A Pair of Docks

by Jennifer Ellis

  “Lose a few members of your party?” he asked.

  “How do you know our mother?” Abbey returned.

  “I’m involved in her campaign as a major donor. But I’ve known her for years. I knew your grandparents, and your Great-Aunt Marge.”

  “I told you it was Great-Aunt Marge,” said Caleb.

  The gold tooth flashed.

  “Did you like them?” asked Abbey.

  Mantis laughed, actually guffawed, his gray curls thrown back over his shoulders.

  “Yes, I did,” said Mantis. “But I really do need to find Mark. Perhaps you could tell me where he is?”

  “Why? So you can use him to kill one of us?”

  Mantis’s smile drew inward until his mouth formed a thin line and his eyes had a glint that made Abbey nervous. “Well, you are a very direct young lady, much like your mother and Francis. I suppose that’s the mark of a good potential witch.” Mantis laced his long, snake-like fingers together one by one, revealing the whites of his long nails. He left his forefingers extended, almost as if forming a steeple. It made him look oddly prepared to strike. “Just be sure you don’t get off to the wrong start by listening too much to our poor dear Dr. Ford, who always tried, but never quite got the hang of a lot of things. You should be careful around him. You know, Matthew 7:15 and all.”

  A draft of cool air from the open sundeck door moved up Abbey’s leg. She shivered.

  “Oh, I see you’ve already met Sylvain,” their mother murmured as she flowed back into the room.

  The fingers unlaced and Mantis reassembled his face into a charming smile.

  “Simon, I’ve been intending to introduce the two of you. Sylvain is a computer genius. I’m sure the two of you would have a lot in common.”

  “Yeah,” said Caleb. “Like some day they may try to design the same computer program.”

  Their mother whirled and gave Caleb a searching look. “Why would you say something like that?”

  “Relax, Mom. It was a joke.”

  “Well, I don’t like you to be rude.” Their mother continued to study Caleb.

  Mantis smiled. “It is quite all right, Marian. After all you’ve told me about him, it’s quite possible the young Simon and I might design the same computer program some day. And then may the best man, or, shall we say, program, win.” Mantis laughed. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you children. I must go and chat with a friend of mine before he leaves. Simon, don’t hesitate to come in and see me at my office if you’re looking for summer work.”

  They all watched as Mantis strode across the room to talk to a short, stout balding man near the bar. Mantis folded his fingers together again while he spoke.

  Abbey shuddered.

  Their mother elevated her eyebrow at Caleb. “I’m going to take you around for some introductions. I would appreciate a little less glibness, Caleb. Then you can go watch your movie.” Abbey tried to get her mother alone for a few minutes, but in vain. There were too many people milling about in the hallways and rooms, and her mother always seemed to be talking to someone. Nothing could happen, Abbey reassured herself. Dr. Ford had Mark. Mantis couldn’t use the stones.

  They were finally able to retreat to the crypt with laptops and snacks half an hour later. Abbey explained her Alice the camel idea to Simon and Caleb, and they agreed she should do some further research on Al-Ice. Caleb departed to the storage room, indicating he had a lead he wanted to follow up on, but remained a bit mysterious with regard to what it was. Simon sat on the couch, staring out the window, muttering about going to check on Dr. Ford and Mark.

  “Si, what went on between you and Russell Andrews? Please tell me. He’s being really friendly toward me.”

  Simon jerked his head around. “Do not trust Russell Andrews.”

  “Can you please tell me what happened? He wants me to join some youth advisory committee or something. It’s really weird. Why me?”

  “Just stay away from him.”

  “I heard him telling you that you’d better not let him down. What was that all about?”

  Simon let out a sigh of exasperation and waved her over to him. Abbey approached gingerly. Simon lowered his voice to a whisper. “Look, Russell convinced me to do something that I shouldn’t have. He said it would help Mom. Russell’s aunt is running for city council, too—Gretchen Leer, the woman with the red curly hair that wears too much lipstick. He told me he had evidence that two of the existing councilors are corrupt and were working against Mom. He wanted me to hack into the city mainframe and download their email record so we could find some evidence against them. I guess his cousin works at City Hall and lifted a password file, except they couldn’t figure out how to use the passwords and sort through the files to get the ones they needed. So, they needed my help. I had no problem getting in and getting the files. But then I read them and realized that the two councilors weren’t corrupt at all. They were working with Mom to get Coventry Hill protected. Anyway, I refused to give him the files and he’s totally pissed off.”

