A Quill Ladder (40 page)

Abbey looked at Ian for a few seconds and then pressed the earbuds into her ears and closed her eyes. When the music accelerated and launched into the chorus, she snapped them open. The card remained blank, and she almost threw it to the ground in frustration.

She pulled the earbuds out.

“
Too soon,
”
Ian said.
“
You have to let yourself feel the music.
”

Abbey scowled and flipped through the music on Caleb
’
s iPhone with her thumb. She picked an older Lady Antebellum song and hit play. This time she didn
’
t even think about the card. She thought about Jake.

And then she opened her eyes, and she saw the row of numbers.

Then the courtroom door opened, and her mother emerged, trying to hide her tears in the sleeve of her suit jacket.

Simon had been sentenced to six weeks in a local alternative juvenile detention center.

Her mother said it over and over again as she paced up and down the courtroom hall, with first Abbey, then Abbey
’
s dad, trailing behind her, offering reassur
ances that it was only six weeks. That it would be over before any of them knew it. That it was a low-security group-living-style center. That Simon would be safe.

Abbey was a bit bemused by her dad
’
s references to Simon
’
s safety. There seemed to be some implication that the rest of them might
not
be safe.

Simon had already been taken into custody, and after they calmed her mother down, there was little to do other than go home.

Ian had vaporized when Abbey
’
s mother had appeared, but had left a third cream card lay on the bench he had vacated. Abbey picked it up and slipped it into her pocket. She thought briefly about the Coventry Museum library fire and the maps that had been destroyed. She had to get home and talk to Mark.

As they were leaving, she heard Caleb murmur,
“
You
’
d better tell me about the men in animal skins.
”

*****

The bustling streets of Coventry gave way to orchards, and the fruit trees stuck out of the rolling frosty grass like gnarled claws. Without buildings for landmarks, Mark was having more difficulty figuring out where he needed to get off the bus and how far he
’
d have to walk if he did. As far as he could tell, the dot might be in an orchard, which meant that if he wanted to take a look at it, he would have to trespass. And Mark didn
’
t like the idea of trespassing or walking a long distance, although, he reflected, he was pretty sure he had lost twelve pounds since moving in with the Sinclairs.

He pulled the stop signal for the bus when the stinky vehicle lumbered past Warm Hollow Road and, as the bus pulled over to the edge of the road, reviewed the contents of his satchel: copies of the maps, sharpened pencils, notepaper, flashlight, water, salami sandwich triple-wrapped. Then he checked his Garmin Forerunner watch with GPS to make sure that it was fully charged.

He stepped out of the bus carefully, patting his satchel to make sure he still had it. (He was sure things often got left behind on buses as people hurried to get off.) The bus pulled away, and Mark was alone on a rural road lined on either side by orchards. The highways that led to and from Coventry were south of here, and this road led only through orchards, a few hobby farms, and large estates. Maps of the city indicated that the road upon which he stood
—
Top Point Drive
—
wound up into the foothills of the Stairway Mountains and then terminated. Mark had never been out this way before, and he was amazed at how quickly the city had ended and the orchards had begun.

He zipped up his jacket, reversed direction, walked several meters down Top Point, and turned left onto the gravel Warm Hollow Road (which, he had to say, as he turned on to it, was remarkably straight and running precisely east-west, according to his watch). He had calculated that based on his remembrance of the original map, the dot would be down the road about half a kilometer. Of course, he had no idea what sort of landmark he was looking for.

He made his way slowly down the road, checking his watch for the guesstimated lat-long coordinates he had programmed in earlier.

He was almost at the coordinates when he became aware of the car following him at a very slow pace. A farmer wanting to pass? It wasn
’
t as if he was occupying that much of the road. He turned to look.

It was a red Mazda throwing up a spray of dust as it trailed him down the road, and behind the wheel, he could make out Sandy
’
s turned-up blond hair.

He stopped. So did the Mazda. Mark experienced an odd urge to run, but where would he go? All around him leafless fruit trees sat silent in orchards. And she was his half-sister, he reminded himself.

Sandy cut the engine and got out, pulling on a long black woolen overcoat. She held her hand over her eyes to shield them from the watery winter sun.

“
Hey, Mark. What are you up to?
”

Mark glanced around nervously, but thankfully realized his map reproductions were still in his satchel.

“
Just out for a hike,
”
he said, continuing to walk backward, away from Sandy.

“
Hmm. We all do a lot of that, don
’
t we?
”
she said. Mark didn
’
t laugh, although he was pretty sure she was making a joke. She narrowed her eyes slightly.
“
You
’
re a long way afield.
”
She started walking toward him a lot faster than he could walk backward, and he could see the approaching whiteness of her teeth.

His watch beeped to let him know that he had arrived at the coordinates.

