A Grave Tree Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cast of Characters

  What Has Gone Before

  1. Ghost in the Machine

  2. The Phantom Effect

  3. The Double Slit

  4. Believe it or Not

  5. Pocket Full of Stones

  6. Slip of a Thread

  7. Warm Hollow

  8. Our Common Future

  9. Energy is Not Created

  10. Return of the Light

  11. Hammer of Quinta

  12. Bits and Pieces

  13. Derivatives

  14. Spilling Open

  15. Mad Science

  16. Animal Magnetism

  17. Be Leave

  18. No Observers

  19. Leap of Faith

  Author’s Note

  Other Books in the Series

  Also by Jennifer Ellis

  About Jennifer Ellis

  Acknowledgements

  A Grave Tree

  THE DERIVATIVES OF DISPLACEMENT BOOK Three

  Jennifer Ellis

  Moonbird Press

  A Grave Tree

  Copyright © 2015 Jennifer Ellis

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, events, locales or organizations are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are imaginary, and any resemblance to actual places, events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by: Design for Writers

  Editing by: David Gatewood

  ISBN-13: (ebook) 978-0-9949421-0-4

  ISBN-13: (paperback) 978-0-9949421-1-1

  Moonbird Press

  Book Layout © 2015 BookDesignTemplates.com

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  Cast of Characters

  The Sinclairs

  ABBEY – Fourteen-year-old science genius

  CALEB – Abbey’s twin

  SIMON – Abbey and Caleb’s older brother

  PETER – Abbey, Caleb, and Simon’s father

  MARIAN BECKHAM – Abbey, Caleb, and Simon’s mother

  Likely Friends

  MARK FORRESTER – The Sinclairs’ twenty-six-year-old map-obsessed neighbor with Asperger’s

  FRANCIS FORRESTER – Mark’s mother

  SYLVAIN SALVADOR/MANTIS – Temporary caretaker of the Sinclairs and Mark; Friend of the family

  JAKE HAMMOND – High school student from Greenhill; Camel who can use the docks

  IAN – “Witch” rescued from Nowhere living in Forrester house

  FRANK AND FRANCIS – Ian’s hairy and tattooed associates

  KASEY – Map librarian in the future

  MAX – Spaceship pilot in the future

  RUSSELL ANDREWS – Working with Sylvain

  Potential Enemies

  DR. PAUL FORD – Francis Forrester’s ex-husband/Sandy’s father

  SANDY FORD – Francis and Paul’s daughter rescued from Nowhere

  SELENA DARBY – Might be leading the “bad” faction; old friend of Peter Sinclair’s

  NATHANIEL – One of Selena’s lackeys

  DAMIAN – One of Selena’s lackeys

  QUENTIN STEINAM – Unknown investor who seems to be pulling the strings of the “bad” faction

  QUINTA – Witch who is mysteriously changing the future

  For those who always wanted to be in Gryffindor…

  A note about maps… If you are interested in looking at the maps provided in A Quill Ladder (Book Two) go to the reader bonuses section of my website and check them out.

  What Has Gone Before

  In A Pair of Docks and A Quill Ladder– Derivatives of Displacement Books One and Two

  The Sinclair siblings, Abbey, Caleb, and Simon, discover a set of stones on the hill behind their house that can take them into the future. But the futures seem split, and they each have a future dramatically different from the others’. They start using the stones with Mark, their map-obsessed neighbor who has Asperger’s. But they are not the only ones who know about the stones, and they become involved in the schemes of a man named Sylvain to transfer Caleb’s future people from one future to another via a set of docks that can take you laterally between futures.

  Those who create paradox by changing the future in the future are sentenced to live in Nowhere, a timeless, placeless purgatory. Only camels, who are dead in all futures, can change the future and use the docks. They meet a mysterious Dr. Ford who claims that they are witches and tries to tell them the rules of the stones.

  Abbey’s mother, a camel, rescues all of the witches from Nowhere. Ian, one of the witches from Nowhere, moves in across the street and offers to give the Sinclairs lessons in witchcraft, which consist of cards with strange messages and invisible writing about finding your center.

  Ian claims that some of the witches from Nowhere, led by Selena Darby, are intending to find a parallel universe more hospitable to witches and move there using a wormhole. He is determined to stop them because using a wormhole incorrectly can cause a huge burst of destructive energy. Mark’s half-sister, Sandy Ford, who is the daughter of Mark’s mother Mrs. Forrester and Dr. Ford, has also been rescued from Nowhere, and joins the Sinclairs on some of their adventures.

  Simon is arrested and sentenced to six weeks in juvie for hacking into the City Hall computers. Sylvain purchases Coventry Hill and has the stones destroyed to prevent others from using them, but lets it slip that there are other sets of stones.

  Using three maps of Coventry given to him by Dr. Ford and a fourth map retrieved from the future, Mark and the others determine that the locations of the sets of stones and docks, as well as some tunnels discovered by Mark and Sandy, fit a geometrical pattern—a pentagram—with the statue of a woman, Quinta Francis Merry, at the center in downtown Coventry. Selena and Dr. Ford attempt to steal the maps, and claim there is a fifth map. Jake, a camel who has been used by both Sylvain and Selena, is shot, and Abbey must take him to her own future to save him.

