Canes of Divergence (2 page)

Zander smiled and turned to head back for his truck. He’d almost decided not to bother with going up to the guardrail but once he was away from the water, it seemed important again.

Before he got to the parking lot, though, something else caught his attention.

A few feet away from the riverbank, there was an enormous tree. It would have been worth paying attention to all by itself. The massive pine was the largest one he had ever seen – too large, really, to only be a single tree. And, in fact, when he looked closer at the base, he
could see where the one tree had started out as two trunks that had grown next to each other and then somehow twisted and become one.

But that wasn’t what had made him stop.

The whole area underneath the tree was dark and muddy, as if someone had been digging there. In fact, as he got closer, he found several holes that had been started, but then abandoned.

The mud extended all the way around the trunk, although it was much worse on the north side of the tree, closest to the river.
On that side, a big rock had been haphazardly dragged over the center of the muddy patch, leaving a trail in its place. Without stopping to consider what he was doing, he went over to investigate.

The rock was heavy, but not too heavy, and he was able to lift it out of
the way and move it without much effort.

The size of the hole underneath startled him; it wasn’t very wide, but it was deep.

Someone had gone to a lot of effort to dig it, almost as if they were searching for something. He couldn’t see anything inside it, though. Kneeling down on the ground, wondering if he was crazy, he carefully put his hand down in the hole. When his arm was in the ground halfway to his elbow, he hit bottom. There was nothing there, only cold, smooth stone. Almost smooth, anyway.

He felt around some more, running his fingers along the surface of the rock, but then he gasped and brought his hand quickly back up. There was a small cut on his middle finger, just beginning to bleed. He’d run it along a sharp edge where the rock had felt broken, as if there was a chunk missing from it.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” A voice behind his head startled him, nearly sending him face-first into the hole. He spun around.

An older man was standing there – well, Zander assumed that he was older, from the long, white hair that trailed down his back, tied with a leather band. His face looked younger though, except for the bushy white eyebrows under the brim of his hat.

He had no other facial hair or wrinkles, and the gleam in his bright green eyes showed no signs of age. He was decked out in full fly-fishing gear. His dark green waders were wet, and sounds were coming from the creel that peeked around his side, indicating a recent catch.

Recovering from the sudden interruption, Zander shrugged. “I wasn’t really looking for anything.”

“Ah,” the man said knowingly. “That’s often when I find the best stuff.”

Zander blinked.
What?
He stood up, trying to compose himself. “I, uh … I didn’t see you here a minute ago.”

The man smiled. “Who said I was here a minute ago?”

“How did you get here, then?”

“How did
you
get here Zander?”

He almost fell back down. “Excuse me?”

The man’s bright blue eyes –
had they been that color a moment ago? –
flicked to Zander’s jacket and then back up to meet his gaze.

Right. His name was embroidered on his jacket. Zander squared his shoulders and looked directly back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”

If the man noticed Zander’s irritation, it didn’t seem to affect him. He smiled brightly, extending his hand. “You can call me Alvin.”

Zander raised an eyebrow, still unusually piqued. “Is that your name?”

“You don’t like it? I’ve always been told it suits me. If you prefer, though, you could call me Blueberry – I rather fancy blueberries.”

All right then, the man was crazy. He didn’t look quite old enough to be having symptoms of dementia, but clearly
something
wasn’t right. It was a little harder to hold on to his anger.

“Can I help you with anything, Mr. … Alvin? Are you lost?”

Alvin’s smile only grew wider. “I’m right where I’m supposed to be. As are you, I should think.”

That made Zander chuckle. “No, Mr. Alvin, I don’t think I’m supposed to be here at all.”

“Zander, if you’re not going to call me Blueberry, you could at least drop the ‘Mister’ bit. Nobody has called me that in a hundred cycles, at least.”

At this point, Zander was certain there was something wrong with the man. His anger had all but vanished, and he was starting to get concerned. “I’m sorry, uh … Alvin.”

Alvin’s eyes were clear and bright – there was nothing about him that
looked
crazy. “Blueberry was the wrong choice, I see; it’s given you the wrong impression
Mister
Cunningham. Maybe Glasberry would have been better – your friend Quinn certainly prefers those.”

Zander had been focused so intently on the man’s strange behavior, trying to figure out how someone who looked so coherent could sound so crazy, that it took a minute before he registered what Alvin had just said.

The blood in his veins turned to ice water. “Excuse me?”

“Glasberries – you know, little green berries. Shiny. Very juicy. Delicious. I heard the king of Philotheum is having his head gardener build a greenhouse just so the queen can have glasberries in any season.” His eyes met Zander’s again. “But that’s a secret – it’s meant to be a surprise for her when they return home.”

“I’ll be sure not to say anything,” Zander answered drily.

“Excellent!” Alvin rubbed his hands together and smiled.

He was no longer interested in the man’s odd ramblings, only in one thing he’d said. “What about my friend Quinn? How do you know about her?”

“I thought you said you weren’t here looking for anything.” The shrewd look on Alvin’s face made Zander suddenly sure that there was nothing crazy about him at all.

“Do you know Quinn?”

“Yes, I know her quite well. She’s a lovely young woman – more stubborn sometimes than you’re being right now.”

