Inside, the warm glow of muted ochre hallways greeted her, and Abbey found herself tilting her head several centimeters above Simon’s teenage height to look her brother in the eye. His hair was still deep brown and shaggy and, despite some crinkles around his eyes, his skin, although pale, remained supple and youthful. He looked far younger than the older Caleb. A gold band gleamed on Simon’s ring finger and he wore a well-cut khaki jumpsuit of a design similar to hers. Her heart accelerated a little. Even though Simon in real time, or present time, Abbey amended, was at this very moment in jail, he would be okay somehow. He would grow up and have a business, and a wife, and be okay. She hoped.
“I was wondering if you might show up,” he said.
“You were?”
“Yup. Of course, I couldn’t be sure if the timelines had changed and just Caleb would come.”
“So Caleb and I told the younger you about this meeting?”
“You said you saw the older me. More than once, apparently.”
Abbey nodded and looked around Simon to the open door of the office she had just peered into from outside, and lowered her voice. “Did we tell Caleb about his future?”
Simon pressed his lips together as if he was trying to decide what to say. “Yes. But he doesn’t know yet. Tell him when you get back. But only as much as he needs to know. But you must never do anything too extreme on this side of the stones. Caleb came here looking for me because he overheard you accuse Sylvain of extorting him to sabotage my company. He wanted to know if that was true. But I haven’t told him much, other than that I’m fine.”
“Have you seen the older Caleb? Is he okay?” Abbey hissed, but then widened her eyes because the younger Caleb had appeared in the door to the office like an angry orange shadow.
Simon gave a tight smile, and a sharp frisson of alarm shot through her. What wasn’t Simon telling her about Caleb? “Let’s go into my office and talk about what we can talk about.”
Abbey and Caleb settled into the armchairs across from Simon’s desk. The office was painted in warm brown tones and well lit, a far cry from the dark room the current Simon favored. A photo frame sat on his desk facing him, and as she’d walked past, Abbey had glimpsed the outlines of a family of four in the photo.
“Okay so here’s what you need to know, I think,” he said. “I’ve already reassured Caleb that what happens, happens, and that he shouldn’t feel guilty for what his future self has to do. Even if someone destroyed my company now, I’ve made enough money to support my family well into the future, and for me, it was, and will always be, the creative process that excites me. Sylvain cannot take that away from me no matter what he does to Sinclair Systems.”
“So Sylvain is bad then?” Abbey said, feeling a small note of panic that she had left Mark in his care.
“I don’t think I should answer that. I’m really unsure what, if anything, I should tell you. Based on what I learned about this timeline when I came first visited here from the past, the timeline I’m in now seems to have changed. That is to say, what I see now is not exactly what I saw then. Maybe that’s normal. Maybe the timeline is always constantly in flux. Maybe there are millions of parallel futures that in many ways are mirrors of each other, and differ based on just one tiny different action or outcome of events.” Simon paused, and gave her one of his earnest looks. “Or maybe our actions, or the actions of some of the other so-called witches, are causing this timeline instability. You and Caleb need to go get Mark, go home, make up, and stick together—because Abbey, as you know, something big is coming.”
Simon flicked his eyes to the photo and then seemed to shift his eyes to the granular pattern of wood on his desk before raising them back to Abbey and Caleb. “Time travel in a way allows you to play God. There are things that happened in the past, or at least that happened on the timeline that I lived, that I know we’re all going to think we should change. And when you can potentially change things, the temptation to do so is very strong. But there are also things that have happened over the course of my life to date that I don’t want to erase, and I’m sure the same will be true for your futures, too. The risk is, when you try to change one thing, it can change everything else, too—including the things that you don’t want changed.” He paused. “But I’m beginning to wonder if the stones make time circular. If every time we have this conversation, you go back and do something different, intentionally or not, or someone else does, and then my past changes and I can no longer remember my previous past. So I tell you not to change the past, when in fact changing the past is inevitable for someone who has traveled to the future—and we’re trapped in this bloody cycle until someone destroys those wretched stones.”
Destroy the stones? The suggestion cut almost to some sort of core of Abbey’s being. She darted a look at Caleb, to see if he was similarly affected, but he stared straight ahead.
Simon glanced at his wristwatch. “You should go.”
*****
Mark shifted through the fourth set of maps Kasey had plunked down on the table in front of him. These ones were of Coventry City in the late 1880s. They were stylized with extravagant typography, drawings instead of symbols, and hachures for relief. The grid pattern of streets now extended out a few kilometers from the Moon River, unlike the first several sets of maps he had examined from the previous century. He flipped through the maps: Streets and Railway Stations; Hotels, Apartments, Libraries, Schools, and Churches; and Police Districts. He probably should have given Kasey more direction with regard to what he was looking for, but then again, he wasn’t totally sure himself. What would he ask for? Strange unidentified dots in an unusual arrangement?
