A Grave Tree (14 page)

She started typing again. She would look up her parents, to reassure herself that they were just fine, that they had come home, and everything had been fine. But she hesitated, afraid of what she might learn. What would it be like to learn about the death of one’s parents on the Internet? Instead, her fingers entered “New L.A.”

“New L.A. destroyed in burst of energy from transport crash. North American Space Travel Control Administration moved to Coventry,” read the first item in the list returned by the search engine.

Abbey blinked at the screen, then started to type “List of North American City-States.”

“You again?” The words came harsh over her shoulder, and she turned to see Max holding a push broom, glaring at her. “Are you following me?” Several other library patrons glanced their way.

Abbey shook her head urgently. “No, not at all. I promise.”

Max flicked his eyes over her shoulder at the computer. “And you’re looking up
New L.A.
,” he hissed. Abbey whirled and closed the browser window as fast as she could. The curious looks of the other patrons had shifted to expressions of concern.

“What’s going on here?” Kasey’s strawberry-blond hair was just visible behind Max.

Max jumped and scurried away from Abbey, pressing his broom against the floor and darting glances back at her.

Abbey focused her gaze on Kasey. Would he know her? And if he did, would he want to have anything to do with her, considering what had happened to his house the last time she saw him? Not to mention the fact that she had broken into the library that night and Jake probably bled all over the place, as did the person she hit with an axe. And Dr. Ford and Selena had probably ripped apart the map room.

“Come with me,” Kasey ordered.

Abbey considered bolting, but right now she needed someone—anyone—who could help her. So she followed Kasey into the office behind the front desk, while Max eyed her like a possessed animal.

“Did you all make it home okay?” Kasey said in a low voice as soon as he had closed the door. “I feel like a jerk for not sticking around to help your brother. I just… I panicked. I didn’t know what they were doing to my house and my maps. I called the hospital after to check on you, but nobody matching your descriptions had come in.”

“The police looked for you for several weeks to get your statement about those home invaders. They were starting to think I made you up. I finally told them you might be from the Outlands. They couldn’t find any trace of the perpetrators either, but the library was broken into that night as well, and I’m pretty sure the events were connected. Now you show up here again, looking up New L.A., no less. Who are you, Abbey?” Kasey said all this in a single torrent of words and put his hands on his hips when he finished.

So, Kasey
did
know her. Had the events four weeks ago happened just as she remembered? Or had the past changed somehow? Had some things changed and not others? Max clearly didn’t remember her, but she remembered him. Did that mean that they hadn’t ever gone on his spaceship? Was Schrödinger’s cat dead or alive? Did Schrödinger have multiple cats? She had no idea. Maybe Schrödinger had a dog.

Kasey widened his eyes, cocked his head to the side, and gave her the funny twitchy nod that people did when they expected you to speak.

Abbey sighed and sank into one of the office chairs behind her, suddenly exhausted and ravenous. “I’m just Abbey, and you’re right. I’m from the Outlands. Is your house okay? Did they take anything?”

“They pulled out most of my maps and took a couple. They left the rest on the floor. But they didn’t crack the safe, thank goodness. It was obvious that you all knew each other, so I’d be really appreciative if you could point the police in the right direction. A couple of those maps were collector’s items.”

Abbey shook her head. “I don’t know them like that. I mean, I don’t know their names or anything about them really. I swear.” It felt like a necessary lie.

Kasey crossed his arms and frowned. “I could turn you in, you know. I’m assuming you don’t have an ID card.”

Abbey’s lips felt numb and she rose on shaky legs. “Please. Don’t. I need to go.” She crossed the room before Kasey could do anything. She had to get to Caleb. Somehow.

“Do you really think there’s a fifth map?” Kasey said.

She turned back to find Kasey watching her appraisingly. “I don’t know. I have to go. I have to find my brother. But maybe we could work together to find the map.”

“You seem like you might be a dangerous person to know, Abbey from the Outlands.”

