A Quill Ladder (2 page)

She regarded her pale skin impassively in the mirror. As she drew her hair back from her face, she saw them: five new, large freckles forming a path across her forehead.
The
“
mask of pregnancy,
”
or melasma, a pigmentation that results from the hormones of pregnancy.

Seasoned time travelers became used to observing the minutest details of the people and things around them, so that they could use these details to place themselves precisely in time. She had been wearing her hair up that day, and a brown woven dress of a linen-like rough fiber with a circle of pink flowers at the neckline, and the freckles she was now looking at had decorated her forehead like a constellation.

So the day was approaching then. In fact, it could be today. The day in the former timeline, or was it still the current timeline
—
she wasn
’
t sure
—
when younger Abbey would show up with a bleeding Jake, and she, the older Abbey, would have to make some choices. It was strange. It seemed like she had already made the choices, since she, the younger her, had technically been there the first time she
’
d made the choices. But the older her hadn
’
t actually made the choices yet. And theoretically, she could make different choices this time, even though it was still really the first time.

She would, of course, save Jake. Paradoxically, for both the first and the last time.

Time travel, especially when two versions of you are present in the same scene, was pretty much endlessly confusing, even for someone with an IQ of one hundred and sixty-five. Her doctor had dismissed the notion of pregnancy brain, but it was possible she had lost a few IQ points in the past few months.

Perhaps by giving her younger self the list
—
if she hadn
’
t always done so
—
she had negated all of it. Perhaps the younger Abbey would never show up with Jake. Perhaps this relatively comfortable life in the bubble with Sam and a baby on the way would evaporate at any second. But perhaps she would have her brothers and her mother again. That was another thing about time travel
—
you learned not to become too attached to any single timeline.

What a tall order she had given to her younger self.

Fix everything, but don
’
t change too much.

Abbey finished tying her braided hair into a loose knot. She would wear her brown dress today.

~
Velocity
is the 1st derivative of displacement.

Velocity is the rate of change of position or the rate of displacement. ~

The man waited on the curb outside of Mrs. Forrester
’
s most afternoons. He waited for the two beefy men with long wild hair and tattoos who had come down the hill and walked into town the night her mother had freed all of the witches from Nowhere. Of course it was really Nowhen, as Abbey was now calling it in her own mind; she preferred more factual descriptions. The man wore a faded tan beret and wide-legged jeans. He had replaced the striking brown leather jacket he had worn on the first few days with a more subtle corduroy blazer and had shifted through a surprising number of broad-collared shirts in a variety of paisleys, stripes, and solid colors. His style was definitely retro, but with his flippy light-brown hair and crinkly blue eyes, he didn
’
t seem out of place in 2012 at all. She wondered how old he was, how long he had been in Nowhen, and what that meant for his biological age. Was he in his twenties, as he looked, or sixty? And where was he getting all of those shirts?

He smoked while he waited, and occasionally he would glance up at the window from which Abbey stared and offer a faint smile through a ring of smoke. The rings were actually vortices, to use the technical name, and had similar physics to tornados. But smoking was very bad for you, so Abbey tried not to think they were neat.

Then the two other men would arrive, and the three of them would proceed back down into town. The first few days the other men had arrived on foot, but now they showed up consistently in an old burgundy Toyota Camry. When the car had first made an appearance, Abbey had spent several days scanning the news for stolen vehicles.

The man in the tan beret crushed his cigarette beneath his boot, then slowly and deliberately turned his eyes to the living room window where Abbey sat crouched low on the couch, and pointed at the ground by his feet.

Abbey
’
s heart began to flutter. He wasn
’
t trying to communicate with her, was he? He inclined his head slightly in a nod, extended his finger toward the ground again, then gave another faint nod.

Abbey had watched the witches come and go from Mrs. Forrester
’
s for several weeks now. The other comings and goings from the house had been more pedestrian. A pair of younger women had strolled down to the local grocery store on several occasions, returning with bags stuffed with food. So apparently witches still needed to shop like regular people. Her mother, despite her promises three weeks ago, appeared to have reassessed and had been remarkably circumspect regarding the abilities of witches. Strangers
—
relatives perhaps, or long lost friends
—
came in twos and threes to collect some of the other witches. Joyous reunions occurred on Mrs. Forrester
’
s porch, and then cars eased down Coventry Hill, never to return.

Mrs. Forrester remained in the hospital in rehab, recovering from her stroke. Sandy was staying with Dr. Ford, and Mark had taken up residence in the spare bedroom in the crypt, plastering the walls with maps of all shapes and sizes collected from the shelves in his bedroom across the street. He had decided he would be expanding his previous focus on shorelines to include topographic maps and mountain ranges. Two days ago, he launched into a long description regarding types of contour lines, while Ocean wove in and out of Farley
’
s legs, causing the Chesapeake Bay Retriever to agitate in despair because he couldn
’
t chase her and lick her. Mark indicated he would be focusing on elevation contour lines, which, according to Mark, could tell you a lot regarding the steepness and shape of a mountain, and in particular where valleys were located, although he was also interested in isotachs, which were wind contours, and he felt isogons, which were lines of constant magnetic declination, were also worthy of consideration.

