Farley sounded like a raving lunatic as Selena’s stilettos tapped on the cement steps that led to the front door.
Her sharp knock echoed through the hallway as Abbey and Caleb skidded around the corner in time to see their father answering the door, his fingers hooked through Farley’s collar. The room was instantly filled with the heavy scent of Selena’s perfume.
“Selena,” Peter Sinclair said. Abbey detected a faint note of something— breathiness, surprise, nervousness; she couldn’t tell which—in his voice. Farley emitted a low growl.
“Peter.” Selena sashayed in without waiting to be invited. Her smile faltered a bit when she saw Abbey and Caleb peering around the corner. She turned back to Abbey’s dad. “We need to talk,” she said.
“I’m in the middle of making dinner,” Abbey’s dad said.
“Hmm, quite domesticated now, aren’t you, Peter? It’s important. Coventry Hill has already sold.”
“What?”
Selena nodded, looked at Abbey’s dad, and then darted a look over her shoulder at Abbey and Caleb. Their father’s eyes followed her gaze.
“We can talk downstairs in the basement,” he said. “Abbey and Caleb, do you mind taking the potatoes off the stove when they’re done?”
Peter Sinclair closed Farley into the office, where the dog continued to bark and howl wildly, and then led Selena down the stairs, closing the rec room door soundly behind them.
“What was that all about?” Abbey whispered as the potatoes bubbled in front of her. They could hear the low murmur of voices from the rec room.
But Caleb had vanished.
He reappeared a few seconds later waving their mother’s yearbook, which he had clearly kept stashed in his room, thus preventing it from getting lost in the sorting and filing odyssey that their mother had embarked on earlier in the month.
“They used to date,” he hissed.
“What?” Abbey said.
“Selena and Dad. Look.” Caleb thrust the open yearbook in her face. Sure enough, there, in a casual photo taken on the lawn of the high school, was a much younger version of their dad. He and Selena, who still looked almost precisely the same, were holding hands.
“Arghhh!” Abbey was almost repulsed by the photo. “I can’t believe it. I thought Mom and Dad had been together forever.” The notion that her parents had a past, and one that didn’t involve the each other, was almost unimaginable. “Where’s Mom?” She grabbed the yearbook, expecting to see her mother in the background of the photo looking heartbroken or deserted. Instead what she saw was much worse.
“Isn’t that Mom?” She jabbed her finger at the photo. “In the background? Holding hands with Ian?” The background of the photo was grainy, but the smiling girl with the curly brown hair looked distinctly like their mother.
“He’s still wearing the same beret,” Caleb said. “And aren’t those the two tattooed guys standing with them?”
“Frank and Francis,” Abbey said. Farley’s howls had taken on a rather desperate quality. She shut off the burner and removed the potato pot from the stove.
“I guess it makes sense,” Caleb said. “If they each lost their significant other to Nowhere… then that’s why Mom and Dad got together.”
“They were always meant to get together,” Abbey snapped. “This”—she stabbed a finger at the book—“this was just a temporary anomaly.”
All of a sudden Farley’s brown body tore through the hall and down the stairs, barking furiously, leaping and scratching at the rec room door. Abbey and Caleb looked at each other. “He must have figured out a way to unlatch the office door,” Caleb said.
“We better go retrieve him, or Dad’s going to think we let him out.”
They headed down the stairs just in time to see the rec room door fly open under the weight of Farley’s repeated assaults. They followed Farley into the rec room, expecting to see an angry expression on their dad’s face. But the rec room was empty. They both stood there, stunned, rotating slowly in the cool dark room. The door to Mark’s room was open, and it, too, was vacant.
Caleb ran down the hallway that led to the file room, the laundry room, and the downstairs bathroom, but returned a few seconds later with wide, wild eyes.
“Unless they locked themselves in the file room, they’re gone.”
*****
They came to a door at the end of the tunnel. Mark wasn’t entirely certain what he had expected to see at the end of the tunnel, but he had not considered that it might be a door. Sandy, apparently unsurprised, reached for the handle and gingerly opened the door, looking around the corner before flinging it wide.
