A Grave Tree

by Jennifer Ellis

“No!” Abbey yelled.

  Ian grabbed her and forced her attention back to him. “The tree isn’t killing Caleb. At least not immediately. I think it’s putting him into stasis. We can rescue him, but right now I need your help. I need you to put up a screen around us. Sylvain says you can. It won’t hold long against Sandy, but it will buy us a few seconds.”

  Unable to think of anything better to do, Abbey obediently began to knit a screen around them.

  “Did Mark tell Sandy how to get into the wormhole room?” Ian asked.

  “No, she found his drawing of the pentagram in the room. Then she decided she could just dispense with us.”

  “Where’s the drawing now?”

  “By the dry bag, on the floor over there.”

  “I’ll get it. Just follow my lead,” Ian said as he darted away.

  The tree was now trying to carry Mark away as well, and his howls cut through the air. But the jolts of energy he was throwing back at the tree seemed to be preventing the tree from getting a good grip on him.

  A blast of energy forced Abbey to stumble into the generator behind her. Sandy had rounded the corner.

  “Where is he?” She ran past Abbey and in the direction Ian had gone. Abbey followed in time to see Ian tying the dry bag to the cable and Sylvain launching it into the air. Sandy flattened Ian with a blast of energy, but it was too late—the dry bag was gone.

  And so was Mark’s drawing. Ian must have stuffed it into the bag.

  Sandy bellowed all sorts of rather colorful swears, and then abruptly disappeared, dissolving into a small dot of white before blinking out, like an old TV shutting off.

  “Run!” Ian shouted. “We have about thirty seconds before she gets back.”

  Mark, freed from having Sandy holding him in place, shot one last blast at the tree and bolted after Ian toward the stairwell.

  “But Caleb… and Jake,” Abbey said.

  “There’s no time, Abbey. Run!”

  The tree seemed to be lunging for her, and Abbey turned and ran for the stairs.

  She’d just turned the corner onto the mezzanine when she heard a door opening below her. She ran across the mezzanine after Ian and Mark, her heart sending painful jolts through her chest.

  When they were all outside, Ian slammed the door shut behind them, and they ran across the platform and around the corner to the stairs that would lead them to the ground and into the forest. Sylvain met them there, holding the dry bag, and immediately started to descend the stairs.

  “But Caleb’s people are at the bottom of the stairs,” Abbey said. She could already see their dark forms, spears aloft.

  “I don’t think they’ll bother us,” Sylvain said. “Hurry!”

  Abbey followed, two stairs at a time, trying not to tumble into Sylvain.

  She blinked furiously when she saw the people from Caleb’s camp. They were frozen, most of them standing, their spears thrust out, the dying embers of a small fire behind them. But they looked dried up, sucked free of all moisture, like old people with sunken, lined skin, their mouths hanging open like dark holes. Like mummies.

  “Some of us have the ability,” Sylvain said, “to draw the energy from others. It isn’t an ability to be used lightly. Without control, you can suck the entire life force from people, as has been done here, like…”

  “Like a vampire… an energy vampire,” Abbey finished. “Why didn’t she just do that to us? Why the tree?”

  “These are non-witches. Their energy is of a low quality to a witch. Like sugar. Useful for a small hit, but of no value to preserve. The energy of witches, especially powerful witches, can be used to sustain one for a long time, and make her all the more powerful.”

  They wove through the desiccated bodies, Abbey trying not to cringe at them, while Sylvain snatched spears from the dead soldiers. Abbey heard Sandy’s feet on the stairs and felt a surge of energy forming. The energy hit the army of mummies, toppling them like chess pieces into Abbey. She bit her lip to not scream as arms and heads fell off and landed on her in clouds of dust.

  “What’s our plan here?” she gasped to Sylvain.

  “We draw her away and then figure out a way to contain her, or if necessary, kill her. But it has to be Ian or I. Killing her will create paradox, and we can’t have you going to Nowhere when the stones and docks aren’t working.”

  Several meters beyond the edge of the bodies, just inside the fringe of trees that lined the river, Sylvain stopped. Abbey nearly slammed into him, and Ian and Mark drew up, panting.

  “What now?” Abbey said.