He slipped out one of the undated maps from Dr. Ford and compared the grid pattern of the street and the curvature of the river with those on the maps from the library. These matched, unlike the ones from the 1780s that he had started with. Mark experienced a small tendril of excitement. He was in the right century then. In fact, these almost looked like the same mapmaker: the North arrow styling and flourishes around the landmarks were similar, although the scale of the maps from Dr. Ford was much reduced. He examined each of the library maps carefully. But nowhere on any of the maps from the library could Mark find reference to, or evidence of, the four small black dots that appeared on one of the maps from Dr. Ford’s office.
He had almost missed those dots at first. They were so faint, almost just flecks that could have been considered imperfections in the paper. He had only noticed them because the spacing between the flecks seemed somehow regular. Two were equidistant from the third, and if he connected the dots with a single line, the two internal angles would both be at seventy degrees, which he thought was strange because flecks were usually more random (and he’d spent a lot of time studying flecks). The three southernmost dots formed an isoceles triangle in the downtown core of Coventry, while the northern dot was in the middle of an orchard that occupied the upper part of the valley in which Coventry nestled. He laid the onion skin paper onto which he had hastily traced the four dots and a few other key Coventry landmarks on the desk.
Mark raised his eyes and looked around. Aside from Kasey, he was the only person in the map room. The activity on the first floor beneath him emitted a faint hum, but the general atmosphere of the library was calming. The night formed a bleak backdrop against the large windows on the east side of the building, and the fluorescent lights in the ceiling a floor above him cast an institutional glow on the building. But small desk lamps occupied the tables in the map room, giving the workspace a homey feel.
Mark checked his new Garmin Forerunner watch. It was almost eight. He had to use the bathroom, but not urgently yet. This was the longest he had ever spent voluntarily in a public space, aside from his wait outside Dr. Ford’s office, and time in the hospital with his mother. He had been given to understand that university students spent hours on end in libraries. This had always scared him, this idea of occupying public space for such a long peri
od of time, using public bathrooms, wearing shoes. It was so fraught with peril. But perhaps he would be able to do it in short stints.
He lifted his fingers at Kasey, his signal that he needed another set of maps. The man had been quite attentive and careful with the maps. (Mark appreciated a person who appreciated maps.)
Kasey returned silently to Mark’s table, removed the maps, went to the large horizontal file cabinets where the maps were stored, and removed three more. He placed them gently on the table in front of Mark, then busied himself with putting away the previous set.
Mark looked at the first two maps: Sources of Milk Supply and Concerts, Beer Gardens, Lecture Rooms, and Museums. Such odd things had been mapped over a hundred years ago. He hardly could believe that cartographers had had the time or interest in charting such obscure items.
He pulled out the third map and placed it on top of the others. Societies (Secret and Benefit), Hospitals, Asylums, and Homes was written in flowing script in the upper left-hand corner of the map. His hands started to tremble when he saw the four dots—the same four dots he’d seen on Dr. Ford’s map. There were many other dots too—so many dots. He flicked his eyes to the legend. Most of the dots marked the locations of asylums, hospitals, secret societies, and benefit societies. Some marked homes. But whose homes? And why would they be included on such a map?
Unfortunately, the four dots that mimicked the dots on Dr. Ford’s map weren’t referenced in the legend. There were other dots of a similar styling, with no indication of what any of them represented.
Mark’s fingers suddenly felt clammy, and he tried to breathe heavily through his nose, bringing the air right into the bottom of his lungs like the doctor had told him to do when he had a panic attack coming on (because apparently that was relaxing).
His eyes told him that there was some sort of pattern or regularity in the spacing of the secret society dots, the home dots, and the unreferenced dots. Mark tried to decipher the pattern. He was good at patterns. He found patterns in ceiling and floor squiggles. But try as he might, he couldn’t figure out this one. There were just too many dots. His hand twitched at his pencil to sketch lines between the dots on the library map. But defacing a map was such sacrilege that the mere contemplation of it sent sick shivers down his neck. He should also transfer the dots on the library map to his map, but the scale was different, and he was too agitated to trust his ability to put them in the exact right spots.
He tried to force his thoughts down a logical path. He didn’t have to figure out the pattern now. He would just make a copy of the map. Kasey had mentioned something about copying. Copying was okay for academic purposes. He just needed a copy of the map.
Mark pushed himself up away from the table and out of his chair. He wiped his hands carefully on his pants and then grasped the edges of the map, preparing to approach the front desk. But he realized with horror that it was vacated.
He whirled about, looking for Kasey. The lower level of the library panned out beneath him, and somehow the height and the open concept of the building suddenly made him woozy. Sylvain’s grey head was still focused on a computer screen below.
Kasey suddenly appeared behind him and Mark almost yelped. The man wore his usual affable grin.
“Ready for another set?” he said.
Mark tried to force the words “need to make a copy” out of his mouth, but at that moment Kasey’s eyes fell on Dr. Ford’s map from the green file, and he moved toward the table with alarming speed.
“Where did you get this map?” Kasey said.
Mark grasped at explanations and tried to move his lips in some sort of appropriate manner, but nothing came out.
Kasey snatched up the paper. “It’s one of the missing maps from the Messiah series.”
Mark reached automatically for the map, to pull it back, to start to scream, to drop to his knees and ball himself around the maps, but at that moment, he looked over the balcony to the main computer bank below and saw the two men from Dr. Ford’s office approaching Sylvain. The fluorescent lights on the library ceiling glinted off the metallic grip of a handgun in one of the men’s pockets.
