A Grave Tree (11 page)

Caleb shook his head. “Abbey’s not dead. She just doesn’t live here. Uncle Simon just
thinks
she’s dead. They got separated during the… you know, the event. We live in the Outlands. She sent us to find you. We really need to borrow some jumpsuits because my sister Ab…igail, has a broken wrist, and we need to go to the hospital.”

Abbey blinked at her brother. Outlands. What was he talking about? He was going to give them away for sure.

Sarah stared at them so intently that Abbey thought her eyes might bug out. Then she shook her head, looked both ways down the street, and opened the door wider, her brow creased and her mouth pulled into a frightened frown. “I don’t know what’s going on, but either you’re ghosts, or you’re Caleb and Abbey Sinclair. Even with all the things Simon hinted at, I never imagined this. You’d better get inside.” She beckoned them into a dim but airy hall, and Abbey sank into a small wooden chair beside a bin of shoes.

“Simon’s not here. He’s…” She hesitated, flipping her long blond ponytail over her shoulder and peering intently at Caleb, her lips pulled thin. “Never mind.” She flung open a closet in the hall and started rifling through it, thrusting a tan jumpsuit at Ian and another at Caleb. “I’ll have to go to the bedroom to get one of my suits for you, Abbey. Healthcare is free. But you’ll have to say that you’re from the Outlands and have a sponsor, and…” She trailed off, pursing her lips. “You can use our names, I guess. I should call Simon. I just don’t know when he’ll be available.”

Abruptly, Caleb leaned heavily against Abbey’s chair, which creaked in protest. Beneath his florid contusions, his freckled face had gone chalky.

“We’ll just go straight to the hospital,” Ian said, offering Sarah a toothy smile as he tried to pull the jumpsuit up over his billowing silken shirt.

Sarah scrutinized Ian as if to question his suitability as a chaperone or even a traveling partner, but then she nodded and marched away down the hall.

Abbey propped her elbow on a hall table and let her head sink onto her hand. Spots danced in front of her eyes, and she clenched her jaw and tried to slow her breathing to keep from fainting. A large tablet sat on the table, the screen still covered in text. Abbey let her eyes wash over the words. “New Candidate to Enter Mayoral Campaign” read the headline. The article indicated that the People’s Party was selecting a new candidate after the murder of Abraham Dunham, and that Lester Edwards, the remaining candidate, was now going to have competition.

Sarah scurried back into the room holding a navy jumpsuit, which she passed to Abbey. “I have to go get the kids from school. You should probably leave through the back, if you don’t mind. With Abe’s murder and everything else, we’re all a bit paranoid. I was hoping things would settle down after the election. But now that Sandra Ford is running, I don’t know.” She tucked some wisps of blond hair behind her ears and wrung her hands a bit. “I’m blabbering. This probably isn’t relevant to you. Just be careful. You should go home as soon as you can.” She eyeballed Caleb’s now sagging frame with concern.

Abbey rose and started to struggle into the jumpsuit, her wrist stiff and painful. The lapels of Ian’s magenta and turquoise shirt stuck out of his slim-fitting jumpsuit, which looked bunchy and rumpled.

“Sandra Ford?” Caleb said with effort, his eyes half closed.

Sarah picked at one of her nails, which were ragged, the cuticles dry and bleeding in spots. “Simon knows her. She owns the Consolidated Mining Company and now Transplanetary. I know it probably sounds funny getting worked up about a municipal election, but with the depopulation, big cities have taken on the importance that states used to have. North America is basically made up of a bunch of independent city-states now, and mayors are like governors.”

Sandra Ford. Sandy. Was she really running for mayor of this future Coventry? Ian’s fists had clenched in response to Sarah’s announcement, but Abbey felt a small wave of hope. If Sandy was alive, if she had returned from wherever she and Abbey’s mother had gone, if they had gone together, maybe Abbey’s parents were alive, too.

“Anyway, I need to go.” Sarah looked at Caleb. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Caleb nodded. “Just need some air,” he said in an attempt at Caleb brightness.

