A Quill Ladder

by Jennifer Ellis

  Mark opted to step aside. Outside his office, Dr. Ford turned with his hand on the door and looked at Mark, who remained in the office. “Come on, now. We don’t have all day.” Mark noticed that Dr. Ford was glancing over his shoulders from side to side in the hallway with some degree of uncertainty. (As if he were being watched, potentially.)

  Having no other clear options, Mark made his way toward Dr. Ford, trying not to move too suddenly so that the maps in his shirt didn’t make too much noise.

  On the way out, Mark glanced in the recycling bin. It was filled with white pieces of paper with shapes drawn on them. Circles, squares, triangles.

  Odd.

  Out in the hall, he, too, swiveled his head from side to side, looking for the Egyptian dogs.

  *****

  Caleb was panting when he arrived in the hallway where Abbey sat huddled.

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  “I’m fine. Where’s Sandy? Why were you running?” Caleb wore such an uncharacteristic look of concern on his freckled face that Abbey almost wanted to hug him.

  “Sandy took the dog to the vet. I said we could take the bus home. She had to hurry. Sanome did not look good. So I told her to just go, and then I ran back here.”

  “Did you see the dogs?”

  “I think they’re gone. I came in the other door—the one by the library—but everything was quiet.”

  “What about Mark?”

  “I have no idea where he is. We better go look.”

  “Did you see Jake, Selena, and Damian?”

  Caleb’s eyebrows rose and he scratched his forehead. “No. Were they here?”

  Abbey dragged him over to the edge of the balcony, where the Madrona was visible. She heard Caleb’s sharp intake of breath. “They were looking for something. Jake was helping. Or they were making him help. He said he couldn’t feel anything. I don’t know what that means. They also said Mom planted ‘deeks’ everywhere. Then Selena got really angry and said she was going to chop the Madrona down.”

  Caleb looked at the tree. “Deeks… Decoys,” he said. “What if the trees mark the places where the stones are, or the docks?”

  “But there wasn’t one in the desert.”

  “There was in the lab building.” Caleb shook his head. “I don’t know. We should find Mark and get going. Mom and Dad are going to be home with Simon soon, and Mom’ll freak if we’re not there.”

  They traipsed down the hall together. Abbey peered out each window for signs of the dogs, but the campus seemed hushed and empty. Caleb chattered about how Sanome looked when they found her, but his descriptions seemed to contain a lot of references to Sandy, and how Sandy did this and did that. Abbey tuned him out. They passed a stairwell and Abbey glanced down at the floor.

  There was another droplet of blood, and then another, and these ones were fresher, bigger, and redder than the ones they had seen in Dr. Ford’s office.

  She grasped for Caleb’s arm.

  “… so, I think we should show Sandy the list, get her input. She seems to know what’s what,” Caleb was saying.

  “Caleb, look down,” Abbey interrupted. Caleb shifted his gaze to the floor and stopped talking abruptly. The droplets continued on down the hall for a few more meters before vanishing into a men’s bathroom. Abbey and Caleb stood outside the bathroom door, staring at each other.

  “Well, I guess I better go in,” Caleb said.

  “What? What if there’s someone or something dangerous in there?”

  “Or there’s someone hurt in there, who might need help.”

  Before Abbey could say anything, Caleb stepped forward and pushed the door open.

  She heard the hollow echo of his voice in the room. “Hello? Hello? Anyone in here?” Then the door opened again in a rush and Caleb’s face, very white now, poked out. “You better come in here, Abs.”

  “What? I can’t. It’s the men’s room.”

  “There’s nobody around. I need your help. It’s Sylvain.”

  Sylvain leaned against the wall of a bathroom stall, his face pasty, and his hand bundled in wads and wads of blood-soaked paper towel. Caleb pumped the towel dispenser, assembling a pile of towels, presumably to replace the completely crimson one that Sylvain clutched in place.

  “What happened?” Abbey said.

  Sylvain’s eyes flicked open. “Just a little disagreement. Someone felt the need to separate me from my finger.”

  “They cut off your finger?”