  Sylvain heaved his pile of spears onto the ground, his voice clipped with exertion. “We need to make a screen. It won’t hold for long, but it might give Ian a chance to get some spears off.”

  “Sure,” Ian said. “Make me be the one to go back to Nowhere. You want me to kill my wife? Shouldn’t I wait for the separation papers or something?”

  Sylvain didn’t answer, and Abbey felt his mind reaching out for hers, molecules of matter moving through the air in front of them. She focused on helping him. She would not think of Caleb trapped in that horrid tree. She would not think of Sam, possibly dead; Jake, hostage on the docks; Russell, the panther; or her parents, lost in a parallel universe.

  Pulses of energy started to ricochet off the screen almost immediately, and Abbey struggled to hold the flimsy wall together. Sandy was like a directed energy weapon, and Abbey suspected that it was only her desire for the drawing that prevented her from pulverizing them. Ian hurled spear after spear over the screen, but judging by his language and demeanor, he was missing every time. She wondered if the plan accounted for the fact that Ian was a lousy shot. Mark lay on his side next to her, curled into a ball, reciting the names of what sounded like fjords and sounds.

  There had been so many opportunities to die in the past two days. Maybe becoming a camel was simply inevitable.

  Sandy’s screams joined Ian’s swears.

  “Did you hit her?” Sylvain asked, bobbing his head up and over the screen.

  “It was an arrow, from someone else,” Ian replied, his voice terse. “It hit her foot.”

  Mark had started to quiver, pasty-faced. “Warrior Mark. He’s here,” he moaned. Abbey scrunched up her brow for a second before getting what Mark was saying.

  “It’s future Mark,” Abbey said, raising her own head to glance at Sandy, who’d plucked the arrow from her foot and looked up at them in rage, her hand outstretched for another jolt.

  A dark shape covered the stars for a few seconds, and then a black panther was on top of Sandy, and they were rolling around on the ground, a twist of ebony fur and white skin. Then Russell the panther appeared to vaporize, his limbs and torso vanishing into thin air, into dust. Sandy emerged from her roll to stare at them, her eyes gleaming.

  The air vibrated as Sandy gathered her power. Abbey closed her eyes and dropped to her knees, expecting the death blow. Expecting they would be turned to dust like Russell.

  But the shot of energy that hit the screen wasn’t as strong as it had been before. Abbey and Sylvain tightened the screen, and it held.

  “There’s something wrong,” Ian said. “She looks confused.”

  The ripple in the air occurred again, but again the hit was too weak to break through.

  “Mark, get up and see if you can push her back,” Ian said.

  Mark didn’t respond, and Ian shook him. The screen continued to jump with Sandy’s efforts, but it easily held. Abbey risked a look and saw Sandy’s eyebrows knitted together in fury and uncertainty.

  Ian had managed to get shaking Mark up on his feet. “Mark, please,” Ian said.

  Mark turned to face Sandy. His first two shots seemed as limp and useless as Sandy’s, but then he suddenly pulled his eyebrows together in concentration, and Abbey felt the air twitch.

  Sandy was blown back toward the stairs of the building. She raised both hands to respond, but her shot was as weak
as before, and Mark met her with another blow, throwing her farther back. Sandy turned and started running up the stairs, and Mark followed, his arms outstretched.

  “You’re a liar!” he shouted. “You lie!”

  Ian ran behind Mark, reaching for his arm. “Don’t kill her!”

  Mark chased Sandy back up the stairs and into the building, sending surge after surge of almost invisible energy at her, batting her around like a rag doll, yelling about her lies. He seemed almost possessed. Ian and Sylvain followed, trying to caution Mark, who ignored them. Abbey brought up the rear, pausing over the spot where Russell had been obliterated, blinking back tears. The arrow that had hit Sandy in the foot lay on the ground. Abbey picked it up and ran. She had to get back to Caleb. And Jake.

  Inside the building, mayhem reigned. Frank, Francis, Caleb, and two of the other ancients, a man and a woman, had somehow gotten free and were doing battle with the tree, which was flinging branches and the few remaining hanging pods at them in a violent fury while a small figure scampered around from limb to limb.

  Digby.

