A Quill Ladder

by Jennifer Ellis

  Nate stopped approaching.

  Mark’s face was tight and squinty and tears ran down his cheeks, but he steadied the gun and kept it pointed at Nate.

  Caleb rolled over and rose to his knees. Blood covered his face, and his eye was swollen and red. He made a wide, unsteady circle around Nate until he was standing next to Mark. He held out his hand, and Mark handed him the gun.

  “Okay,” Caleb said, turning to Kasey. “Do you have a room that locks?”

  “No, but I have an old dog kennel in the kitchen. It’s big,” Kasey said.

  The four of them maneuvered Selena and Nate into the kitchen and forced them to crawl into the wire dog kennel, all while watching the front door for Damian or Dr. Ford. Kasey turned the key in the kennel lock just as they heard Dr. Ford’s voice from the living room. “Where are you? I can’t find them.”

  “We’re here!” Selena screamed. “Help us!”

  Abbey, Caleb, Mark, and Kasey bolted out the kitchen door and into the damp, cool night. Abbey had taken her winter coat off in the map room, but there was no time to retrieve it now. Mark, she noted, still carried his satchel.

  They ran in darkness and silence through back yards, climbing fences and skirting laundry lines. Motion lights flicked on and illuminated Caleb’s bloodied face and the silver sheen of the gun as they ran. The occasional sounds of scrabbling and flash of lights behind them made them feel like they were being chased. Abbey tried not to think of Farley bleeding to death in Kasey’s yard.

  Abbey’s heart was throbbing heavily in her chest by the time they finally escaped the person, or people, behind them, and they gathered behind a garden shed to debate what to do. The houses in this part of town backed on to the Moon River, and the willow trees that lined the river hung low over the dark glistening water.

  By mutual agreement, the four of them made their way down the steep bank to the river’s edge and huddled beneath the fronds of one of the lush trees. A small rowboat was tied to the tree and bobbed gently in the water.

  “Do you think someone’s following us, or are they searching the house?” Abbey whispered.

  “I can’t tell. I think they want Mark,” Caleb said. He had slowed in the last five minutes, and Abbey was scared that he was more hurt than he was letting on.

  “I have to get back to my cats,” Kasey said. “The police will be there by now. I don’t know what’s going on here, or who you are, but I don’t think I want to be involved.”

  “We’re really sorry. It’s a long story. We have to get to our mother,” Abbey said. “And our dog. And get home.”

  “I have a friend who lives near here,” Kasey said. “I’m going to head to her house and wait for the police there. You can come if you want.” He didn’t actually look too keen about having them come. Abbey shook her head. She was sure none of them wanted to run into the police and have to explain who they were or why they were here.

  “We’ll carry on ourselves. Sorry, again,” Abbey said.

  “It’s okay. It might have happened anyway. That Ford fellow had already contacted me. I’m moving my map to a safety deposit box. But if I need you as witnesses, or need to talk to you, where can I find you?” Kasey asked.

  “Contact us through Simon Sinclair, of Sinclair Systems,” Abbey said. “He’s our uncle.”

  Kasey raised his eyebrows at this, but nodded. Then he made his way along the river’s edge for several meters before scrabbling back up the bank and disappearing from sight.

  Motion lights from a few houses down shimmered on the river, and the sound of someone climbing over a fence was quite distinct now.

  “We have to go,” Abbey whispered harshly. She noticed that Caleb was clutching his ribcage and was half doubled over. “Are you okay?”

  Caleb shook his head. “I don’t know if I can walk any further.”

  “Give me the gun and get in the boat,” Abbey ordered.

  “What?”

  “You and Mark get in the boat. Hurry. There’s only room for two. Someone has to get help. The river goes right by the hospital. Float to the hospital and get Mom. Simon will be there with her. Get Simon to take you to meet me at the apothecary. I’ll cut through the yards to the street. We don’t have time to waste. Go. If I’m not at the apothecary, you’ll know what to do.”

