A Quill Ladder (31 page)

“
Thanks?
”
Abbey said, realizing it was more a question than an answer.

“
I was thinking that maybe the two of us could spend a bit more time together, get to know each other.
”
Russell arched an eyebrow.
“
If you know what I mean.
”

Abbey decided that although she wasn
’
t a hundred percent sure what he meant, it likely involved her being very uncomfortable a lot of the time.

“
What do you say?
”

“
Umm
…
I
’
m afraid I
’
m grounded right now,
”
Abbey said.
“
Except for this dance, of course,
”
she added lamely.

“
You
’
re not saying no, are you?
”

“
Well
…
sort of. I
’
m very focused on school right now, Russell. I don
’
t think you
’
d like hanging out with me. I
’
m kind of a wet blanket.
”

“
Just one little kiss?
”
The smile Russell gave her was strangely hypnotic, and when he leaned closer, she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. She lifted her chin slightly, almost automatically. He was very good-looking.

The scream that echoed around the dance floor snapped them apart.

“
EEEAHHH! I just got bitten by a rat!
”
Becca
’
s voice.
“
A RAT!
”

The music stopped. Everyone stopped. Russell released Abbey, and they stood watching as teachers moved in to lead Becca away and the floor became a wave of skirts being lifted in search of the rat. More screams broke out as the rodent was sighted bolting for the exit.

Abbey turned and ran for the bathrooms.

While the teachers tried to restore order and calm everyone
’
s nerves, and Mr. Filpot, the shop teacher, looked for the rat while wearing his very large work gloves, Abbey hunted for Caleb and tried to avoid Russell. Maybe they could go home early. But Caleb
’
s fiery orange hair was nowhere to be found. She finally resorted to pacing up and down the wheelchair refuge area in the hall around the corner from the girl
’
s bathroom, just out of sight.

When she heard Caleb
’
s familiar voice, Abbey nearly leapt out of the alcove. But he had his back to her in the dim hallway and was leaning against a locker
—
and was deep in conversation with a girl with long brown hair, their faces close, their voices low.

Abbey sighed, returned to the refuge area, and withdrew her book.

The last two weeks before holidays were uneventful
—
relatively. Their parents kept a close eye on them, and there were no more babysitters. Russell had avoided Abbey at school, and although she caught him watching her sometimes, he hadn
’
t approached her again. Simon
’
s arraignment hearing didn
’
t go well, and his case was going to an adjudicatory hearing in early January. Their parents wore strained and grim expressions as they tried to maintain daily life and go to work while still ensuring one of them was always home after school to look after Abbey, Caleb, and Simon.

They also had to attend a lot of mysterious meetings in the evenings, which they claimed were about work and the dam expansion, but which Abbey was sure were about the stones or parallel universes.

A tree was cut down in the middle of the night in a neighborhood east of them. The Coventry News showed the clean-up crews removing branches covered with the big fat lush leaves of a Madrona. Farley continued to have barking spells in the night, and it occurred to Abbey that her parents
’
ever-presence might be less about keeping them from the stones, and more about protecting them from someone or something.

As a condition of Simon
’
s release before his hearing, he wasn
’
t permitted to use a computer or any electronics. He lapsed back into the dark mood that he had so often sported before they
’
d found the stones, and spent hours in his room reading
The Ender Quintet
and
Game of Thrones
, rejecting most of Abbey
’
s advances.
“
He just needs some space, dear,
”
Abbey
’
s mother said repeatedly.

But Abbey
’
s mother didn
’
t seem much better, and had become obsessed with finding some old photo of Sandy. She had decided to reorganize the storage room while she was looking, so she
’
d taken to spending hours down in the crypt in the late evenings, going through old boxes, emerging only periodically to deposit Christmas decorations at the top of the stairs with instructions for Abbey and Caleb to start putting them up. Abbey and Caleb tried sneaking down to the storage room to look for the files that Caleb thought might be down there, but their mother had put
“
Do Not Touch
”
signs all over the boxes, and they were never unsupervised long enough to make any headway with the piles of paper that were spread all around the room.

Their dad tried to be cheery and proposed board games most nights. Simon declined, and Caleb and Abbey halfheartedly played crib and poker. But Abbey had exams to prepare for, and the atmosphere was a little too gloomy to really get into the spirit of the upcoming holiday or to enjoy board games. Two weeks before Christmas, they put up a tree, and Farley promptly ate one of the garlands and barfed all over the carpet.

Sylvain had made promises about the map, but he never turned up with it, and their dad said something about him being
“
very busy
”
and out of town right now.
Busy hoping that his finger replantation takes, and hiding from whoever tried to take it in the first place
, Abbey thought grimly. Mark had spent the first week after Sylvain said he would bring the map waiting in the living room, lurching at the door at every slight sound. But he eventually gave up, and now he came and went, riding the bus downtown for hours, returning muttering about maps and dots.

