A Grave Tree (23 page)

The walkway veered right at the corner of the building, and Mark rounded it, hoping to see a set of stairs down into the woods. But there were no stairs. Instead, the walkway led directly to a door into the building—the building in which hundreds of cubic meters of water apparently just disappeared.

Footsteps echoed on the iron walkway. Sandy and Jake? Or Sandy and Leo, with his gun.

Mark flung open the door and ran inside.

*****

Nevin had departed by the time the sun peeked over the treed hills, offering a tired, watery sort of warmth. Abbey’s limbs felt stiff and heavy with cold and she rubbed her hands together over the fire. Graham had sounded the wakeup call for all those who would be going to the dam, and Caleb was over talking strategy with some of the men.

He stood differently now, his shoulders thrust more firmly back, his spine straighter, a faint hint of auburn shadow on his cheeks. He no longer looked fourteen, but he didn’t look over forty either. Surely the fur-clad men must have noticed.

A few of the men had delivered some leather and fur armor that apparently belonged to Caleb, and he had put it on, making him virtually indistinguishable from the others who milled around them, scooping thin porridge from wooden bowls, checking weapons and cinching up armor. This was his future.

And what of
her
future? If she had invented the bubble material, had her entire future—the city, Sam, her baby—just vaporized with her death, leaving only desert? And when was she to die? Today at the dam? Or perhaps when she tried to travel home via the stones and the pieces of her became scrambled and refused to reassemble, her particles scattered somewhere between the present and the future?

Russell had awoken with a fever and had been ordered to an isolation tent. The aging sickness to which Ian had referred? A virus from the future that they were more susceptible to due to lack of exposure? But Abbey felt okay. And it was too early for rabies, wasn’t it? Or did being in the future accelerate the incubation of viruses, just as it accelerated their aging? Acceleration. There was too much acceleration.

If it
was
rabies, they really needed to get him home, or to Simon’s future, or he would die.

Caleb approached, his face composed and stoic. “I’m thinking you should stay here at the camp, Abs.”

Abbey folded her arms over her chest. “And let you get killed?”

“Well, based on what we know, your life is in far more danger than mine.”

“We don’t know that,” she said.

“We don’t know anything, but it definitely looks like it’s a distinct possibility.”

“You can’t help them anyway,” she said. “You’ll create paradox if you kill anyone or change the course of events.”

“Then I’ll have to rely on you to come and rescue me in Nowhere, which is another reason you should stay here.”

She stomped her foot against the hard dirt. “Stop it! There might not even be any docks. It might not even be our Mark who’s being held prisoner. This isn’t your fight. Stop being stupidly heroic.”

Caleb gave a faint smile, and the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled. “But wouldn’t we want to rescue future Mark too? And we need to find out who Quinta is. Besides, this
is
my fight, Abbey. These are my people, or will be, and the future me hasn’t come back for them for some reason. I have a responsibility.”

Reddish circles underscored his eyes, from lack of sleep, likely. She scanned his face for further signs of aging. Thankfully, he still looked like a teenager, albeit a slightly older one than he had when they left yesterday. Had it only been yesterday?

“It’s too dangerous…” Abbey started.

“I’ll be careful. The normal workers are going ahead to start their day. They’ll be in place and able to help. It should be easy. Apparently the strangers are limited in number. They only fell into a dependent relationship because they needed food.”

“Ian says Quinta has special powers. Whoever she is, she’s a witch too, whatever that means. I’m coming with you.”

“Who’s going to rescue me from Nowhere then?”

“Maybe the reason I can use the docks is because I’m supposed to die here today. So if I don’t go—and thus I don’t die—I won’t be a camel, and I won’t be able to rescue you from Nowhere.”

“And if you
do
die, you
definitely
won’t be able to rescue me from Nowhere.”

Abbey frowned. Caleb had a point. Somehow everything always went back to the circularity of witchcraft, time travel, and lateral travel.

