A Grave Tree

by Jennifer Ellis

  Graham studied her with probing eyes. “I recognize you. You came to our camp a few nights before the move, and you match the description of one of the people sighted in the woods a few months ago.” He examined Ian in the same way, but he somehow seemed to escape recognition.

  Abbey wondered if she was about to be escorted out to the cage to join Sylvain. “Yes,” she said hastily. She grasped for what Caleb had called her that night—his niece. “I am the Light’s niece. You are old enough to have been alive when the world was split,” she said. “You probably lost family members, as did the Light. My mother, the Light’s sister, lives in the promised land.” She struggled to call Simon’s future this. It had seemed anything but.

  He scrutinized her again. “I see. Tell me how it is that you were able to travel from there, yet the Light has not been able to. We’ve had sentries by the docks every day for months, waiting.”

  Abbey shrugged faintly at Caleb and dug her elbow into Ian’s side. Russell sat stock-still beside Ian, hopefully not incubating rabies.

  “The energy that makes the docks work is complicated,” Caleb started. He was interrupted when Nevin and the other sentry arrived with plates of steaming food. Abbey’s stomach gave a particularly loud growl in response.

  They were each passed a plate and a fork, and Abbey took a large bite of the lumpy meat, anticipating the flavorful stew she’d eaten the last time she was with Caleb’s people. But instead, her stomach clenched with a wave of revulsion. Although she’d never eaten dog food, she was certain this was how it would taste.

  “We apologize for the food,” Graham said. “It’s what we’ve been forced to eat for the last few months since the food stores ran out and the strangers came to our land.”

  Caleb took a few bites, chewed carefully, and then laid down his fork. “Listen, we don’t know exactly how the docks work—we do not do magic ourselves—but the energy that ties them together seems to be weakening. We’ll do whatever we can to help you get them working again, because we have to get home too. But we’d really like to know about these strangers. Who are they? What are they doing here?”

  Graham sighed and regarded them all individually for a second before apparently deciding to answer the question. “We don’t know, other than that they carry guns and report to a woman named Quinta.”

  Abbey pressed her teeth together in surprise and tried to catch Caleb’s eye, but he was intent on Graham. She gave Ian another nudge.

  Graham continued. “They claimed to be here to help us, and they offered us food in return for our work, but now they’ve diverted the Moon River and are forcing the water through a device—some sort of advanced turbine, except I’m not sure where the energy they’re generating is going. But we needed the food, and we’ve been struggling under some serious attacks from a band of dissidents who believed the Light was using black magic, so we helped these strangers build the diversion in exchange for food and protection.” Graham paused and stroked his beard.

  “The working conditions have been less than optimal and we’ve been shorted on our pay. We’ve decided we cannot wait for the Light any longer. We must go in search of fertile land no matter how far we have to travel. One of our people believes he has found a place to the south where the trees are fewer and the soil is capable of supporting agriculture. The growing season will start in a month, and we need to have a place to plant by then. We’d planned to leave in a few days, heading south. We’ve been setting aside some of the food for our journey since the beginning. But three of our men came home tonight to report that one of our people has been taken prisoner at the Granton Dam. So we’re planning to stage a rescue, and try to collect the rations that were promised.”

  Caleb’s face looked solemn. “I won’t pretend to fully understand the situation you’re in. But I know that if your leader said he was coming back, he’ll do his darnedest to come back.” Abbey watched her twin in the light of the popping flames. Caleb’s manner of speaking had become more formal, more like a leader, and less like… well, like Caleb. There was none of Caleb’s usual jokey tone and casual insouciance. “Nevin told us that it’s Mark who’s being held prisoner,” Caleb said.

  Graham nodded. “You know of Mark?”

  “Yes,” Caleb said, glancing at Abbey.

  “We’d like to help you rescue him,” Ian said suddenly.

  “It could be an armed conflict. There are not many of them, but they have guns. I don’t think it’s the place for…” Graham hesitated, and Abbey wondered if he was going to say “children,” but Graham concluded with: “… people who aren’t trained in battle.”

