genetic soup. Even then, it might give someone what feels like heightened intuition or really good luck. Nobody connects the dots.”
“Mixing Jaspar Elf with my human side connected all the dots…” Leira looked up at Mara as the realization grew across her face.
“You knew… you knew all along, didn’t you?” Eireka rose up out of her seat. She jabbed her finger in the air in the direction of her mother, her eyes wide with amazement. “You did this!” She looked over at Jackson and back at her mother. “Wait… wait…” Her arms were stretched out in front of her, her fingers spread wide as if she was protecting herself against some unseen onslaught. “Jackson, did you stand me up? All those years ago, did you… did you get my message?”
Jackson looked at Mara for a moment as he answered. “I’m going to give a qualified no. Truth be told, I liked to drink a lot more back then. There’s a chance I got it and it just didn’t register.”
Mara looked relieved as Jackson leaned closer to her and whispered, “You owe me.”
“Can we get back to the present day? How is Leira in danger? Turner Underwood was already teaching Leira how to handle the energy,” said Correk.
“Not handle, I’ll bet. More like avoid. Am I right?” Jackson leaned over the table to grab one of the boxes in front of Mara, pulling out another slice. “I’m sorry I didn’t take to portals a long time ago,” he said, as he took a large bite.
The troll rolled himself into a fur ball and careened down the center, bouncing off a bottle or two like a pinball until he landed in front of the pizza boxes and crawled inside one. A loud trill echoed off the walls of the box as it jiggled.
Hagan stood up and reached across Correk for one of the pizza boxes. “Don’t mind me. Didn’t want to disturb your indignation.” He sat back down opening the box and found the troll sitting in the middle, smiling up at him. “You licked all of the slices, didn’t you?” The troll let out a cackle as Hagan sat back. Correk arched an eyebrow at him and passed another box to him.
“Very kind of you,” said Hagan. “This is one of the more interesting family dinners I’ve ever been to. Go back to what you were doing, continue.”
Jackson abruptly stood up as Correk leaned forward, his muscles tensing. “Easy big fellow. I’m just stretching. I was never a danger to anyone here. No one comment on that,” said Jackson, holding up his hand. “Alright, avoidance of the energy is only going to get you so far. Leira, right? Strange having to ask my own grown daughter if I got her name right. Look, the energy you feel is vast. Thought to be endless. Let’s just say no one has ever found the limits of magic and lived to come back and tell the rest of us. You can keep tamping it down, but something is going to happen that will catch you off guard and the energy will soar through you like a hurricane across the Sea of Rodania. When that happens, you may not be able to avoid anything.”
Correk stood up, stretching to his full height, his long silver hair hanging down to his shoulders. “But learning the rules would help her.”
Jackson eyed Correk with his chin tilted and looked over at Leira, the crooked grin returning to his face. “Save her. The rules would save her.”
“What are they?”
“Not that simple. Magic is never that simple. This is more of a show and do kind of lesson.”
Hagan scratched his chin and pointed at Jackson, taking in his entire appearance. “You mean to tell me, you’ve been living by these rules this whole time?”
“This look has taken me years to achieve and yes, I have but I still only have some of the energy that Leira must possess.”
Eireka rose out of her seat and placed the tips of her fingers on the table as she spoke slowly. Don rose to stand next to her, his arm around her shoulders. “This extra chromosome in our family line. You knew about it.” She looked pointedly at Mara. “And you knew about it?”
Jackson shrugged. “Mara, she’s got me on this one. Yes, Eireka I knew all along, but your mother asked me to keep it to myself. A lot of Oricerans feared Jaspar Elves. I was told at an early age to keep that one under wraps and I heard the stories.” He shook his head in disgust. “Might not have been true and probably weren’t. I mean, how could anyone capture a Jaspar Elf long enough to…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Thing is, magical beings feared that little quirk about humans just as much and a human being is a lot easier to capture on this world or the next. One thing I didn’t know about of course, is that the two lines had come together.”
Don slid his arm around Eireka’s waist and pulled her closer. “This is clearly a long story. Longer than one weird family dinner.”
“You’re right.” Eireka rested her head momentarily on Don’s shoulder, briefly smiling at Leira as pain crossed her face. “We can’t add any more to the story and Leira, it looks like you need to talk to your boss. We’re going to leave.”
“Eireka.”
“Not now, mother. Not here.” Eireka’s voice was strained but she did her best to smile at her mother. Family sticks together, especially when it’s the last thing I want to do. She took a long look at her daughter, instinctively sending out a thin stream of energy to wrap around her only child, checking on her. Leira felt the warm embrace and let it roll around her shoulders and run down her spine. It was as much to comfort her mother as it was something familiar and sane.
