A Pair Of Docks Part 16

"Well, Abbey's future was in the desert. Maybe it has something to do with that?"

"Maybe..." The professor appeared lost in thought, studying the elevator b.u.t.tons.

Abbey pushed 'L'.

"He saw them," said Dr. Ford as the elevator started its descent.

"Who saw who?" asked Abbey.

"Mantis saw Simon and Mark. They were breaking into his car."

The elevator doors opened, revealing a row of faces lined up in the lobby awaiting the next ride to the upper floors of the hospital. Dr. Ford stepped out and set off at his lively pace. Abbey and Caleb scurried behind him and wove their way through the crowded hospital lobby. The small hand of the clock pointed to five, and the large hand to twelve.

"What do you mean breaking into his car?" hissed Abbey under her breath.

"Seems like your computer scientist Simon has the ability to go Luddite when he needs to. They must've found a coat hanger somewhere. Old Jags aren't alarmed, you know. They had the car door open when I looked out the window."

"Why didn't Mantis freak?" said Caleb. "Or go grab Mark?"

"Oh, he's a cool customer, Sylvain is. There must be nothing in his car that he doesn't want you to see. Or things he wants you to see. Either that, or he figures he's got the whole thing so tied down you could steal the Jag and it wouldn't make any difference. Let's go see what they found. As for Mark...maybe he figures he can pick him up later when there are fewer witnesses."

"So, Mantis is Sylvain Salvador?" Abbey asked. "Who's Quentin Steinam then?"

"That, young lady, is a good question," said Dr. Ford.

A sense of gloom pervaded the SUV when they opened the doors. Mark looked like he hadn't moved. His seatbelt remained fastened and his arms were folded across his fleshy chest.

Simon had his elbow on the armrest and his feet on the center console, his eyebrows knit together. He removed his feet quickly from the console when Dr. Ford arrived.

Sanome leaned her head over the back seat and rested it on Simon's shoulder.

"Was your covert mission fruitful?" Dr. Ford asked.

Simon raised his eyebrow. "You saw us, then? We didn't find much, just a bunch of doc.u.ments on Al-Ice and aeronautics." Simon pointed to a piece of paper on his lap. "I wrote some of it down, the t.i.tles and stuff. But it might be nothing. Maybe he's just planning to make an investment of some sort."

Abbey held out her hand and Simon pa.s.sed her the paper.

Simon continued, "It would all have been fine if we didn't find the map of Coventry Hill." Simon cast a look at Mark, who sat woodenly staring straight ahead. "It was a smaller version of the one you had on your wall, a photocopy that had been shrunken down," Simon explained, looking at Dr. Ford. "Except there were little X's all over it in a certain area and a spot marked in red. It was on the stream that runs down the hill, kind of partway up where it plateaus for a bit. It was marked with the letters 'BP'. Anyway, someone," Simon jabbed a thumb at Mark, "got quite excited about the map and wouldn't leave the car without it."

"And did you?" Dr. Ford said.

"Did we what?"

"Leave the car without it?"

"Of course," answered Simon. "But it wasn't pretty. Mark just kept tracing his finger over the stream to the part that was marked in red."

Mark continued to stare out the front window.

"Was Mantis with Mrs. Forrester?"

Dr. Ford nodded. "He most certainly was."

"What did you mean by all that lex pars-monine, whatever it was, stuff at the end there anyway?" Caleb said.

"Lex parsimoniae. Sylvain is pretty good at cooking up elaborate strategies to achieve his goals. He often tries to trick the stones in a way, to bend the rules a bit, but the stones tend, as a rule, to snap things back into place. They prefer simple, elegant solutions that require the fewest machinations. Parsimony-like an elastic band snapping back into place. Sometimes when you think you've outsmarted the stones, you haven't."

"You're talking about them like they're alive," said Abbey.

Dr. Ford nodded. "That's because most witches believe they are living, made from the souls of the witches that sacrificed their lives to make them."

Abbey shivered. "Why did they do that?"

Dr. Ford slipped into the driver's seat and started the car. Everyone took their seats and they pulled slowly out of the parking lot. "Because it was a bad time for witches. They were still trying to live out in the open then and their practices weren't accepted. They needed the divination of the stones. That was when the Guild was established. It's kind of like a secret society. But as new generations came along they became less interested in witching and more interested in modern life. But in order for you to see the stones, you must have a witch in your family tree." Dr. Ford flipped on the turn signal to pull in to a strip mall. "That's enough of a history lesson. We need to finish our talk about the rules and figure out what we're going to do tomorrow." He edged into a narrow parking spot and turned off the engine, then opened the vehicle door, gesturing at the coffee shop in front of them.