  “We have other ways of fighting,” Ian said. “We won’t be a hindrance. Once you’ve rescued Mark, you can leave us behind.” Abbey blinked at Ian. What “other ways of fighting” was he talking about?

  “Let us help you,” Caleb said.

  Graham looked around to the other elders in the tent. Their dark faces were unreadable in the half-light, and their bushy hair was matted and wayward. They looked tired and weathered. “Very well,” he said. “We go at first light, which is in about three hours. But we will not protect you, and I warn you, we do not approve of magic, so I would not be seen trying to fight in that manner.”

  “Understood,” Caleb said. “I see you have a prisoner. Can I ask what he did?”

  Graham’s black eyebrows lifted. “He arranged for the exodus and then was spotted excavating our former encampment after we left. He still claims he was just trying to help us when he took the Light away, but we now suspect he had other motivations. He returned yesterday and began digging again, just outside this camp. Then he tried to do some sort of magic to escape. We consider him a dangerous criminal.”

  Abbey felt a movement to her right. Russell had pulled back until he was hidden behind Ian. Why had Sylvain dug up the encampment? What had he been looking for? She recalled seeing him and Russell with shovels a few weeks ago, and then she’d found the Geiger counter and pickaxe in Sylvain’s office. Were they involved in some sort of mining venture? Had Sylvain moved Caleb’s people just to get access to their land? And yet it was Sandy who apparently owned the mining company in the future. Her mind cycled through the possibilities.

  “You may sleep by the main watch fire until dawn,” Graham said, and nodded his head.

  It was clear they had been dismissed. They rose and filed out of the tent. Russell, Abbey noted, was careful to keep his head bowed.

  Nevin escorted them back to the fire in the center of the camp. He made a few noises about finding better accommodation for the Light, but Caleb told him that it was okay, that he would prefer to sit by the fire and have Nevin fill him in on all that had happened since he left.

  11. Hammer of Quinta

  They were given some warm fur blankets, which helped with the frigid night air that had settled all around them, and Abbey tried to make herself comfortable on the cold hard ground. Nevin and Caleb were deep in conversation on the other side of the fire. Apparently Caleb planned to pull an all-nighter. Russell had gone ominously quiet and had curled up in his fur and gone straight to sleep.

  Sylvain had noticed them when they departed the tepee, and she could see him watching them through the bars of his cage. He’d seemed expectant and hopeful at first, but they didn’t dare approach. They were still surrounded by sentries and their assumed loyalty was already too tenuous.

  Abbey had managed to catch Caleb alone outside the tepee for a few seconds, while Nevin went in search of the furs, and asked him if he was sure this was a good idea. But Caleb had only shrugged in his Caleb way and said they had to try to rescue Mark and find Quinta. In the moonlight, his face looked somehow more chiseled and stoic than it had looked just twenty-four hours earlier in Sylvain’s cabin. More like older Caleb’s. Then he’d told her it would be okay, and walked away.

  “Why did you say we’d go with them?” Abbey said to Ian. Her tone was a bit short because she was still hungry and now a bit c
hilly, and apparently she was potentially heading into an armed conflict with no weapon.

  Ian shrugged. “I think it’s important that we see this turbine thing.”

  Abbey frowned and rose to a sitting position, pulling the fur up over her knees. “Who do you think is keeping Mark prisoner? Who’s Quinta, Ian? You have to tell me. Jake said Selena was reporting to a Quinta, and we have the statue of Quinta Francis Merry. And then we have Quentin Steinam, and Quentin is the male version of Quinta. Now there’s a Quinta here, too.”

  “Quinta, or Quentin, depending on whether it’s a man or a woman, is really more of a position than a person,” Ian said in a vague tone.

  “Who is Quinta, then?”

  Ian hesitated, but he relented when Abbey gave him a bulgy-eyed glare. “Sylvain and I aren’t sure who the current Quinta is. We do believe, from what Jake told you, that it’s a woman.”

