We let him carry on. He was always our fail-safe, for every project. We believed that whatever angle he was working, it would be important to the Dreamer’s Atlas.
But as for Eve and me, we put a stop to things after Bear found Daniel’s letter. The shame of our affair was already hollowing us out—every errant glance was a cut, every accidental touch a knife to the gut—and being surprised by Daniel’s betrayal woke us up. We finally realized the monstrousness of what we were doing, and the pain we were going to cause everyone if they found out. Especially Romi.
In a way, it was a relief. We wanted each other as much as we wanted it to be over. To no longer want each other. To be free. We’d been searching for a reason, and Daniel’s mistake seemed perfect.
To make it easier, I offered to take even more errand duties. In addition to Daniel’s turns for grocery runs, I also adopted Eve’s, which meant we could spend more time apart. She’d continue surveying, and I’d spend more time away from Agloe, being responsible for three people’s worth of chores in Rockland.
I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. At first, every minute I spent outside Agloe when the others were there was so nerve-racking, I could hardly breathe. I was panicked at what I might miss. But each time, it became a little easier. Maybe I started to see just how consumed we were by that place. How isolated and secretive we’d become. The clerks at the grocery store started to greet me by name, and I didn’t realize how nice it was to talk about something other than that cursed map until I was already doing it.
But Agloe wouldn’t let me go that easily.
One Tuesday when I walked into the Rockland Grocer, a list of snacks and booze dangling from my grip, I heard someone calling me from behind the registers.
“Nice to see you, Rose,” I replied. “Been busy?”
“You wouldn’t believe,” Rose said. “Happens every summer. I’ve been trying to catch that friend of yours all week. The one always with the camera.”
“Wally?” I asked, surprised.
“He’s got some mail but hasn’t been in to pick it up. You’re all still in that same house, aren’t you? Could you take it to him?”
“Sure,” I said, following her over to the back corner. Even though there was a proper post office in Rockland, many of the locals kept mailboxes at the grocer, because it was so convenient. “I didn’t know he had a box here.”
Rose nodded. “Stopped by and opened it the first week you all came to town. Normally he’s in almost every day to check, but I must have missed him the past couple days, and I’m taking a trip to see my sister and her kid over in Scranton.”
“That’ll be nice,” I said.
Rose sighed. “Normally would be, but I’m going because they need help around the house. There was an incident at the high school where her husband cleans. Someone broke in at night, and he fell wrong and fractured his leg trying to stop the guy.”
“How horrible!” I replied. “Was it a student prank gone wrong?”
“They’re saying it might have been a robbery, actually,” Rose said, shaking her head.
“A robbery? At a high school? I can’t imagine what they’d want to take.”
“Me either,” she replied. “But they heard from the principal that the geography section in the library had been pawed through.”
I couldn’t shake the prickling sensation creeping up the back of my neck.
“The geography section?” I repeated.
“I know, so strange. But thank goodness Jeremy’s all right, and that I can get the time off to go over there for a little bit.”
“Yes, thank goodness,” I echoed, but my mind was far away. I was thinking back to a few weeks ago, when Eve had noticed that strange story on television, about the burglary at the Sullivan County Government Center.