I watched Francis nervously as he looked at it. Did he remember now? Did he know? But he seemed mostly proud he’d found an actual object in Agloe—whereas almost every other building and house was unfurnished. Not confused, not guilty. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Do you think General Drafting’s founder and his assistant brought it?” he asked. “That’s why it’s here, when so little else is?”
“Maybe,” I allowed. It was an offset press, with a rubber roller to transfer images—ancient technology by today’s standards, but right for its time.
Later, the more we explored, we found small hints that there had been other groups there before us, in addition to the two men who had mysteriously or accidentally created this place. An old empty rucksack with a tag from the 1960s, a broken doorknob in one of the cafés. Probably tourists, or teenagers, who had once owned a copy of this same map back when they were in print, and wandered in and became trapped, not understanding what was happening.
Or perhaps they did understand—but they turned on each other before they could reveal this secret to the world.
It seemed to have gone that way for Otto G. Lindberg and Ernest Alpers, after all. And would slowly happen to us, too.
But that printing press was the very first sign we found that anyone else had been here ever before—and also the most important one, by far.
Francis crossed his arms. “What do you think they were planning to do with it?”
I could imagine a couple of possibilities, all of them tantalizing. Were they hoping to print more copies of their Agloe map? Or experiment with adding more secrets to other maps? But I didn’t say any of them.
“I don’t know, but we should go. We have a lot of neighborhood still to cover,” I replied instead. Even if Francis didn’t remember what had happened, I still wanted us out of there. We could tell the others about it, and come back later all together, when it would be safer to spend more time there. When Francis and I wouldn’t be alone.
“Yeah,” he agreed, but he was still examining the machine. “Too bad there isn’t paper,” he sighed.
“Why do you want paper?” I asked.
“Because then we could have a speakeasy here, in Agloe,” he joked. “One Daily News, hot off the presses!” He cried out the undercover drink name like the bartender-disguised-as-a-draftsman had, pulling a lever. His impression was so spot on, we both burst out laughing. I don’t know why it was so funny, but we couldn’t stop.
“I can’t believe I almost—” I started to say as I wiped my eyes, and then choked the sentence off, horrified.
Francis and I stared at each other, both of us frozen in the silence.
“Kissed me?” he asked.
He did remember.
“No,” I said. I took a step back. “Let’s forget it. Let’s just go.”
He was looking down now, at his hands. They clenched nervously, his fingers twisted into knots.
“I don’t understand,” he finally said, so softly. The openness of it stopped me cold. “Nothing happened, but I feel so bad about it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Nothing’s wrong with you,” I said, coming back over to him. He looked so upset, like he might start ripping his hair out, or burst into sobs. I just wanted to stop him from spiraling. The shame wasn’t his, but mine. I wanted to take it from him. “You had nothing to do with it—it was my fault. I was so drunk. We all were so drunk. It didn’t mean anything.”
“Then why can’t I stop thinking about it?” he asked. “Why can’t I stop thinking about you?”
We were standing too close, I realized. Much too close. He was so near I could feel the warmth of his breath on my forehead. See the flecks of amber in his dark brown eyes.