  “No. No they didn’t. Not for lack of trying, though. I still have it. It was a little better attached before, though.” Sylvain tried to stand up straighter and careened back against the stall with a thud. Abbey rushed to his side and tried to prop him up. Sylvain leaned against her more heavily than she’d expected.

  “We have to get him to the hospital,” Caleb said, trying to form the pile of paper towels around Sylvain’s hand. “Shouldn’t we take off the old ones first?”

  “Believe me, my boy, you do not want to see what’s underneath these paper towels.” Sylvain took the new towels and wrapped them as best he could around his hand.

  Abbey frowned. “We should call an ambulance and let the paramedics take him to the hospital.”

  “No,” Sylvain insisted. “They’re still here. An ambulance would draw all sorts of attention. We can take my car.”

  “Who’s driving?” Abbey asked. She did contemplate asking who was still here, but that seemed obvious, or at least potentially easy to narrow down, and the issue of nobody being able to drive seemed more immediately serious.

  “I’ll drive,” Caleb said. “I’ve been going out with Dad and Simon when they practice out at the old drive-in. Dad let me try it out for a few minutes last time. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Yeah, right,” Abbey said. “You’ve driven in a grassy field, not in traffic. You’re not driving. We should call Mom and Dad. And we need to find Mark.”

  “Sylvain needs to get to a hospital, Abs.”

  “You can’t drive, Caleb. Let’s just get him to his car. Maybe one of us will think of something by then.” Or maybe we’ll be far enough away from whoever it is that he’ll let us call an ambulance, she thought.

  Together, but likely with Caleb bearing most of Sylvain’s weight, they shouldered him out of the bathroom and down the hall, the new paper towel a red sodden mass by the time they reached the first floor.

  “Who exactly are we watching for?” Abbey said. “Who did this?”

  “You mean who was present, or who gave the order that it be undertaken?”

  Abbey adjusted her hold on Sylvain’s left elbow. She was supporting his hurt side, while Caleb bore much of Sylvain’s weight on the right. “Let’s go with who was present for now.”

  “Well, Nate did much of the sawing, but Paul thought it would be a good idea. I don’t think he has a stomach for blood though. Got all woozy and had to go sit down with his head between his legs for a bit.”

  “You’re all a fine lot, aren’t you?” Caleb grunted. “Can any of you actually really do anything, other than your fancy game of hide and seek, and ‘find the tree’? I’m beginning to think this is all a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Kind of a grown-up version of Minecraft or Clash of Clans.”

  Sylvain gave a weak smile. “We can’t do as much as we’d like. But we can do some things.”

  Abbey pushed open the glass door, and they proceeded down the narrow walkway between two buildings that led to the parking lot. On the one hand, they weren’t out in the open, so they weren’t easy to spot. On the other hand, if someone were to block the entrance and exit to the walkway, they would be trapped. Abbey calculated the distance they had left to go with each labored step. In the daylight, Sylvain looked ghostly, and even his elbow—which they had agreed they really must keep in the air so that his hand would remain elevated—felt heavy. Abbey wondered what they would do if they had to run. She couldn’t believe that Dr. Ford would actually p
articipate in the removal of someone’s finger.

  They had almost reached the parking lot when Abbey heard the faint click of nails on the sidewalk behind them. As she turned, the dog stopped its approach and bared its teeth. Then it dropped into a lying position, as if it was waiting for someone. The other dog, probably. Abbey swung around, expecting to see the other dog in front of them.

  Instead, a small white Volkswagen hurtled up to the curb and Russell Andrews leapt out of the driver side. He hurried around the car, opened the rear passenger door, and then ran toward them, his pale blue eyes fixed on the dog.

  “Let me take him the rest of the way—you look done.”

  Caleb, almost buckling under Sylvain’s weight at this point, stepped aside and transferred the older man’s weight to Russell.

  “But—” Abbey said. Her voice almost sounded like a chirp. Russell had been the one who’d turned Simon in. Russell was definitely the enemy. But Russell had already hauled Sylvain most of the way to the car.

