A Quill Ladder

by Jennifer Ellis

  Mark.

  The two men looked at each other, but continued to close in on Sylvain, who still stared up at the mezzanine.

  Max had whirled at the sound of the screaming and stood staring at the scene unfolding in the library.

  “That’s our friend. He’s in trouble,” Caleb said, bolting for the library door. Abbey had no idea whether he was talking about Sylvain or Mark. She also had no idea if he had seen the men with the guns. She ran after him, calling his name, but Caleb flung himself through the heavy, wrought-iron-trimmed doors of the library.

  Max scurried behind her. “Do you need help?”

  Abbey shook her head at Max, stepped inside the library doors, and pressed her back against the front wall of the building. Mark’s screaming continued. Where was Caleb? He had vanished while she had turned to answer Max. Patrons stepped away from their computers and milled uncertainly in throngs of two or three. Three library staff members stood in a cluster talking and looking up at the mezzanine. The largest male librarian detached himself from the groups and started up the mezzanine stairs, another went over and started cleaning up the scattered papers—maps, Abbey saw—and the third went to stand at the bottom of the stairs to the second level.

  Sylvain had stepped away from his computer and looked like he was planning to head up to the mezzanine, but then he saw the two men, and one of them leaned in to him and said something, and Sylvain turned slowly back around until again faced the computer he had been working at. The two men stood very close to him on either side, like they were pressing guns into his side. It looked like they were talking. The nearby librarian, intent on collecting the fallen maps, hadn’t even noticed. Sylvain darted a look over his shoulder and spotted Abbey. He gave his head a faint shake.

  Abbey saw Caleb then. He was standing calmly at a computer next to some other patrons, just to the right of Sylvain and the men.

  Abbey scowled and waved at Caleb. He ignored her. She made her way over to the stairs to the mezzanine, her legs rubbery, pushing past two patrons who lingered on the bottom of the steps asking the librarian if they could help.

  “It’s okay. He’s my brother,” Abbey said to the librarian, who apparently was standing guard. The woman scrutinized her for a few seconds but then nodded and let her past.

  At the top of the stairs, in the map room, two men stood over Mark, who was crouched in a ball with his head pressed against his knees. The men kept trying to hook their hands under his armpits to pull him to a standing position, but Mark fought them off.

  “He’s with me,” Abbey called. “I’m sorry. He has Asperger’s. He gets upset sometimes. He’s fine. I’ll just take him home.” She hoped this was true, that Mark was fine. That he had not somehow been shot and was lying there in a pool of blood.

  The two men backed off immediately, and Abbey went to kneel beside Mark. He quieted down a bit, but continued to emit low moans while clutching his hands over his ears.

  “Mark, it’s Abbey. It’s okay. We should go home now,” she said with exaggerated enunciation. She knew she probably shouldn’t talk this way with him, but it was a very difficult habit to break.

  “He has some maps,” said one of the men. He was short, with reddish-blond hair, and had the air of a librarian.

  “What do you mean?” Abbey said, scanning the tables or Mark’s person for the maps. Was the man implying that Mark had been trying to steal some maps? “Can’t you just sign them back in? I’m sorry he’s been so disruptive. Usually he’s fine. I just need to get him home.”

  “No. You don’t understand. He brought some maps. Photocopies of maps. Maps that have been missing for over a hundred years. He threw them over the bannister, along with some of our maps, which he better not have damaged. I need to know where he got them.”

  “They’re my maps,” Mark said.

  Abbey ground her teeth together. She had to get back to Caleb, who was downstairs with the two gunmen. Mark swayed from side to side in his crouched position, pulling at his ears. “He needs time to calm down. Maybe we could go downstairs and talk about it?” she said. Surely the two men downstairs wouldn’t open fire in front of a crowd.

  The man cocked his head. “Fine. He has to come with us, though. I’m not leaving him up here in the map room alone. We have over three thousand extremely valuable maps.”

  The implication that Mark would do something to damage the maps bugged Abbey, but she nodded. “Fine. Mark, we’re going downstairs now to gather up your maps.”