“
I have a theory,
”
she said, with a wink that alarmed him.

Hypothesis
, Mark wanted to correct, after a month of living with Abbey.

“
I think,
”
Sandy continued,
“
that we
’
re looking for the same thing, based on the maps
—
the ones my dad gave you. He gave me copies too. Is that right, Mark? Are we looking for the same thing?
”
She nodded at him in what seemed like a violent manner. Mark was sure this was intended to be a friendly gesture, but he was almost tempted to drop into a ball. (He had read somewhere that dropping into a ball and playing dead with your hands clutched over the back of your neck was the best thing to do when being approached by a grizzly. He wondered if his condition just always made him feel as if he were being approached by a grizzly
…
or if Sandy was perhaps somehow grizzly-like.)

“
I
’
m looking for a dot,
”
he said simply.

“
Me too!
”
she said, more loudly than he would have liked.
“
Shall we look together?
”

“
I guess. This is the location of the dot, though.
”
He looked around, but all he could see was the gravel road, the nearby trees, and wide blades of brown grass tufted together in frozen clumps in the orchard and on the shoulder of the road.
“
Approximately,
”
he amended.
“
We may have to walk into the orchard.
”

“
Okey-dokey,
”
Sandy said.
“
Let
’
s go.
”
She stepped off the road and started striding through the frozen grass in her long black riding boots.

Mark hesitated. The grass would be damp and seedy. His pants would get wet and full of seeds. But he had come this far. So he gingerly stepped off the edge of the road and into the cold, squishy grass.

“
Tell me,
”
she said, after they had gone a few meters.
“
What do you think the dots mean? Have you noticed anything unusual about their arrangement? Any pattern, say?
”

The bottom part of Mark
’
s pants was already wet, and he could feel bits of grass and seed pods slipping into his socks and attaching themselves to his cuffs.

“
Two of the dots are equidistant from the third. I need to examine the other dots more closely,
”
he said, and then clamped his mouth shut. He had been thinking about the dots on the asylum map he had been looking at in the library in the future. He was certain there was some pattern on that map. And of course there was Kasey
’
s map, and any other maps that might be in drawer 309, but he decided that there was no need to tell Sandy any of this and bit the side of his tongue just in time. He needed to get back to the future.

“
What other dots?
”
she said, then stopped suddenly. Mark almost walked right into her.
“
Look at that.
”

The low crumbling cement walls of an old foundation lay ahead of them in the grass. A small, square building with three rooms. Sandy stepped over the edge of one of the walls and walked around inside the small remains of the structure, kicking aside grass and rubble as she went. Mark carefully joined her and immediately found his way over to a small wooden platform in the corner of one of the rooms.

He was puzzling about what it might be when he sensed Sandy approaching him from behind.

“
A cellar,
”
she said quietly, but there was an ominous tone of expectation in her voice that struck a chord of fear down Mark
’
s back.
“
The wood
’
s almost rotten.
”
She reached down and pulled at the wood, her charm bracelet flashing in the mid-afternoon light. The wooden door nearly disintegrated as she lifted it, revealing a set of stairs leading down into darkness.

“
I think it
’
s a tunnel,
”
Sandy said.
“
We should check it out.
”

“
I have claustrophobia and agoraphobia,
”
Mark said, thinking that he should point out that they had no evidence it was a tunnel. It was probably a cellar, but that would be pointing out the obvious, and Sandy didn
’
t seem too interested in the obvious.

“
You
’
ll be fine. We have to check it out,
”
Sandy said.
“
It
’
s one of the dots.
”
She started down the stairs.

*****

“
Where could he be?
”
Abbey
’
s mother looked at her watch for the third time in five minutes.
“
I have an appointment. My last appointment.
”
She tried to crack a small smile.
“
I should be totally fine by the time Simon gets home, if I can get to this appointment.
”
But then she looked at Abbey, and a shadow crossed her face again, and she had to blink back more tears.

“
My understanding is that he
’
s been exploring the city by bus.
”
Abbey
’
s dad looked at Abbey, who nodded in agreement. Abbey decided not to add that Mark was trying to figure out the strange maps that Dr. Ford had given him.

Her mother glanced at her watch again.
“
I have to go. If Mark hasn
’
t been gone long, there could still be enough energy in the stones.
”

“
You could try
—”
Abbey
’
s dad started.

Abbey
’
s mother
’
s voice was sharp.
“
There
’
s not enough time, Peter, and any alternative would be too far away. Mark could still be in the system. I have to go.
”
She staggered a bit as she rose, and had to press her hand against the doorframe to steady herself. Peter Sinclair was across the room in an instant, placing a hand under his wife
’
s elbow.

“
Let me come with you. You
’
re not well.
”
He looked tired around the eyes, as if he hadn
’
t been sleeping.