Caleb flicked his eyes to Sylvain, who had tried to attract their attention several times only to retreat to the corner of his cage to pout when they ignored him. “If you stay here, you might be able to talk to Sylvain. We should probably try to bust him out of there, or he’ll never forgive us. The camp will be practically deserted while we’re gone, and the people who are staying behind will be busy packing. If you can get Sylvain out and head for the trees with Russell, you may be able to hide out until Ian and I get back. Maybe Sylvain knows where Jake is. And don’t forget, Sylvain passed the trials. He probably knows more than old numbnuts there about how to get home.” Caleb nodded at Ian, who was making his way back to them, his gait rather jaunty and lighthearted considering the circumstances.

Selena’s words about Ian deceiving them whispered unbidden in Abbey’s ears.

“But Caleb, how are you going to fight? You have no weapons training.”

“I’m the regional tae kwon do champion, remember?”

Abbey crossed her arms over her chest.

Caleb’s freckles stood out starkly beneath the slight fuzz of facial hair that now covered his cheeks. Would he have to start shaving now? Or would he return to normal once he got back home?
If
they got back home.

Caleb lowered his voice. “Ab, I’m serious. Whenever I was in a match, I always felt like I knew what my opponent was going to do before he did it. And I was always right. I thought I was just really good at anticipating based on slight arm and leg movements, but now I’m not so sure. I think I can see it somehow. I think we do have some abilities.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Think about your ability to solve math and physics problems. It’s a bit freaky.”

Abbey opened her mouth to retort, but found herself with nothing to say. She’d always taken pride in her abilities and took them as a clear reflection of her superior intellect. The notion that they were potentially something else—some sort of witchcraft—was not entirely comfortable. Then again, maybe witchcraft was just some form of higher intellect.

A bugle call rang out through the camp. “I have to go,” Caleb said. “I’ll be safe. I promise. Find a way to talk to Sylvain. Threaten to not let him out unless he promises to tell you everything. If you manage to get away, let’s meet at Skull Rock. Use your compass to go to the Moon River, then follow the river east until you get to the rock. If you’re not there, I’ll come back here to look for you.”

Caleb turned and jogged off to join the men who had gathered at the edge of camp. Abbey breathed in and steadied herself. She could do this.

*****

The door opened into a cavernous room that emitted a loud humming noise. Mark was on a mezzanine floor of sorts with a glassed-in wall that overlooked six round cement cylinders: generators sitting atop turbines, perhaps? That’s what they looked like. But where was the water going? And how had they built this without heavy machinery? The whole room had kind of a strange buzzing feel that unnerved him.

He didn’t have time to think about it. He scurried along the mezzanine looking for an exit. At the end of the mezzanine another door opened into a stairwell that went down. The flash of sunlight from the other end of the mezzanine behind him informed him that someone else had entered the building, and Mark wasted no time hastening down the stairs, almost tripping over his own feet.

At the bottom of the stairs, a door opened out into the generator room. The hum was louder here, pretty much thunderous, and Mark cringed at the sound. The noise and the fluorescent lights threatened to overwhelm what small reserve of composure he had left.

He edged into the room looking for an exit or a place to hide. Behind one of the generators, perhaps. It might buy him time to pull himself together… or disintegrate completely.

He scuttled around one of the large round objects and headed to the very end of the room. Surely there were emergency exits. Weren’t emergency exits a requirement? He supposed they were only a requirement in a dam built to code with inspectors and regulations, not an illegal diversion in a fragile future where there seemed to be no rule of law whatsoever.

He froze as he rounded the corner. A man stood at the end of the room. He automatically started to turn to go back the way he came, but then he realized that the man was leaning heavily on a podium of sorts and that his legs, hands, and neck were bound. Mark continued forward cautiously. The man had his eyes closed and was breathing heavily. Mark’s heart skittered uncomfortably. What was the man doing?

When Mark was only a few feet away, the man’s eyes fluttered open. He was standing on a wooden platform, and the podium to which his hands were strapped was on a second wooden platform. A Y-shaped cable much like the one Mark had just found in the secret room ran from his chest to both of the platforms.

“Please,” the man said. “I can’t do it anymore.”

Mark paused. He should just keep going past the man to search for an exit. He was certain that Sandy would be rounding the corner any second now.

