The Cartographers(113)

Cartography, at its heart, was about defining one’s place in the world by creating charts and measurements. Nell had lived her life by that idea, that everything could be mapped according to references and thereby understood. But she could see now that she had been paying attention to the wrong references.

It was not a map alone that made a place real.

It was the people.

“Nell,” Francis said softly. “Now that you know everything, we can turn around, if you want. We don’t have to do this. We can do what your father wasn’t strong enough to do. We can destroy the map for good, so Wally can never find it.”

“No,” Nell said.

She finally understood, she thought. She hoped.

“It wasn’t that he was weak,” she said. “It was the exact opposite. Keeping the map was the strongest thing he’s ever done.”

The others all looked at each other, not understanding.

“And we do have to go.” She took a breath. “Because even after finally knowing everything that happened, there’s still one last question I can’t answer.”

“What’s that?” Swann asked.

“I think . . .” Nell trailed off. “I think she’s there, somehow. I think my mother’s still in Agloe.”

The others shook their heads, afraid to believe it could be possible, but Nell was growing surer by the moment.

“How do you know?” Swann asked. “After hearing the whole story . . .”

“That’s exactly why,” Nell replied. “It was what you said, Ramona. You were right, that hiding this map meant my father was under constant threat his entire life, if Wally ever came to suspect he might have the last copy. And if there’s really nothing left in the town but ash, and he wanted nothing to do with Agloe, and even more than that, wanted Wally to never be able to go there again . . .”

She held the map up.

“Why keep it all these years?”

She watched as the rest of them studied its cover in silence.

“No,” Humphrey said, voice quavering. “He kept it because it was the last thing of your mother’s.”

“Or he might have been saving it for you, if it ever became safe to give it to you,” Eve offered, equally hesitant.

“But why? Why save it for me, if all that’s in Agloe is nothing?” Nell asked. “What if . . .”

She could see all of them struggling with the idea. They were desperate for her to be right, even as vanishingly plausible as it was.

“We want it to be true as much as you do, but we were there, Nell,” Francis said. “We saw the flames. It’s just not possible.”

Nell looked at Ramona, who had remained silent as the rest of them argued. Nell put her hand in her pocket and clutched her mother’s red Wisconsin fountain pen for courage. “You believe me, don’t you?” she asked.

Ramona was lost in thought. “That same night I saw Wally come back from the field,” she began, “I also saw your father. It was even later, almost turning to dawn again, when he came through the gate, you slumped over his shoulder. I was surprised, but I thought maybe walking you was the only way to get you to sleep, those days. He told me he’d gone to say goodbye. That’s how I knew he was planning to leave for good the next day.”

“Goodbye,” Nell repeated.

“I thought he meant to the field—as close to the town as he could get. I didn’t know then that he had the map. Maybe . . . maybe he meant Tam.”

Ramona sighed, long and slow, as if learning how to breathe for the first time. Her eyes were filled with a new wonder.

“Maybe she’s been there, all this time, the only place she could ever truly be safe.”

“But why?” Humphrey asked. “Why would she have needed to stay hidden for so long? Away from Daniel, away from Nell? What could she be doing there that she couldn’t do out here, with the rest of us?”

“Something she had to keep safe from Wally,” Nell finally said.

Outside, a gentle rain had begun falling as they drove, misting the windshield and turning the road slick.

The patter against the roof swallowed Francis’s words as he leaned forward. “Let’s slow down,” he said as he stared out the windshield. “We don’t want to attract attention by speeding, in case he’s following us.”

“He already knows Nell still has the map,” Humphrey replied. “Where else could she be heading but there?”

“We just have to get inside before he catches up,” Francis said. “Then we’ll be safe.”

“And trapped,” Ramona added.

Humphrey’s eyes were locked grimly on the road ahead. “We’re already trapped,” he said. “We’ve all been, since we first found the town.”

For a moment, no one said anything. Despite Francis’s advice, Nell felt the car speed up a little more beneath them.

“It’s happening all over again,” Eve murmured. “Who would have thought that decades later, we’d be doing the exact same thing, in some inescapable cycle?”

Nell watched a collective shudder pass through the group.

“All of us together, going back to this same terrible place,” Francis said. “We even have Nell with us.”

“You’ve grown up so much,” Eve said to her, studying her tenderly. “You look . . .”