  The small rat leapt onto a pod and, with his claws, began to free the occupant, while the tree flailed and swung its branches, trying to dislodge him.

  Caleb, Frank, and Francis meanwhile were trying to distract the tree, running in and out beneath the waving limbs, which grasped at them and tried to pull them in. Their faces and hands were a brilliant red, like they had been burned.

  “You!” Sandy screamed. She hurled a shot of energy at the ancients and Caleb. Closer to the tree, and perhaps because of her rage, she had regained some of her strength, and the blast flattened Caleb, Frank, Francis, and the ancients who were helping them.

  Mark had paused in his attack on Sandy to stare at the tree.

  Sylvain sailed on past the generators in the direction of the docks. “Quick, everyone to the docks. Mark, hold Sandy back for a few minutes. We need to go home.”

  “But Sam!” Abbey yelled. “Digby, free Sam. Over here.”

  Sylvain grabbed her shoulder roughly. “There’s no time. I need to get you home.”

  Sandy started to aim her shots at Digby, and Abbey watched as the little rat, seeming to understand her, scampered down the branch that held Sam.

  With Sandy focusing on Digby, Frank, Francis, and the two freed ancients ducked around the last set of generators and hurried to the docks, where Sylvain was freeing Jake. As they got closer, Abbey cringed. Their faces and arms were a mess of red sores and oozing pustules.

  Caleb lingered below the tree, his face not much better. “What about the others?” he called.

  Free of the distractions of Frank and Francis, the tree honed in on Digby and plucked him off the limb, wrapping its twisted dark branches around him and immediately coating the rat in its slick shell.

  “No!” Abbey cried.

  Mark and Sandy seemed to have each other frozen in an energy hold, the force each was applying to the other equal and unyielding.

  Abbey ran at the tree, the arrow in her hand. Sam’s pod dangled close to the ground. She reached it and tried to slice through the membrane. The tree, finished with Digby, moved in on her immediately, and she tried to build a screen around herself while she cut through the rubbery material.

  “Abbey!” Ian yelled. “You can’t!”

  Caleb was pulling her from behind, and she fought him. The tree broke through her protective shield with sharp pincher-like claws just as Sam fell to the floor, his face and arms red and blistered like Caleb’s. She felt the tree’s burning grasp on her arms and shoulders, and a surge of agonizing pain—but then some kind of tranquilizing effect kicked in, and she felt herself getting sleepy, relinquishing herself to the tree’s hold. Ian was dancing beneath another limb, and the tree was moving in on him, while Caleb threw punch after punch at the branch that held her.

  It was at that moment that Sylvain finally freed Jake. He staggered off the docks and fell to his knees, his face a shocking shade of ivory, and as he did, the whole building became strangely transparent. Abbey was certain she could see the outlines of trees and hear the rush of water. A cool wind blew over them, and Abbey had the sense of being outside, as the walls of the building blinked in and out of existence. But sometimes she also thought she saw the giant dunes of a desert. What was happening? Was the tree making her hallucinate?

  The tree snatched Ian into the air just as Caleb wrenched Abbey out of its clutches, Ian’s yells of agony cut through the room, and Abbey once again felt the blinding pain on her arm and shoulders, where the tree had touched her.

  Sandy, suddenly reinvigorated, sent a sharp blast of energy at Mark, knocking him backward. Then she ran toward the docks, shooting bolts of energy at anyone in her path, vaporizing one of the freed ancients, just like Russell had been. She grabbed Jake and the cable that had been attached to him, and she dragged him, kicking and fighting, toward the base of the tree.

  What was Sandy doing with Jake? Abbey tried to fight Caleb off, but he had a vise grip on her arm and was pulling her and Sam away from the tree. Everyone was yelling at once. Frank and Francis lunged toward the tree as if to help.

  And then Sandy pressed her hand against the trunk of the tree—and vanished. She collapsed into a single point of light, taking the tree, Jake, Ian, and Digby with her.

  “No!” Abbey yelled through the searing pain. “No!”

  The building had disappeared too, and they stood on the bank of the river among the trees, beside the crumbled remains of the diversion and Caleb’s people, beneath a silvery crescent moon.