  “Let’s put him in the back. One of you can ride in the front.”

  The dog, deciding it didn’t like this turn of events, rose to its feet and started barking.

  “Stop them!” a voice yelled. Abbey turned to see Nathaniel running down the walkway toward them. The dog started to charge, lips curled back.

  “Get in. Hurry!” Russell shouted. Russell shoved Sylvain in the back and leapt in behind him, slamming the door.

  Abbey practically dove into the front seat or Russell’s car, and Caleb pushed in behind her, pulling the door shut just as the dog launched into the air at them. It hit the car door with its face and bounced off onto the pavement, only to jump back to its feet and press its face against the car window, snarling. Russell clicked the key fob, and the doors locked before Nathaniel could reach the car and start snatching at door handles. Russell maneuvered his way up front to the driver’s seat and shoved the key in the ignition. He started the car and pulled away from the curb as Nathaniel yelled, “Get out!”

  Russell picked up speed, drove out of the parking lot, and turned onto one of the main streets of Coventry. Once on the street, with Nathaniel’s form becoming smaller behind them, Abbey realized that Caleb was largely sitting on top of her, and she was having trouble breathing. She tried to ease her way out from underneath him, but not too much, because that would move her closer to Russell. She kept her face averted from him, seething with fury.

  “You didn’t mention I was taking my life into my hands coming to get you, Sylvain,” Russell said, glancing in the rearview mirror.

  Sylvain’s voice was strained and low. “Sorry. That shouldn’t have happened. Selena will have his head. I forgot Nate has quite the temper. Maybe the rat bite sent him over the edge.”

  “Rat bite?” Abbey said, turning to stare at Sylvain. He had his head pressed against the door and his eyes closed.

  “Ian’s rat,” he said faintly.

  Russell picked up speed and deftly wove in and out of traffic, his lips folded in a partial scowl. Fine reddish-blond hair and freckles marked his knuckles. He darted frequent looks in the mirror at Sylvain, as if he wanted to say something, but decided against it. Abbey wondered if she shouldn’t crawl into the back seat where she could wear a seatbelt, but decided that doing so would be more dangerous. The hospital was only three blocks away now, and she assumed that was where there were going.

  “So,” Caleb said brightly from somewhere near Abbey’s right ear. “I didn’t know you and Sylvain were acquainted.”

  “Sylvain is an old friend of my dad’s,” Russell said, his face taking on some of the friendly but intense demeanor she had seen at school when he had asked her to be on Student Council. “We’re neighbors. He called to say that he’d been in a slight accident and needed a ride to the hospital. My dad was working, so he sent me.”

  Russell shot another intense look at Sylvain, and Abbey wondered if it was because he had just lied.

  Russell pulled the car into the temporary parking by the emergency room door and cut the engine. “I’m assuming the two of you can take it from here. I have to get back to work.”

  “Sure. No problem,” Caleb said as he threw open his door and launched out of the car. Abbey quickly unfolded herself and followed suit. Caleb helped Sylvain out of the back and then leaned in the passenger-side window. “I’m thinking we should call the police about that nasty guy with the dog.”

  Russell offered a vague half smile. “I didn’t get a good look at him. Not sure what we could give them to go on. It would probably just be a big hassle.”

  “Oh, I thought you knew him,” Caleb said.

  “Never seen him before in my life,” Russell said. “You should probably get Sylvain in for treatment. That looks nasty.”

  “On our way,” Caleb said. “Thanks for the ride.”

  Sylvain was quickly triaged to the front and ushered into the emergency room, calling out instructions for Abbey and Caleb to take the bus home immediately as he went. When his silver hair had disappeared behind the broad emergency room door, Abbey and Caleb stood uncertainly in the hospital lobby.

  “What was that all about with Russell?” Abbey said. “Why did you suggest calling the police?”

  “Because that’s what any normal person—a person who’s not somehow involved in all of this—would do,” Caleb said. “Russell is obviously not normal. But he doesn’t want us to know how he’s involved.”

  “He probably doesn’t want us to march down to the police office and tell them that he put Simon up to hacking the City Hall computer.”