  After a visit from Selena, Abbey’s father vanishes, leaving only a text that he is going to deal with something once and for all. Abbey’s mother, who has been using the stones to travel to the future to cure herself of a terminal illness, follows him, leaving Abbey, Caleb, and Mark in the care of Sylvain in a cabin by the Granton Dam, for their safety.

  1. Ghost in the Machine

  ~ Acceleration is the 2nd derivative of displacement. Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity. ~

  Abbey stared out the window at the torrential rain that pummeled Sylvain’s small cabin west of Coventry. Farley sat beside her and let out low whines every few minutes, as if she might have forgotten that he was there and had not yet been walked. Caleb, evidently not nearly as gloomy as Abbey about missing school again this week, sat on the couch staring at his phone. Mark typed away on his computer at the desk in the corner, no doubt researching isogons, maps of constant magnetic declination, which he had told Abbey about rather relentlessly over lunch. Sylvain busied himself with dinner preparations in the elegant country kitchen; the cabin, while small, was extremely well appointed.

  “Well, I guess I’m just going to have to walk you by myself, then,” Abbey said loudly to Farley.

  “Have fun,”
Caleb said.

  She could see that he was rather intently snapchatting with someone, and she caught a glimpse of Anna Andrews’s lustrous mahogany hair. Russell, Anna’s older brother, had been up to deliver supplies to the cabin several times over the past three weeks, always regarding Abbey with his hungry, almost feral, pale blue eyes.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sylvain said. “I’m in the middle of making a roux. I can’t leave right now.”

  He emerged from the kitchen wearing his long white chef’s apron over his tall, spindly body. The first time Abbey had seen the apron, she’d been forced to stifle a laugh. Sylvain spent much of his time at the cabin hunching over bubbling sauces and caramelizing onions. Whatever complaints they might lodge regarding their extended isolation, they couldn’t claim they weren’t being well fed. Mark, who apparently preferred that different foods not touch each other, ever, except in sandwich form, would probably beg to differ.

  “I’ll just go by myself,” Abbey said. “You’re tracking me anyway.”

  She held up her phone, on which Sylvain had installed a tracking device so he would know where they were. There was little need for it, as he hadn’t let them out of his sight in several weeks. He even insisted that they all go together on their Farley walks.

  To make matters worse, all of the windows and doors had sensors on them, and if opened, they would emit a beep that would alert everyone in the cabin to someone’s departure or arrival. They were essentially in a prison, albeit a fairly comfortable one. Fortunately Sylvain had not taken away their Internet access. But they were under strict orders to tell everyone that they had gone to New York on a family vacation—except Simon, of course, who would still be at the detention center down in Coventry for a few more days.

  “Don’t worry. It’s pouring. I’m just going to go down the trail about a hundred meters. Farley has to get out. You wouldn’t want him to have an accident in the cabin, would you?” Abbey raised her eyebrows at Sylvain.

  Sylvain’s eyes widened, and she saw his pupils flick in the direction of the fluffy white sheepskin rugs that adorned the cherry hardwood floors. “Very well,” he said. “Don’t go farther than a hundred meters, and come right back, or we’ll have to come and look for you.”

  Abbey put on her raincoat, trying not to roll her eyes, while Farley skittered around her, hopping and howling with joy, his claws clicking on the floors. Sylvain was probably cringing in the kitchen at the sound.

  Abbey didn’t know why she couldn’t just go outside alone. This commitment to togetherness—ever since her mother had gone off in search of her father, who had gone who knows where—was beginning to wear a bit. It wasn’t as if Abbey could go anywhere. They were in the middle of nowhere, at the end of a nondescript dirt road that wound its way up the hill and through the woods off the Granton Dam Road. They were at least ten kilometers away from Coventry, and the only means of transport available was Sylvain’s Jag. He couldn’t possibly think she would steal that. Although, technically, she supposed they had stolen it before—but she hadn’t driven it.

  Thinking about her parents caused Abbey to tear up a bit. Her dad had said he would be gone for a few days, and her mother had said they would be staying with Sylvain for a week, tops. But that was three weeks ago, and there had been no sign of Marian Beckham or Peter Sinclair since. Despite Abbey’s pestering, Sylvain refused to offer any information about where they had gone and what might have happened.

  She opened the door to the sound of the loud beep from the alarm system. Ocean, Mark’s cat, strolled over to the door and marched out, but stopped immediately and shook her now-soaked paws in surprise before turning around and galloping back inside. Farley took off like a shot into the trees, his brown form only barely visible in the deepening afternoon gloom. The dampness assaulted Abbey as soon as she stepped outside; raindrops ran in rivulets off her hood and somehow found their way down her neck and into her hair.

  She jumped when the cabin door opened and closed again behind her.

