The Cartographers(80)

She turned the photo around so Swann could see it.

“At Classic,” she said.

Bear was Humphrey.





Francis




The weeks dragged, each one more strange. It seemed like that summer passed in an instant, a surreal, horrible blur that could have been just a single day, and also never ended.

The day the Sullivan County Government Center was burgled, the house woke up to yet another argument between Tam and Romi. Romi had made a good start on the real-world map, enough that Tam was ready to begin drafting her version of the same area, but almost immediately, the two of them had butted heads. Romi wanted Tam to do what she’d done on her map—render Agloe precisely, as accurately as possible—because she believed that would be the only way to understand how it worked. But Tam wanted to start experimenting right away. We’d told everyone about the printing press when we’d found it, and she wanted to use it for her version. What better way to understand what General Drafting’s founder had been doing? Who cared if it wouldn’t match Romi’s aesthetic? Romi argued that the variables were too great, that the significance of our project would lie in comparing the two places, not contrasting them. But Tam’s imagination couldn’t be stopped.

“They’re just notes! You have your own scratch paper, too!” Tam was shouting when I came stumbling down the stairs that morning, still in my pajamas.

“But I’m not hiding the map they go with!” Romi shouted back.

“I’m not hiding a map, either! And I’m definitely not the one snooping through your things!”

They were squared off in the living room, and Daniel, Eve, and Bear were trying to run interference. Daniel, especially, looked at his wit’s end—I knew how he felt. The strain on Romi from their constant arguments was probably the same as that on Tam. Some nights, after everyone had gone to bed and just he and I were outside by the fire, he’d confess he was starting to feel a little desperate about this place. That it might be tearing us apart rather than bringing us closer together, the way our project was supposed to. That he had to do something, before it spiraled out of control.

I ached to tell him about what was happening with Eve. I came close many times. But Daniel had always been so carefree before, even during finals—I had never seen him like this. I didn’t want to add even more strain by asking him to carry my guilt with me.

“If you’re not hiding anything, why are you accusing me of snooping, then?” Romi cried.

“Please, don’t shout,” Wally begged from the kitchen, where he was distracting you from the argument by letting you make a mess with a box of Cheerios.

“What’s going on?” I asked, before they could start again.

It turned out Tam had come downstairs to see Romi going through her notes—not notes they shared from their drafts at the ice cream parlor, but notes Romi had taken from the printing factory, without Tam knowing. Tam had sworn to us that she only went there for inspiration and wouldn’t actually use the printing press for her map unless we all agreed, but Romi was convinced Tam was already working on a draft in secret. She couldn’t shake the feeling she was being lied to, she whispered to me so many nights as we got ready for bed.

She was right. She just didn’t know that the betrayal was coming from me.

“Everyone, listen,” Eve interrupted, pointing. The television had been on in the corner amid all this.

“—arrived at the Government Center today, where all legislative archives for the county are kept, to find the building had been broken into overnight. There were no injuries, but damage to some of the glass displays in the public hall have been reported, and it appears that some items from the Local Sullivan County History exhibit are missing.”

“The place was robbed?” Bear asked.

Onscreen, a montage of photos from the municipal building—the jimmied front door, shards of glass on the tile floor, yellow police tape—rotated. “Detectives have not named a suspect, but are working with county officials to . . .”

Daniel studied the screen. “Hey, Wally,” he called. “Isn’t that where you went last week?”

Wally appeared, holding you in one arm and the cereal box in the other. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “I’m glad no one was hurt.”

“What were you doing there?” Tam asked, surprised.

“Looking up administrative records for the county. I wanted to see if anyone had ever logged Agloe as a location for a residence or business,” he answered. “Don’t worry, there was nothing. No addresses, no tax files.”

“Do you remember the exhibit mentioned?” I asked.

Wally shrugged. “Only junk. Old photographs of the first settled dairy farms, stamps from the post office. The kind of stuff those places always have.”

A junk shop had our Agloe map, I was about to say. But the reporter had shifted stories, and a burst of festive music for some outdoor fair began playing.

Tam turned to Romi again. “I’ll show you my notes anytime,” she said. “I’ll show you anything you want. But please ask me first.”

Romi sighed. “I’m sorry. This is all just—a lot.”

“Why don’t we finish breakfast and go to the town together?” I suggested, before Romi could consider her nagging suspicion further. Before she might realize that it wasn’t Agloe causing her to feel the way she did, but me.