  “Oh, Simon. I can’t believe you did that.”

  “Tell me about it. If they bring in any sort of computer forensic guy, I am so dead. I mean, I think I covered my tracks, but you can never be too sure. The bottom line is, don’t trust Russell. I have no idea what he was looking for, but I can tell you he was not trying to help Mom.”

  “Don’t you think you should tell Mom?”

  “No way. And if you say a word, you’re so dead.” Simon resumed staring out the window, his face dark and tight, and Abbey returned to the flowered couch.

  Abbey booted up her laptop and read everything she could find about Aluminum Ice, twice. She found nothing of interest except that, save for resolving a few technical issues, Aluminum Ice looked like a very promising way to power space travel. She felt a wave of frustration creep over her. Then she Googled Matthew 7:15. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, she read. What had Caleb said? Something about false prophets. Except who was the false prophet?

  “I found it,” said Caleb, waving an open book over his head. When he got closer, Abbey could see he carried one of their mother’s yearbooks, dated 1984.

  “Found what?” Abbey said.

  “Sandy Ford.”

  “Sandy who?”

  Caleb splayed the book on the table in triumph. Simon came to look over Abbey’s shoulder. “Sandy Ford, our witch from Nowhere. She was mom’s best friend. I found her photo when I was snooping in Mom’s drawer once, and Mom told me who she was. I thought she looked familiar. Do you think she’s Dr. Ford’s daughter?”

  Abbey studied the photo. Sandy was a pert young thing with freckles and flippy blond hair. She seemed to shine like the sun, one of those effortlessly cute types who managed to look friendly and genuine despite her appearance. Captain of the Cheerleading Squad it said beneath her photo. The messy rounded scrawl beneath the caption said: Here’s to us, bud. Thanks for the frogs. Wish me luck. Remember: WE’RE INVINCIBLE. Don’t smoke. Abbey drew the book closer. Don’t smoke. Abbey felt suddenly ill. She had forgotten to pass on Sandy’s message. “You have to smoke on the docks.”

  “Ford is a common name. She does look like him though, a bit, in the curve of the eyebrow and the jaw line,” said Abbey. “But don’t you think it’s strange he didn’t mention her? Listen guys, there’s something I forgot to tell you…”

  Caleb interrupted. “I think we’d better go check on Dr. Ford and Mark.”

  “You mean, follow Dr. Ford and Mark.” Simon pointed out the window, where Dr. Ford and Mark could be seen picking their way up the path into the woods, clearly heading for the stones. Sanome padded by Dr. Ford’s side. The few seconds it took to put on their sneakers and then slink past the windows made Abbey’s heart pound.

  “It makes sense,” said Caleb, as they scrambled up the hill. “He knows Mark’s future goes to Nowhere. He knows his daughter might be in Nowhere, and he wants her back.”

  “But how’s he going to ge
t her back?” panted Abbey. “She said nobody can leave Nowhere.” Simon was several meters ahead of them, striding up the path.

  “Maybe he doesn’t know that, or he thinks he can outsmart the stones,” said Caleb. “Think about it. If it were your daughter, you’d probably try anything. Maybe he thinks he can do an exchange or something. Him for her.”

  “Sandy said you can only change the future from the present.” Abbey paused. “She added something more at the end though, before she was cut off. So, maybe there is some way of changing the future from the future. But what?”

  Caleb widened his green eyes. “I dunno. But I bet you if anyone knows, it’s Dr. Ford.”

  Abbey’s breath came in raggedy gasps. “We really need to know the rules. Who else can we ask?”

  Caleb interrupted. “Don’t look back. Mantis is at the edge of the yard looking up this way. Paper, rock, scissors to see who goes back and creates some sort of scene so he can’t follow us. The other two of us call the police about the pot in his bag and go through the stones. Okay, let’s throw…” Abbey wondered if her own face looked as aghast at this suggestion as Simon’s did.

