A Quill Ladder (19 page)

Mark inched out from behind the juniper, his eyes wide and bulgy. Abbey tried to smile reassuringly, but Mark started to shake his head violently and thrust a finger down the street toward the train station.

“
What? What
’
s wrong?
”
Abbey said.

“
The very bad men with guns from
…
from
…”

“
From the library? Did they just come through here?
”
Abbey said. She and Caleb had skittered in silence from where they
’
d left Max in the street, each of them peering into yards, wondering where the two men had gone, or where they would reappear.

Mark
’
s left eye twitched a bit and he shook his head again.
“
No
…
Yes
…
No.
”

Abbey cocked her head at him.
“
What do you mean?
”

Mark clenched his fists and took a few deep breaths.
“
It
’
s hard for me to find my place when I have been interrupted. Yes, they just came through here. Yes, from the library, but also from the bad man
’
s office with the map.
”

“
Dr. Ford?
”

Mark nodded.

“
Figures,
”
said Caleb.

“
We shouldn
’
t make assumptions,
”
Abbey said.
“
Did he seem to be working with the two men, or were they threatening him?
”

Mark
’
s face creased in frustration and he drew his lips into a frown. Abbey resisted the urge to talk, to fill in the blanks as she often tried to do when Mark was silent. Maybe he was thinking.

“
There was a woman with them with a red scarf,
”
he said finally.

“
Hmm,
”
Abbey said.
“
Was it Sandy?
”

Mark shook his head.

“
We better go,
”
Caleb said.
“
Mom and Dad are going to be freaking, and we don
’
t know how late that train runs.
”

Mark withdrew a piece of paper that showed a map of the train routes and handed it to Caleb, tapping a box in the bottom corner. The train schedule. He must have picked it up at the station.

“
Looks like the trains run all night,
”
Abbey said, looking over Caleb
’
s shoulder.
“
Do we want to risk running into those men?
”

“
I dunno, but I
’
m thinking better those men than Mom at this point. They don
’
t know us. They didn
’
t even look at me in the library. The only person they might recognize is Mark. I can go scout out the station when we get there. The trains go continuously every twenty minutes, so they may have already been on one by now, if they were even going back to the stones.
”
Caleb went to absently shove the train schedule in his pocket, but Mark gave an agitated wheeze, and Caleb hastily handed it back. Mark carefully flattened it and placed it in the green file folder with his other maps.

“
The weird thing is that when we came back from the bubble, a set of stones just appeared outside the lab building. Like there
’
s more than one set,
”
Abbey said.

Caleb shrugged.
“
Maybe. But we have no idea where that set is. We know where the set on the hill is. That
’
s where we should go.
”

“
Shouldn
’
t we wait for Sylvain?
”

Caleb shook his head.
“
I
’
d say he
’
s on his own. He
’
s an adult. He
’
ll find his way back.
”

“
What did they want from him? I can
’
t believe you followed them.
”

“
They just kept demanding some files. But Sylvain claimed he knew nothing about them. They insisted that they knew he had them, and that
’
s when he started pointing all over the place, talking about the highest point on Circle Plateau, the Stairway Mountains briar patches, and the line of zero declination. I have no idea what he was doing. But it seemed to make them pretty mad.
”
Caleb started walking in the direction of the train station as he spoke, leaving Abbey and Mark to follow if they wanted to be able to hear him.
“
If you ask me, he was feeding them a load of crap.
”

“
We have to go home,
”
Abbey said over her shoulder to Mark, who looked hesitant to leave the library. Mark pouted slightly but started to trundle after them, checking the contents of the green file folder as he came.

Abbey hastened her pace and caught up to Caleb.
“
Well, they obviously all think he knows something. Don
’
t you think it was odd that Simon
’
s office address was 309 Oltree Road? Is Ian telling us to look there? And Sylvain
’
s locker in the train station was also locker number 309. And the maps Mark was looking at were in drawer 309. And now we have to factor in zero declination somewhere? It
’
s too much. I don
’
t even know where to start.
”

Caleb elevated his shoulders.
“
I dunno. Right now everything seems odd. I have no idea who
’
s good or bad, or just plain crazy.
”

Abbey turned back to see that Mark was now trailing farther behind, the green file folder open while he studied one of the maps inside.

“
Mark, hurry up please,
”
Abbey called, and then turned back to Caleb.

“
I want to look at that list on your phone on the train,
”
Caleb said.

