A Quill Ladder

by Jennifer Ellis

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, but I thought if anyone could figure it out, Mark could.”

  Mark realized that everyone was looking at him. His limbs felt encased in cement and he nearly stopped where he was, except for the fear that the woman and the two extremely bad men (extremely was a better word choice he decided—greater differentiation from the very bad men) might be following them. But they were all still watching him, expecting him to say something. “The contour line on the map is very important,” he said.

  Abbey gave a snort of almost exasperation (Mark was not good with other emotions, but he knew exasperation). “He’s been saying that all along. I don’t know quite what he means.”

  Mark’s reply (such as it was, given that he was only going to explain the history of contours, as he generally found it more comfortable to engage in exposition when pressured) was cut off by the sudden appearance of fur-clad people with drawn and loaded bows aimed directly at him (and the others). He emitted a yelp of sorts and whirled to run, only to find that the fur-clad people were behind them as well.

  “We know you,” one of the men intoned. “You’re the ones who helped the Light leave. And he has not come back for us.”

  12. Burning Questions

  The man’s words, more than the bows and spears, were what terrified Abbey. Caleb—the Light—had not come back for the rest of his people. And she knew Caleb would have kept his promise and come back—unless something had stopped him.

  “Witchcraft,” a woman with a tangle of natty blond hair said in an almost hiss.

  Ian and the two Franks eyed the new arrivals carefully. Abbey had no idea how they would react to something like this.

  Ian held up his hand. “Harming us will do you no good. We cannot help you. Uphold the peaceful customs of your people, and let us go.”

  There was a pause as everyone took in Ian’s strange pronouncement. It seemed to have more effect than Abbey thought it should. Caleb’s people stepped back, straightened up a bit, and looked at each other, before turning their attention back at their prisoners.

  But then the spell lifted. “I don’t think we should let you go,” a dark-haired man said. “You all look like you’ve had a decent meal recently. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’re not from around here. So I’m guessing you’re from the place the Light was trying to take us to. Maybe we should make you take us there.”

  The natty-haired woman waved her spear. “Maybe there was no other place. Maybe the rest of our people were just taken onto those docks and exterminated.”

  “They weren’t,” Abbey said. “I promise. We know where the other place is. It’s just… none of us can take you there.”

  “You look like you come from a place where cell phones still work,” the biggest of the men, with a bushy grey beard, said.

  “And they still have computers,” the woman chimed in.

  “And houses…”

  “And cars…”

  Everyone in the crowd listed off something, and they all clamored in a bit closer, a press of less than totally clean, hairy, fur-clad bodies with weapons. Abbey tried to hide the outline of her iPhone in the pocket of her jeans.

  Ian tried again. “Please, people. We can’t take you to where we come from, as much as we might like to help. But now that we know there’s a problem, we can try to help in other ways.”

  “What other ways? Who can take us to the Light? There’s that pair that keep showing up and digging holes. They say they can’t help us. Now you say you can’t help us. Who can help us?” the bearded man said.

  Nobody said anything.

  Abbey almost stomped her foot in frustration at Ian’s placid expression. “Maybe Jake can help you. He’s the one that transported your people before,” she said. “He’s just over by the Madrona. Not even a quarter of a mile away.” She automatically converted to standard when talking to non-scientists. “You should hurry, because he’s probably leaving soon.”

  She glanced back at Ian, imploring him to do something. She was beginning to have some serious doubts about this whole witchcraft thing. All the lot of them ever did was talk, talk, talk. If there was ever a time to throw a curse or a hex, or apparate, now was it. But Ian was stolidly examining the gathered people with a mild smile and patting the breast pocket where he stored his cigarettes, while the two Franks looked a bit hopeless.

  “We’re not going unless the Light comes back and tells us it’s okay,” the bearded man said.

  “That seems like a wise choice,” Ian said.

  What if there is no Caleb to come back and tell you it’s okay, Abbey thought darkly.

