A Quill Ladder (15 page)

*****

Abbey gave a light knock on the window, and the person in the chair whirled around. It was Simon. Of course it was Simon
—
a gaunter, more chiseled Simon, with round wire spectacles and the same dusky eyes with dark circles beneath them. He rose from his chair and motioned in the direction of the front door. Abbey followed the edge of the wall to the stairs that descended to the door below.

Inside, the warm glow of muted ochre hallways greeted her, and Abbey found herself tilting her head several centimeters above Simon
’
s teenage height to look her brother in the eye. His hair was still deep brown and shaggy and, despite some crinkles around his eyes, his skin, although pale, remained supple and youthful. He looked far younger than the older Caleb. A gold band gleamed on Simon
’
s ring finger and he wore a well-cut khaki jumpsuit of a design similar to hers. Her heart accelerated a little. Even though Simon in real time, or
present
time, Abbey amended, was at this very moment in jail, he would be okay somehow. He would grow up and have a business, and a wife, and be okay. She hoped.

“
I was wondering if you might show up,
”
he said.

“
You were?
”

“
Yup. Of course, I couldn
’
t be sure if the timelines had changed and just Caleb would come.
”

“
So Caleb and I told the younger you about this meeting?
”

“
You said you saw the older me. More than once, apparently.
”

Abbey nodded and looked around Simon to the open door of the office she had just peered into from outside, and lowered her voice.
“
Did we tell Caleb about his future?
”

Simon pressed his lips together as if he was trying to decide what to say.
“
Yes. But he doesn
’
t know yet. Tell him when you get back. But only as much as he needs to know. But you must never do anything too extreme on this side of the stones. Caleb came here looking for me because he overheard you accuse Sylvain of extorting him to sabotage my company. He wanted to know if that was true. But I haven
’
t told him much, other than that I
’
m fine.
”

“
Have you seen the older Caleb? Is he okay?
”
Abbey hissed, but then widened her eyes because the younger Caleb had appeared in the door to the office like an angry orange shadow.

Simon gave a tight smile, and a sharp frisson of alarm shot through her. What wasn
’
t Simon telling her about Caleb?
“
Let
’
s go into my office and talk about what we can talk about.
”

Abbey and Caleb settled into the armchairs across from Simon
’
s desk. The office was painted in warm brown tones and well lit, a far cry from the dark room the current Simon favored. A photo frame sat on his desk facing him, and as she
’
d walked past, Abbey had glimpsed the outlines of a family of four in the photo.

“
Okay so here
’
s what you need to know, I think,
”
he said.
“
I
’
ve already reassured Caleb that what happens, happens, and that he shouldn
’
t feel guilty for what his future self has to do. Even if someone destroyed my company now, I
’
ve made enough money to support my family well into the future, and for me, it was, and will always be, the creative process that excites me. Sylvain cannot take that away from me no matter what he does to Sinclair Systems.
”

“
So Sylvain
is
bad then?
”
Abbey said, feeling a small note of panic that she had left Mark in his care.

“
I don
’
t think I should answer that. I
’
m really unsure what, if anything, I should tell you. Based on what I learned about this timeline when I came first visited here from the past, the timeline I
’
m in now seems to have changed. That is to say, what I see now is not exactly what I saw then. Maybe that
’
s normal. Maybe the timeline is always constantly in flux. Maybe there are millions of parallel futures that in many ways are mirrors of each other, and differ based on just one tiny different action or outcome of events.
”
Simon paused, and gave her one of his earnest looks.
“
Or maybe our actions, or the actions of some of the other so-called witches, are causing this timeline instability. You and Caleb need to go get Mark, go home, make up, and stick together
—
because Abbey, as you know, something big is coming.
”

Simon flicked his eyes to the photo and then seemed to shift his eyes to the granular pattern of wood on his desk before raising them back to Abbey and Caleb.
“
Time travel in a way allows you to play God. There are things that happened in the past, or at least that happened on the timeline that I lived, that I know we
’
re all going to think we should change. And when you can potentially change things, the temptation to do so is very strong. But there are also things that have happened over the course of my life to date that I don
’
t want to erase, and I
’
m sure the same will be true for your futures, too. The risk is, when you try to change one thing, it can change everything else, too
—
including the things that you don
’
t want changed.
”
He paused.
“
But I
’
m beginning to wonder if the stones make time circular. If every time we have this conversation, you go back and do something different, intentionally or not, or someone else does, and then my past changes and I can no longer remember my previous past. So I tell you not to change the past, when in fact changing the past is inevitable for someone who has traveled to the future
—
and we
’
re trapped in this bloody cycle until someone destroys those wretched stones.
”

Destroy the stones?
The suggestion cut almost to some sort of core of Abbey
’
s being. She darted a look at Caleb, to see if he was similarly affected, but he stared straight ahead.