  Abbey snatched the gun from Caleb’s hand before he could protest, ran up the bank, and ducked back behind the shed. She heard Caleb calling her name low, telling her to come back, and Mark saying something about not having a life jacket.

  She ignored them. The yard was quiet and dark with no motion light, and she made for the narrow gap between the houses as fast as she could go.

  The front garden was filled with white decorative stones that reflected the moonlight. She was almost to the street when she heard the crunch of gravel behind her. She swung around, holding the gun aloft, only to see Jake’s white face in the shadows of the house behind her.

  “Please don’t shoot,” he whispered urgently. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Was it you following us this whole time?” she said.

  Jake shook his head. “I think Damian was, but he turned back.”

  “Are you alone?” she said, looking behind him.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you working with them?”

  “No.”

  “So what are you doing here then?”

  “Coming to find you. To help you.”

  “But you came here with them.”

  “They were blackmailing me, and I had no idea what they were doing until your friend Ian filled me in.”

  “All the same, I’m not sure if I need your help, Jake.” Abbey looked beyond him, to make sure that Caleb and Mark hadn’t appeared. Or Damian, or Nate. Or any of them. She hoped that Caleb and Mark were floating down the river.

  “I was hoping we could just try to get home together,” Jake said.

  “I have things I have to do first.” Abbey turned and headed toward the street.

  Jake followed. “I’ll come along then, if you don’t mind.”

  “You just don’t know how to get home yourself,” Abbey wheezed as she darted through the darkened front yards in the direction of the apothecary. Jake stayed right behind her, his movements effortless and graceful. Tiny shards of blue and red lights reflected off houses to the west. The police must be at Kasey’s by now.

  “Was Ian outside the house?”

  Jake nodded. “He moves like a ghost at the speed of light, that man. Damian took off after him, firing his gun. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t sign up for shooting.”

  “Then you might want to reconsider who you hang with.” Abbey paused to catch her breath in the shadow of a Japanese yew. “Which direction did they go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was Farley okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where’s my dad?”

  Jake almost jumped when she said this. “I have no idea.”

  Abbey stomped her foot. “Fat lot of good you are then.”

  “They don’t tell me anything. I’m just like their metal detector. They seem to think that if I can sense the docks, I can find something else for them. But I have no idea what they’re looking for. So I’ve been a bit useless. They didn’t seem that bad at first. They said they were just looking to help our people.” Jake slashed quotation marks in the air around “our people,” as if he didn’t really believe that he was one of them. “Is your dad missing?”

  “Never mind.” Abbey resumed her yard-darting. It occurred to her that Jake could probably piggyback her faster than she could get there herself. “If you’re going to even think about following me, you have to promise me that you won’t ever help them again.”

  “I promise.”

  Abbey glared fiercely at him while she ran. His heavily fringed dark eyes were wide, and his hair curled up around his collar. “I promise,” he repeated more softly.
He could be tricking her. He had, after all, been working with Selena.

  The sound of pattering footsteps made Abbey jump. Farley bolted out of a yard and onto the sidewalk, dragging his leash and emitting howls of joy. He threw himself at Abbey, nearly knocking her down, until Jake managed to grab the leash and pull Farley into a sit.

  “Off, Farley. Quiet,” Abbey said, and then buried her face in the dog’s neck and wrapped her arms around his quivering body, so grateful that he was still alive. Something hard and cold hit her chin, and she drew back.

  Looped into Farley’s collar, and smeared with dried blood, was Ian’s silver key to the tunnels.

  17. Pythagoras in the Dark

  The ride down the river was surprisingly smooth and quiet and gave Mark the opportunity to study the geography of the riverbanks. The banks were steep and eroded sharply in spots, and Mark saw the edges of an old paved road that had been cut away by one of the banks.

