A Grave Tree (24 page)

After a morning prayer ritual and steaming bowls of thin porridge, the women and men who remained in the camp promptly busied themselves with disassembling the tepees and starting to pack narrow carts with furs, clothing, and tinned food.

Rumors of the Light’s return in the middle of the night had spread through the camp. Abbey heard the whispers as people passed, and some paused in their tasks to regard her with solemn eyes, but Matilde chided them that they needed to be packed and gone within the next hour in case Quinta mounted an offensive. She also muttered something about germs, then scuttled off to continue overseeing the packing, but not after giving Abbey a hard look that suggested no witchcraft or tomfoolery would be tolerated.

Abbey supposed she must look very alien to these people who clothed themselves mostly in animal skins. She also supposed that germs would not be an unlikely concern, given Russell’s condition. The tepee in which Russell had been installed, she noted, was left erect on the edge of the camp. Nobody had come and gone from it in quite some time. Was he dead? Or were they going to burn the tepee to avoid the spread of whatever disease Russell had? She was surprised she hadn’t been rounded up and forced into the tepee herself. Or had Caleb left explicit instructions that she not be harmed?

After Matilde’s warning, a few children regarded her curiously as they went about their tasks, but mostly Caleb’s people left her to her own devices, their faces drawn and determined. What hardships had these people endured as a result of the split in the futures?

She bent to scoop a handful of the moist brown earth into her hand and let it run through her fingers. What essential elements was this soil missing that allowed it to grow only stately conifers and shrubby deciduous trees? A cool breeze ruffled her hair and blew several wayward strands into her eyes and face. She brushed them away and shivered. Or maybe the temperature never rose high enough to allow for germination. She lifted the handful of soil again and placed it in the pocket of her hoodie.

After a bit, Abbey decided it would be best to hike around in the woods to the back of Sylvain’s cage and try to talk to him from the trees there. She rose and angled off cautiously into the woods as if going to relieve herself or take a walk. She skirted the camp in the trees, giving it wide berth so as not to be seen, until she could see the wooden poles of Sylvain’s cage through a fringe of conifers. Then she picked up a small pebble and tossed it into the cage. Sylvain, who had been sitting in the corner of the cage with his head bent, jerked up.

“Don’t look at me, and try not to move your lips,” she said.

His long silvery hair moved up and down on his neck as if he was nodding.

Abbey crouched behind the wide trunk of a cedar tree. “We’re trapped. The docks and stones aren’t working properly.”

“I know,” Sylvain murmured, almost inaudibly.

“Do you know why, or how to fix them?”

“No, but I may know how to get us home if you get me out of here.”

“How?” Abbey hissed.

“I have one of the stones from Coventry Hill hidden by the chapel at Four-Valley Gap. We just need Mark and a point of power, and I think we’ll have enough energy to get home.”

Abbey drew her eyebrows together. That was what Russell had said Sylvain was looking for before.

“Where’s Jake?” she hissed.

Sylvain shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ll find him, I promise. You need to get me out of here.”

Abbey arched her head slightly so she could see the sturdy wooden poles of the cage. How was she going to do that? Sylvain was sitting in plain sight, and as far as she knew, Russell was nearly unconscious in a tepee fifty meters away.

“You’re going to have to create a screen,” Sylvain continued, “with your mind. I know these aren’t the best circumstances for you to be learning witchcraft, but we need to work together. We need to make it so that Caleb’s people can’t see you unlatching the door to the cage and undoing my ties.”

Abbey was silent, contemplating what Sylvain was suggesting. Her rational scientific mind ran through the possibilities and rejected all of them. What Sylvain was proposing was impossible. But then again, so was time travel through a set of stones, and yet apparently here she was—although her mind had still not totally dismissed her collective hallucination or dream hypotheses.

“To make it work, you will have to believe, Abbey. Really believe. Create a wall with your mind and believe that they cannot see you. Feel my mind working with yours.”

Believe. In something completely non-scientific. Sylvain was asking her to do the thing that would be most impossible for her. Create a wall with her mind. She almost yelped out a bitter laugh. Was this how she was going to end up dying, pierced by the spears of a group of fur-clad women?