  “The Light is my uncle, remember?” Abbey said, quickly. The eight people turned their attention to her, their tanned animal skin clothes rippling in the breeze.

  “You do look like him,” the woman said dully. “We’re almost out of food. Why hasn’t he come back for us?”

  “He’s doing something important,” Abbey said. “I know he’s coming back for you.”

  Mark, who had gone into a strange standing-ball shape with his head down and his limbs folded inward, lifted his head.

  “Hey, Dan,” the bearded guy said. “Doesn’t this guy look like Mark?”

  “Enough to be his younger brother,” agreed the other man, who wore a raccoon tail hat. Abbey realized with a slightly uncomfortable twitch that they were probably talking about future Mark.

  “He’s the spittin’,” the natty-haired woman said, and then narrowed her eyes. “I’m not so sure I like the idea of doppelgangers, and all you folks from elsewhere who can’t help us. Just what game are you all playing at, while we starve to death in this godforsaken world?”

  Ian looked around in surprise, apparently having trouble reconciling the lushness of the forest with the notion of godforsaken.

  “Let us go, and I’ll talk to Caleb for you,” Abbey said.

  The use of Caleb’s name made them retreat a bit, as if only those who knew Caleb really well would know, or dare call him by, his real name.

  “Are you related to Mark? You sure seem a lot like him,” Dan said to Mark, who had gone back into his ball shape. “Where exactly are you folks from?”

  It seemed odd to say that they were from the past, when somehow it seemed that, compared to this world, they were from the future.

  Mark dropped to his knees and started rocking with his hands pressed over his ears.

  “I think you could sort of call it a different plane of existence,” Abbey said.

  “I told you there was witchcraft involved,” the natty-haired woman said.

  “Please, just let us go. Then we’ll talk to Caleb, and he’ll know what to do.”

  “Caleb will know what to do,” Ian agreed. Abbey wanted to stomp his foot.

  The bearded man narrowed his eyes. “If you are the Light’s niece, then you’ll know one of his passwords. Tell us, and we’ll let you pass.”

  Password? How was Abbey to know Caleb’s password? Farley? Coventry? Maroon 5? It could be anything. She would be taking as wild a guess as Einstein when he came up with E=mc2.

  “Twin paradox?” she ventured without any real hope.

  The man smiled faintly with graying teeth. “Who would be the older twin?”

  Caleb had always hated relativity, physics, and puzzles like the twin paradox. The password would not be “the twin who stayed home.”

  “Abbey,” she said. “The password is Abbey.”

  The bearded man nodded and raised his hand, and they all lowered their spears and bows. “You may go. Please, tell him we need him. We’re heading to the winter camp near the chapel at Four-Valley Gap, hoping to have some luck hunting along the way. If he doesn’t come for us there, we’re moving to a new spot in the spring. Mark’s scouted out a place where he thinks we can grow stuff based on his analysis of historical river siltation and the flood plain, or something like that. I don’t understand half th
e stuff he spouts, but nobody knows this area like he does. But if the Light doesn’t come for us before the last frost, we’re going to assume he’s not coming.”

  Abbey and the others made their way back to the stones. Abbey looked over her shoulder every few seconds, but Caleb’s people didn’t try to follow. She tried to hurry everyone along. Sam would be completely frantic by now: she was reaching the end of the two-hour time limit that her parents had set for her to hang out with Sam, and soon Sam, if hadn’t gone immediately to do so, might go and report her missing. All because she couldn’t stay away from a set of stones.

  Of course Caleb would think she would be the twin who stayed home.

  Abbey rolled over in bed for the third time, trying to get comfortable. It was Christmas morning, a morning they should all be leaping out of bed at six a.m. to open gifts, eat chocolate, and keep Farley out of the Christmas cake. At least that was what they had always done in the past. But that had all been overshadowed this year by Simon’s upcoming hearing and their mother’s mysterious illness and continued trips to the stones.