Abbey searched around in her pockets.
“
The lesson that Ian gave us
—
the first one. I left it in my jacket. It
’
s in the locker. I don
’
t know the combination.
”

Caleb shook his head.
“
We have to leave it behind.
”

“
What if there
’
s something else written on it?
”

Caleb flicked his eyes to his phone.
“
We don
’
t have time.
”

The shops that had been lively an hour or so before were now closed up for the night, and Abbey, Caleb, and Mark arrived at the train station unmolested.

Abbey was about to follow Caleb into the station through the sliding glass doors when Caleb spun and pressed Abbey and Mark into the shadows outside.

“
Looks like our friends are here.
”

Abbey carefully peered over her shoulder through the glass entryway of the station. Sure enough, the two men, Damian and Nathaniel, were moving through the locker section of the station, trying a key in each of the lockers. Abbey
’
s heart started to throb. Had they taken Sylvain
’
s key? Were they going to find her jacket and the lesson from Ian? She tried frantically to remember what else she
’
d had in her pockets. Sam
’
s business card, of course, on which he had scrawled his email and Au
—
the symbol for gold, the most noble of the noble metals. It was an in-joke of course, a reference to The Golden Mean, one of their shared interests.

A train marked
“
Space Station
”
cruised into the station. The doors whooshed open and several people disembarked.

It would only be a matter of minutes before it left, leaving them stranded for another twenty minutes with Damian and Nathaniel. Worse, a pair of what appeared to be police officers were now walking down the street, and one of them seemed to be eyeballing Caleb
’
s orange hoodie.

“
Uh-oh,
”
Caleb said.
“
That
’
s my cue. I
’
m going inside. You report Damian and Nathaniel.
”

“
Wait, Cale,
”
Abbey hissed, but Caleb had already gone.

To her surprise, Mark approached the police officers.
“
We would like to report a potential theft. There are two men in the station out of uniform trying a key in every locker.
”

Mark
’
s almost monotone delivery seemed to work to his advantage. The officers cocked their head at him, appeared to decide he wasn
’
t worth questioning further, nodded, and went inside. The PA system announced a thirty-second countdown to the Space Station train
’
s departure.

Abbey and Mark walked as fast as they could across the platform, and she felt the rush of air of the doors closing behind her just as she leapt onto the train.

They fell into seats as the train started to move slowly out of the station and begin its ascent to the causeway. She hoped to God Caleb was on board. After she fastened her seatbelt, Abbey risked turning and looking out the window at the two men who were now talking to the police officers. One of them
—
a tall, thin-lipped man with dark hair and pale blue eyes
—
now stared straight at her through the window of the train. She tried to look bland and nondescript. The men had seen Mark before, she realized suddenly. In Dr. Ford
’
s office. They should have split up and sat in different sections. But Mark
’
s heavy body pressed into hers as the train rounded a corner and the men flashed out of view, replaced by darkness when the train entered the tunnel that would take it out of the city center.

“’
Kay, let me see that list now,
”
Caleb said from the seat behind her.

Abbey yelped in surprise. Caleb winked.
“
That
’
s me. I
’
m smooth, baby.
”

“
More like lucky that
we
decided to wear these ridiculous uniforms,
”
she replied. She passed him her phone with the list pulled up on the screen. Caleb
’
s eyes grew alternately round and then squinty as he scanned it.

Mark had reopened the green file folder and withdrawn a pencil from his satchel. He drew something on one of the maps, then thrust it into Abbey
’
s lap. She stared at it. It was a photocopy of a very old map. The title read
“
Coventry City,
”
and based on the street pattern and the size of the city, it must have been from before the previous turn of the century. Vast wide-open spaces that looked like farmland or just undeveloped land covered much of the map
—
spaces that were now occupied by houses, shopping malls, and schools.

At the very edge of the map, almost off the map, strange lines gave the suggestion of hills and mountains. Abbey tried to orient herself. The Moon River ambled in lazy loops through this old city.

Mark tapped his pencil on the bottom edge of the map, amongst the strange lines, and Abbey noted that he had written the letters
“
BP
”
faintly.

BP. Beaver Pond. Was he trying to tell her that this was where the docks were located? That the area he was pointing to was Coventry Hill?
Mark tapped the map again, insistently.
“
I
’
m not sure what you
’
re trying to say, Mark. Beaver Pond?
”

Mark shook his head impatiently.