They were in a basement: a fusty, damp, dark basement. Mark wasn’t sure if this was an improvement over the tunnel, but he followed Sandy out into the dim room. The tunnel had veered thirty degrees to the left in the last ten minutes. Mark thought that it was perhaps possible that he had seen the outline of a door at the point at which they turned, but Sandy had kept walking, and he had decided his eyes were deceiving him.
She closed the door behind him, and together they found their way through a maze of what looked like old boiler equipment and stalls for coal. A rickety set of wooden stairs led up to a door, beneath which Mark could see a sliver of light.
They mounted the stairs and Sandy grasped the door handle and tried to turn it. The door was locked, of course. Sandy frowned, stared at the door and tried again with no success.
Mark studied the knob and the lock. It had to be a two-way lock, he thought. They were locked in, and the people outside were locked out. A pentagon was etched into the metal above the door.
He’d seen that pentagon before somewhere. Where?
Sandy clenched her fists in frustration, but then reached into her pocket and withdrew an iPhone, on which Mark saw she had a GPS tracking app running. She rolled her eyes and gave a grimace. “I always forget I have this. These things are really handy.”
She flipped to the phone keypad and dialed a number. “Hey, Dad, I have Mark with me. We found the tunnel. You were right. It was one of the dots. But now we’re in a basement, behind a locked door. You said you could find me based on my phone. Can you come and let us out?”
There was a pause and then Sandy exclaimed, “What? You’ve got to be kidding. It was a really long walk.”
Sandy’s scowl deepened as she listened to the voice on the other end.
“Well, that’s great for you, but Mark and I just spent an hour underground. Bring a screwdriver. Maybe you can take the door off at the hinges. We’re not leaving.”
Mark sat down heavily on the top of the stairs and withdrew his water bottle from his satchel. They were obviously in a building—a large building, judging from the size of the boiler and the cement walls, and an old building judging from the level of decay. They had walked over three kilometers (at Sandy’s too-rapid pace), which would put them downtown.
Sandy plunked down next to him. “We’ll just stay here. Dad will change his mind.”
The silver charm bracelet she always wore jangled forward and backward on her wrist as she ran her hand through her hair. For the first time (and having nothing else to do), Mark took a closer look at the charms on the bracelet. There were three of them: one was a cylinder, another a disc, and the third a post with two flags hanging off it. Odd. He had been sure Sandy would be more likely to have charms like dogs, ballet dancers, and stylized suns.
She retrieved the iPhone from her pocket again, and the glow from the screen illuminated her face as she studied the GPS app. “Apparently we’ve come southeast in an almost perfectly straight line for 1.5 miles, then we turned and veered more south, but still southeast, for 0.6 miles,” she said. He realized that the distances were suspiciously close to being 2.5 km for the first stretch and 1 km for the second stretch, which struck him as an interesting ratio. As he looked over her shoulder at her phone, the light glinted off the disc on Sandy’s bracelet, and Mark saw that there was
a pentagon engraved on it.
“Where did you get that bracelet?” he said.
Sandy looked at him in surprise. “From Mom. It used to be hers. Why?”
“I think it’s the key,” Mark said. “For the door.”
Sandy stared at the bracelet. “You have to take it apart,” Mark said. “And put it together. The disk is the top part, then the cylinder, then the flags.”
Sandy had already slipped the bracelet off her wrist and was busy unhooking the charms. The three pieces fit together just as Mark had suggested, forming something that did look vaguely like a key. Together they rose and approached the door.
Sandy thrust the key in the lock. It fit with a satisfying click, and she turned it gently. The door swung open. She looked at Mark. “You’re brilliant,” she whispered, then withdrew the key and thrust it into her pocket, and they crept quietly through the door, closing it behind them.
They found themselves in another basement, but a more modern one, with large pipes running along the ceiling, a labeled boiler room, and a wine cellar. A wide set of stairs took them to a pair of doors, which in turn led to a posh hotel lobby. The Dorset Hotel.
