The Mapmaker and the Ghost(7)

The house was small, but looked well kept and cozy. There was a very bright rose garden in the front. Only by walking closer to it did Goldenrod notice the very small old woman who was on her knees, tending to the roses.

The old woman looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps. “Well, hello,” she said.

For a moment, Goldenrod was a little startled by how ugly the old woman was. If this were a fairy tale, she thought, this woman might be a witch or a sorceress. But here, in real life, she was merely exceedingly ugly. She had extremely thin hair that was so white it was almost perfectly clear, showing the freckled and dry scalp underneath. Her nose was very large and accented with an enormous bump that grew out of the middle of it, like a volcano. By contrast, her eyes were very small and close together, so small that it was hard to tell what color they were at all. She had a pair of white bushy eyebrows. Her ears were rather large and protruding. Her teeth were very crooked.

It took Goldenrod a second to realize that she was gawking rudely. “Hello,” she finally said, a little embarrassed.

“Are you lost?” the old lady asked.

Goldenrod shook her head. “No. Not at all.”

“That’s good. It’s important to know where you are.”

Goldenrod nodded. She was so excited, she didn’t quite know where to start. Should she ask the old lady why her house wasn’t on a street? Should she just sit and draw everything as quickly as she could?

Before she had enough time to come to a decision, the old lady’s sharp eyes had noticed the sketchbook that was tucked beneath Goldenrod’s arm.

“Are you planning on drawing something?” she asked.

“Well…,” Goldenrod began and then paused. She still hadn’t told anyone about the map, not even in her phone call the night before to Charla, because she wanted the final product to be a big surprise. She had considered telling Birch, but then she was sure he would want to help—and even though having an assistant to aid with the measurements would be a huge time-saver, babysitting a little brother was definitely the opposite of an adventure; Meriwether Lewis certainly hadn’t brought his along.

But there was something about the old woman, some funny way in which she stood stooped there, waiting with bated breath to see what Goldenrod would say, that made Goldenrod want to trust her. “I’m making a map, actually.”

“A map?” the woman asked.

“Yup. It’s going to be the most accurate map of Pilmilton in the world. Every house. Every tree. Every shrub. Everything.”

“Wonderful!” the woman exclaimed. “What a splendid idea.”

“Thanks.” Goldenrod smiled.

“What are you going to do first?”

“Well … I think I’ll get a rough sketch of your house and this area.”

“And what will you do after that?”

“Take a few measurements. Make sure everything is drawn to scale,” Goldenrod said.

“And after?”

“Then I’ll have to go into the woods. That’ll be the hardest part, I think, what with all the trees …”

“I was hoping you’d say that! Are you really going into the woods?” the woman asked.

Goldenrod nodded.

“Is there any way you could do me a tiny favor?”

“What is it?” Goldenrod held her sketchbook limply at her side, all but forgotten at this point.

“Well, at the very center of the woods, there is a certain bush, a rosebush. And it blooms very, very rarely: for three days only, once every fifty years. It blooms with the most magnificent rose you’ve ever seen. It’s a bright, bright shade of blue and smells just like a summer night.”

“What does a summer night smell like?”

“I can’t explain it, but if you smell this rose, you’ll know immediately what I mean. Anyway, I’m sure this bush is pretty rare. I’ve seen a lot of roses, and I’ve never seen anything like it.” The old lady glanced knowingly at Goldenrod and her own admittedly spectacular rose garden before continuing. “I have calculated that this bush is set to bloom Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week. And then that will be the last time it will bloom for half a century. I had planned to go in myself, you see, but, well …” The woman sighed deeply.

“What?” Goldenrod asked a little breathlessly.

“Well. You may have noticed, I’m pretty old.”

Goldenrod didn’t know what to say. Would it be rude to agree with her or rude not to? In the end, she decided to side with the truth and nodded. The old woman laughed, flashing her hideous teeth.

“With my arthritis, I think it’ll take me about a week just to make it to the center of the woods. And if I’m gone for a week, believe me, my son will have the whole town out looking for me. Then I’ll be the crazy old lady on the news who dodged a search party and claimed I was only trying to pluck a rose.”

Goldenrod hesitated for a moment. “Why don’t you just take a cell phone in there with you?”

“Smart girl! Unfortunately, can’t get any reception in the woods. See how dense those trees are?” She pointed to them.

Uh-oh, Goldenrod thought. No reception? Well, she couldn’t see any reason why her mother would have to know about that.

“Can’t you just tell your son where you’re going and then he won’t worry?”