Leira looked at the two women as Correk leaned closer. “What are they doing? Are they reading minds all of a sudden?”
Leira rested her elbows on the table, leaning her chin on her hands. “Kind of. We have one family ethos that seems to be coming up a lot these days.”
Correk interrupted her. “If it’s the last good thing we do…”
Leira looked up surprised. “You remembered from our fight at the Driskill. This is going to be a hard one to work through, but they will.”
“You all will, but you’re not angry?”
“Royally pissed off. Wish there was somebody I could run down and put in handcuffs right about now. It’s why I’m going to wait a beat or two to ask a lot more questions of anyone I’m blood relate
d to. Less likely I’ll do something I’ll have to think about at night.”
“So, that’s your father. Explains a lot.”
“Careful Elf. I have a lightning bolt with your name on it.”
“Not in any Elf’s arsenal. You know, Berens, even when things get very freaky you’re still a very lucky woman with a family like that.”
Leira turned and looked at Correk with a crooked smile. “Freaky is in your vocabulary now? It’s the troll’s influence, isn’t it? Careful or those rounded ears won’t need a glamour anymore.” She looked back at her mother and grandmother. “This one may take some time to unravel. My father is alive and an Elf. A Jaspar Elf.” She startled and looked up at Correk. “We’re not cousins…”
Hagan looked back and forth at everyone around the table and leaned back in his chair. “I am definitely going to have to read Rose in. This is better than one of her soaps on TV but with magic.” He pounded his chest with the flat of his hand as he let out a wet belch. “Oof, ate that last piece too fast. This dinner theater may do me in one of these days.”
Leira looked over at Hagan and took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, puffing out her cheeks. “Mom’s right. Hell, Hagan’s even right on this one. This is bad theater. No way anything else is getting settled here today. Not like this. I say we call it and let everybody take a breath. Jackson comes with me.” Leira scooped up the troll in a pile of paper towels and held him out in front of her as she headed toward the door.
Hagan looked at Correk surprised. “You’re not going to insist on going along?”
“Leira’s armed and she has very powerful magic. She’ll be fine.” And there’s somewhere else I need to be right now.
“Wasn’t Leira I was worried about.”
Mara got up to go as Jackson tried to stop her. “You’re not even going to protest or ask me if I mind?”
“There’s no point in arguing with my granddaughter when she gets that look in her eye. Besides, this is why I brought you across the divide. Might as well get on with it and then you can get back to your shed and your dog.”
Chapter Three
Turner Underwood looked down at the Breguet watch on his wrist. “Right on time. Of course, I would expect that of a Light Elf.”
Correk marched across the patio as a few small stray leaves swirled around his cowboy boots.
“I heard about the family get-together. Jackson finally made his way to Earth. Surprised it took this long.” Turner Underwood looked out over Lake Anna from his well-manicured lawn as the sun set turning the large Texas sky red and purple.
He was dressed in a long dark wool overcoat, the bottom flapping in the cold breeze. A brown fedora with a striped ribbon around it was clamped down on his head. “Tempting to use a little magic and let the wind blow right around me. Would certainly be warmer. But then, what’s the fun in that? You try to make everything comfortable all the time, in my long experience you end up missing out on some great moments. Besides, it’s Austin and by tomorrow we’ll be back to balmy. I suppose this is our idea of a change in seasons. Would hate to miss it.”
Correk came and stood next to him, his hands clasped behind his back. He was dressed in his tunic and jeans, his eyes watering from the wind. The troll poked his head out just as the faint smell of pizza mixed with the air around him. Turner turned and smiled at Yumfuck. “Some guests enjoyed themselves at the dinner.”
“I won’t waste our time by asking how you could already know about Leira’s father showing up or even how you know him. Doesn’t matter, at least not to me. But you can answer a question for me that’s been bothering me.” Correk turned to look at Turner. “Are you equipped to help Leira learn everything she needs to know given her special circumstances?”
Turner pursed his lips and leaned on the silver handle of his cane. “Jackson has his doubts. Not surprised. My role was to mentor Leira, to be a guide and not to ensure anything. That is an assumption you were making. No one can guarantee that and if someone tries, thrash them with a fireball for being a damn liar. Dangerous business.”
Correk folded his arms across his chest. “Tell me about the Jaspar Elves.”