  This river had definitely flooded at some point, but now it was a surprisingly small river, considering the volume of water he was sure flowed through the Coventry City of the present. He turned around and looked up the river to where the Granton Dam once stood. In the dark, and from this low elevation, he couldn’t make out the spot between the mountains where the dam should be. Of course, the dam wasn’t visible in the present Coventry City either. You had to be relatively high and to the east on the Circle Plateau to be able to look across the valley and see it—like where they had been that day when they’d gone for the hike in the woods in the other future.

  Dams, he knew, were decommissioned all the time. But not usually major hydroelectric dams undergoing an expansion.

  BP. Bottom of the pentagram. It made sense. He had been convinced it was the briar patch, or the beaver pond. He was also still not sure about the meaning of the cross and the location of the docks. There was some connection there, but he couldn’t quite see it yet. Perhaps if he could go back and check the maps at the library, he would understand. There was no time now, though. Then there was the matter of a fifth map. Selena had clearly referred to five maps. Yet Kasey had thought there were only four. Mark needed to sort that out, too.

  Caleb lay in the bottom of the boat, barely moving, his eyes closed. Mark realized that it would probably be up to him to guide them to shore when they reached the hospital. Despite the shallowness of the river—so shallow that they scraped sandbars and Mark was certain he could wade to shore in spots—the current carried them swiftly. When the outlines of the long, low hospital building were in sight, Mark plunged the two oars into the water, and after a few false starts in which he paddled the boat in circles, he managed to land the boat on a sandy beach.

  Mark clambered out and called to Caleb, who rose with difficulty, the left side of his face puffy and purple and blood-crusted under his nose and on his cheek. They made their way up the riverbank to where Ms. Beckham and Simon stood waiting in the courtyard outside the hospital.

  Ms. Beckham gasped when she saw Caleb, and Simon rushed at them, demanding to know where Abbey was.

  “She’s meeting us at Abbott’s Apothecary,” Caleb said, wincing with the effort of talking. Simon and Ms. Beckham turned to Mark as if to ask how he could possibly have allowed this to happen.

  “She said to bring Caleb to get you,” Mark said.

  This didn’t seem to be the right answer, as there were lots of alternately raised and lowered eyebrows and scrunched-up skin around Ms. Beckham’s and Simon’s eyes.

  After a debate on whether Caleb should be treated right away or not—during which Caleb declared repeatedly that he was fine—they decided that finding Abbey was the priority. So they squeezed into Simon’s small commuter car and sped in the direction of the apothecary, while Ms. Beckham grilled Caleb on what happened. Caleb gave an abbreviated version of going to Kasey’s and encountering Selena, Nate, and Damian. Ms. Beckham did not seem pleased by any of this and repeatedly said, “I told you not to go alone,” with looks at Mark again, as if he were responsible.

  The apothecary was dark save for a small light that seemed to be coming from a back office. Abbey wasn’t there, and Ms. Beckham started to pace.

  “Where was she coming from?” she demanded.

  “480 Apple Tree Road,” Mark said. “Or thereabouts.” He decided not to mention that she had a gun and that someone might have been following them. Caleb didn’t offer this information either.

  “I’ll go drive along the streets between here and there,” Simon volunteered, and headed off in his boxy little red car that ran on electricity.

  *****

  “I don’t want to alarm you,” Jake said, leaning in really close so that his lips almost touched her ear. “But I think there’s someone following us.”

  They were almost at the apothecary, and Abbey just wanted to get back to her family and her home.

  “Should we run, do you think?” Abbey whispered. They had been half jogging along in relative silence. She had told him how hurt Caleb was, and how worried she was about her mother and father, and he had listened and said some nice words about how he hoped they would all be okay.

  She liked Jake. She couldn’t seem to stop herself from liking Jake.

  Abbey had been so relieved at the hospital when her mother had said the treatment had worked, that she would be fine, that she had caught it soon enough. But there was a strange sadness in her face when she said this, and when Abbey had finally asked what it was that her mother had—it seemed okay to ask, now that she was cured—her mother had said gently that they would talk about it when they got home. Her mother’s sadness and mysteriousness didn’t make sense if she was going to be okay—which meant in Abbey’s mind that the disease had to be genetic, and by process of elimination, and degree of inheritability, Abbey had decided it had to be Huntington’s—a neurodegenerative disorder with a fifty percent heritability rate. That was the only reason she could see for their parents not telling them. They didn’t want Abbey, Caleb, and Simon to have to live with the knowledge that, in all probability, one or more of them would get the disease—and might live in a future with no cure.

