A Grave Tree (31 page)

Caleb did a jig of delight. “Maybe that’s what I’m looking for!” He renewed his search of the walls. Mark rose and halfheartedly started helping Caleb, seriously hoping their escape would not involve scuba gear.

He went to sweep the cube and other instruments into a smaller pile with his foot (to get them out of the way); the cube was remarkably heavy. As he pushed it aside, he noticed that some of the smaller metal objects on the floor shifted slightly, as if they were being dragged behind it. Apparently the cube was magnetized. He bent and picked it up and was about to say something about it when Caleb’s voice rang across the room. “Found it!”

Mark turned to see Caleb already pressing one end of the booster cable, the base of the Y, into the wall. Mark braced for some surge of energy or collapse of the dam, but nothing happened. Caleb then collected the two arms of the Y and thrust one at Mark. “Quick. I think we’re the source of energy for the other ends. This cable has two inputs, one output. Press the input end against your heart. It’s the biggest source of electromagnetic radiation in your body.” Caleb pulled open his shirt and pressed his end of the cable against his chest.

Mark stood with his mouth agape. The man on the platforms had had a cable pressed to his heart, too.

“Mark, just do it,” Caleb ordered. “Trust me. I’m channeling my inner physicist. Abbey’s not the only person who knows things. Besides, we’ve got nothing to lose. Just do whatever it was you did before when you flattened those guys outside.”

With the wire pressed against his heart, and his dirty face and dust-covered red hair standing aloft, Caleb looked rather more like a mechanic crossed with a mad scientist than a physicist. Mark was almost tempted to laugh (but he didn’t, as a rule, laugh very often).

Mark briefly considered the things that he had to lose, and when he came up wanting, he opened his shirt, wished that Abbey were with them, and prepared to be electrocuted.

*****

Smell was the sense most strongly linked to memory, due to the fact that the olfactory bulb was directly linked to the brain’s limbic system. Researchers now suspected that quantum mechanics were at play in scent memory, whereby the olfactory molecules in the nose recognized the vibrations of smell particles.

Russell had not been responding to any of Abbey’s thoughts informing him that they were in fact friends, that he was really a human, and that she would go out on a date with him, although she was not sure what she expected in response. An answering set of thoughts, like text messaging for witches?

But surely he could smell her. Surely he recognized and remembered her smell.

Engrossed in her attempts to communicate with Russell, she hadn’t realized that she’d fallen farther behind Sylvain than she had intended. She was in fact now closer to Russell than to Sylvain.

The dam was still at least twenty minutes away. If Russell intended to eat them, he still had plenty of opportunity, and yet he hadn’t done so yet, even though he had followed them for several hours. Maybe cats just liked to spend a long time stalking their prey.

There was that word again:
prey
. It echoed in her mind like a beacon.
Prey, prey, prey
. She tried to convert it to
pray, pray, pray
, to appeal to some sort of religion or belief system she’d never had. Science had always been her religion, but right now any sort of god would come in handy. She wondered if there were any gods associated with this whole witching thing. It seemed almost absurd to be giving this witchcraft the status of “thing,” as if she actually believed in it, as if it had been proven. And yet she’d just somehow created a screen out of thin air with Sylvain—twice.

But for some reason, “pray” made her think less of gods and more of Sylvain as a praying mantis, and the secret name he used sometimes. Why did he go by Mantis? Mantis meant prophet, and Sylvain had referenced Matthew 7:15 when they first met.
Beware of false prophets in sheep’s clothing
. What had he meant? Had he been referring to Dr. Ford, as they had assumed, or someone else?

She looked back at Russell. He was closer now, close enough to leap and set upon her with his claws and teeth. If she was going to reach out to him as Sylvain suggested, now was the time.

This emotional connection stuff wasn’t her skill set. It was Caleb’s. She was Inquisitive Abbey, not Emotionally Attuned Abbey. If any of them was likely to have a talent in the area of communicating with animals, it would be Caleb. And where was Caleb now? Leading men into battle against some unknown force. She felt a well of anger against Sylvain. She wanted him to do something, to be an adult, to protect her.

