The Cartographers(100)

“It was one of the seven of us who tried to steal one,” he replied.

I took a step closer to him. I only wanted to apologize again, to throw myself upon his mercy—but Wally flinched as if I’d been reaching out to strike him.

“I wasn’t—” I started to say, and then stopped as I saw what was happening.

Francis was beside me now, and Eve had also circled around as we’d argued so she was between Wally and the door. Daniel was so close to him, he could have reached out and touched him—or the box.

We were closing in on him without realizing it. Or maybe we had. We’d surrounded him like prey, and he could feel it. I could see the whites of his eyes as they darted between each of us, more and more frantic. His arms hugged the box tighter, creasing the cardboard.

We were pushing him too far.

“Who’s to say someone else won’t try?” Wally asked.

I scooted back a little, hoping the others would copy me, but they didn’t. “I’ll do anything to make this up to you, Wally,” I pleaded, hoping to defuse the situation.

“It’s too late.” But Wally was looking at Tam as he said it, not at me. “It was too late the day we let everyone else inside. We should never have showed them.”

“What are you going to do?” Tam asked.

“What I have to,” he said.

“Let’s just talk about this first,” Francis offered.

“I’m done talking,” he replied. To the rest of us he said, “Let me go.”

And then he jerked roughly away—and I saw Daniel’s hand slide off his arm.

“Don’t you dare,” Wally said. He was trembling now, on the verge. “Get away from me. Get away from this box.”

“This is not only your choice, Wally,” Daniel said, his hands up in a gesture of surrender—but he didn’t back away. And Eve had moved closer as Daniel kept him distracted.

No, I wanted to say. This is only making it worse. But they were all shouting now, so loud I couldn’t hear myself even as I tried.

“Yes it is! I gathered all of these!” Wally yelled, trying to keep hold of the box with one hand and shove the rest of them back with the other.

“But that doesn’t mean the town belongs only to you!”

“I found it,” he hissed. “I found it with Tam. And I will protect it—even if it’s from all of you.”

He fought against Daniel, stumbling farther and farther back as they argued. But Francis also rushed forward, preparing to take the box from him entirely. It pitched between them, the cardboard failing. “Get back right now!”

And then it split as he turned, the maps pouring out onto the floor in a huge, messy scatter.

I gasped as everyone lunged for the chaos at once. Wally was screaming, fighting to keep them all back before they could grab a copy, but there was no way he was going to win. There were too many of us, and only one of him.

But then a strange, warm flash of light bloomed hungrily on top of the pile before any of us got there.

We all pulled back, surprised, confused.

“What . . . ,” Tam murmured.

“Fire!” Daniel shouted. “He lit them on fire! He’s burning them!”

It was true.

Wally stood over the maps, the box of matches shaking in his hands as he watched.

“What have you done?” Tam asked, horrified.

“Protected the town,” he replied. “It was the only way.”

“Oh no,” Francis whispered, horrified. “No, no, no.”

All those copies—the last ones in existence—gone.

We all watched the blaze in stunned, horrified silence as it began to spread, obliterating the maps, then creeping outward, toward the shelves and walls.

“We have to get out of here,” I said, suddenly recognizing the danger we were in. The buildings in Agloe were from the 1930s, when the phantom settlement had been created, and were all made of wood. “The whole place is going to come down.”

“Where’s Nell?” Tam cried suddenly, spinning around.

“Oh my God,” Eve gasped. “I set her down when we came in here.”

Terror struck us as we heard you scream. You were somewhere in the fire, Nell.

I couldn’t even move—but Tam was already gone. She threw herself straight into the blaze.

“Tam, no!” Daniel yelled, trying to chase her. “Nell! Nell!”

All of us leapt into motion after him—but at the same moment, there was a horrible whooshing sound from everywhere around us, and it seemed that all at once, the entire vault was on fire, every surface covered in dancing, licking flames. There was so much smoke, so thick and black I could hardly breathe. I had never seen fire move that fast—we were in a tinderbox. The walls were already buckling around us, the shelves collapsing, threatening to trap us beneath them. And in the middle of the room in a towering molten heap, the maps Wally had collected were blazing so brightly, they were glowing white.

We tried, but it was impossible to go forward. The fire had become a wall, cutting us off from the rest of the vault. From Tam, and from you. We were driven back, first to the door, and then to the sidewalk outside, still yelling for you and Tam.

“Get off me!” Daniel shouted, his throat raw, but the fire surged again, swallowing the building. “I have to go after them!” he kept shouting, but Francis and Eve had pinned him down so he couldn’t run to his death, and I was holding Wally around the waist, clutching for dear life as he tried to drag himself back inside as well.