Sarah hustled them along the hall through the house, which was less sumptuous than Abbey would have expected. Sarah opened the door into a terraced back yard that sloped up and away from them, filled with a panoply of blooms as well as a small vegetable garden. A lattice of boardwalks snaked through the back yard, and a small domed structure sat in the upper corner—a garage maybe, or a large shed.

Sarah ushered them out of the house, her pretty face wreathed in concern. “The lane there leads back to the street, and the train goes directly to the hospital. I think it’ll be fine. I’ll tell Simon you were here.” She waved as she disappeared back inside.

As soon as Sarah closed the door behind them, Ian’s broad smile dropped off his face. “We need to hurry. I’m going to run a few errands while the two of you are treated.” He took off at a swift march, leaving Abbey to ponder the degree of uncertainty in Sarah’s voice when she said she thought it would be fine.

Caleb started to climb the stairs that ran up the middle of the back yard, his face now a sickly shade of puce. He managed to make it out to the lane and then bolted for a spray of wisteria that hung out of someone’s yard. The sound of him vomiting followed. Maybe he
did
have internal injuries.

After Caleb had emptied the contents of his stomach, he started determinedly down the paved lane toward Ian, his footsteps unsteady. Abbey followed warily. Was Caleb about to keel over? But no, he seemed to recover some of his strength as he proceeded, and by the end of the lane, he walked with greater vigor.

Abbey glanced back down the lane. She should try to remember what it looked like, and which house was Simon’s. Who knew when they might need to make a run for safety? She suppressed a small shriek. A man with fiery red hair peeked out of the door of the shed, his freckled skin white in the sun.

Caleb. Future Caleb.

The man vanished and the door swung quickly closed.

He was alive. Abbey closed her eyes in a silent rush of gratitude.

Was the presence of his older self the reason why Caleb had suddenly flagged, and why Sarah had seemed so skittish? Abbey hesitated. There were so many things she wanted to ask her older twin. But it was clear that older Caleb hadn’t wanted to be seen, and it was also clear that younger Caleb needed to get farther away from himself. And Abbey’s wrist throbbed painfully.

When she caught up to Caleb and Ian, Caleb was speaking in clipped tones, his face still pallid. “You adults need to start being a little more forthcoming with what’s going on if you want our help. You can’t just give out cards and hope we solve the clues while you mastermind the whole operation.”

The card. Abbey had forgotten about the card.
To Know, To Will, To Dare, To Keep Silent
had been written in ominous script in the center of the cream-colored card. There was probably also something else hidden on the card, if it was anything like the other ones.

Abbey tried to reach through the front of the jumpsuit to retrieve the card, but she couldn’t quite reach her right pocket with her left hand. Wearing two layers of clothing was cumbersome, and despite her wettish underlayer, she sweated in the heat and dry breeze that seemed to always blow in this future Coventry. The card would still be soaked anyway, and would likely rip if she tried to remove it.

Ian’s normally buoyant expression seemed drawn. “Rescuing Sandy from Nowhere has had more implications than we would like, it seems. I’m going to have to pay this future Ms. Ford a visit.”

Caleb stopped walking and folded his muscular arms over his chest. Ian seemed positively elven in comparison, and there was little doubt that Caleb could take Ian down if he needed to, unless Ian had special powers that they didn’t know about—and Abbey hadn’t seen much in the way of special powers from any of the so-called witches.

“Just so you know, Sandy is a friend of ours, and of our mother’s, and she isn’t a big fan of yours,” Caleb said. “She said you were stalking her. If she wants to run for mayor in the future, she has every right to do so.”

Ian’s eyes narrowed. “Ms. Ford says a lot of things.”

Abbey struggled to sort out what was going on from beneath the layers of wrist pain that threatened to capsize her.

“I need to get to the hospital,” she snapped. “Can you two continue this conversation there?”

Caleb and Ian shot glares at each other before swiveling and carrying on down the boardwalk in the direction of the train station.

It seemed like they’d walked for ten hours while Mark’s stomach consumed itself with a delicate ferocity, although in reality it had probably been only half an hour. They passed the skull. Sylvain (thankfully) did not seem to possess any inclination to climb down it like the beret man, who was clearly unstable and dangerous. Not too far after the gaping eye sockets and jagged teeth, the canyon gave way to steep sandy cliffs, which got progressively lower until they were walking alongside the Moon River on grass-tufted banks only a few feet above the water.