  Caleb threw up his hands. “Oh, fine. I’ll go. He likes me best anyway.”

  Before she could say anything, Caleb turned and headed back down the hill. Simon wordlessly turned and continued his ascent. Abbey swore—a small swear, and one she would say quietly in front of her mother—and followed Simon up the hill. Abbey held out her hand and Simon slapped his iPhone into it. No danger of him volunteering to be the one to call the police. Abbey dialed 911 and reported she’d seen a bag of pot in a man’s bag at a party. The woman on the other end told Abbey she had to stay on the phone, but in a panic, she blurted out the address and said she was in danger and hung up.

  She and Simon had reached the stones by this time. There was no sign of Dr. Ford, Mark, or Sanome.

  Simon glanced at Abbey, then stepped onto the stones and vanished.

  Abbey sucked in her breath and followed, wishing Caleb was with them with his reassuring ways. She emerged into darkness and smashed against Simon, who stood like a statue centimeters from the stones. The silent forms of the trees came slowly into focus as Abbey’s eyes adjusted to the light. They were back in the dark forest of Caleb’s future, or a forest like it, but it smelled the same, and it felt the same, and Abbey was certain is was the same. A faint breeze rustled through the leaves. A tremor ran up Abbey’s spine. She wished she’d grabbed a jacket. She stood as still as Simon, listening for any sounds of Mark and Dr. Ford. The trees seemed to be whispering to her, a melancholy murmuring of sorrow and loss. She slipped her hand through Simon’s arm so she wouldn’t lose him in the darkness. The soft cotton of his shirt was comforting.

  “It has to be okay,” she said to Simon. “We have until tomorrow.”

  “Huh?” said Simon, but he didn’t push her arm away.

  “We still have ‘til tomorrow before anything happens. October twenty-second. Remember? Mark said October twenty-second. And the email from Fly Kid yesterday said the Holding the Light thingy was in two days, which is also October twenty-second. And it’s only October twenty-first. So, we’re fine. Nothing can happen.”

  Simon stuck his hands in his pockets, but left her hand linked in his arm. “Ab, it’s nine o’clock. October twenty-second is in three hours.” The wind had picked up, and the trees above them bent and heaved in the sudden gust. “But like Dr. Ford said, those were only possible futures. There are a lot of threads in this. Maybe Dr. Ford and Mark changed everything by going through the stones tonight. In a computer program, as soon as you change one variable, you have to recompile the whole program. We might be recompiling right now.”

  “But couldn’t that be creating a paradox? I thought we weren’t supposed to change the timeline. At all.”

  Simon just shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Abbey ground her teeth together. “If we ever get out of this…alive, I want it on record that I prefer one timeline, and limited threads.”

  Simon’s laugh came in an abbreviated snort. “We’d better start looking. Should we mark the stones, do you think? I still have the twine in my pocket from before.”

  Abbey shrugged. “I don’t know if it matters. The stones seem to take us back when they’re ready to take us back.”

  The chill of the night air cut through her sweater. Why did she always end up on these adventures without a jacket? Except when she went to the desert where she’d had a jacket but didn’t need one. She wondered how camels coped with their thick woolly coats. Perhaps there was something about their coats that prevented them from feeling the heat and cold of the desert. Maybe that was the message Mrs. Forrester had been trying to give them with the drawing of the camel—Bring a coat, dummy. Abbey yearned for the warmth of the older Caleb’s tent. She turned in the direction in which she thought the camp lay.

  “Maybe we should go this way,” she suggested.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It’s as good a way as any.” And we might be safer there, Abbey thought.

  “I guess.” Simon seemed noncommittal. “I brought a compass.” He withdrew his iPhone and compass from his pocket and used the light from the phone to check the bearing. “Okay, we’re heading northeast.”

  They walked for a few minutes, feeling their way around bushes and trees.

  “Simon, do you think this is Caleb’s future?”

  “I dunno. It sure seems the same.”