  “My maps,” said Mark. “They’re my maps.”

  “Yes, they’re your maps,” Abbey repeated, putting gentle pressure on one of his arms in an upward motion.

  “Well, they may not be his maps. The government may have a claim to them,” the man announced.

  Mark surged up as if to grab the man, and Abbey stifled a scream. But Mark only made a half-hearted lunge in the man’s direction. “They belong to me. They were a gift,” he said.

  “Let’s just go downstairs and collect your maps, and then we can all talk.” Abbey shot Mark a desperate look, hoping he could understand even the vaguest semblance of body language.

  Mark shook his head violently. “Friends of the very bad man are down there.”

  The blond-haired man’s eyebrows pulled together. “What’s he talking about?”

  “Nothing,” Abbey said. “Mark, let’s just go outside and calm down. Then we can figure this out.”

  “My maps,” he said.

  “We’ll find them.”

  Mark lifted his satchel and the green folder off the table where he had been working and meekly fell into step behind Abbey. She noticed as she passed that one of the map drawers was slightly ajar, as if maps had just been removed from it. Drawer 309. A chill snaked down her spine.

  She tried not to descend the open-concept industrial-style stairs in a crouch, like a spy. She needn’t have worried though. Sylvain, the two men, and Caleb were gone, and Max milled around at the bottom of the stairs.

  A female librarian spotted them and scurried in their direction with a stack of maps.

  “These fell,” she announced.

  “Those ones are mine,” Mark declared, thrusting his finger at the smaller maps on top of the stack.

  “We need to know where you got those maps,” the blond man said.

  “Mark, can we just leave the maps? We have to find Caleb and Sylvain.”

  Mark wore a defiant expression and stood with both feet planted firmly in front of the librarian, his hand extended. “I want my maps.”

  “We really have to go,” Abbey said.

  “If they’re his maps,” Max ventured, “don’t you have to give them back to him?”

  The blond man squinted at Max and collected the smaller stack of maps from the top of the pile. “I’d really like to run a photocopy of them if you don’t mind. Sorry; perhaps we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Kasey Miller. I’m a map historian. These are really important maps. I think they’re from a collection of maps drawn in the 1880s by Galen Francis Morrison. I have one of them in my private collection and I’ve seen reference to the others in some historical documents. They were thought to be destroyed in the Coventry Museum fire in 1986.”

  Francis. There was that name again. Abbey thrust a nervous glance at both Mark and Max. She had no idea what to do. Where was Caleb? And Sylvain?

  “What do the maps show?” Abbey asked.

  Kasey drew his lips into a tight line and drew the maps to his chest in an almost fidgety manner. “I’m not sure. The belief was that you needed all four of the maps to figure that out. But three of them went missing almost right after they were completed. I would really appreciate it if you would let me make a copy of these. I’d be willing to show you my own map in exchange.”

  “Mark, that seems like a reasonable suggestion,” Abbey said. “Why don’t you go with Mr. Miller here, and let him photocopy your maps, and I’ll just go look for Caleb and Sylva
in? You can meet me here in the foyer in a few minutes.”

  Mark looked doubtful but nodded slowly. Kasey gestured to the checkout desk. “The photocopier is right there. You’re welcome to watch. I assure you I’ll handle your maps with the utmost care.”

  Abbey edged out the front doors, scanning the darkened and almost deserted streets for Caleb’s orange hoodie.

  Max followed. “I’m sorry to intervene, and if you don’t need any help, just tell me to get lost, but… is everything okay? You look kind of upset.”

  Abbey looked Max up and down. He seemed genuinely concerned and friendly, and the notion of venturing out into the night alone in a strange city terrified her. She wished stranger danger could be boiled down to a simple equation. The square root of Max, the mostly unknown, over the cube root of the wholly unknown, times the risk of letting Caleb go alone, equaled what? Go with Max? Stay at the library?

  “I’m fine. Did you see which way my brother went?”