“I will answer your question, mostly because you won’t be able to focus until I do but it’s the last one today. I asked you here to discuss something else that is more important.” Turner easily made his way up the stone steps to the patio, tapping his cane on each step. “Take a seat.” He slowly lowered himself down into one of the wrought iron chairs around the large glass-topped table and settled back, adjusting his coat. “Where to start, exactly?”
Correk sat down across the table from him as the troll jumped out of his pocket and down his leg, scampering across the lawn to investigate the bushes. Turner smiled broadly as he watched, balancing his hands on his cane. “Some of the smartest creatures… Some would say smarter than an Elf.” Turner Underwood jabbed at the air letting out a hearty laugh, but he could see Correk was not in the mood. He arched an eyebrow and started into the story again. “I suppose I could tell you about the times when Jaspar Elves were more common.”
“I’m only interested in the parts that affect Leira.”
Turner shut his eyes, nodding his head. “A good sign for our eventual conversation. Fine, I will cut to the chase, then.” His deep-set eyes opened slowly as they narrowed, studying Correk as he talked. “Magic is another name for energy. It’s like electricity in this world. It’s unseen and all around us, all at once.” He waved his hand in the air, dragging streams of colored light that formed into different shapes of dragons, pixies and trolls, scattering into sparks that floated up into the sky. “It isn’t until someone can harness it that things change.” He formed a ball of light in his hands and reshaped it like a pillow, sliding the light behind his back.
“A first-year child on Oriceran knows all of this.” Correk was growing irritated and his eyes glowed momentarily as the old injury sent an ache through his body.
“Don’t interrupt a fucking old Elf. I’ll tell the tale the way I want to, Correk. You came to me for answers. Try trusting that I know how to set the truth free. Where was I? Ah yes, the energy of it all. Magical beings are all like the hose from a garden. Energy passes through us but isn’t ours to keep for very long. Some beings can let more energy pass though and others are better at manipulating the hell out of what is available to them. But not one of them ever merges with the energy. Turn it off and you are back to your regular self. You see it now, right? That comparison to electricity was necessary.”
Correk gave him a hard stare, waiting for the next part of the story. His lips were pressed together in a thin, determined line.
Turner tapped his cane hard on the grey slate in frustration. “Do not act as if this is a crisis, Elf! It’s a sure way to cause harm. There is always time to pause and think before you act. Always.”
Correk bristled and snapped, “I did what had to be done against Rhazdon.”
“I would agree. Again, you assume without gathering information. There is a lot for you to learn, still. But first, let me finish answering your one question,” Turner said, pointedly.
The troll suddenly rolled swiftly out from under a bush covered in peat moss as a mouse peeked out from the rhododendrons and just as quickly disappeared again. The troll let out a cackle and set off to follow it.
“Jaspar Elves are the same as any other magical being. They don’t absorb magic, but they can channel a far larger quantity and are very clever at bending the shit out of it. I long suspected Jackson was really at least part Jaspar. Damn clever of him to keep it quiet by living in humble surroundings. There’s far more he could do if he ever chose to.”
“Says even more about him that with all his gifts he chose to be a scavenger.”
“Just one more of nature’s recyclers.” Turner held his arm out wide. “Another clever ruse. His ability to detect the more powerful artifacts would be even more keen than even your own skill set. Yes, it’s true. Get your fucking hackles
up if you need to, won’t change a thing. You might miss a detail like that, but he wouldn’t. Sometimes I wonder what’s buried out at that cabin in the woods. But, that’s another day. He’s even been able to teach a lot of his finer skills to his young protege, Louie. Be glad he’s on our side now. That young Wizard has some mad skills. Alright, I’ll get on with it but patience will be required of you in the coming days, mark my words. Leira brings an ancient spark of humanity into the mix and this combination is even more rare than a Jaspar Elf. It was rare even back then and…”
Turner hesitated, letting out a gruff cough and clearing his throat. “There are no stories of anyone living to be an old Elf like myself who had the combination but…” He held up his hand to stop Correk. “There’s also a good reason why that might be. A wise parent would have hidden the child and spirited them away. It’s the same way that the few remaining Jaspar Elves have managed to live amongst the Oricerans peacefully. It’s possible…”
“But not likely.” Correk finished the sentence for him. “The power got away from them at an accelerated speed, didn’t it?”
“Most likely. The light drew them in until they merged with it. That’s the point of this tale. The combination of that spark of humanity means that Leira doesn’t just take energy in and then let it go. She is slowly becoming one with it. Her very being is becoming a vessel for the magic.”
The color drained from Correk’s face as his eyes widened. “You’re saying she’s becoming a living artifact.” He gripped the sides of his chair.