They walked unchecked through the lobby, and soon Mark found himself on the sidewalk outside the gold-trimmed doors—the exact spot he’d watched just a few weeks ago, when he was at the bus stop by the square with the statue of Quinta Francis Merry. It had become dark while they were underground, and the red carpet covering the sidewalk outside the hotel was illuminated with hundreds of little white lights that framed the awning hanging over the front door. Mark could feel the heat off the lights.
The Sidekick skidded to a stop in the valet parking section of the hotel. Apparently the very bad man had decided he would come and get them after all.
“All right,” Sandy said. “Ready to look at some maps, little brother?”
*****
They had completed a search of the entire house. The only place they couldn’t search was the file room, since it was locked, but they had knocked wildly and put their ears to the door, with no response and no sound. Farley skittered around behind them, woofing nervously into empty spaces and corners. After twenty minutes of searching and walking around the exterior of the house twice, Abbey and Caleb were quite certain that their father and Selena were gone, and they were alone.
“He could have just gone for a walk,” Abbey said, knowing the suggestion was utterly ridiculous. “Or up to the stones to check on Mom.” Neither of them wanted to suggest that he had gone somewhere with Selena.
“We need to go check the stones,” said Caleb.
Abbey shifted her weight from foot to foot. She didn’t disagree. She just wanted an adult to show up and tell them what to do, like adults usually did. She stared out the picture window. Where was Ian, or Sylvain, or Dr. Ford, or Sandy, or Sam, or anyone? She’d even take the two Franks at this point.
She stuffed her hands in her pockets and touched the edges of the cards that she now carried everywhere with her. “Okay,” she said. Panic wound icy threads through her cells. On the surface she seemed under control, but on a quantum level, she was terrified. Where had their dad gone?
After some debate, they decided to leave Farley in the house. They could hear him howling in despair as Caleb locked the front door, and as they made their way up the path with flashlights, they looked back to see Farley’s nose pressed against the picture window between the curtains.
It didn’t take them long to reach the stones, but even as they approached, they both knew that there was no use. They couldn’t feel any energy pulsing through them. Sure enough, when Caleb pressed one foot experimentally on one of the stones, he remained completely solid, completely in this time.
“It’s Mark,” Abbey said. “He’s been gone too long.”
Caleb pulled at his hair in frustration. “But where is he?”
Abbey shook her head slowly. “I have no idea.”
“But what about Mom? Can she get back if Mark doesn’t come home?”
Abbey just shrugged. Caleb’s gesture. She, who always had the answers.
It was spooky and chilly standing there in the dark among the trees, and wordlessly they both turned and started descending the path, their flashlights casting white light onto the grey and silent forest.
“Should we look for Ian?” Abbey said.
Caleb nodded, and they both cut across Mrs. Forrester’s grass to her front door. But the house was dark, and nobody answered their knock, so they slowly made their way down the stairs and back across the street to their own house, where Farley did an elaborate dance of joyous greeting.
“I’m scared,” Abbey said. “Should we call the police?”
“What are we going to tell them?”
“I don’t know.” Abbey almost wailed.
“Maybe we should just wait here,” Caleb said. “Someone’s got to show up. Dad, or Mom, or Ian, or Mark, or Sylvain. Someone.” But he didn’t sound totally certain, and Abbey wondered what good Mark would be anyway. Other than making the stones work again of course… which might make things worse.
Abbey’s iPhone barked. A text message from her Dad.
< I’m okay. Just had to go do something with Selena. It’s important. Don’t worry. Just stay at home. >
*****
The dogs appeared just as Mark removed his satchel from his shoulder to climb into the Sidekick. Sandy was exclaiming something to the very bad man about “can you believe it’s the Dorset,” when the dogs came barreling down the sidewalk. One nipped at his pant leg, causing him to turn in alarm, while the other snatched the satchel from his hands and took off at full speed, rounding the corner before Mark could even start to scream.
Then he thought of all the important things in his satchel, and the fact that it had been a gift from his mother, and he almost crumpled into a little ball. His hands flew to his ears to pull at them, and he wanted to do his usual scream. But the dog was getting away, so instead of falling to the ground, he started to run after the dog.