  Sam had been a bit wild-eyed when she had returned from the stones with Ian, Mark, and the two Franks a week ago. He had seen Sylvain and Russell come through, and had seemed bemused by the fact that Sylvain had indicated that Abbey was fine and then just sauntered off down the hill. When Abbey finally reappeared, Sam had grasped her fingers as if to confirm that she was, in fact, real. But then he’d seemed embarrassed by his concern and backed away, strangely rattled.

  Then Ian had intervened and, in exchange for Sam’s promised secrecy regarding the stones, indicated in soothing tones that he would fill Sam in over beers at the pub in the village. Then Sam, obviously anxious to get to the pub, had walked Abbey back to his car and driven her home. It was almost as if Ian had cast a spell on him. She hadn’t seen Ian since, or received any communication from Sam. She half wondered if Ian had murdered Sam and cast his body in the Moon River.

  Abbey had been hoping for another chance to use the stones and look for the older Caleb, but her parents hadn’t let up on their round-the-clock watch. Caleb hadn’t been much help, telling Abbey he thought maybe they shouldn’t take any risks until after Simon’s hearing—that their mom didn’t need any more stress. He had been spending a lot of time on the phone with a new girl, and suddenly seemed content to not ask any questions of their parents. Perhaps he was just being responsible, or perhaps he was under the influence of the Imperius curse.

  And now she knew for sure that Russell Andrews was involved in all of this somehow. But she hadn’t been able to track him down, because school was out for Christmas holidays and she hadn’t worked up the nerve to call him.

  To make matters worse, Farley had barked like a lunatic in the middle of the night almost every night for the past week.

  A late winter dawn was peeking from beneath Abbey’s blinds by the time she finally decided she was done waiting for someone else to get up first. She rose, put on a fuzzy fleece, and went to the living room, determined to make some Christmas cheer.

  Abbey’s dad stood by the picture window holding a cup of coffee and staring out over Coventry City. Farley bounded over to her wearing his reindeer antlers, wagging and lurching, his brown body a quivering mass of energy and love. Abbey gave him a Christmas hug and pat, kissed him between the eyes, replaced the askew antlers, and went over to stand with her father. The Christmas tree lights were on at least, and their stockings bore the look of having been stuffed with an assortment of shapes. Her father reached over with one arm and pulled her against his side.

  “Merry Christmas, Ab. Sorry it’s been such a wonky fall.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. Then she looked out the window. Instead of the snow she had hoped for, the valley hung thick with a strange fog… or smoke.

  “Salisbury Swamp is on fire,” her dad said by way of explanation. “They figure maybe a lightning strike or a stray cigarette. With all the peat in the swamp, it could burn for months. It’s a shame. It’s a critical ecosystem for this area, and your mom did so much work to get it protected. Hopefully the firefighters will be able to put out the blaze soon. But I’m afraid swamp fires burn deep.”

  “Oh.” Abbey experienced a wave of worry about her mother.

  “Just so you know,” her dad continued, “Mom’s going to be okay. She found some treatment in the future. Simon helped her—the older Simon. They have far more advanced treatments than we have now—some sort of nanotechnology. She only needs a few more sessions and then she’s going to be cured. I don’t like her using the stones this much, but it was necessary, and it’s a good gift. A Christmas gift. We’re very lucky. I guess that’s the other good news: we know Simon is going to be okay, no matter what happens in a few weeks. Thank you for being patient with us.”

  Abbey nodded, blinking back the tears. It was a good gift. But why weren’t her parents telling them what her mother had? Unless it was a genetic disorder. A surge of sick certainty washed over her. That was probably why. Clearly there would be treatment in one of the futures. But maybe not all of the futures.

  Farley nudged against them both, holding a stinky bone wrapped in candy-cane paper in his mouth.

  Abbey dropped her hand to Farley’s warm, furry head. “Oh, go ahead Farley. It’s Christmas,” she said.

