A Grave Tree (22 page)

“Why did
you
say we’d go with them?” Abbey said to Ian. Her tone was a bit short because she was still hungry and now a bit chilly, and apparently she was potentially heading into an armed conflict with no weapon.

Ian shrugged. “I think it’s important that we see this turbine thing.”

Abbey frowned and rose to a sitting position, pulling the fur up over her knees. “Who do you think is keeping Mark prisoner? Who’s Quinta, Ian? You have to tell me. Jake said Selena was reporting to a Quinta, and we have the statue of Quinta Francis Merry. And then we have Quentin Steinam, and Quentin is the male version of Quinta. Now there’s a Quinta here, too.”

“Quinta, or Quentin, depending on whether it’s a man or a woman, is really more of a position than a person,” Ian said in a vague tone.

“Who is Quinta, then?”

Ian hesitated, but he relented when Abbey gave him a bulgy-eyed glare. “Sylvain and I aren’t sure who the current Quinta is. We do believe, from what Jake told you, that it’s a woman.”

“How can you not know?”

“Becoming Quinta or Quentin is generally done in secret. Sylvain says there has been no evident Quinta or Quentin for the last several years—ever since his father, who held the position for a long time, passed. Because of the recent rise in activity, we believe that the new Quinta might be among those who were just rescued from Nowhere, but we can’t be sure. It’s also possible that the position just passed from one person to another, and the new titleholder has a different, more aggressive style than the previous one, who stayed pretty quiet.” Ian closed his eyes and seemed to be planning to go to sleep.

Abbey gave his arm a little shake, and his eyes popped open. “How does one become Quinta?” she persisted.

“One must challenge the existing one, and win. I believe the existing Quinta must be killed for the transfer to occur. But I’ve also heard that the existing Quinta or Quentin can also choose to pass the title on to someone who is present when they die.”

A chill passed over Abbey’s body. “Sounds lovely. What exactly does the position involve? What can Quinta do?”

Ian pursed his lips. “That’s a little unclear. You know, my lack of passing the trials and all. And I’m afraid I drifted off a bit during Witching History 101. But I know Quinta has some special powers that relate to being able to access the energy associated with the stones and docks.”

“Do you think that’s why the stones and docks aren’t working? The current Quinta is drawing the energy away?”

Ian sat upright at this. “I never considered that. We really need to find those files.”

“And be able to read them,” Abbey murmured.

Ian cocked his head at her.

“We found a document in my mother’s files that was written in a different language,” she said. “A language that didn’t look like it came from this planet.”

“Hmm, possible. Unfortunately, almost all things are possible.”

Abbey searched for a scientific response to this—something about probability and scientific method—but she came up empty-handed. All she could think of was a Lewis Mumford quote. “
Nothing is impossible. And by extension, everything is possible.”

Indeed.

“Who do you think Quinta is, then?” she asked.

Ian was silent for several seconds. “Your mother, Mrs. Forrester, and Selena are the most likely candidates,” he said finally.

Her mother. Her mother would not be holding Mark hostage at the dam. Her mother would not be feeding these people lumpy, tasteless stew. Her mother would not be changing the future.

Would she?

Russell let out a moan, and Abbey looked over at him. He had thrust off his blankets and his forehead was beaded with sweat. Could he actually have rabies? She inched closer to Ian.

She glanced up and saw Nevin offering what looked like a flask to Caleb, who took it and drank deeply. Fantastic. Now she was going unarmed into battle against a woman with unknown powers with her drunk twin, a man prone to being a dreamer at inconvenient times, and a potential rabies case.

“Caleb’s drinking,” she said to Ian.

Ian flicked his eyes in Caleb’s direction and then nodded. “He’s aging. We aren’t supposed to stay this long in the future. It starts to screw up our biological clocks. Just like spending too much time in Nowhere seems to have made me younger than I actually am, spending too much time in the future ages us prematurely.”

“How quickly?” Abbey spread her hands in front of her, looking for age spots and varicose veins.