  “They’re gone. We have to go,” Sylvain called. “We might not get another chance. Mark, quick, the stone.”

  Mark withdrew the single piece of stone from his pocket, and they all gathered around. Caleb manhandled Abbey over to the docks. She resisted at first, wanting to stay behind, to do something for Jake and the others. But the tree was gone and Caleb’s face looked terrible—he had to get to a hospital. She turned and took one more look around the room, and then relented and joined the group. Together they all pressed their hands on the tiny remaining piece of stone.

  Nothing happened.

  Sylvain’s face sagged. “There isn’t enough energy,” he said.

  “Use the cable,” Caleb suggested. “The stone has the symbol on the bottom. The same one that’s on the magnet.”

  Sylvain flipped the stone over and saw the now familiar circle with the four ears. He had the cable unraveled in a second. “We need the two strongest,” he said, holding out the ends. Everyone looked to Mark, who jerked his hands upwards as if to flap them, but then nodded and stepped forward. Then Sylvain looked around the circle. His eyes lingered on the woman that Digby had rescued from the tree before they fell on Abbey.

  She almost shook her head as bitter tears streamed down her face. Was she really the second strongest? The witching gene runs stronger in females, her mother had said once. She relented and took the end.

  “Against your heart,” Caleb whispered through his blistered lips. The surge of strength he had exhibited earlier when he rescued her was gone, and he almost slumped against Sylvain.

  Abbey placed the metal end against her heart. She felt a sudden tug of energy, far worse than when she’d had to hold the raft together on the reservoir. The trees and river became grainy and distorted—and her particles, and the particles of her friends, dissipated, then reassembled themselves by a different Moon River, one untouched by a crumbling diversion. In the distance, the lights of Coventry City cast a sea of light on the blackened sky.

  And for some reason, Caleb—somewhat hilariously, except it was only a hysterical sort of hilarious, because he was clearly really hurt—was suddenly wearing nothing but his underwear.

  Sylvain withdrew his cell phone and turned it on.

  “It would seem that we’re home,” he said.

  19. Leap of Faith

  Simon’s face was pale as he spooned Sylvain’s cream of
mushroom soup into his mouth. Mark sat impassively on the other side of the table, refusing to eat anything other than his grilled cheese sandwich made with American cheese, not the Brie that everyone else had.

  Sylvain had picked Simon up from the detention center that morning, and Simon was still shaking his head in disbelief at their stories. Not that Abbey wasn’t shaking her own head. It all seemed so impossible.

  Bandages covered her arms and shoulders where the bark of the tree had seared her skin. Caleb’s face was still a rashy mess, and he had burns on his hands and arms, but the animal skins had protected him from the worst of the evil tree—a Manchineel tree; Abbey had looked it up. The most poisonous tree in the world. Even its ordinary, non-magical variety was so toxic that it could kill someone who made the mistake of standing beneath it in the rain.

  Sam, Frank, Francis, and the other ancient, an older woman named Mary—all of whom had spent considerably more time in the tree than Caleb—were still in the hospital with second and third degree burns and severe dehydration. Sam had been almost incoherent when they’d gotten back, and they’d learned very little about how he’d gotten into the tree, or how he, as a non-witch, had been able to use the stone to return home. Frank and Francis offered varying but similar stories about being abducted in the future by Sandy and her men.

  Russell’s parents had been at the cabin with a distraught Farley when they’d arrived back, and they had threatened Sylvain with all sorts of terrible ends, as well as sanctions at the Council level, when they heard the news of their son’s death. They’d departed only because Mark forced them away from Sylvain with a surge of energy. A Council meeting was scheduled for the next day, and Russell’s dad had ominously suggested that Sylvain should expect to be taken into custody.

  Sylvain was still brooding over what to tell Jake’s parents. Abbey suspected that a baseball camp story was not going to fly. Sylvain had expressed confidence that they’d be able to find Jake and Ian. They were assets, he said, and Sandy would keep them alive. There was that asset word again. Were she, Simon, Caleb, and Mark still assets? Despite Sylvain’s optimism, Abbey felt sick with fault. If she hadn’t gone back to rescue Sam, Jake might have made it home with them.