Dangerous. Her. She almost started laughing, but in a hysterical, overtired, starving, manic kind of way. Maybe she
was
dangerous.

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t be looking up New L.A.?”

Kasey’s eyes widened, and he lowered his voice. “It’s classified, don’t you know? There are questions regarding whether the transport ship accident was really an accident. The size of the blast… it was disproportionate to the level of destruction, and there was the missing matter. But nobody says anything. Transplanetary has too much influence, and since Abraham Dunham was murdered…” He trailed off.

Abbey nodded. Transplanetary. Sandy’s dead husband’s company. “I have to go.”

Kasey shifted his gaze to the floor, his lips pressed together. Finally he looked up and scrutinized her. Then he cocked his head toward the window of his office, where the faint sounds of sirens could be heard. “I’ll help you find the fifth map, Abbey from the Outlands, but right now, you’d better run. Max has called the police.” He opened a door in the rear of the office. “Go through this door. Down the hall on the left is the women’s staff washroom; there are jumpsuits there. Exchange yours for one of them, and then run. And I’d strongly suggest you don’t ever come back to the library.”

Mark stared at the door. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. The Granton Dam was at the westernmost point of the pentagram on the maps—the pentagram that seemed to mark the locations of the stones and docks. The Granton Dam had originally been built in 1965 for flood control on the Moon River; it had been expanded in 1980 to include hydroelectric generation. But he had read that there had been some preexisting structure from the seventeenth century for water management.

Did a set of stones lie within the dam walls, and if so, could he use them to return to his own time? It was probably unlikely. Someone had to provide the energy for the stones, and he had no idea who that might be.

Still, he might just try his key in the lock.

He pulled his satchel out of his backpack, being careful not to dump the remainder of the pack contents in the water. He removed the clasp from the satchel and fashioned it into a key, which he placed in the lock. The key fit, and when Mark turned it, the lock cylinders moved into place. He removed the key, put it in his pocket, and then gave the door a slight push.

It moved inward a couple of centimeters.

He looked back at the water. Was he about to flood whatever room or tunnel lay beyond the door?

He shook his head. It didn’t make any sense. The Moon River water levels in Mark’s present were way too high for anyone to access this door, unless they dove using scuba suits, and even then, the churn and wash of the water coming from the outlet valves and spillways (if they were open) would rip the diver to bits.

Perhaps this door was part of the original structure. It was possible that prior to the construction of the dam in the absence of the Luna Reservoir (which kept the water flow at a more constant level year round), the river levels in the late summer had dropped low enough to make this door accessible. Possible.

The door also might be accessible if someone closed all the dam outlet valves for several minutes. But who would have the power to do that? It would have to be someone high up at the dam. Like Mr. Sinclair, perhaps.

He pushed the door a little harder, and it slid inward a few more centimeters. Perhaps he shouldn’t do this. He would just tell Abbey and Caleb about it. He had no idea what would happen with the water.

A flash of brown on the beach caused him to emit a thin scream and press himself against the door. A brown rat perched on the rock he had just abandoned, its whiskers quivering and its black eyes regarding him with interest.

It was the beret man’s rat. Mark felt his heart lift in a way it never had before at the prospect of the beret man. He scoured the forest for the beret man, for Abbey and Caleb, but the woods remained as quiet as before. Yet surely the rat had not come alone. He should relock the door and go look for the others.

A faint cry reached his ears above the sound of the water. Mark jerked his head up. Someone was on top of the dam.

Someone who was yelling and pointing at him.

He heard the sound of a gunshot, and a bullet hit the water next to him. With a yelp, Mark flung himself against the door, which fell open, throwing him into a small dark room. He stumbled as water poured in after him. He had to close the door. He heaved himself against the heavy cement slab to push it shut, but he was helpless against the powerful onslaught of water. Then he spotted a large wheel attached to the door, like in a submarine. That must be how it closed.

He spun the wheel wildly, and the door obediently started to creak shut while water continued to flood the room. Eventually the door clicked back into place, and Mark gulped a few breaths of relief in the ankle-deep water.