  Max pointed to the left, toward a narrow street that wound away from the library and into a dimly lit residential area. Because the houses were largely subterranean, the glow from the low-set windows barely illuminated the roadway.

  “I’m heading that way anyway. If I see him, do you want me to tell him that you’re looking for him? You’re also welcome to come with me. Only if you feel comfortable, of course. With the murder and all the tree vandalism, I’d hate to see you walking around on your own,” Max said.

  Over Max’s shoulder, Abbey saw Ian, Frank, and Francis dart across the edge of the library courtyard and head up a street parallel to the one that Max had said Caleb had followed.

  Max gave her a smile and a wave, and made as if to head off.

  “I’ll tag along with you for a bit,” Abbey said quickly. Stranger danger seemed to be becoming the norm in her life. At least there were a lot of strangers around at this point. Surely a lot of strangers were safer than a single stranger? And right now, she felt like by accompanying Max she might be protecting him, rather than the other way around.

  Max nodded and started off down the dark street. Abbey followed, the retinal and opsin in her eyes struggling to recombine after the brightness of the library. The streetlights that had blinked on and off before seemed only to light to halfway now, like nightlights.

  “It’s too bad about the tree in front of your offices on Oltree,” Max said conversationally.

  “The tree?”

  “I don’t know why anyone would want to cut down a tree like that.”

  Abbey made a noncommittal noise and experimented with walking in people’s yards to avoid setting off the streetlights, while Max chattered about Sinclair Systems’s third quarter earnings and new products.

  She saw three men standing under a streetlight a block up and swerved deeper into the closest yard. “Max, do me a favor and stop talking, and come over here out of the light.”

  Max gave her the kind of smile one would offer a crazy person. “Do you mind explaining to me what’s going on?” he said in a half whisper as he approached.

  “I think those guys up there might be the tree vandals,” Abbey said. “We caught them on surveillance video outside our office.”

  She started to make her way through the yards, hugging the houses. Max stayed behind her, making noises about calling the police, but she pretended she didn’t hear him. She spotted Caleb, the hood of his orange hoodie glowing like a setting sun, standing behind a hedge half a block up. She found a similar hedge and motioned for Max to join her.

  Sylvain stood in the dim pool of the streetlight talking to the two men dressed in black, his head bent low to theirs. Occasionally, he extended his arm to point in a particular direction, but Abbey could make no sense of his movements. First it seemed he pointed northwest, then southwest, then west-northwest, then south-southwest. Abbey only knew the directions because she had been taking compass readings on her phone on the way down on the train and had tried to memorize some of the bearings of the key landmarks so she could see if they were the same as they were at home. They had been once again amazed that their phones worked in the future, but Sylvain had explained that Wi-Fi, and other things, were completely free here. He didn’t go into detail about the other things though.

  Overall, Sylvain’s pantomime gestures seemed random. Apparently the two men thought so too, because their voices became elevated, and Sylvain raised and lowered his arms frantically with his palms downward as if he was trying to calm them.

  Was this a business arrangement going through a rough patch? Or a hostage situation? Where were Ian, Frank, and Francis? And whose side were they on? And for that matter, whose side was Sylvain on?

  One of the men drew his gun at Sylvain, who froze. So, maybe not a business arrangement. Abbey heard Max’s audible gasp next to her.

  “Get down,” he whispered urgently, scooting off toward the altercation before she could stop him. She saw him lean in and say something to Caleb, and then Caleb lowered himself to the ground, flicking a glance back at her. Abbey also dropped to a crouch as the voices in the street ahead of her grew in volume and the second guy started waving a gun as well.

  “Hey there, you with the guns,” called Max from a behind bush several yards up from Caleb. “This is a residential neighborhood. I’ve called the police. If you fire those guns, you’re going to be in a world of trouble. I suggest you just move on and leave the gentleman be.”

  One of the guys whirled, shifting his gun back and forth over the general range of Max’s location. “Mind your own business. This has nothing to do with you.”

