Free A Quill Ladder by Jennifer Ellis Page A

cradling a cigarette, smoke rising in a twist around his head. He had changed out of the shiny paisley shirt he had worn the previous night in favor of a fitted red button-up shirt with small flowers. He glanced their way when they emerged from the Coventry hill path, dropped the cigarette, and crushed it under his foot, and met them at the edge of the Sinclair driveway.
    “ Ian, ” said Sylvain with a tight smile.
    Ian lifted a single eyebrow. “ Sylvain. Interesting to see you here. Influencing young minds? ” Abbey couldn ’ t be sure, but she thought Ian put a strange inflection on the word young.
    “ Not particularly. Are you responsible for the pruning job that we just discovered? ”
    “ Not us. Have you changed your mind? ”
    “’ Fraid not. ”
    “ Francis still thinks it ’ s possible, with your help, ” Ian said. Abbey looked at Ian. Was he talking about Mrs. Forrester, or one of the two tattooed guys?
    “ I ’ ve been around a lot longer than you. ”
    “ Only in a manner of speaking. ”
    “ In all the important manners of speaking. I ’ m afraid we can ’ t chat. We ’ re off someplace important. ”
     
     
    They found Mark huddled alone in the campus bus shelter, his head bowed. Nothing Simon or Caleb could say would convince him to get in the car with “ the bad man, ” and in the end Sylvain agreed, somewhat huffily, to follow Simon and Mark on the bus.
    Caleb hopped in the front of the car, and Sylvain accelerated the vehicle away from the curb with rather more power than was necessary, considering that he was following a bus.
    “ Are any of you adults ever going to tell us what ’ s going on? ” Caleb said as the Jag idled behind the large square rear of the bus at its first stop.
    “ Let ’ s just say that the release of the witches from Nowhere has resulted in some rather unanticipated complications. ”
    “ I guess you should have thought of that before you went and meddled in everything, ” Abbey said, somewhat more tartly then she intended.
    But Sylvain seemed lost in thought and it took him several minutes to answer. “ Yes, pulling one string often results in the unraveling of rather more strings than one would hope. ”
     
     
    Abbey, Caleb, and Simon gathered in Simon ’ s room after escorting a very relieved Mark to his own bedroom with a pastrami sandwich. Sylvain had returned to his post on the couch with his phone and laptop. Their parents would be home within the hour.
    “ Can you do this? ” Abbey thrust the card at Simon.
    Simon recoiled slightly but took the card. He read the text and then cocked his head at it.
    “ Caleb can read the hidden words, ” Abbey said with a tinge of impatience. “ I can ’ t. ”
    Simon flipped and rotated the card much in the same way Abbey had, trying to figure out where the words were.
    “ Just concentrate, ” Caleb said. “ Close your eyes and make your mind go blank. Find your center like the card says, and then just open your eyes. ”
    Simon squinted his eyes at Caleb and then turned his back on them, still holding the card.
    “ We also need to talk about the rosebush, ” Abbey said.
    She heard Simon blow air out of his nose in a puff. “ Shush, Ab. I ’ m trying to focus. ”
    Abbey drew her lips into a pout, but she nonetheless retreated into silence. Simon seemed to take a long time, and she couldn ’ t see whether he had his eyes open or closed. Suddenly he lifted the card closer to his face. “ I can see it, ” he said with an edge of jubilant wonder in his voice. “ But not words, just lines — parts of letters underneath the message and in the top right corner. I can ’ t read them though. They won ’ t come clear to me. ”
    “ In the top right corner? ” Caleb said. “ Give that to me. ” He grabbed the card out of Simon ’ s hand and stared at it. Then he shook his head, closed his eyes for a few minutes, and reopened them. A scowl crept over his face. He closed his eyes again, for longer