The Cartographers(3)
The bell on the door jangled sharply as she pushed her way in, and Farah—unfailingly, in orange—glanced up from her crossword puzzle and tipped her head. Nell made her way to the back of the bodega, where she poured two cups of coffee from the stainless-steel thermos, and then brought them to the counter.
“‘Something lines,’” Farah muttered, brow furrowed. She and Nell never chitchatted, just nodded at each other and occasionally traded puzzle hints, which made Nell like her even more. “Only three letters.”
“Try ‘ley,’” she replied as she held out Humphrey’s money.
“What?”
“Ley. L-E-Y.” Ley lines. She smiled. It was a mapmaking term.
The old woman studied the crossword, and then nodded briskly. It fit.
The cash register clicked, the drawer shot open, and Farah handed Nell her change. Nell grabbed a coffee with each hand and ducked into the cold morning again. She almost made it back to their building in one breath, but had to suffer one more lungful of biting air before she scrambled inside and up the stairs.
“Nell.” Humphrey’s voice echoed from the other side of the office as soon as she opened the door.
“I got the coffee,” she replied, but trailed off as she rounded the corner and saw the expression on his face.
“Did you take your phone with you?” he asked. He wasn’t in his office, but by her desk.
“No. What’s wrong?”
In response, his gaze slid over to where her phone sat, screen dark and silent.
“Someone’s been trying to reach you all morning. They just called the main line, in my room,” Humphrey finally said.
“Who was it?” she asked. “Humphrey. Who was it?”
He hesitated, but her warning glare forced him to continue. “You should check your messages,” he said. “Someone from the library needs to talk to you urgently.”
The library.
Nell went to her desk and set the coffees down, then gently picked up her mobile as if it were a small, not quite tame animal. Humphrey was still there, but was staring awkwardly at the pile of junk papers on the desk they used for dumping old mail instead of at her. Trying to give her support and privacy, but in fact just making everything more awkward. She wouldn’t have expected such a big, loud man to become so meek in a crisis. Was this a crisis? She knew she was stalling. Before she could think about it anymore, Nell swiped the screen to unlock the phone and poked the green icon to pull up her calls.
“Are you okay?” he finally asked.
“Yeah,” Nell said.
But she wasn’t. Not at all.
The one she’d missed, several times now, was from someone who wasn’t stored in her contacts anymore and so displayed only as a number rather than a name, but she still recognized it immediately. It was not a number she’d seen in almost a decade, since her unceremonious firing from the NYPL, and never expected to see again, because she’d sworn never to speak to him again for it.
But it was not her father who had made the call from his office phone.
Nell, Swann’s voice was frantic and hushed after the beep. It startled her to hear him, after all this time. I’m sorry to call you like this after so long, but there’s been an emergency. Call me back as soon as you get this.
As soon as the message ended, the phone rang again in her hand, startling her. This time it was the police.
Less than an hour later, she’d gathered her things, assured Humphrey she’d text him if she needed anything, and scrambled through the morning rush hour subways to find herself standing in front of the main branch of the New York Public Library. It was a Tuesday, but the entrance was still teeming with visitors. Children on school trips to the city clamored up and down the stairs, teenagers flirted, and elderly regulars edged slowly forward, book bags and lists for the day’s research tucked under their elbows. Behind them, taxis honked as they jostled for space at the curb. Somewhere, a busker was playing a fast, nervous violin.
Nell could hardly remember the last time she’d come to this part of town. How many years had her life been only her small, dingy apartment, endless subway rides, and the cramped offices of Classic? Everything on Fifth Avenue was three times brighter and louder, as if someone had turned up a dial on every surface.
Just before the towering wooden doors of the library, however, all sound fell away. As she passed between the thick marble pillars and beneath the arches that carved the entryway, Nell felt a familiar shiver of wonder. This had always been what she imagined when she’d dreamed of her future. Echoing hallways, vaulted ceilings, grand old academic buildings. Not rickety staircases, crammed cubicles, and the faint smell of mold.
The lobby was quietly bustling, seemingly full despite its vastness. As she pushed through the clusters of visitors, Nell caught a flash of a familiar face across the huge space, kind but sharp eyes scanning beneath a navy-blue hat. Henry Fong, one of the library’s longest-serving security guards, was on shift today. He’d been with the NYPL almost as long as her father had.
She ducked her head on instinct—she was already inches from losing her nerve, and to be spotted by someone she knew before she could find Swann would make her turn and flee for certain—and edged through the milling crowd for the room at the end of the lobby’s northern hallway, above which the words The Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division were carved in gold. Through there, she could reach the back offices, where Swann, and answers, would be.