She felt in her hoodie pocket for the outlines of the card that Ian had left for them two nights ago. To know, to will, to dare, to keep silent. Witches were certainly all very good at keeping silent. Maybe she just needed to become better at daring.

As if hearing her thoughts, Sylvain stopped, turned back, and met her gaze. “I know that to a scientist, this all seems absurd, infuriating even, but sometimes the best you can do is just believe. Believe that there are rational explanations for all these things. There
is
a science behind it; we just haven’t found it yet. Try to connect with Russell on something that you have in common, something you share.”

Abbey thought of Russell at the Snowflake Dance—the possessive way that he’d held her and tried to kiss her. She cast these thoughts back to Russell. This reminder that they had been friends, or at least acquaintances, and that he had liked her. If people could truly be entangled—which was absurd—were she and Russell entangled?
You are Russell Andrews
, she thought,
brother of Anna Andrews. You are not a panther—at least not normally,
she added. She didn’t want to insult his panther self.
We know each other. We’re friends
.

She repeated these thoughts in a loop. Still the panther continued to follow them, its white teeth glittering occasionally in the dark of the forest. She resisted adding her thoughts about entanglement on a macro level being pseudoscience.

It didn’t seem to be working. She didn’t feel any sort of connection. Russell was so close now that he was almost walking beside her, his giant clawed paws striking the dirt silently in unison with her own. In unison.

He was matching her footfalls. She slowed her pace slightly, and the panther slowed too. She sped up just a bit, and he sped up too. Was she going crazy for thinking this might be some form of communication? It was probably some form of stalking.

She stopped abruptly, and the panther stopped and regarded her with those impassive blue eyes.

“Do you know me?” she said aloud in a tinny sort of voice. Maybe trying to speak in his head was stupid. Maybe he would recognize her voice. The panther let out a huff of sorts, and she backed away. She’d heard a lion at the zoo do this before. It was a warning sound, although at least it was a better-natured one than a snarl or a cry. She wanted to turn her head to see where Sylvain was, but she was afraid to break eye contact with the panther.

“Sylvain says you can become Russell again. You just have to energetically shift your DNA.”

Another huff.

“I’m thinking the stones are using teleportation technology. I still don’t buy the idea of witchcraft. What do you think?” Abbey continued. She was babbling, unthinking almost. She hadn’t really decided how she thought the stones worked, but she needed something that might catch Russell’s attention. Then she cast her mind to all the teleporter fails in the history of movies where bodies arrived inside out, aged, split into two, dead, fused with fly DNA, or embedded in ship bulkheads, and decided that maybe witchcraft was actually a more reliable means of transport.

Russell the panther lowered his back end onto his haunches and regarded her, his eyes gleaming, his tail flipping idly. One twitch of the sleek muscles in his hind legs and she’d be dead.

A twig snapped in the distance behind Russell, and Abbey heard the sudden whistle of a spear.

The cool metal pressed against his skin, and Mark could already feel the energy sparking from him into the cable. He nearly dropped the cable in alarm, but he tried to do as Caleb had ordered and gather the energy. He felt… if not electrocuted, at least partially electrified, and he wondered if his hair was standing as on end as Caleb’s was. After a few seconds, (unbelievably) the wall where Digby had disappeared and reappeared cracked open, and a tiny passageway appeared.

Caleb pumped his fist in the air and wasted no time unplugging the cable, taking Mark’s end, and tossing the cable and everything from the floor back into his mother’s handbag, while Mark looked on, bemused.

Mark was of the opinion that just because a door opened did not mean one had to proceed through it, but Caleb seemed to be of a differing sentiment and did not even hesitate before exiting the circular room, his flashlight illuminating the dark tunnel ahead. Digby already sat in the narrow stone passageway, his nose twitching.

Mark still held the black magnet cube. He thrust it into his satchel with his drawings and followed Caleb to the door.

The walls pressed close to Mark’s girth, and he felt a twinge of claustrophobic nausea. If the passageway got any narrower, he’d have to turn sideways to pass. Caleb’s shoulders filled the space ahead of him, broader somehow now than Mark’s own. How had Caleb gotten older and Sandy gotten younger? It had become a topsy-turvy world.