  “How can you not know?”

  “Becoming Quinta or Quentin is generally done in secret. Sylvain says there has been no evident Quinta or Quentin for the last several years—ever since his father, who held the position for a long time, passed. Because of the recent rise in activity, we believe that the new Quinta might be among those who were just rescued from Nowhere, but we can’t be sure. It’s also possible that the position just passed from one person to another, and the new titleholder has a different, more aggressive style than the previous one, who stayed pretty quiet.” Ian closed his eyes and seemed to be planning to go to sleep.

  Abbey gave his arm a little shake, and his eyes popped open. “How does one become Quinta?” she persisted.

  “One must challenge the existing one, and win. I believe the existing Quinta must be killed for the transfer to occur. But I’ve also heard that the existing Quinta or Quentin can also choose to pass the title on to someone who is present when they die.”

  A chill passed over Abbey’s body. “Sounds lovely. What exactly does the position involve? What can Quinta do?”

  Ian pursed his lips. “That’s a little unclear. You know, my lack of passing the trials and all. And I’m afraid I drifted off a bit during Witching History 101. But I know Quinta has some special powers that relate to being able to access the energy associated with the stones and docks.”

  “Do you think that’s why the stones and docks aren’t working? The current Quinta is drawing the energy away?”

  Ian sat upright at this. “I never considered that. We really need to find those files.”

  “And be able to read them,” Abbey murmured.

  Ian cocked his head at her.

  “We found a document in my mother’s files that was written in a different language,” she said. “A language that didn’t look like it came from this planet.”

  “Hmm, possible. Unfortunately, almost all things are possible.”

  Abbey searched for a scientific response to this—something about probability and scientific method—but she came up empty-handed. All she could think of was a Lewis Mumford quote. “Nothing is impossible. And by extension, everything is possible.”

  Indeed.

  “Who do you think Quinta is, then?” she asked.

  Ian was silent for several seconds. “Your mother, Mrs. Forrester, and Selena are the most likely candidates,” he said finally.

  Her mother. Her mother would not be holding Mark hostage at the dam. Her mother would not be feeding these people lumpy, tasteless stew. Her mother would not be changing the future.

  Would she?

  Russell let out a moan, and Abbey looked over at him. He had thrust off his blankets and his forehead was beaded with sweat. Could he actually have rabies? She inched closer to Ian.

  She glanced up and saw Nevin offering what looked like a flask to Caleb, who took it and drank deeply. Fantastic. Now she was going unarmed into battle against a woman with unknown powers with her drunk twin, a man prone to being a dreamer at inconvenient times, and a potential rabies case.

  “Caleb’s drinking,” she said to Ian.

  Ian flicked his eyes in Caleb’s direction and then nodded. “He’s aging. We aren’t supposed to stay this long in the future. It starts to screw up our biological clocks. Just like spending too much time in Nowhere seems to have made me younger than I actually am, spending too much time in the future ages us prematurely.”

  “How quickly?” Abbey spread her hands in front of her, looking for age spots and varicose veins.

  “Not that quickly, but right now Caleb might be feeling closer to sixteen. It’s possible that the relationship between your aging and the amount of time you spend in the future might be logarithmic though. I’ve heard it makes some people sick.”

  Possible. Everything was possible. “Are we trapped here?” Abbey asked.

  Ian’s face turned glum. “Possible.”

  She thought of older Caleb’s assurance so many months ago. You can always get back. Had he been wrong? He had seemed so sure. But he had also suggested that the stones were alive, and that returning had something to do with what you came for. What had they come for? To get old? “Isn’t there anyone who can help us? Frank, Francis, some of the other ancients? Don’t you and Sylvain have any friends on the Guild, or Council? Whatever it is?”