The river remained low, more like a stream really. It had been unseasonably cold in the Coventry they had left, and Mark wore khakis and a windbreaker (for which he was grateful), but here, the air hung sullen with a more oppressive kind of moisture and chill. Dark clouds gathered on the southern horizon, and the air crackled with the possibility of a thunderstorm.

Jake and Russell exchanged the occasional pleasantry while they walked—the kind of “getting to know you” banter that Mark understood other people engaged in. Talk of sports teams, mutual acquaintances, and school. He ignored them, as did Sylvain.

As they proceeded, Mark strained to see the cement edifice of the Granton Dam. Was it actually gone, as it had seemed to be the last time he had been to this future and looked across the valley from the lookout on the mountain? That day, in place of the grey tower of cement and metal, he had seen only a waterfall.

Based on the landmarks they had passed and the looming Stairway Mountains in front of them, they should be almost at the original dam site, but the river right now seemed too calm and low for there to be a waterfall. Sylvain, too, was darting sharp looks at the river as if he knew that something was different.

Mark’s impatience carved around in his head like a shark, threatening to destabilize his calm. He needed to be higher, to be out of the trees to see. He should try flying with his head again. To go above the tree line and look down. But the prospect scared him. He evidently did not know how to control it, and what if something happened to his body while he was gone? What if the dogs came back and ripped off one of his limbs while he soared over the river in search of a dam? He just had to wait. They were only fifteen to twenty minutes from the dam now.

Abruptly, Sylvain called a halt and gestured at the river. It had widened slightly and was studded with large flat rocks that stuck out of the water.

“We cross here,” he said.

Mark felt his brows gather. Why were they crossing? The dam—or waterfall—was just up the river. The other side of the river looked no more or less passable than this side.

But he followed Jake and Russell, who nimbly leapt from rock to rock. He was ungainly next to them, his jumps uncertain and staggering. Several times he nearly slipped from his slanted purchase on a river rock into the glistening knee-deep water. But he made it, then turned to watch as Sylvain, who brought up the rear, hastened from rock to rock with his long bony limbs.

On the other side, Sylvain pointed into the trees. “We’ll be heading into the trees now to Four-Valley Gap,” he said.

Mark jerked his eyes away from the river channel in surprise. Four-Valley Gap, a unique convergence of four valleys almost in the form of a pinwheel, was nowhere near the river; he wouldn’t be able to see the dam, or not-dam. He’d always wanted to see the Gap and the stone chapel that apparently stood in its center. But they were almost at the dam, and he needed to see the dam first. And yet the bad man—who had suddenly become very clearly a bad man again in Mark’s mind—was announcing that they were leaving the river. Mark’s body locked up into a rigid stance of defiance and his hands flew to his ears. He needed to stop this.

The bad man turned and started to walk into the woods, Jake and Russell behind him.

“No,” Mark whispered. “No.” He stood on the riverbank staring out at the rippling water. The shadows of fish moved against the sand, darting and rushing.

Russell glanced back over his shoulder. “You coming?” he asked. Mark gave the river another sidelong look. He would follow them for a bit, and then, before he got too far away from the river to retrace his steps, slip away.

The risks associated with this step loomed gargantuan in his mind. Mark couldn’t get home on his own. They’d already lost the stone that had brought them to this future, and Sylvain was the only one who knew where he had hidden the other stone that could take them back. Then again, it was Mark who supplied the energy that enabled the stones from Coventry Hill to work—presuming that the stone Sylvain had hidden was from Coventry Hill.

Which meant surely they would come and find him and take him home. They’d have to, if they wanted to get home themselves.

He just needed to make sure he didn’t get killed or eaten by dogs in the interim.

*****

“You should have seen the machine they used to treat my bruises,” a remarkably better-looking Caleb announced as they made their way back through the hospital lobby.

Abbey cradled her knit-back-together wrist. It was tender, but now completely functional and healed. Nanotechnology surgery using gold catalysts, she had gathered from the kind Asian doctor, Dr. Yee, who had seen her. No wonder their mother had come here for medical treatment.