6. Zero Declination
They stole through the dark streets, emptier than before, with streetlights winking on and off in their wake.
“I can’t believe you came here by yourself,” Abbey said.
Caleb shrugged. “I needed answers about Simon, and about what my future self might have done to him. There’s no opportunity to sneak out when Mom and Dad are there. I figured tonight was my only chance, and if I came and told you, then Mantis would know, and there’s no way we would have gotten away.”
“Or maybe we would have. He brought us here.” Abbey gestured at her jumpsuit. “Where did you think I got this ridiculous outfit?” Caleb had refused the jumpsuit that Simon had offered him, claiming that it was dark, nobody was around, and they were going immediately home anyway.
“What? Mantis brought you here?” Caleb shook his head in disbelief. “I didn’t think he would do that. Anyway, I figured he was easier to sneak out on than Mom and Dad.”
“Except that he hears doorbells,” Abbey muttered.
“What?”
“Never mind. Mark came too. I left them both at the library—that cube building. Sylvain gave me the address for Sinclair Systems. How did you know you were going to be able to come here, to this future?”
Caleb wheeled around the final corner to the library. “I didn’t for sure. But Mom and I have come here a couple of times. At first I thought it was because she can access any future, but then last time she let me go through first, and we came here, and I realized this must be my future as well as Simon’s.” Caleb shot her a look, his green eyes ominous. “Is it?”
Abbey ground her toe into the pavement. “Sort of. Why is she bringing you here?”
“I don’t know. We just travel around the city and she asks me how I’m feeling. I have no idea what we’re doing.”
The possibility of what her mother was doing struck Abbey with a sharpness that almost hurt. “Cale, I think maybe she’s looking for you. For the future you. You can’t come too close to your future self or you get sick. Remember how sick I got in the Livingstone Lab building? And then Mark got sick in your future. Your other future, because it was his future too.”
Caleb had stopped walking and now regarded her with a doubtful expression, his green eyes wide in a sea of freckles.
“Did you ask Simon what the future Caleb did to him?” she plunged on. If the future Caleb had done something to Simon’s company, that would be proof that Caleb was alive.
Caleb shook his head. “He wouldn’t say. Just that he was fine, and not to worry about it. It’s really beginning to bug me that no adults will tell us anything, not even our own future adult selves.”
The lights from the library building windows illuminated Caleb’s carrot-orange hair. Abbey reflected that it was odd that the library was the only building over two stories in Coventry. She wondered what had happened to the other buildings.
As if reading her mind, Caleb scowled and stuffed his hands in the front pouch of his hoodie. “What did Simon mean, that there’s something big coming in the future?”
Abbey stared into the library. She could just make out Sylvain bent over one of the terminals at the main computer bank. At least he hadn’t abandoned them. She turned back to Caleb. “Well, you already know that our futures seem split, or different somehow, like we can’t reconcile the fact that they’re in the same reality?”
Caleb nodded.
“When we were in your future, you—the future you—suggested that something big had caused the timelines to split somehow. You said it was like a bomb, but not a bomb. I have no idea what that means, but my future self gave me a list.” She pulled out her phone and pressed the button to bring up the list.
“Wait. You mean you’ve had a list for three weeks and haven’t told anyone?” Caleb’s hair sudden
ly seemed fanned up like a rooster tail, and he looked ornery enough to be a barnyard fowl.
“Yes. Sorry. I was going to tell you and Simon, but Mom told us not to do anything, so I didn’t know what to do. I was just kind of pretending it didn’t exist.”
Caleb nodded his head in the direction of her phone. “Let’s see it then.”
“Hey mates, I thought that was you.” Abbey swiveled her eyes up from her phone to see Max approaching, wearing a friendly grin. “Just wanted to thank you for doing such a bang-up job on my computer. Sinclair hasn’t even charged me. I owe you one.”
Caleb shifted automatically into an affable smile. “Our pleasure. You probably won’t get charged. Our bad for making it unclear in the update manuals.” Abbey found her hand jostled about in an exuberant handshake from Max.
“Say Max, just curious. How old were you when all this happened? Or did you live here then?” Caleb waved his arm around in a manner vague enough to capture everything around them.
Max blinked and then laughed. “Is that an inventive way of asking someone’s age? I’m not as old as I look. Those ultraviolet rays in space are hard on a man’s skin. Now, if you were to invent something to fully block those, you’d be a rich man. But I assume you mean the construction of the library. It’s a heritage building. One of the only ones around. They added the green roof recently, of course.”
Abbey glanced over Max’s shoulder through the clear glass doors of the library and heard her own sudden hissed intake of breath. Two men in black trench coats, holding what looked like handguns in their pockets, were advancing toward Sylvain from behind. “Caleb, we have to go,” she interjected, just as an explosion of white papers descended in whirling circles from the mezzanine of the library and landed all around Sylvain, covering the floor and the computer desk. Everyone, including Sylvain, looked up.
Then someone started to scream. Abbey knew that scream.
A Quill Ladder Page 9