Abbey had tried to pay attention. But mostly she
’
d watched the comings and goings across the street.

She, Caleb, and Simon had been in virtual lockdown since the night they
’
d used the stones, and then gone to the docks, and had endangered themselves, and, evidently, everybody. Their parents now drove them to school every morning, and the school was on strict orders to report any absences. Their father had even taken a partial leave of absence so he could be home when they got home every afternoon.

Their mother had been guarded about her illness. It, apparently, was not for Abbey, Caleb, and Simon to worry about. Her mother would find a cure, and therefore any time they spent worrying would be a waste. Their house practically quivered with determination. Marian Beckham, the new mayor of Coventry City, strode through her days with certainty and crispness, attending meetings, lecturing Abbey, Caleb, and Simon about unnecessary risks, and dispensing competent mothering to all of them, including Mark. Only their father
’
s eyes seemed heavy with stress.

Find a cure. How was that possible? From what Abbey understood, in order to be a camel, one must be dying for sure.

Caleb had regarded her strangely when she had brought this up.
“
Don
’
t you get it?
”
he said.
“
It
’
s curable in the future, you ding dong. Mom is using the stones to try to find treatment.
”

“
How do you know?
”
Abbey had breathed.

“
She sneaks out every morning at five o
’
clock, while your precious head is still nestled in your pink pillow. Of course that
’
s what she
’
s doing,
”
Caleb replied, his green eyes snapping. He had been cool toward her since the night she and Simon had gone to Caleb
’
s future and refused to tell Caleb what had happened. Abbey shrank away from his tone.

Or maybe she
’
s going to look for your older self
’
s body
, Abbey thought miserably.

She wanted to tell him everything, to have him as her ally again. She and Simon had shared several whispered conversations regarding what to do about Caleb, but had come up with no answers. And now, since the election, Simon had withdrawn back into his room, brooding about something that was unclear to Abbey.

She still had the list on her iPhone. The list that it seemed she had sent herself. She waffled between, one the one hand, a burning curiosity and determination to resolve the clues, and on the other, a commitment to following her mother
’
s orders to forget it all and never use the stones again. She hadn
’
t told either Simon or Caleb about the list, because doing so would result in a definite plan to use the stones again, as soon as their parents stopped watching them every second of every day. And yet here was her mother using the stones herself.

The first date on the list had been in March. The date she was supposed to save Jake. It was only mid-November. She had plenty of time.

Or maybe she didn
’
t.

It seemed from older Caleb
’
s words that she hadn
’
t had access to the list in the previous past. It seemed odd to call it that, since it was actually the current present. So her older self had just potentially changed the course of history, and therefore the dates on the list, by giving Abbey the list in the first place. Perhaps her older self had
always
left the list on her iPhone under the Madrona. But this time, older Caleb had told her where to find it. Or was older Caleb
’
s telling her that he had changed his mind about fixing things the trigger that had caused older Abbey to leave the list?

Abbey had read about the multiple paradoxes that could arise when a person traveled back in time. But what about if knowledge or information traveled back in time, as was the case here?

It all seemed too circular and Abbey could not straighten it out in her mind. There were too many hypotheses to explain time travel
—
the multiple universes hypothesis, the branching universe hypothesis, the timeline corruption hypothesis, the self-healing hypothesis, the destruction resolution and so on
—
all inherently unfalsifiable. This was the fundamental problem with time travel. And most of the existing hypotheses concerned time travel to the past, not to the future. At least the stones didn
’
t allow one to travel to the past.

But there was still the problem of the list. Would Abbey change the timeline by acting on the list, and in doing so, what butterfly effects would she cause? Or had Abbey always received the list, and never told Caleb, and by
not
acting on it this time, she would change the timeline? Perhaps she had always acted on it, but simply failed to change things. Perhaps the course of history was predestined and unalterable and it didn
’
t matter what she did. She had no idea.

The man in the beret pointed at the ground again. Abbey rose carefully from the couch. Her father sat in the office on the main floor, trying to complete his work for the day. She, Caleb, and Simon were not allowed to leave the yard, and if they were outside, their father rose to check on them every fifteen minutes or so. Caleb was still at track, and Mark and Simon were each in their rooms. In half an hour, they would be heading down the hill together to collect Caleb, as they were no longer allowed to be home alone. She didn
’
t have long.

She poked her head into the office. Peter Sinclair swung around at the noise, his tie hanging loosely around his neck. Faint red capillaries streaked his eyes, and his cheeks seemed more drawn than they had been a few weeks before. The Granton Dam expansion project was underway, and there had been some issues regarding a few contractors subbing in less qualified workers.

“
I
’
m going outside to shoot a few baskets,
”
Abbey said.

Her father nodded, a clear sign that things had gone totally awry. If he had paused to give any thought to her statement, he would question her, as everyone knew that Abbey didn
’
t play sports. His acquiescence alarmed her more than his appearance. Was it the stress of his job, Abbey
’
s mother
’
s health, their recent use of the stones, or something else?