"Let's have a snack and you can tell me everything that's happened in the last few days. Then we can meet tomorrow morning at my house to discuss the rest of the rules and come up with a plan. Absolutely no using the stones until then."

"Dr. Ford, we don't have much time," said Simon. "We have to be home by six."

"We better get going then." Dr. Ford marched into the coffee shop.

The coffee shop was warm and smelled of cinnamon. Mark ripped into a pastrami sandwich, and as Abbey spooned her curried lentil soup into her mouth, she realized she was starving.

Abbey let her mind wander while Caleb and Simon talked about the s.p.a.ce trip; Sarah, the computer; the desert, bubble, and Livingstone Labs; the dark nothingness in Caleb's future; Mark's vision of killing someone and creating a paradox; and Jake Hammond and his potential role in the events to unfold.

Dr. Ford nodded and took careful notes in his small black-ringed notebook.

Abbey let the bits of her cinnamon bun icing melt on her tongue.

Caleb and Simon weren't telling Dr. Ford the whole story about Caleb's future, because they didn't know the whole story-or even the half really. The future Caleb had been adamant that she couldn't tell present Caleb, but perhaps she could tell Dr. Ford. She'd have to get him alone somehow. Tomorrow, perhaps. Or perhaps tonight getting out of the car. But what parts could she tell him?

Abbey looked listlessly at the piece of paper Simon had given her with the camel drawing. She found herself humming a song she'd learned in Brownies. "Alice the camel has two humps... Alice the camel has two humps..." Alice, Al-Ice...the camel.

"So, tomorrow we have to go find out more about Jake Hammond," Caleb concluded. "That's all we've got to go on right now."

Mark's voice cut across the table. He'd risen to his feet. "It was you," he said. Little bits of his second pastrami sandwich flew out of his mouth and onto the table. Abbey stared at the little bits of pink and green sandwich entrails on the checked tablecloth. "It was you," Mark repeated, much louder this time, his voice reaching a frightening pitch, his finger pointed at Dr. Ford. "In my future. It was your voice that yelled, 'paradox' at me, after the splashing, before the explosion. It was you."

Chapter 12.

A Shadow in the Future

Shards of pastrami continued to emerge from Mark's mouth. Dr. Ford had placed his hands on his knees and withdrawn into the back of the booth they occupied.

Simon intervened. "Okay, buddy, okay. Let's calm down. Maybe it was Dr. Ford's voice. That just means he was with you in your future, there to help you maybe."

Mark continued to stand, but at least the spray of pastrami stopped.

"Maybe you can just sit down and we can talk about this," said Simon. "If Dr. Ford was with you in your future that might be good news. Maybe Dr. Ford knows how to stop you from doing what you were going to do."

Mark sagged into his seat as if he were a p.r.i.c.ked balloon. He lowered his head into his arms and sat silently, as if his screamed p.r.o.nouncements had exhausted him.

"I need the map," he said. "The map of Coventry Hill."

Simon sighed. "Okay, Mark, we've talked about the map. You can trace the one at Dr. Ford's office tomorrow. It's no big deal."

Caleb checked his watch. "It's quarter to six. We've got to go."

n.o.body stood though. Dr. Ford remained huddled in the back of the booth, relaxing only fractionally, his chipper demeanor replaced by a darker, almost sulky, expression.

Mark's mention of the splashing in his future had sent a jolt of fear down Abbey's back. The splash of beaver tails in Caleb's future, the splash that could be the backdrop to Caleb's death. She had to stop it somehow. But something nagged at her.

"Dr. Ford, the futures we saw. They were so different-the s.p.a.ceship, the desert, the dark forest-and yet there was a similar feeling to all of them. But how could they all be the future? How could there be a future with deserts and s.p.a.ceships and dark forests coexisting? Unless we were in wildly different parts of the world..."

Dr. Ford sat up a little bit straighter and gave off the vague impression of preening. "There are two competing theories about the stones. The first is that the stones lead to parallel futures-that all the futures we see come true, but not necessarily in this universe. Then there is the theory that they lead to possible futures, which I've already explained; they show what could happen, but not necessarily what will happen."

"Well, which is it?"

"I don't know."

Abbey felt herself grow impatient. "How don't you know? You're the Guardian."

"Young lady. We're talking about magical stones made over four hundred years ago. I can't be expected to know everything. I've written a very well-received paper about it."

"Okay, but what did your future show? Did it come true?"

Dr. Ford remained silent, flipping a sugar package from the container on the table over and over in his hand.