“Not that quickly, but right now Caleb might be feeling closer to sixteen. It’s possible that the relationship between your aging and the amount of time you spend in the future might be logarithmic though. I’ve heard it makes some people sick.”

Possible. Everything was possible. “Are we trapped here?” Abbey asked.

Ian’s face turned glum. “Possible.”

She thought of older Caleb’s assurance so many months ago.
You can always get back
. Had he been wrong? He had seemed so sure. But he had also suggested that the stones were alive, and that returning had something to do with what you came for. What had they come for? To get old? “Isn’t there anyone who can help us? Frank, Francis, some of the other ancients? Don’t you and Sylvain have any friends on the Guild, or Council? Whatever it is?”

“The Guild refers to the whole association of declared witches. The Council is the body that rules us,” Ian said. “And no, Frank and Francis have been missing since early last week, and I told you before that most of the ancients have vanished, at least those who would have been on our side. It’s like someone’s picking them off one by one. At first I thought they were just going into hiding. Understandable, given the instability. And maybe that’s what’s happening, but…”

Abbey closed her eyes. “Could my parents…” She didn’t want to add
have been picked off
.

“No,” Ian replied. “I don’t think so.”

Nevin and Caleb’s voices spiraled up and over the fire. They seemed excessively jovial for the circumstances. Ian closed his eyes and turned over on his side as if to sleep.

Abbey tried to settle herself in on the cold ground. At this rate, she might end up going home a little old lady, if she found her way home at all. And if she did, who would be there to greet her? Nobody. Everyone she loved was lost or trapped somewhere right along with her, even Simon, although his release was a little more assured.

She felt herself drifting off—a testament to her utter exhaustion, not any quieting of her brain. But as she did, a small spark of something caught briefly in her mind. Which one of the three of them, she wondered, was the Alty? And what did that mean?

*****

The work had become even more precarious now that small amounts of water spilled over the edges of the diversion in the spots where they had created the biggest indents with the mallets. It plunged to the rocks below, and Mark tried not to watch it fall lest it cause him to topple too.

The diversion had been reinforced with rebar, and the tips of the iron rods stuck out of the places where the cement had been knocked away. The force of the water, coupled with the now uneven spaces on which they tried to find purchase, made Mark almost sick with fear. His fingers, curled around the handle of his mallet, trembled with exhaustion, pain, and terror, and his backpack, which he had insisted on wearing even while working (because after all it contained his satchel and other important things) felt leaden on his back.

How long would it be before one of them fell?

Not long at all, apparently, as Elliot gave a particularly hard swing with his mallet and then teetered on one foot for a few seconds before toppling off the top of the diversion with a gut-wrenchingly horrific cry.

Mark, Jake, and Leo stopped and stared, their mallets in mid-swing. Nobody had reached out to help him; their own footing was too unstable. Elliot crashed to the wet rocks below them, his body crumpled and twisted, a spray of his blood coating the rocks that still jutted out of the water. Mark nearly fell himself in a faint at the sight.

The light had lifted in the last hour, and now that the mallets were stayed, Mark could hear the cheery calls and chortles of birds all around them—the dawn chorus, unaware or unconcerned regarding the plight of the three remaining humans on the dam. A few of the birds even swooped down to check out Elliot’s body. When the vultures arrived, Mark really would faint.

“Faster. Don’t you dare stop,” Sandy bellowed from the platform that jutted out from the building and met the top of the diversion about twenty meters away.

Perhaps now was the time to tell Sandy he had lied. He could go back to the room and open the door for her and hope he would be let go. He knew Jake wouldn’t be let go; she clearly wanted Jake for other purposes. But right now, it was every man for himself. He turned and started to make his way back across the narrow top of the diversion toward Sandy.

A wave of nausea pummeled Mark like a thunderbolt as he picked his way along, and he very nearly followed Elliot into the rocky riverbed. Just as he was about to double over, the feeling lessened, and he thought he caught sight of movement over in the trees beyond the building into which the water disappeared. Was that his warrior self? Had Warrior Mark come to help?

Feeling bolder, he righted himself and continued along the wall of the diversion. Sandy had started yelling as soon as he stopped swinging, but he ignored her.