  But maybe her mother was just worried about Abbey’s dad. Something about the mention of Selena’s visit, and the fact that Abbey’s dad had gone and talked to Selena downstairs, had really upset her.

  Abbey wanted to tell Jake more, about the map, about everything. But he sure seemed to make some bad decisions about whom to help. So she didn’t.

  Jake leaned in again. “I don’t know. Whoever it is, they don’t seem to be trying to get any closer.”

  They quickened their pace and went one block up, and from time to time, Abbey was sure she heard the footsteps too. Then a black car sped past them, with Frank and Francis at the wheel. Abbey waved her hands to try to flag them, but they ignored her and carried on.

  *****

  “Marion! Marion!” Mark turned to see Sandy running down the street toward them. She practically bowled Ms. Beckham over before coming to a stop. “Please. You have to help me. They’re following me!”

  A car, much the same as Simon’s except black, sped past. Mark could have sworn it was HT One and HT Two in the front.

  “Who’s following you? What are you doing here?” Ms. Beckham said.

  Sandy wiped a tear from her face with her sleeve, leaving a smear of dirt across her cheek. “Frank and Francis are. Ian has them following me. I was just here looking for my dad. He’s been acting strange lately, hanging around with Selena, and I’m worried. But Ian won’t leave me alone. He’s been stalking me in the present too. Every time I turn around, there he is. It’s starting to really scare me. I don’t think he’s taking our breakup very well. Please let me stay with you. I’m afraid he’s planning something.”

  “Did Ian date everyone?” Caleb said from where he huddled against the wall of the apothecary.

  “Caleb. That’s enough,” Ms. Beckham said. “How did you get here? Abbey and Caleb said Sy
lvain destroyed our stones?”

  Sandy waved a hand in the air. “There’s a set east of the city in the hills. Didn’t you know? How were you planning to get home?”

  Mark squinted at her. So there was a set east of the city, as they had guessed. One would have to hike for at least four or five hours up a mountain in the present and then retrace their steps again in the future to use them though, unless they were picked up on this side in a spaceship, or they had built a train.

  Ms. Beckham cocked her head and wore a funny expression that Mark couldn’t quite decipher. “We’re going home another way,” she said.

  Sandy grasped pleadingly at Ms. Beckham’s shirt, causing it to rise up just a bit, and Mark noticed that Sandy had a pentagram tattooed on her lower back, except it was upside down. “Please let me come home with you, Marian. Please. Ian’s acting crazy. And you know, you kind of owe me one.” Sandy offered a teary smile at this. “Then we’ll be even.”

  Mark saw Ms. Beckham’s body stiffen. “I’m not so sure helping you to get home is the equivalent of you saving my life and then having to spend twenty years in Nowhere, Sandy.”

  Mark was trying to process this when Abbey, Jake, and Farley whipped around the corner, running toward them at breakneck speed.

  *****

  Abbey would have fainted with relief at the sight of her mother, Caleb, and Mark if the stitch in her side had not been so painful. She gasped for air and staggered the last few steps, then saw Sandy. Sandy? What was she doing here?

  “We need to go. Someone’s following us,” Abbey choked. “Jake. Break the apothecary door. Now.”

  Jake came to a skidding stop in front of the apothecary and looked at Abbey uncertainly.

  “Just do it,” Abbey ordered.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Beckham. We don’t always seem to meet under the best of circumstances,” Jake said as he picked up a rock and tossed it like a fastball through the glass apothecary door, right by the handle. Then he covered his hand with his sleeve, plunged it through the door, turned the deadbolt inside, and opened the door.