“Apparently I’m to die soon,” she said dully. “I used the docks yesterday.”

“No, you’re not,” Sylvain said sharply and then went silent. Abbey wondered if the volume and force of his words had attracted the attention of one of the women in the camp. Sylvain continued more softly, his voice barely above a whisper. “The future changes every second. I know that better than anyone. My whole fortune, my future that I spent years building, has been largely ruined in a matter of weeks. Someone has pulled the threads. You can pull the threads of your own future. Look at your mother. She got medical treatment, and as a result, she is no longer a camel.”

“No, she’s just missing.”

Sylvain’s voice was gravelly. “Abbey, we don’t have time for this. You need to get me out of here. They’re going to notice you missing. I’ve been concentrating on keeping them going about their work, which has bought us a few minutes, but I’m only a mediocre witch, and it’s not going to hold forever. Consider this a stretch goal. Clear your mind and imagine a wall between the camp and the cage. Not a real wall, but a wall of distraction, of absence, so that there is nothing drawing their interest.”

“If you can do that, why can’t you untie yourself?”

“I can only influence animate objects that have a high enough energy frequency for me to tap into, and to some extent I can also draw upon more readily available molecules of matter that are in the atmosphere. Not many of us have the strength to tap into the energy in inanimate objects.”

Abbey wondered what he meant by molecules of matter in the atmosphere. “What about Russell? Are we just going to leave him behind?” Abbey snapped, her fear making her testy.

“We may have to leave him behind for now. If we’re going to escape, it’s now or never.”

Abbey peeked from behind the tree. Women were starting to dart glances at her empty spot by the fire, and some of the children had started playing a game of tag that was bringing them closer and closer to the cage.

She closed her eyes and tried to imagine a wall between the cage and the camp, a big, grey wall. At first it seemed like nothing was happening. Of course nothing was happening. What she was doing was ridiculous.

“Believe, Abbey. You have to believe. Find your center and will it.”

To know, to will, to dare, to keep silent.
Was that her new legacy? Silence. Just like all the adults had kept silent around her?

Or was it daring? Daring to believe.

She imagined the pentagram, the center of it that was occupied by the statue of Quinta, the center of the statue, and her own center, and she tried again.

The glimmerings of a thin grey screen caught and held in her mind. She imagined knitting it together with atoms—protons, neutrons, electrons—moving together to form a tight weave of distraction—a smoke screen. Then she felt another energy source adding to the screen, pulling more atoms in and thickening it. Sylvain.

“Good girl. You’re stronger than I expected,” Sylvain said. “Now hurry. We can only hold this for a few seconds.”

Indeed, Abbey’s legs already felt rubbery as she rose and raced to the front of the cage. The latch was a relatively easy one, and she was fumbling with Sylvain’s ties in seconds. Her head screamed from the exertion, and she felt the screen starting to fall away as she struggled with the knots.

“Concentrate,” Sylvain urged. “You must be able to do two things at once. Focus on the screen.” Abbey closed her eyes and refocused her mind, searching for wayward protons and electrons, trying to pull them back into place. But it was no use. Her brain flatly refused, and she heard the cries of an alarm as she ripped away the last of Sylvain’s ties and bolted out the cage door. She turned and accelerated into the trees with Sylvain behind her. The crashing sounds of pursuers followed, and with his long legs, Sylvain quickly overtook her and she was forced to try to keep up with the flying tails of his grey overcoat.

*****

The water cascaded off the diversion in an arching waterfall that created a spray of rainbows in the bleak sunlight and splattered on the rocks of the riverbed below. Much of the water was being sucked up by the bone-dry banks, but Mark was grateful to see that a channel of water had formed and that Elliot’s body (and potentially Leo’s) was now covered up.

Sandy still had a paralyzing hold on his arm as they made their way down the stairs that led from the building. He tried not to imagine he could feel the whole thing shaking under the pressure of the water.