The short tunnel led to another small room. Packages of the rations that Digby had brought Mark sat on shelves lining the walls—and to Mark’s dismay, two full scuba suits occupied another set of shelves. There were other supplies, too: candles, matches, a couple of blankets, and what looked like a first aid kit.

By Mark’s estimation, they’d headed directly through the dam to the other side—the side fronting onto the reservoir. The outlines of another door were etched into the wall of the small room. Did it lead to another antechamber, and then a door that went out into the reservoir? Was that why the scuba suits were necessary? The reservoir wasn’t completely full (at least it hadn’t been earlier in the day), but the Granton Dam was tall and narrow, occupying the spot where a waterfall had once cascaded between two of the Stairway Mountains, which meant the reservoir, when full, was very deep.

Caleb was already checking the air in the scuba tanks with a pressure gauge. A chunk of one of the ration bars stuck out of his mouth. “The tanks are empty,” he announced, removing the bar. “We could probably hold our breath though. I don’t think the reservoir could be full.”

“The turbines…” Mark said in a half moan.

Caleb removed a long cylindrical object with a propeller from one of the shelves and flipped a switch with no results. He inspected it more closely. “It has a plug, just like the one on the wall. I think we can use the cable to charge the battery. It’ll pull us away from the intake grate, especially if we cut along the dam wall and to the surface. The current should be lower there.”

Caleb started to fumble around in the flowered handbag that hung off his muscled arm, clearly looking for the booster cable. Mark took a step backward. Being a human lightning rod once was one thing, but twice… and then jumping out into the reservoir? He was beginning to think that taking his chances swimming in the churn of the spillways would be preferable.

But Caleb had already plugged the “output end” of the cable into the propeller unit and had pressed one of the two “input ends” against his own chest. He held out the remaining input to Mark.

Mark moaned again. The entire dam structure was vibrating now and seemed on the verge of collapse. He took the cable and pressed it to his heart, wondering how long it would be before he was entirely drained of energy, how long it took for his body to recharge, and where it drew its power.

(He’d probably have a long time to recharge while pressed motionless against the intake grate of the dam.)

It didn’t take much energy for the propeller unit to whir to life. Caleb flipped it off. Then he returned the cable to the handbag and withdrew two bags from the shelves. He held one out to Mark. “Dry bags,” he said. “Only pack essentials. You’re going to have to leave some stuff behind.”

Mark clutched the straps of his backpack. It seemed like a trusty acquaintance that had been with him for this whole terrible adventure. He couldn’t imagine leaving any part of it behind, but Caleb nodded his head firmly as if he could read Mark’s mind. “You should probably put your watch in as well.”

“It’s waterproof to fifty meters,” Mark said automatically, flicking a glance at his Garmin Forerunner, as if he actually planned to join Caleb in leaping out into the reservoir instead of staying huddled in the dam until someone saved him. The reservoir couldn’t be more than fifty meters deep, could it? The fear felt sharp and acrid in his mouth. Caleb had already loaded the contents of his mother’s handbag into his dry bag. Could he ask Caleb to go alone and then turn off the spillways so he could leave through the door on the other side of the dam? Warrior Mark wouldn’t do that.

He examined the dry bag. It was very small. His beloved satchel wouldn’t fit. Reluctantly, he withdrew his maps, drawings, best pencil, and gold tunnel key from his satchel. He stowed them in the bag and then put three of the ration bars at the top. The cube magnet thing sat on the floor, and Mark picked it up to examine it. There was a set of tiny hinges on one of the corners, like it was a box that could be opened.

“I hope Digby can swim,” Caleb said.

It occurred to Mark that
he
didn’t know how to swim. He’d splashed around in the pool until he was nine in his special lessons, but he hadn’t learned a single thing.

Caleb donned a pair of goggles, slung his dry bag on his back, and carried the propeller unit to the door on the other side of the room. He nodded to Mark, and gestured at the pentagon on the door. “I expect it takes the same key as the outer door.”