  “It does to me too. But don’t you think it’s funny though? Didn’t we figure it had to be the person who went through first whose future it was? We never confirmed that with Dr. Ford. But it seemed to be the case. But in this case it was either Dr. Ford or Mark who went over the stones first, and Caleb isn’t even here at all. So how can it be his future?”

  “Maybe it’s also one of their futures. Maybe one of them is in Caleb’s future. Or maybe we’re somewhere else altogether.” The silvery shadow of the moon peeked around the corner of a cloud, providing dim illumination to the forest. “There seems to be a bit of a trail here. Shall we follow it? It might be easier to find our way back if we do.” Simon checked the compass again and then thrust it back in his pocket.

  Abbey nodded in assent and fell into line behind Simon, following the narrow footpath. They walked in silence for several minutes, the trees ghostly around them. Abbey began to hear vague snatches of splashing and slapping as they continued along the path.

  “The beaver pond,” she whispered to herself, as if the sounds of her voice might disturb the beavers’ industry. “This has to be Caleb’s future.” The path ended at the pond’s edge, and as they came to a stop, Abbey stared out over the water rippling in the breeze and pale light. The dark forms of the beavers hard at work were only vaguely visible at the other end of the pond. Just then, the clouds shifted again, revealing the brilliant orb of the full moon. The light fell on the pond and forest, casting it in a brilliant spectral glow.

  “Look,” said Abbey, clutching Simon’s arm. A little way along the shore, in another small clearing, stood Dr. Ford and Mark, their eyes fixed on something across the pond. Abbey and Simon turned quickly to their right to see what the two were watching so intently. In between the trees, they could make out glimpses of white forms, forty or fifty of them at least, in a group on the opposite shore, moving in the moonlight, like white laundry flowing in a gentle wind. But the dark trees blocked their view.

  “Are they ghosts?” Abbey breathed, feeling a chill.

  “I don’t know. I think we have to move over toward Mark and Dr. Ford to be able to see,” Simon breathed back.

  They made their way through the trees along the shoreline, scarcely taking their eyes off of the forms, except to pick their way around trees and bushes.

  When they reached the two men—for it was impossible to hide themselves from them and still be able to see what was happening on the other side of the pond—they walked up and stood beside them. Dr. Ford
nodded and Mark continued to stare straight ahead. Abbey could now see that a clearing stood on the opposite side of the pond, making a natural amphitheater. The white forms were humans, at least sixty of them, barefoot and dressed in white flowing gowns, and engaged in some elaborate dance in which they raised their hands to the sky and then dropped them to the ground. The women wore white flowers in their hair and the men wore white feathers. The steps were intricate, with each row performing elaborate turns and leaps before the next row moved up to take their place. The eyes of the dancers remained uplifted and trancelike while they danced, their eyes fixed on the moon. The moonlight on the pond formed a shimmering pathway from the four watchers to the dancers. It was the dance she’d seen them rehearsing in Caleb’s camp. And at the front of the dancers, remaining at all times in the front row, his moves more graceful and powerful than all of the others, was Caleb. The future Caleb.

  “I think it’s a Holding the Light Ceremony,” whispered Dr. Ford. “Very ancient, very magical. I’ve never seen one before.”

  Abbey wanted to yell at him, to push him into the water for dragging them here. But she was transfixed by the dance, and by the future Caleb, whose moves were strong and certain. He radiated peace and vigor. It was as if she could feel him pulling the magic and energy out of the moon. Her heart twisted for her twin.

  The crinkle of underbrush behind them made them all jump. Abbey whirled about to see a smiling Mantis—trailed by Jake Hammond—emerge from the trees. “Ah, a regular party, I see,” said Mantis. He gestured across the lake. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Sanome let out a low growl.

  “Where’s Caleb?” asked Abbey.

  “Oh, he’s back with your mother. She’s in a bit of a state with the two of you disappearing from the party like that, and then with the police showing up, and Caleb being caught with the pot, and someone threatening a young girl.” Mantis shook his head. “Of course, at a gathering of environmentalists, Caleb wasn’t the only person with pot. It got really exciting for a while… Very easy to slip away.”