The Cartographers(73)

“You should have gone after him,” she said.

“You were bleeding, and unconscious,” Eve said softly. “You’re our little Nell. We couldn’t leave you.”

Something passed through the three of them—Francis, Ramona, and Eve—in the silence. They were standing a little bit apart from each other, at a distance strangers would keep—which perhaps they were, after all these years—but the longer they talked, the more the stiffness of their shoulders and the tenseness in their faces began to slowly ebb. There was an undercurrent to their fear now that Nell could just barely see. They were still clearly afraid, but the heart of it, the soil the seed of the fear had grown from, was made of something more like guilt, or shame.

And love, maybe. Trampled and withered.

As she watched them, Nell thought she was finally, truly beginning to understand why things had always been so difficult between her father and her. Why he had seemed to both love her and push her away at the same time.

It was because the closer she got to him, the closer she got to uncovering this secret.

And then when she finally did, that terrible day, the fight they’d had over the Junk Box hadn’t been what she’d believed it to be—the cruel retaliation of a powerful, selfish man who didn’t want his daughter to someday eclipse his reputation. His reaction was not because she’d stumbled onto simple treasure, but something very dangerous. A curse that had stolen her mother and plagued her father for most of his adult life, and the entirety of hers, as well.

He had not been trying to ruin her, but rather to protect her from Wally, in his own clumsy, rough way. And she had been too stubborn to listen.

But the most important question still remained.

She couldn’t say it out loud. Not yet.

She was almost afraid to even think it, as if just the hope alone could dispel its possibility.

“What happened after my mother and Wally found the town?” Nell asked instead.

Francis, Ramona, and Eve all looked down again, and the distance between them grew once more.

Nell waited, resolute. She finally knew the truth about Agloe. There was no reason for them to hide the rest of the secrets from her anymore.

At last, Eve looked up, and cleared her throat.





Eve




Everything fell apart, is what happened. Slowly at first, and then all at once, before any of us could stop it.

That first morning, I was awoken by a commotion in the kitchen. I sat up in bed, listening as several voices echoed from downstairs, frantic, excited. Then the door slammed and a spray of gravel pattered across the driveway as tires peeled out.

I dressed quickly and scooted out to the landing, where Bear was poking his head out of his room.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

Romi and Francis’s door opened, too. “Francis?” she called. He must not have been inside with her.

No one answered. Perplexed, we all made our way down and stared at the strange stillness. A half-eaten egg on a plate and a bunch of empty chairs—your high chair included.

“Do you think something happened to Nell?” I asked. “And they rushed to a hospital?”

“No,” Bear said. “I couldn’t make out much, but I definitely heard Tam say, ‘you have to see this,’ right before they left.”

“‘You have to see this?’” Romi repeated, curious. She glanced out the windows, where dappled morning sun was coming in through the trees from the forest beyond. “What could there be to see out here?”

“Maybe some wildlife?” I offered. “Maybe they found some deer—a mother and fawn?”

“I want to see that, too!” Bear smiled.

“I want eggs,” Romi replied, and went to the stove. “Anyone else?”

Bear did. I handled the toast, for something to do. I tried to make conversation, but Bear was still too drowsy, and Romi was concentrating on the stove, so everything fell flat until I finally mentioned our Dreamer’s Atlas after we’d finished eating.

“Let’s get it set up!” Romi cried. She was already scanning the living room, figuring out the best way to change the area from lounge to cartography studio.

“You know Tam’s just going to argue with you if you do it your way,” Bear said with a laugh, carrying plates to the sink.

“She can try.” Romi winked at him. “But they took all the good bedrooms because we were late, so fair is fair.”

We got to work, pushing furniture to the walls and dragging over the big kitchen table. We scavenged the desks from our bedrooms to serve as research stations and positioned all the lamps where we’d need them for detail work. Then we unpacked the maps we’d brought, poring over each one excitedly. It wasn’t until a car rumbled up the driveway that we realized it was already early afternoon.

“Where have you all been?” Romi asked as Tam, Wally, Francis, and Daniel, carrying you, came into the living room. “It’s past lunch!”

“Did you bring any, by any chance?” Bear asked.

“Forget lunch,” Daniel said. His voice sounded the same as when they’d all left—exhilarated, confused. I was closest—he threw a set of car keys to me. “Follow us.”

“What’s going on?” Romi asked.

“You won’t believe it unless you see it,” Tam said.