Ian also came and went, with the Franks, and Abbey watched them, wondering what they could be up to. Once, when she managed to catch up with Ian on her way to school as he stepped jauntily down the hill, she asked him if he was going to give them any more lessons on witchcraft. He asked if she had figured out the second lesson, and when she said no, he indicated that the third lesson would be available only once she had solved the second. He also introduced her to his rat, Digby, a sleek brown and white creature who poked out of Ian
’
s jacket pocket, its whiskers trembling.

And all the while, her mother used the stones almost every morning.

Abbey had grown used to the sound of the door opening and closing in the early hours. It barely woke her anymore. What could her mother be doing?

Gretchen Leer had moved the rezoning for Coventry Hill through first, second, and third reading in record time, and two days before Christmas holidays started, two city workers arrived early in the morning to nail up a rezoning sign to a post at the entrance to the path leading up the hill, indicating that the area was slated to be developed, and that there would be a public hearing on the matter in the first week of January. Abbey
’
s mother swore when she saw it, then went outside and paced around the city workers while they nailed it up.

Abbey had decided to use the time when she wasn
’
t studying
—
or counting down the days to Sam
’
s visit
—
to work through her list of assigned research items, try to figure out the drawings Mrs. Forrester had given her, and stare at the second lesson card until her eyes burned. Caleb had raised his eyebrows at the porcupine, the ladder, and the five sticks, but had no suggestions. His football team had made the regional finals, so he was tied up in final games and road trips to nearby communities, and had been spending a lot of time on the phone with a new girl. Abbey could hear him chatting late into the evening sometimes, and she wondered if he had totally forgotten that he had re
search to do on Quentin Steinam.

Abbey was in her room late one night, reviewing her notes about aluminum mining. It was the night before she was to see Sam. Not that she was counting the days or anything. It was also the night before the last day of school before the holidays, and she had a physics test the next day on vector dynamics, which she had barely studied for.

At least
she
wasn
’
t shirking her research. But despite hours of reading on aluminum, there seemed to be nothing of interest. Aluminum was mostly mined in the form of bauxite, which was a combination of hydrated aluminum and iron oxides. Bauxite was mostly found in large flat layers and was mined using the open pit method. Aluminum was one of the most plentiful metals in the world and was mined primarily in Australia, Brazil, Guinea, and Jamaica. Reserves were projected to last well into the twenty-first century. The US, once a major producer, was now a negligible global producer, for market reasons, which meant, Abbey assumed, that other countries could extract it more cheaply.

Abbey scrawled a big
“
SO WHAT
”
in the middle of her page and then threw down her pen. She supposed that if aluminum ice were to become useful for space travel or other forms of energy, demand could skyrocket, especially since aluminum was probably used in the construction of the spaceships and aircraft as well. Even at the peak of its production in 1900, when the US was the second-largest producer in the world, it didn
’
t mine enough aluminum to meet its domestic needs. In 1900. What about in 2036? Extracting aluminum from bauxite also required a lot of energy, so aluminum production usually took place in mountainous areas near hydroelectric facilities, like, say, the Granton Dam.

She entered
“
geological maps Coventry City
”
into Google and selected the appropriate map from the state geological survey site. The map loaded slowly and then Abbey scrolled down to examine the list of deposits in the vicinity. No bauxite. Just a combination of kaolinite-serpentine group and plagioclastic feldspars with the word
“
anorthosite
”
in brackets. They all had aluminum in them. But they weren
’
t commercially viable, because nobody had invented a cost-effective method of extracting the aluminum.

At least not yet.

Abbey added this to her notes, then set down her pen. She withdrew the card that Ian had given them from her top desk drawer and stared at it. Maybe witchcraft was easier than aluminum smelting.

She must have nodded off, for she found herself in a strange half-dream of trying to read maps and find trees with Mark and Caleb, all the while being trailed by a persistent porcupine. She jolted awake, and her eyes caught sight of a row of ten four-digit numbers on the card.

She blinked, snatching up her pen to record the numbers, but just as she did, the numbers vanished. The card was again infuriatingly blank.

“
Aghh!
”
She closed her eyes again, then reopened them. Still blank. She tried to imitate falling asleep again, but apparently the card, or her eyes, knew she was faking. She tried to go to sleep for real, but she couldn
’
t even come close to controlling her racing thoughts.

She snatched up the card in frustration and marched out of her bedroom. Caleb was at a game overnight in nearby Springfield.

She rapped on Simon
’
s door, and there was a long pause before she heard a rather sullen,
“
Yes?
”

She poked her head in the door.
“
Can I show you something?
”

Simon glanced up from the book that lay open on his bed. He was even paler than he had been two months ago, and purplish shadows circled his eyes.
“
I guess.
”
He rolled over and sat up.

Abbey thrust the card at him.
“
Can you see anything on this card? Other than the number in the middle, I mean. Can you see other numbers?
”

Simon furrowed his brow, squinted at the card, blinked both eyes, and then squinted again. He closed one eye, then the other, staring at it with alternating eyeballs over and over.