The Mapmaker and the Ghost(50)

“More like the past two hundred years, I’d say,” Meriwether said with a smile as he nodded at Goldenrod’s letter. “Will they be crediting you with the discovery?”

“Well, yes…,” Goldenrod said.

“Good,” Meriwether replied.

“Meriwether,” Goldenrod started sheepishly, “I also wanted to say I’m sorry for getting mad about the twin roses.”

“Oh, no need. No need,” Meriwether said cheerfully. “I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a time or two Billy Clark and I had a little tiff, eh?”

Goldenrod smiled. “But, anyway. I am sorry.”

Meriwether tilted his head, his transparent eyes beaming. “I think I always had an inkling that you would be the one to finally beat the obstacles. Well done, Goldenrod.”

“Obstacles? You mean Spitbubble?”

Meriwether nodded.

“But … he hasn’t been here for two hundred years, has he?” Goldenrod asked with widened eyes.

Meriwether chuckled. “Oh no. Of course not. He and his band are just a bunch of regular kids … well, a bit more diabolical than most, perhaps. But anyone sent on the quest would have had their own set of obstacles to overcome. You have been the only one to fully succeed, obviously.”

As Meriwether talked, Goldenrod noticed that he was growing fainter still. His maroon overcoat seemed a creamy pink color now, and there were parts of it that almost blended into the sunlight completely.

Goldenrod frowned slightly. “So what happens to you now?”

“I’m free to go.”

“Go where?”

“On,” Meriwether said simply.

“But will you be …”

“Don’t worry about me, Goldenrod,” Meriwether said gently. “I’m an explorer. On to new places and new adventures. And so are you, my girl. So are you.” The ghost gave her one more fond look and then was suddenly tree and twine and dappled sunlight. He was gone.

Goldenrod stared at the place where he had been. She would probably never see him again, she thought sadly.

Then again, if she had learned anything this summer, it was to never concede to the impossibility of anything and that things like limping ghosts, fantastic flowers, groups of children hiding out in the forest, and fascinatingly odd old ladies were all out there, just waiting to be discovered.

As she turned around to leave the clearing, her heart swelled at that thought and then again when she remembered Meriwether’s last words: that she was every bit an explorer too.



Birch held the measuring tape against one oak tree while Toe Jam took the other end and pulled it to another oak.

“Four feet two and a half inches,” Toe Jam read off as Birch jotted the number down in his almost-full notebook. Toe Jam let go of the tape, and it went zooming back to Birch’s hand.

When Birch looked up, he saw Goldenrod making her way over to them. She had been gone for the past twenty minutes, claiming that she needed to use the bathroom in the old lady’s cottage. However, that was most definitely not the direction she was coming from now.

Birch frowned. If there was something else going on in this forest that wasn’t what it seemed, he would very much like to know about it in advance this time.

“Where were you?” he asked Goldenrod.

“Oh, I took a detour. For a second, I thought maybe we had forgotten a part in that little clearing back there.” She pointed behind her.

Birch flipped through the notebook quickly. “We definitely haven’t,” he said after he had made sure.

When he looked back up at Goldenrod, she was smiling at him. “Yeah, you’re right. You know, you do make a really good Clark.”

Toe Jam’s head snapped up. “You mean William Clark?”

“The very same,” Goldenrod said.

“He was an explorer. I’m related to his partner, you know,” Toe Jam explained, rather needlessly, to Birch. By this point, Birch had gotten the whole story of what Toe Jam’s family crest meant, how Goldenrod had been inspired to take on this whole mapping business in the first place, and even the slightly creepy notion that a ghost had been haunting this very forest. “Meriwether Lewis was my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-uncle,” Toe Jam continued. Birch had observed that for all his love of everything disorderly and dirty, Toe Jam still had a touch of his parents’ pomposity in him.

Goldenrod rolled her eyes a little as she walked over to check Birch’s notebook.

“I think we’re done here,” Birch said.

Goldenrod nodded. “I can hardly believe we’ve mapped this entire forest and documented every single plant or creature we’ve come across,” she said proudly, “and all in two weeks! This would have taken me at least a month alone. I definitely couldn’t have done it without you, Clark.”

Birch beamed.

Goldenrod then turned to Toe Jam. “Or you, Sacagawea. Really, you definitely helped out by knowing the forest so well. I’m glad your grandma lifted the ban.”

Toe Jam shrugged, but Birch thought he could see a smile as he looked at the ground.

“This is even better than what I had before,” Goldenrod said. Birch was glad to hear it. Originally, Goldenrod had considered going back into the forest to try and recover her green backpack, but then Toe Jam found out from the others that Spitbubble had destroyed it. Birch hadn’t enjoyed seeing his sister’s crestfallen face when she’d gotten that bit of news.