Mark searched the trees for signs of his older self, but he felt no nausea, only the cold hard hunger of morning and the ache of working all night. Across the river, through a fringe of green, he could see a string of men heading for the diversion in single file. The workers had arrived.

Sandy marched him down the trail at a rapid pace, and Mark was too exhausted to argue. They walked for a while in silence. Mark found himself drifting a bit, in a sort of sleepy trance. He wondered where Abbey and Caleb had ended up. Perhaps they were back at the cabin feeding Ocean and sleeping in their warm beds. Perhaps Sylvain and Russell had returned also, and they were all sitting down to a nice breakfast of eggs and bacon. He wanted to be sitting across from Abbey, the morning light falling on her red hair, while she explained some incomprehensible physics problem to Sylvain, and he ate a bowl of Rice Krispies and thought about maps.

Then suddenly he saw Abbey’s red hair, but it was flying out behind her and full of twigs and bits of leaves. In front of her, a dark form bolted through the trees, balanced on impossibly long and thin limbs: Sylvain. They were on the run from something. Mark carefully rotated his head. Behind them he could see the forms of men and women carrying spears. At least none of them had crossbows.

“Watch it!” A stinging pain brought Mark back to the path. Sandy had thwacked him in the arm, and it smarted. His legs went suddenly limpish. He’d been about to step off the cliff and plummet to the mostly empty riverbed. Clearly letting his head fly while walking was a bad choice. But Abbey and Sylvain were in trouble. Then again, so was he.

The water flowing in the river had increased in volume. Evidently the work crews were already in action.

He inched away from the edge of the cliff, his arm throbbing. A wave of upset thundered over him. He did not like to be hit. He clenched his fists and then laced his fingers around his head, pulling it down and bending at the waist, starting to form a protective ball. “It’s not nice to hit people,” he said. “Why are you doing all this?”

“I told you. I’m trying to help Marian and Peter, and I’m doing important things in another future. Things that will save it. This future is already dying. It can’t be helped. But the other future needs water and energy, and I’ve found a way to provide it. It would just be nice if you were more cooperative.”

Mark considered this for a bit. He’d been asked to be more cooperative all his life, by his mother, by his preschool teachers, by his tutors…

In the distance, the crack of breaking rock cut through the air. Mark turned back to see a large part of the top of the diversion fall away. Water exploded over the edge, carrying several of the workers with it. Cries broke out across the river near the diversion, and a half dozen men with spears and crossbows ran out of the trees, howling.

The remaining men on top of the diversion started to make their way either back to the riverbank or toward the platform, depending on which side of the newly formed hole they were stranded on.

“It’s an ambush,” Sandy said. “Those fur-headed idiots.”

Shots rang out from the platform. The men atop the diversion collapsed left and right.

Sandy grabbed Mark’s arm and yanked him in the direction of the dam; her strength, as before, was unnerving. A flash of movement downriver caught Mark’s attention, and he jerked his head in that direction to see another group of fur-clad men, this one led by Caleb, charging up the riverbank toward him and Sandy.

Suddenly Sandy pulled him into the trees and her face veered really close to his and then her fist shot out and connected with his temple with a sharp jab of unimaginable pain—and then everything went black. His last thought before the blackness completely overtook him was that the lines that had marked Sandy’s face the previous day were gone.

The branches seemed to be coming from everywhere, smacking him in the face, blocking his vision. But strangely there was no pain or feeling. Had his face gone numb? Spider webs hung glistening across his path, and Mark ducked and turned his head instinctively, but the sticky gossamer threads never embedded themselves in his hair as he expected. Abbey was to his right, struggling through the thick undergrowth, and Sylvain remained in front, while the crashing sounds of pursuit occupied the air behind them.

His head was flying again. He was not really here. He relaxed a bit about the spider webs and turned his head. The pursuers had gained on Abbey and Sylvain, and judging by the jagged nature of Abbey’s breathing, and the tightness of her face, he could tell she was tiring. She and Sylvain were cutting a weaving path, probably to prevent a clear shot from the spears the attackers carried.

How could he help them? In the rowboat before, he hadn’t been able to touch anything or make any noise. But he had made Ian turn around. Maybe.