“Do what?” he said.

The man’s eyes opened more fully now. “I can’t do the transfer anymore. I need a break. Who are you? Are you new?”

“I’m in the process of escaping,” Mark said. “I’m afraid I can’t stay and talk.”

The man lurched into a more upright position. “Let me go. Unstrap me. Please. I’m a prisoner. They’ve kept me here for months, transferring the water and energy.”

So that explained the disappearing water. Mark hesitated. He didn’t really have time to release the man. “Is there any way out of here other than the door at the front?” he asked.

“Let me go and I’ll show you,” the man replied. He had an oddly intent, mesmerizing look in his eyes, and Mark suddenly had difficulty concentrating on his escape plan.

He had been thinking that if there was another way out, there was a good chance he could find it on his own, but for some reason, he reached over and started to loosen the leather straps that were holding the man’s hands in place. As soon as the man’s hands were free, he pulled the cable from his chest, and the humming sound that had almost driven Mark around the bend stopped abruptly. In the ominous silence that followed, the man set to work on the strap around his neck, and Mark could hear the clatter of running footsteps and the shriek of Sandy’s voice.

The walls around them seemed to dim, and grow fuzzy, or shaky somehow. Like an earthquake was happening.

“Help me with my feet,” the man ordered. Mark obediently bent and began to undo the straps holding the man’s feet to the platform, even as all his instincts were telling him to run.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Sandy yelled. “You’re going to kill us all!” Shots rang out, and a bullet sailed past Mark and glanced off the cement wall. Mark dropped to a crouch and started rocking, his chest rising and falling in painful heaves.

The man released his other foot. But instead of running, he simply jumped directly in the air, landed back on the platform, and vanished, leaving Mark to face his half-sister alone.

Mark lifted his head to see Sandy’s face mottled red and her eyes slitted. Two men, neither of whom were Leo (Mark suspected Leo was now dead), stood with her. One had a gun stuck into Jake’s side, and the other had a gun pointing at Mark.

“You idiot! That was my camel. You’re going to bring the whole diversion down. Quick. Get Jake on the platforms,” she said to her men. “I can handle Mark.”

Mark took this as his cue to run. He launched to his feet and scurried around the generator at the end of the room—which now seemed oddly grainy and insubstantial—his breath coming in shallow puffs and his hands sweaty.

Sandy rounded the corner seconds after him. She gave him the squinty-eyed look for a few more seconds, but then appeared to be relaxing her face, composing herself. Was she gathering energy again? He studied the air for telltale signs, then started backing away, glancing right and left, looking for a door, or an escape hatch of any sort. The silence he had longed for had somehow become deafening.

Sandy approached in a smooth glide, reminding Mark of a water snake, undulating through the air. “You’d better hope they get Jake into place before the force of the water obliterates this building, Mark. This diversion wasn’t meant to hold that much water. It’s not strong enough for that. Unfortunately for you, I can leave at any time, so
I
won’t be the one who suffers if it all goes.”

Mark kept backing up, but Sandy kept approaching. He reached the end of the room and looked around desperately for a door. It had grown exceedingly weird in this building. The walls were no longer a cream color; a cool breeze blew over Mark’s shoulder, and strange lights illuminated the generator. If Mark didn’t know better, he’d say they were shafts of sunlight. Shadows appeared in the distance, almost like the silhouettes of trees. Maybe he could run for it.

But abruptly the humming sound recommenced, the room brightened, and the lines of the generator hardened.

Sandy was on top of him, her fingers pinching tightly into his arm. “The dam workers will be here in a few minutes. They should make short work of hammering the rest of the hole in the diversion. There’ll be enough water in the river to open the spillways in the old dam in less than an hour. We need to start hiking down there now.”

“What about Jake?” Mark said.

“Since you’ve just freed my last camel, it looks like Jake will be working for me for the next little bit. I’ll tell him you asked after him. Now move it.”

Mark belatedly saw what he had been looking for all along, a door to his right. But Sandy had his forearm in a vise-like grip that paralyzed him, and he nearly cried out with the pain.