  Caleb shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “So, what should we do? Should we go back to the college and look for Mark?”

  Abbey shivered. “With Nate and the dogs? I think we should call Mom and Dad.”

  *****

  They had managed to depart the campus unobstructed, and Dr. Ford’s Sidekick was making its way down the main boulevard of Coventry at a stately pace. Mark was uncertain what he planned to do when they arrived at the Sinclair residence. He prayed fervently that someone would be home. (Preferably some adult who would know what to do.) Then again, maybe the adults would force Mark to return the maps that lay scrunched inside his shirt. They were, after all, Dr. Ford’s.

  Dr. Ford kept up some chatter about the weather and the traffic (as if Mark were a three-year-old and didn’t understand the difference between cumulonimbus and cirrus clouds or the role of barometric pressure in the weather, or know that Coventry City was laid out in a radial grid). When Dr. Ford started talking about how pretty the map of Coventry was because of all the circles, Mark tried very hard not to respond with a long speech regarding the historical significance of girdle streets, which ran around the center of town at a distance, and the aesthetic value of a curved design. He failed, however, and when he had finished explaining the influence of the topography and the Moon River on the street pattern in Coventry, and the role the military had played in many cities’ decision to adopt the more common grid pattern, Dr. Ford went silent for a while.

  After several minutes of quiet, Dr. Ford fiddled with the radio knob and the news came on. The anchor breathlessly reported that Marian Beckham had resigned as mayor only three weeks into her term, due to the scandal over her son hacking into the City Hall servers, and the subsequent questions regarding the legitimacy of her win. The report contained a clip of her resignation speech. Mark thought she sounded nice but very tired. The news then shifted to a story regarding a tree in a neighborhood north of town. Someone had come at night and tried to chop it down. The residents had heard the noise and come running, but the perpetrators had gotten away.

  As they drove, Dr. Ford extracted a wipe from the glove box and removed the worst of the blood from his forehead. Mark wondered why he wasn’t more concerned about his dog. The maps were clearly more important to him. Mark’s back ached from trying to hold completely still so as not to rustle the paper. It was better with the radio on, a
s it covered the sound of the maps.

  Dr. Ford turned off the radio.

  “Have you been in to see your mother recently, Mark?”

  Mark stared out the window. He knew that adults expected responses to these kinds of questions, and Mark had been going to see his mother with Mr. Sinclair every third evening at seven o’clock sharp. His mouth twitched almost involuntarily with the urge to provide a detailed report of the time and duration of his visits. But he had a strong feeling that he shouldn’t tell Dr. Ford this, so he clamped his teeth tightly over his tongue and focused on the passing scenery. They had reached the center of town and were passing the Square of the Mother, the small park that occupied the middle of the downtown business district, where there was a weird statue a woman, probably the Virgin Mary, that creeped Mark out.

  “I’m sure you have,” Dr. Ford said finally. “How is her recovery coming along? I’ve been in to see her a couple of times myself, of course, but I was thinking maybe you might have noticed something different than I have. Is she doing well, do you think?”

  This stymied Mark. He hadn’t noticed much at all, except that his mother remained unable to speak and had only just started to relearn how to walk. He couldn’t quite understand why this could possibly be of interest to Dr. Ford, so he decided not to respond.

  “Has she given you any new drawings lately? She was always quite the artist.” Mark now had no idea what Dr. Ford was getting at, and this talk was making him very uncomfortable. He knew that in theory, Dr. Ford and his mother had once been married. But that was before him, and despite the existence of Sandy as evidence, Mark still didn’t quite believe it. And besides, his mother couldn’t draw at all.

  So he shook his head. That was the safest choice.

  “And how are Marian and Peter? Any more political events?”

  Mark shook his head once again. He was about to launch into an explanation regarding the types and uses of contours in order to avoid the continuation of these disturbing questions, but then realized that he didn’t want to draw Dr. Ford’s attention to the fact that there might be an extra contour line next to the Moon River on the now missing wall map of Coventry, in case Dr. Ford hadn’t noticed it.