  “Not suggesting that it does, mate. Just that things could get uncomfortable for you if you don’t move along.”

  “I don’t hear any stinking sirens.”

  Abbey could hear surprise in Max’s voice. “I don’t know where you’re from, but the authorities around here haven’t used sirens in a long time. They kind of find it more effective if they arrive without warning, if you know what I mean.” Abbey wondered if this was in fact true, if Max had in fact called the police, or if he was just bluffing.

  But the two men started darting nervous glances at the shadows around them, and Abbey could hear the low tones of them conferring.

  One of them called out. “All right, we’re moving along. You just stay where you are. No need to bother with us anymore.” One of them pressed a gun into Sylvain’s back and started jostling him toward the edge of the street.

  Just go, Abbey thought, praying that neither Caleb nor Max would try to intervene. But the thoughts felt slightly strange, as if they weren’t totally her own thinking. It was true that there was nothing they could do to help Sylvain right now; but should they give up so easily? Caleb and Max stayed put, hunched behind their individual hedges, but Abbey felt at war in her own mind.

  The men and Sylvain had almost reached the edge of the street when a strong beam of light illuminated their faces.

  “Stop right there. This is the police. You’re surrounded. Put down your weapons and let that man go.”

  The two men tensed, dropped to crouches, and bolted farther into the yard of the closest house. “We’ll be back for you, old man,” one of them called over his shoulder. Then they disappeared from sight.

  Abbey braced for the sound of gunfire, for the police moving in, but there was nothing. After a couple of interminable minutes, the beam of light flicked off, and Ian and the two Franks, as Abbey now thought of them, sauntered out of the yard next to the one Max occupied and approached Sylvain.

  “Coventry PD. We’ll take it from here. Those guns always add a bit of an edge to the situation. Nasty things,” Ian called out in Max’s general direction. He wore a shiny burgundy dress shirt with a wide collar, trim tan pants, and his customary beret. Frank and Francis closed in on Sylvain, grasped an elbow each, and started to cart him off down the street.

  “Wait!” Abbey yelled, emerging from her hiding spot. “Where are you taking him?”
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  “Oh, it’s you,” Ian said. “Are you alone?”

  “No, she’s not.” Caleb moved out into the dim light of the street.

  “Oh, good,” Ian said. “I’d be more worried about borrowing our friend here if Abbey had to go home alone.” The two Franks continued to lug a sputtering Sylvain farther down the street. “We just need to have a friendly little chat with Sylvain here.”

  “Right, well, you seem like such a friendly lot,” Caleb muttered.

  “What is going on here?” Max said, marching out onto the street to stand next to Ian. “Is he the tree vandal?”

  “Who are you?” Ian said.

  “Who are you?” Max looked Ian up and down. “I demand to see your badge. That getup is not a police uniform.”

  Ian squinted his eyes a bit at Max and gave Max’s jumpsuit a rather dubious glance. “I wouldn’t talk about getups. We’re undercover. And yes, he’s the tree vandal. We’re taking him in for questioning.”

  “But where did those other two guys go? They just disappeared. And who are they?” Caleb interrupted.

  “Damian and Nathaniel? They’re trouble.” He flicked a look at Max. “Accomplices, I’m sure. They probably took one of the tunnels.”

  “Tunnels?” Abbey said.

  Ian shrugged. “Rat-filled things used by the criminal element. They’re all over Coventry. Nasty places. Look, thanks for your help. I suggest all of you go home.”

  Max turned to Abbey. “I’m sorry. Do you know this man? Is he a police officer?”

  Abbey paused, but saw Ian nodding emphatically behind Max, and found herself saying, “Yes, he’s part of the investigation,” with a bright smile.

  “And what was the street number of your offices again?” Ian said. “You know, the number I had on the card. I can’t remember.”

  “309,” Caleb said uncertainly.

  “Ah, right.” Ian reached into his pocket and withdrew a white envelope much like the first. “This is for you. I forgot to give it to you earlier.”

  Caleb approached slowly and took the envelope from Ian’s hand.