At that, the rest of them jumped in over him, interrupting each other. Bear, Romi, and I listened in stunned silence. They told us they’d found a town, but not just any town . . . a hidden place, just a few minutes down the road. So invisible that you could drive or walk by every day for your entire life and never know it was there, accessible only if you had the key.
You can imagine our reactions.
“That,” Romi finally said, “is the biggest load of bull I’ve ever heard.”
It sounded like something out of a children’s fantasy novel.
At first, I thought maybe that was it, that it was a game for you Tam had made up on the drive home from wherever they’d been. Some off-the-cuff legend about a magical kingdom right around the corner that might keep you entertained during the day and give us easy material from which to make up bedtime stories at night. That was certainly how you were taking it—you were clapping your hands as Daniel shifted you from arm to arm, singing about “Mommy’s town”—but the longer Tam talked, pacing the living room so intensely I was afraid she was going to knock something over, it was clear this wasn’t something she’d made up for you. Or us.
My second guess had been that this was supposed to be a preproject brainstorming experiment, to loosen us up and get us into the creative flow. But she, our most ambitious, dedicated cartographer in the group, hadn’t even noticed that we’d gotten started on the Dreamer’s Atlas. I could see the confusion clouding Romi’s and Bear’s expressions as well.
Tam was describing this town like it was a real place. Streetlights, gas stations, restaurants, houses with picket fences and manicured gardens. Not the kind of thing you’d put in a children’s bedtime story, or an intellectual exercise for our project, at all.
“Hurry,” Daniel said, heading for the cars again. “We’re going to drive side by side, with the windows open, so you can see.”
“See what?” Bear asked, already following him as Romi and I ran after.
Tam held something up as Wally, Daniel, and you got into their car, and I struggled to unlock ours. “This,” she grinned.
It was that damned gas station map.
I drove, with Bear and Romi in the back and Francis up front with me—he was riding with us to help with this strange operation, since he knew what was going on—and we eased down the deserted county road as slowly as possible, so we could be tire to tire with Wally.
“I am totally confused,” Bear said.
“Seriously. An imaginary town?” Romi added.
“Just trust me,” Francis said to me, ignoring them as they chattered, with such earnestness in his voice that it made my heart flutter, despite my not wanting it to. “Look there.”
Tam had spread the map across their dashboard, so that Wally could see it as he drove, and I could just barely make it out as well. She put her finger on the road where we were and began tracing slowly, checking to make sure we were both watching.
“Are we talking about that error she found the night before?” I asked, struggling to keep us as close as possible without swiping their car. “Francis, we all just drove up yesterday, and there was nothing—”
“What the hell?” Romi swore, at the same moment that I almost crashed into them.
After we’d all parked on the shoulder, cars mercifully undamaged, we scrambled out to stand beside the others. To stare down the dirt road at an entire town I knew had not been there yesterday.
“How is this possible?” Bear stammered at last.
“Is it safe?” I asked. “Did you take Nell in—”
“It’s safe,” Tam said. “I promise. Wally and I explored it first, before we brought the others.” She bounced you on her hip. “You want to go on another adventure, Nelly?” she cooed.