Abbey had a sudden sickish realization. "You've never been through the stones, have you? You don't know whether your future came true because you've never seen it."

Dr. Ford stood up. "I think it's time to go. You children have to be home very shortly."

"Please, Dr. Ford. Just tell us," said Abbey.

Dr. Ford sat back down. "I know a lot about the stones from a theoretical perspective." He paused. "But no, I've never crossed over the stones."

"Why?" asked Abbey.

Dr. Ford looked out the window and furrowed his lips in on each other so that his mouth formed a tight thin line. "Because...because the stones are not to be trifled with. My father was much like Mantis, using the stones to his own ends. It worked well for him for a while. He made good choices in the stock market. He understood and exploited every talent he had. We were well-to-do, well respected in the community...and then one day he didn't come home. He broke one of the rules, I expect. And that was it. Call me conservative, but I've never seen the risk as being worth it."

"How did you become the Guardian, then?" asked Simon.

Dr. Ford gave a weak laugh. "When I say there aren't many of us witches left, I meant it. Besides me, Francis, and Sylvain, there are really only a few others. When the job was vacated by its former occupant, I was the only one that applied." He cleared his throat, signaling the end of this particular discussion. "Are we agreed? No using the stones until we have a plan. Not that you can, anyway. The good news is that with Francis in the hospital, Mantis can't use them either."

Abbey, Caleb, and Simon exchanged glances. Evidently none of them wanted to tell Dr. Ford about their theory that Mark might be the Energy.

Simon stood up. "We've got to go."

They rose from the table and filed out to the car. They drove home in silence; the tick of the turn signal grated on Abbey's nerves. She'd wanted Dr. Ford to be able to help them, to have all the answers, to take control, and to relieve them of the responsibility of having to deal with all this themselves. And now he just seemed like a little man, and Abbey hovered dangerously close to angry tears because of it.

The cars splayed up and down the street outside their house. The party appeared to be in full swing. Abbey ran her eyes up and down the rows. A blue and silver Jag was among them. The deceleration of the SUV indicated that Dr. Ford had also spotted the Jag. He pulled into a side street a block away from the house and parked.

"Sylvain is here. Is he a close friend of your parents?"

"I don't know," Caleb said. "I don't think so. But Mom has lots of work a.s.sociates and campaign supporters. She's running for mayor you know...Marian Beckham. You must've seen her in the paper."

Dr. Ford's voice bordered on snappish. "I know who your mother is. Francis told me, and of course everyone knows about her bid to stop the Salisbury Swamp development."

"Oh yeah...that," said Caleb. "She's a pretty avid environmentalist."

Dr. Ford sighed and pressed his finger to his nose. "Mantis is involved in a lot of things that make him look like a community leader. He may be attending on that basis, but it looks suspicious. Do you feel comfortable going in there by yourselves?"

"We have to go in. Mom already called my cell phone about an hour ago," said Simon. "I didn't pick up. It must've been while Mark and I were going through the Jag. We'll be safe with Mom and Dad there. But I'm not sure about Mark. Mantis is obviously looking for him. Maybe you could watch over Mark until the party's over. We can go blend in, stay in the open where Mantis can't get to us, and see what we can get from him."

Dr. Ford and Mark surveyed each other like they couldn't imagine a worse suggestion. Dr. Ford cleared his throat. "I'm sure Mark will be fine. As you say, your Mom and Dad will be there."

"You don't understand, Dr. Ford," Caleb said. "We think Mark is the Energy, too."

"Impossible," said Dr. Ford. "There can be only one Energy."

"The stones weren't working while Mark was at the halfway house, and suddenly when he came back they were working. That's when we went to Nowhere."

"I can't believe it," Dr. Ford muttered. "She didn't tell me. Young man, has your mother given you an animal in the past few years. A pet?"

Mark had been busy drawing some sort of map on the back of the paradox diagram Mrs. Forrester had given them. He looked up, startled. "She gave me a cat and a Garmin Forerunner 405 watch with GPS for my twenty-first birthday."

"Hmm, that's probably it then. The transference."

"In fact," said Caleb, "wouldn't it be best if you take Mark away from here, so Mantis can't use the stones tonight?"

Dr. Ford swiveled his head to take in the full expanse of Mark in the backseat. "Yes. You're probably right. I'll take Mark for a drive. I don't think I can keep him all night, though. My condo is very small. Let's reconvene in three hours and figure out what to do with him."

The two men made a curious sight in the mini-SUV as Abbey, Caleb, and Simon walked away.

Dr. Ford sat in the driver's seat, his wiry white hair almost vibrating.

Mark remained in the back, his arms folded across his girth.