He was almost to the platform where Sandy stood when the wave of energy hit him and almost took his feet from underneath him. But after seeing what she could do down beneath the dam, he’d been bracing for it. He felt his own anger, exhaustion, and hunger rise up to meet it in a strange sort of wall, and somehow he remained on the diversion, his feet resolutely planted. (His half-sister clearly wasn’t very smart if she was going to just kill all of her workers.)

The thrust of energy diminished, and he continued walking. Sandy met him at the edge of the platform, and from the fury in her eyes, he could see that she was considering outright pushing him. But he probably weighed twice as much as she did, and to push him would be to risk falling herself.

“Leo,” she yelled. “Shoot him.”

Mark looked back to where Leo stood with his feet on either side of a newly formed crack in the diversion while water poured between his legs. “I can’t, ma’am. I don’t have a good shot right now,” he managed to yell while trying to scramble to more stable footing.

The force of the water ripped off a large chunk of the diversion that they had been hammering at for over an hour. It thundered over the edge and shattered into tiny grey pieces on the ground below. Jake, who had been standing right next to the new opening, quickly clung to a piece of rebar jutting out of the top of the diversion. Water soaked him up to his shins.

“You, camel! Come here!” Sandy yelled. “I need you alive.”

Mark took the opportunity to jump onto the platform through a small opening in the railing, forcing Sandy to step aside. But the wall of energy hit him again, harder. Mark tried to push back, but he had no idea how he had done it before, and this time he was flung back against the rail of the platform, right by the opening through which he had just come. The rail pressed painfully into his back, and one of his feet slipped off the platform.

He started to scream and clutched at the rail with his left hand, trying to hold on, trying not to fall back onto the diversion; if he did, he would likely tumble to his death on the rocks below, or into the water flowing beneath the platform. He just wanted this all to end. He wasn’t cut out for these adventures. He wasn’t Warrior Mark. He’d been coming to tell her the combination to the door. To end this. He wanted his cat, and his quiet room, and now she was doing this.

Anger welled up in his gut.

Almost of its own accord, his mind started to try to feel for the energy, to collect it and drive her back with it. But although he did feel something—some resistance, some thickening of the air—acting upon it was like trying to push water; his efforts had no effect. And now he was going to fall to his death because he’d decided to lie.

The queasiness struck him again and almost caused him to let go of the rail, but then he heard a faint twang, and an arrow sailed through the air and struck Sandy’s wrist. The invisible assault stopped immediately as Sandy roared in rage. Blood streamed down her upraised arm, and she whirled and stared at the trees from where the arrow had come.

Mark used the opportunity to move across the platform to where it was attached to the building, as far away from the opening and the diversion as he could get. Jake, he noted, had managed to scramble back up onto the top of the diversion. He was on the near side of the gaping hole in the crude cement structure, so he could make his way to the platform. But Leo was stuck on the wrong side of the water now rushing over the breaks in the diversion, and could only head for the riverbank on the other side.

Mark had already opened his mouth to tell Sandy the combination that would open the door to the room, but it occurred to him that with Leo stranded, and Sandy wounded, maybe he and Jake could make a run for it. Or at least
he
could make a run for it. Mark started up the stairs that led from the platform to the building.

“Stop!” Sandy yelled, but Mark kept going, thundering up the stairs in his sodden shoes, his pants and jacket wet and heavy. A few more arrows sailed through the air. They missed their mark, but they distracted Sandy, and Mark continued running. He felt bad about leaving Jake behind, but his legs seemed determined to keep moving.

At the top of the stairs, an iron walkway, attached to the outside of the building, ran both left and right. When they had arrived earlier, they’d come around the building from the right after climbing an endless set of stairs from the riverbank. Since the building was built into a hill, maybe if he went left, there would be a shorter set of stairs leading into the woods. Or maybe that was a bad idea. He didn’t know. There were too many things he didn’t know.

“Stop!” Sandy bellowed again. A rush of energy hurtled past him. In a panic, he bolted left, his heart pounding thick in his throat.