Sandy grabbed at his arm.
“Wait. What are you doing? Those dogs are dangerous.”
“My satchel…” Mark started.
“We have copies of the maps. Just leave it. You need to come with us.”
“I’m double-parked,” the very bad man yelled from the Sidekick.
“Let’s just go, Mark,” Sandy said. “It’s not important.”
Mark shook off her hand and started in the direction of the dogs. Sandy chased after him, and the Sidekick followed, moving along the curb with Dr. Ford bellowing something about needing to go and not having much time. Sandy grabbed Mark again but he brushed her off and started running. He ducked into the alleyway where he had seen the dogs turn, moving full tilt now. His legs burned and he felt a little off balance, perhaps leaning too far forward, but he was rather surprised to find that he was moving rather quickly. More quickly than Sandy.
He pounded down the alleyway in pursuit of the dogs (or rather his satchel; he would prefer if he never had to see the dogs again ever).
He no longer heard footsteps behind him, and when he risked a look over his shoulder, he saw Sandy talking to the fellow with the beret—Ian (who seemed to be the owner of the dogs and that rat and, for that reason, Mark didn’t trust him, even though Ian had otherwise been fairly nice).
He put on a burst of speed and arrived at a junction where two alleys crossed; there, lying on the ground, was his satchel. A clear imprint of dog’s teeth formed a semicircle in the leather flap that held the satchel closed, and two long lines ran across the satchel where it looked like someone had wrenched it out of a dog’s mouth. He picked it up and shrank behind a large dumpster in the alley to the right, beside what appeared to be the service entrance of the Dorset.
The top of his satchel was sticky and wet with slobber. All of his papers, including the maps, were gone. The sandwich was gone, too, and Mark saw the chewed-up remains of the s
andwich wrapper lying in the alley. His stomach sprang to life with sharp growls of hunger at the sight of it. He had copies of the maps in his Protex safe back at the Sinclairs’. And he now had his satchel, and his flashlight.
He heard footsteps, and someone calling his name—Sandy. She turned left at the junction though, her voice getting fainter as she moved away from him. He pulled deeper into the shadows of the dumpster. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to find him—map of Coventry Hill or no map. In fact, he decided he rather wanted this day to be over. He held his satchel tightly to his chest, caressed the gold clasp that held the flap shut, and closed his eyes, wishing that this would all disappear and he could be back at the Sinclairs’, making a new salami sandwich.
His fingers found a strange indentation on the clasp that he hadn’t noticed before. He wondered if the dogs had gouged it with their teeth. He opened his eyes and examined it. There, faintly engraved in the thick, broad gold clasp, was a pentagon. It was almost invisible unless you were looking for it. With shaking fingers, Mark probed the clasp. Sure enough, when pushed sideways hard enough, the flat disc with the pentagon on it popped out. Underneath it were stashed the barrel and the teeth of a key. Mark assembled it quickly.
He had a key too. A key to the tunnel. Or tunnels?
Mark barely had time to contemplate this before he heard a very different kind of footstep—the sharp click of dog toenails on the pavement of the alley.
“He’s down here,” a harsh voice called. Mark whipped his head above the dumpster and looked. The two extremely bad men stood at the end of the alley.
Mark’s heart rate started to accelerate. The dogs would have him cornered in a few seconds. Suddenly the service door to the Dorset swung open, and a kitchen worker stepped out with a large bag of garbage. Mark sprang from behind the dumpster and pushed past the worker despite his cries of “Hey!”
Mark bolted through the white kitchen to the surprised stares of the kitchen staff. Steam emerged in a cloud from a pot on a burner and the whole kitchen was redolent with the scents of cooking meat and cheese. Mark’s stomach clawed with ferocious hunger, but he barged on past the kitchen staff, through a swinging door, into a dining room (where patrons looked at him), out into the lobby, and back to the front entrance of the Dorset. The Sidekick was no longer double-parked, and the front was deserted (of very bad and extremely bad men at least). Mark contemplated running back down to the tunnel, but that would take him to the orchard, and it was the wrong direction.
A Quill Ladder Page 24