  “The Guild refers to the whole association of declared witches. The Council is the body that rules us,” Ian said. “And no, Frank and Francis have been missing since early last week, and I told you before that most of the ancients have vanished, at least those who would have been on our side. It’s like someone’s picking them off one by one. At first I thought they were just going into hiding. Understandable, given the instability. And maybe that’s what’s happening, but…”

  Abbey closed her eyes. “Could my parents…” She didn’t want to add have been picked off.

  “No,” Ian replied. “I don’t think so.”

  Nevin and Caleb’s voices spiraled up and over the fire. They seemed excessively jovial for the circumstances. Ian closed his eyes and turned over on his side as if to sleep.

  Abbey tried to settle herself in on the cold ground. At this rate, she might end up going home a little old lady, if she found her way home at all. And if she did, who would be there to greet her? Nobody. Everyone she loved was lost or trapped somewhere right along with her, even Simon, although his release was a little more assured.

  She felt herself drifting off—a testament to her utter exhaustion, not any quieting of her brain. But as she did, a small spark of something caught briefly in her mind. Which one of the three of them, she wondered, was the Alty? And what did that mean?

  *****

  The work had become even more precarious now that small amounts of water spilled over the edges of the diversion in the spots where they had created the biggest indents with the mallets. It plunged to the rocks below, and Mark tried not to watch it fall lest it cause him to topple too.

  The diversion had been reinforced with rebar, and the tips of the iron rods stuck out of the places where the cement had been knocked away. The force of the water, coupled with the now uneven spaces on which they tried to find purchase, made Mark almost sick with fear. His fingers, curled around the handle of his mallet, trembled with exhaustion, pain, and terror, and his backpack, which he had insisted on wearing even while working (because after all it contained his satchel and other important things) felt leaden on his back.

  How long would it be before one of them fell?

  Not long at all, apparently, as Elliot gave a particularly hard swing with his mallet and then teetered on one foot for a few seconds before toppling off the top of the diversion with a gut-wrenchingly horrific cry.

  Mark, Jake, and Leo stopped and stared, their mallets in mid-swing. Nobody had reached out to help him; their own footing was too unstable. Elliot crashed to the wet rocks below them, his body crumpled and twisted, a spray of his blood coating the rocks that still jutted out of the water. Mark nearly fell himself in a faint at the sight.

 
The light had lifted in the last hour, and now that the mallets were stayed, Mark could hear the cheery calls and chortles of birds all around them—the dawn chorus, unaware or unconcerned regarding the plight of the three remaining humans on the dam. A few of the birds even swooped down to check out Elliot’s body. When the vultures arrived, Mark really would faint.

  “Faster. Don’t you dare stop,” Sandy bellowed from the platform that jutted out from the building and met the top of the diversion about twenty meters away.

  Perhaps now was the time to tell Sandy he had lied. He could go back to the room and open the door for her and hope he would be let go. He knew Jake wouldn’t be let go; she clearly wanted Jake for other purposes. But right now, it was every man for himself. He turned and started to make his way back across the narrow top of the diversion toward Sandy.

  A wave of nausea pummeled Mark like a thunderbolt as he picked his way along, and he very nearly followed Elliot into the rocky riverbed. Just as he was about to double over, the feeling lessened, and he thought he caught sight of movement over in the trees beyond the building into which the water disappeared. Was that his warrior self? Had Warrior Mark come to help?

  Feeling bolder, he righted himself and continued along the wall of the diversion. Sandy had started yelling as soon as he stopped swinging, but he ignored her.

  He was almost to the platform where Sandy stood when the wave of energy hit him and almost took his feet from underneath him. But after seeing what she could do down beneath the dam, he’d been bracing for it. He felt his own anger, exhaustion, and hunger rise up to meet it in a strange sort of wall, and somehow he remained on the diversion, his feet resolutely planted. (His half-sister clearly wasn’t very smart if she was going to just kill all of her workers.)

  The thrust of energy diminished, and he continued walking. Sandy met him at the edge of the platform, and from the fury in her eyes, he could see that she was considering outright pushing him. But he probably weighed twice as much as she did, and to push him would be to risk falling herself.