Simon glanced at his wristwatch.
“
You should go.
”

*****

Mark shifted through the fourth set of maps Kasey had plunked down on the table in front of him. These ones were of Coventry City in the late 1880s. They were stylized with extravagant typography, drawings instead of symbols, and hachures for relief. The grid pattern of streets now extended out a few kilometers from the Moon River, unlike the first several sets of maps he had examined from the previous century. He flipped through the maps:
Streets and Railway Stations
;
Hotels, Apartments, Libraries, Schools, and Churches;
and
Police Districts
. He probably should have given Kasey more direction with regard to what he was looking for, but then again, he wasn
’
t totally sure himself. What would he ask for? Strange unidentified dots in an unusual arrangement?

He slipped out one of the undated maps from Dr. Ford and compared the grid pattern of the street and the curvature of the river with those on the maps from the library. These matched, unlike the ones from the 1780s that he had started with. Mark experienced a small tendril of excitement. He was in the right century then. In fact, these almost looked like the same mapmaker: the North arrow styling and flourishes around the landmarks were similar, although the scale of the maps from Dr. Ford was much reduced. He examined each of the library maps carefully. But nowhere on any of the maps from the library could Mark find reference to, or evidence of, the four small black dots that appeared on one of the maps from Dr. Ford
’
s office.

He had almost missed those dots at first. They were so faint, almost just flecks that could have been considered imperfections in the paper. He had only noticed them because the spacing between the flecks seemed somehow regular. Two were equidistant from the third, and if he connected the dots with a single line, the two internal angles would both be at seventy degrees, which he thought was strange because flecks were usually more random (and he
’
d spent a lot of time studying flecks). The three southernmost dots formed an isoceles
triangle in the downtown core of Coventry, while the northern dot was in the middle of an orchard that occupied the upper part of the valley in which Coventry nestled. He laid the onion skin paper onto which he had hastily traced the four dots and a few other key Coventry landmarks on the desk.

Mark raised his eyes and looked around. Aside from Kasey, he was the only person in the map room. The activity on the first floor beneath him emitted a faint hum, but the general atmosphere of the library was calming. The night formed a bleak backdrop against the large windows on the east side of the building, and the fluorescent lights in the ceiling a floor above him cast an institutional glow on the building. But small desk lamps occupied the tables in the map room, giving the workspace a homey feel.

Mark checked his new Garmin Forerunner watch. It was almost eight. He had to use the bathroom, but not urgently yet. This was the longest he had ever spent voluntarily in a public space, aside from his wait outside Dr. Ford
’
s office, and time in the hospital with his mother. He had been given to understand that university students spent hours on end in libraries. This had always scared him, this idea of occupying public space for such a long period of time, using public bathrooms, wearing shoes. It was so fraught with peril. But perhaps he would be able to do it in short stints.

He lifted his fingers at Kasey, his signal that he needed another set of maps. The man had been quite attentive and careful with the maps. (Mark appreciated a person who appreciated maps.)

Kasey returned silently to Mark
’
s table, removed the maps, went to the large horizontal file cabinets where the maps were stored, and removed three more. He placed them gently on the table in front of Mark, then busied himself with putting away the previous set.

Mark looked at the first two maps:
Sources of Milk Supply
and
Concerts, Beer Gardens, Lecture Rooms, and Museums
. Such odd things had been mapped over a hundred years ago. He hardly could believe that cartographers had had the time or interest in charting such obscure items.

He pulled out the third map and placed it on top of the others.
Societies (Secret and Benefit), Hospitals, Asylums, and Homes
was written in flowing script in the upper left-hand corner of the map. His hands started to tremble when he saw the four dots
—
the same four dots he
’
d seen on Dr. Ford
’
s map. There were many other dots too
—
so many dots. He flicked his eyes to the legend. Most of the dots marked the locations of asylums, hospitals, secret societies, and benefit societies. Some marked homes. But whose homes? And why would they be included on such a map?

Unfortunately, the four dots that mimicked the dots on Dr. Ford
’
s map weren
’
t referenced in the legend. There were other dots of a similar styling, with no indication of what any of them represented.

Mark
’
s fingers suddenly felt clammy, and he tried to breathe heavily through his nose, bringing the air right into the bottom of his lungs like the doctor had told him to do when he had a panic attack coming on (because apparently that was relaxing).