  “Daily exercise is important for good health,” Mark announced as he joined Abbey on the stoop. Abbey wasn’t sure whether it was the daily Farley walks, their previous adventures, or Mark’s trepidation regarding Sylvain’s cooking, but Mark had grown leaner and more muscular in the last few weeks. A few months ago, being alone with Mark would have scared Abbey a bit—with his Asperger’s, he could be unpredictable and aloof—but now she found it comforting.

  She wondered if he planned to provide more thoughts with regard to isogons, but he remained silent as they trudged down the muddy path following Farley. The rain was apparently not a deterrent for small forest critters, or Farley, and soon the Chesapeake Bay retriever was barreling back and forth on the path in front of them, barking and stalking birds and squirrels.

  Cold seeped through Abbey’s rain jacket, and her sneaker-clad feet were soon soaked. They had reached what Abbey judged to be the hundred-meter mark on the trail, and she was about to call Farley back when Mark cried out behind her.

  She spun around to see Mark’s bulky body hurtling the last few feet toward her. For a moment she was certain he would launch up into her arms and cling there as if the forest floor were covered with snakes; she checked quickly to make sure it was not.

  “Something,” he said and then stopped, his arms raised and open palms hovering over his ears. He seemed about to drop into one of his protective crouches with his hands pressed against the sides of his head. He stood there frozen for a few seconds, like a paused movie, or a record player with the needle caught in a groove, then evidently having fought the urge to fall to his knees, he let out a giant exhale and started talking in a jerky monotone. “There’s something in the trees back there. Something white… I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts.” He said this last as if it was a mantra that would vanquish any potential lingering phantoms.

  “What are you saying, Mark? Did you see a ghost?”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts.” Mark rocked back and forth on his feet and flailed his hands around near his ears.

  Rain pattered on the leaves, and Farley still thundered through the bushes several meters away, apparently oblivious to their spectral visitor, if indeed there was a spectral visitor. But the birds, which had been trilling despite the downpour just a few seconds before, had gone strangely silent.

  Did she believe in ghosts? Scientifically, there was no evidence to support the existence of ghosts. But the existence of black holes hadn’t been definitively proven either, and she believed in them. There was also the fact that every hair on the back of her neck was standing up, and it was taking all her will not to scream and abandon Mark and Farley while she bolted back to the cabin—except that would take her in the direction of the ghost, even though she didn’t believe in ghosts.

  She reached one hand up, grasped Mark’s fist, and pulled his arm down, so they were standing with their shoulders pressed together facing the path that would lead them back to the cabin. Mark stiffened but stopped rocking.

  “Are you sure you saw a ghost?” she said.

  Mark nodded vigorously with his eyes closed. Rivers of rain flowed down his face, and his brown hair was caked onto his cheeks. “Just… back… there,” he said.

  “Farley,” she called. “Farley! Come this instant.”

  The dog, not keen on having his romp cut short, turned and eyeballed her as if to assess the likelihood that she would enforce her command. She must have appeared suitably fierce and threatening because he began to saunter toward them slowly, wearing only a mildly obstinate look and stopping to sniff a tuft of grass or two on his way. A meter away from them, he lurched to attention, started to growl, and shot past them into the trees, barking, the whites of his teeth stark against his dark brown muzzle. The sea of green shrubbery vibrated and swayed as he ran through it.

  “Farley! No!” Abbey yelled.

  The dog ignored her and plunged on
. Then Abbey saw it: a filmy white figure walking determinedly through the trees away from them. Farley leapt, growling with furious determination, and sailed right through the apparition. A second ghost appeared several meters away from the first, and the two shapes met, their transparent edges coalescing and then separating as they moved farther off into the trees with Farley in hot pursuit.

  Abbey screamed.

  The thud of footsteps echoed down the path, and Sylvain, still in his white apron, materialized, followed by a concerned-looking Caleb.

  “Sorry. We saw something in the woods,” Abbey said. “We thought it was a ghost. Two ghosts.”

  Farley scrambled around in the bushes, still barking.

  Sylvain and Caleb whirled to look in the direction Abbey pointed, but the ghosts had vanished. Sylvain stopped running, his long legs slowly losing their momentum. “Are you sure? The fog can play tricks on you, the way it gathers and rises in the trees when it rains.”

  Abbey scowled, her courage returning now that she and Mark were no longer alone in the woods. Maybe the togetherness thing wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Mark’s body, still touching hers, had started to tremble almost violently.

  “I’m sure,” she said. “They’re gone now. But they were white and ghostly and human-formed, and Farley jumped right through one of them. Maybe they weren’t ghosts, but they weren’t normal, and they certainly weren’t fog, unless fog can walk around now.”

  Sylvain scanned the woods, his brow furrowed in confusion. At first Abbey had thought that maybe the ghosts were some form of witchcraft the adults had yet to share with them, but Sylvain seemed just as baffled as she did. Caleb had already started to wade through the undergrowth in the direction of Farley, calling out to him. The almost wild dog ran around in a few more circles, baying his displeasure before finally submitting to Caleb’s orders to come.