He ignored that. “Do you know where she is?”

Alvin looked around, going so far as to turn in a circle. “She doesn’t appear to be here.”

“Obviously.”

“Then why are you searching here?”

Frustration welled inside of him again. “I didn’t mean to search here! I was walking by the river and I saw that whole area dug up right there. It made me curious, that’s all.”

Alvin nodded. “But what are you doing here in the first place? Shouldn’t you be sitting in your English class right about now?”

“I was having trouble concentrating at school. I couldn’t focus on it.” He had no idea why he was telling this to Alvin, especially because it was beyond creepy that the man had guessed right – a glance at his cell phone told him that English had just started.

“What were you thinking about instead?”

“I was thinking that it’s not normal for a teenage girl to just disappear off the face of the Earth and for her mother to not even care.”

“What makes you think her mother doesn’t care?”

“Would you let
your
daughter run off to another country to live with an uncle she never even knew about before? A stranger?”

Alvin lifted one shoulder. “I’d hardly call Nathaniel a stranger.”

Zander’s jaw fell so far that he was afraid he was going to get gravel on it. “How could you know that? Who are you? What do you know about all of this?”

“That’s a lot of questions.”

“I want some answers.”

Alvin cocked his head to one side; Zander felt as if he were being studied. “What do you plan to do with those answers once you find them?”

“Why do you care?”

“Why do
you
care, Zander? What difference does it make to you why Megan Robbins allowed her daughter to go and live somewhere else with her family?”

“She was my girlfriend.”

“
Was
, being the operative word. I have it on good authority that Quinn ended that in the best way she knew how.”

“She was my friend, too.”

“Was she really? Were you treating her the way you would treat a friend?”

“I thought she was cheating on me! She was running around behind my back and lying to me.”

“Perhaps.” Alvin nodded. “But what does that have to do with what you did?”

“What do you mean? I didn’t do anything. Anybody would have been mad if their girlfriend lied and cheated on them.”

“Many people would have, yes. Of course, I’m not talking with any of those people. I’m having a conversation with you.”

“Are you saying I should have just acted like she didn’t do anything wrong?”

“I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t have done any particular thing. I was merely asking about what you did.”

“Do you think
I did something wrong?”

“What does it matter what I think?”

A sudden pain made Zander look down at his right hand. It was clenched into a fist so tightly that the rough edge of his fingernail was digging into his skin. He had to work to loosen it. “What do you know about Quinn? Do you know where she is?”

“Why isn’t the answer you were given by her mother good enough for you?”

“Because it doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t make any sense that Quinn would want to get to know her family after being deprived of them for so long?”

Zander stared at him. “It doesn’t make any sense that Megan would just send her child off to another country with people she barely knows. It just feels like there’s something wrong. I’m worried about her.”

The old man rolled his eyes, which was so unexpected that Zander actually cracked a grin.

“Quinn’s a child now?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

“She’s still young enough to be at home with her mother – not running off to live in another country before she even graduates high school. I just
think that something must be wrong.”

“Something you don’t think Quinn’s mother is able to handle?”

Zander didn’t have a response for that.

“Is this because you’re really worried about Quinn, or is it about your own feelings? Because you
believe you’re owed some kind of an explanation that you’re not getting?”

He thought about that for a minute. “Does it matter?”

“Do one’s intentions matter? I think you know the answer to that.”

Zander sighed, more confused now than ever.

“You’re very invested in this, aren’t you?” Alvin’s eyes were gentler now, almost sympathetic, and something about his expression made Zander
want
to answer.

“Yes. I don’t know why – I can’t explain it, but I just can’t let it go.”

“I think you need to stop for a moment, Mr. Cunningham, and decide what it is that you’re after. There are things you can’t unlearn once you’ve learned them. Quinn learning about her father’s side of her family – learning that her mother had been keeping that information from her for her entire life – was such an event for her. While it is not my place to share her story with you, I can tell you this. It changed her life – permanently – in ways she couldn’t have imagined, and forced her to make decisions she probably wasn’t prepared for.”

“And you’re saying the same thing will happen to me.”

“Everyone is different.” Alvin shrugged. “I’m merely warning you that getting involved in things which are not your concern often has consequences. Not the least of which is the fact that Quinn has obviously chosen not to tell you about this – and she has never struck me as the kind of girl who would take that sort of thing lightly.”

“And Quinn is not my concern.”

“She certainly doesn’t have to be. She relieved you of that responsibility, and she did that on purpose.”

“Right after she found out that Nathaniel was really her uncle.”

“Just before, actually. But at that point, she already knew that her life had changed enough that she’d not be able to offer you what you needed from her.”

“So she wasn’t lying to me.”

“Yes, Zander, she was. In the same way that you’re not going to go tell your friends or your family that you ran into me here today – don’t look at me like that, I know you’re not going to.”

“Not telling them something is not the same as lying.”

“What if they asked you directly?”

Zander swallowed, remembering a time when he h
ad not only asked, but
pushed
Quinn for an answer she hadn’t seemed willing to give him. When she’d begrudgingly shown him the stitches and bruises running down her upper arm, he’d freaked out, and she still hadn’t given him a straight answer.