  Despite her mother’s suspiciously glittery eyes—she was trying not to be too upset about the swamp fire—and the heavy scent of smoke that seeped into every corner of the house, it was a festive Christmas. Simon spent a record amount of time outside of his room. Mark very nearly exploded with joy over his new ocean atlas and cartography pens. Caleb finally seemed to have forgiven her for not telling him everything about what happened in his future with the docks, and Sam emailed to wish her a merry Christmas, and to say that he was working on something exciting with Ian. “Great. The two of you can just go off and be buddies now,” Abbey said to her computer before closing the lid and going back out to have turkey dinner with her family, feeling like, parallel universes or not, everything might just be okay.

  But as they moved into the new year, everything wasn’t okay. As her father had predicted, the swamp continued to burn, filling the valley with clouds of black smoke whenever the wind blew eastward. The rezoning of Coventry Hill passed the council vote with an easy majority, and the wooded area around the stones was open for potential development. (“But the economy is down,” her dad kept saying cheerfully. “Nobody will want to develop it in this climate. Not many people can afford monster houses these days. It could sit undeveloped for years.”) And then came the announcement that several GIS map files of Coventry Hill were missing, wiped clean from the City databases. Until then it had been believed that “the City Hall Hacker”—as Simon had become known—hadn’t taken anything, but Gretchen Leer, the new mayor, made speeches about tightening security, and the charges against Simon were ramped up, despite his repeated claims that he’d had nothing to do with taking the map files.

  The day of Simon’s hearing dawned crystal clear. The swamp fire had gone underground, but the earth beneath the swamp still smoldered. Simon was sheet white when they drove down to the hearing, and her mother and father didn’t speak at all. Her mother’s final treatment was in a few days, and her face was creased and heavy. She leaned against the window while they drove, and Abbey wondered if she was strong enough to keep going to the future alone.

  Abbey and Caleb weren’t going into the courtroom, but rather had come along for moral support. Abbey tried to give Simon a positive sort of hopeful look as he filed into the ornate room, but his expression was long and dour, and she dropped her eyes to the marble floor almost immediately. Now she and Caleb sat outside on opposite sides of a wooden bench in the vaulted foyer of the courthouse, waiting for what everyone expected would likely be bad news.

  Abbey stared morosely at the golden grain of the wood. Caleb played Clash of Clans, with his earbuds in, on the new iPhone he had received for Chri
stmas.

  Abbey was so busy tracing the patterns of lines and knots in the wood that she almost didn’t hear Ian arrive until he sat down next to her. He wore a navy and burgundy paisley number with his customary beret.

  “What are you doing here?” she said.

  “Just seeing the sights. I love old buildings,” Ian replied.

  “You do a lot of sightseeing.”

  “Guilty as charged,” he said, and then made a face. “Sorry. Probably inappropriate word choice for today.”

  Abbey offered him a small, grim smile in return. “I can’t figure out the stupid cards you gave me. Caleb can. But he says he’s not supposed to tell me. Why can he get it and I can’t?”

  “Look at him,” Ian said. Caleb had switched to music and was now swaying to “Feel So Close.”

  “He likes music?”

  “He lets himself go.”

  “Great. Well, I guess I’ll never do witchcraft then.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. There are basically three types of witches, if you want to call us that. I personally don’t care for the term. But it is what we’ve historically been called, so we’ll go with it for now. There are intuits, extuits, and pattern finders. Most of us are strong in one, moderate in the other, and weaker in the third. There are sub-specialties of course, but those aren’t important right now.”

  Ian seemed very serious, but Abbey almost had an inclination to scoff. “Which one are you best at?”

  “I’m an extuit.”

  “And that means?”

  “I can influence people and situations.”

  Abbey experienced a flash of exasperation at his apparent earnestness, but tried to quell it and remain open to possibilities. “Then why don’t you just make everyone do what you want? Like Selena, Nate, and Damian. And Sylvain?”

  “Well, my abilities are less effective against other people with the same abilities. Sylvain and Selena are both extuits too.”