The Cartographers(98)

“The shop’s not open until we can get the plate glass window fixed, but I’d be happy to meet you somewhere else?”

I didn’t think I could take one of the cars for long enough to drive out to him without the others noticing my absence, but I could easily fake a stomach bug and stay home. I gave him the address to our house in Rockland and told him to meet me there the next day at noon, when everyone else would be in Agloe.

The man hung up quickly, excited. I felt ill, and hopeful, all at once.

“Thank you,” I said to Romi.

“I did it for myself,” she replied. “Even if the rest of them will never know it.”

“I’m so sorry,” I murmured again, for probably the hundredth time.

Romi shrugged, the way she did when she didn’t want to talk about something anymore because she didn’t want to lose her composure. I never understood how she was always able to keep everything locked down so deep, but I respected it. I never would have had the courage to pull off what we’d just done without her.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked instead.

“There’s a weekend bus that runs to Manhattan every Saturday,” she mused. “I think I’ll catch that, and then get a flight from there.”

“To Wisconsin?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Just anywhere but here.”

I didn’t know if she meant Rockland, or Agloe. I guess it didn’t really matter.



The next day, Wally left to continue his research over at the University of New Paltz—this time with Tam, who would make sure that he didn’t steal anything else, and would come back home before nightfall. Daniel, you, Francis, and Eve went to Agloe in the other car, to keep working. If Romi didn’t want to continue as part of our project anyway, was it worth exiling them from it as well? Would they try to beat us to the punch and publish early? we worried.

As for me, I waited in bed and listened to the car rumble away. Tam had made me a mug of tea before she and Wally left, and I drank all of it out of guilt.

I was so disgusted with myself, for not being able to ask them for help to pay down my debt. If I’d had the courage to do that, none of this would have happened. But shame is a terrible, terrible thing. It makes you lie to others, and to yourself. I had twisted things around so much that I was convinced stealing a map from Wally and then selling it back to him was different from admitting my secret, because even though it would still be Wally paying for the house in the end instead of me, if he didn’t know about it, then maybe it didn’t have to be true. I could keep hiding my lie the way Francis, Eve, Daniel, and Wally hadn’t been able to hide theirs.

I was standing in the driveway at noon when I heard the Abram’s owner’s car coming up the road. The map was already in my hands. I wanted the exchange done as quickly as possible, so I didn’t have to face it a moment longer than necessary. I was so impatient, I began walking toward the end of the driveway to meet him before he’d even fully turned in.

But halfway there, I stopped.

The car couldn’t have been the man’s—because I recognized it immediately.

It was Wally’s.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him as he and Tam climbed out.

“The same thing as you,” he said.

Tam’s eyes were bewildered, stunned—but his were so, so cold.

He didn’t even ask if I had the map. He didn’t have to.

The bookstore owner had been so excited, he hadn’t waited until after he’d gotten the map from me to sell it. He’d started calling around looking for the Cartographers the minute he’d hung up with me yesterday, until he’d found Wally somehow. And Wally was as eager as always at the prospect of yet another Agloe map, and incredibly curious. The amateur collectors’ network had been quiet for weeks, their own search on Wally’s behalf exhausted. From where had this mysterious copy suddenly appeared?

He finally got the man to admit he hadn’t found it himself, but rather was about to buy it from someone else. He wouldn’t reveal his source, terrified Wally was going to scoop him, until Wally agreed to pay him in advance. Wally did, of course. He wrote a check for whatever amount the man had named without protest.

And in return, the man had given him the address where he was supposed to meet me.

The address to our very house.

Tam hung back, unable to believe it was true. Wally came closer to me, until he was standing just inches away. My heart was hammering in my chest. I had never seen him so angry, ever. I was sure, in that moment, that he was going to kill me.

I had thought he might demand to know why I did it, or how I could betray him. But he didn’t say any of those things. He didn’t even ask me to apologize.

“Give it to me” was all he said.



Wally drove us to Agloe using the stolen map. We raced down County Road 206 and lurched into the town at a dangerous speed, the gas pedal practically against the floor. The car skidded into the main square, where Wally threw on the parking brake and then fought his way out of his seat belt. Everyone else—save Romi, who was at the motel—was running toward us, drawn by the squeal of our tires.

Wally snapped the Agloe map closed, and the dirt road disappeared behind us. Then, without another word, he climbed out of the car.

“What’s wrong?” Daniel demanded as Wally slammed his door shut. But Wally just walked away from him, too, as if he wasn’t there either. As he passed, he was so furious his anger radiated off him in waves, almost physically. Even as confused as they all were, it was impossible not to see how angry he was. Even you, at a safe distance in Eve’s arms, shrunk back from Wally.