Then he realized that he was entirely in the dark and something was moving in the water.

He screamed, a loud and piercing scream this time, as his heart felt like it might explode. He lifted one foot and then another in a berserk and furious dance. The thing grabbed on to one of his ankles. He shook it frantically, but the thing held on and scaled his leg while Mark let out scream after scream. Finally, the thing came to rest on his shoulder, and he felt the light brush of whiskers on his cheek.

It was the rat. The rat had followed him, and now it curled itself into Mark’s neck, its claws embedded deeply in his shirt, its cold leathery pink tail hanging down through Mark’s collar.

Digby, Mark reminded himself. He needed to start using names.

He tried to take some deep and cleansing breaths as he reached a hand up to touch the wet and shivering creature. The rat was much preferable to the other things that he had imagined were scaling him. It was friendly. Abbey liked the rat. And he had no other allies right now. He should just let the rat stay on his shoulder.

(This would require a lot of continued deep and cleansing breaths, though.)

He rifled through his pack and extracted one of the flashlights—his Hex Bright 500 Lumen. He returned the pack to his back, then coaxed Digby from his neck onto the top of his pack and let out a long exhale. Carrying the rat this way would require less deep and cleansing breathing.

His light illuminated a small room about six by six feet. He faced a metal door with a wheel on it, identical to the one behind him, except this door had a lip to prevent the water from entering. The water level was higher than the lip though. A lever was next to the door, and a sign hung next to it.

Mark approached the sign cautiously. The markings on it were foreign to him. It was not the Latin alphabet, nor the Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, or any Asian alphabet that he knew. The characters, which clearly formed words—words that Mark could not read—sent a ripple of unaccountable unease down Mark’s back. (He was not sure why. There were plenty of other alphabets in the world that he would never have seen before.) Was this an airlock of sorts, a room to contain the water, while the real room lay beyond?

He could still hear gunfire faintly on the other side of the wall, and then shouts. If they knew about the door, they would be after him in seconds. If they had a key.

Mark lunged at the second door and started to crank the wheel. It didn’t budge. He pulled harder, then tried the other direction, but with no luck. His muscles ached, and a vein throbbed in his temple with the effort. Digby skittered around on his backpack, his whiskers brushing the back of Mark’s neck.

The lever. Was the lever somehow important to opening the door? Perhaps the lever would cause the whole dam to autodestruct. It was hard to know.

The gunfire had ceased and the voices sounded closer. Mark drew his hands into the air and automatically started to flap them in a panic. He clenched his fists. He was alone in a tomb under a dam with armed men outside. He couldn’t do this.

You can’t seize up this time
, his future self had said.

Mark unclenched his fists and concentrated on slowing his flapping down until it was more of a calming wave. Then he closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and pulled the lever.

Abruptly, the water level began to drop. Mark eyed the floor in terror. Had the lever opened up some hole or drain that he could get sucked into? He launched himself at the wheel again, and this time it turned easily. He noted that the water had dropped below the level of the lip, so no water would flow into the new room.

But the door didn’t seem to be opening, despite the fact that the wheel now rotated freely. Mark gave the wheel another full turn and then tried both pushing and pulling the door. Still it didn’t move. Mark fought back tears and the urge to flap again. Was the door broken? What use was the wheel if it didn’t open the door?

Things had gone dreadfully quiet outside. Did that mean they’d abandoned the chase? Or were they setting up charges to blow up the door?

Digby ran down his arm and hopped onto the wheel, nosing around the spot where the wheel was attached to the door. Mark shone his flashlight on the mechanism. There on the door, forming a ring behind the wheel, were similar markings to those that appeared on the sign beside the lever.

Mark closed his eyes in thought. Was the wheel a combination lock? He looked back at the sign with the meaningless characters. Could the sign possibly contain helpful information? Maybe it just said something like, “Here’s where you die, sucker,” like all those Choose Your Own Adventure books that he had briefly loved as a child, even though he almost always died (Mark had decided that the books were rigged).