I wasn’t there when your mother died, Nell.
I should have been, but I was still too furious at Francis and Eve for what they’d done. A whole town was not big enough to hold the three of us—there was no way I ever would have agreed to be inside it at the same time as they were. But if only I’d known what was about to happen. Maybe I could have done something. Maybe I could have stopped it.
But maybe I couldn’t have.
After all, I was the one who helped set it all in motion. I was the one who stole the map for Bear.
That horrible day, I had spent the entire morning at the motel, lying on the bed staring at the ceiling, seething with anger at how I’d been wronged. But as justified as my brooding felt, by the afternoon, even I was bored with it.
My room didn’t have cable for the TV or even a stack of magazines. I’d packed my clothes before fleeing the house, but I’d been in such a rush, I hadn’t taken anything of mine from downstairs. And while I’d collected my research from Agloe with Tam, Daniel, and Bear, I wanted nothing to do with it. What I really wanted were the little things, still scattered around our living room. The novel I’d brought to read, my Walkman, my sketchpad.
It was getting close to dinner, but I knew how late the group always stayed in Agloe. Only Bear would be at the house, since he’d pretended to be sick. I wouldn’t have to see Francis, Eve, or Wally at all. If there was ever a good time to go, it was then.
And, I’m ashamed to admit, I was curious if Bear had managed to sell the map. I wanted to know I’d succeeded in stealing something from Wally, the way he’d stolen the truth from me. I wanted Bear to tell me how the deal had gone.
It was five miles, but I’d already done the walk once, the day I’d found evidence of all of Wally’s robberies at the Rockland Library. I could do it again. The sun was low enough in the sky that it wasn’t too hot, and I liked listening to the crickets in the grass along the side of the road. I could always ask Bear to plug in the disconnected phone to call a taxi back to the motel. He could just unplug it again right after.
But when I got to the house, Bear wasn’t there. And neither was either car.
I still had my key, so I let myself in. “Bear?” I called hesitantly. Had he gone somewhere else with the buyer? I wondered.
It took me half an hour to find the rest of my stuff, as well as our old maps—the ones we’d originally intended to use for the Dreamer’s Atlas. Daniel had done most of the tracking down, especially for the maps in the fantasy novels, but some of the historical ones—a Franklin, a Calisteri, and a Dutch Visscher of New York—had been loaned to us for the project in my name. I didn’t want to leave my reputation in the others’ hands, if they were late returning them.
I stood at the door with the bundle in my arms, stalling. I was torn between waiting to see if Bear might come back so I could talk to him and leaving before the others returned.
I finally decided to write Bear a note and make my escape. But as I tore paper off the pad on the refrigerator, I heard a set of tires on the driveway. And then another.
Both cars were home.
“Shit,” I cursed.
It was too late to escape unseen, but perhaps if I rushed out the door and kept going, I could get past them all before they’d gotten out of their seats. If I walked far enough down the road, they’d have to leave me alone eventually.
But when I got outside, my resolve crumbled into confusion.
“Wally?” I gasped.
They were all slowly climbing from the cars, but he was the one I saw first.
And there was something very wrong with him.
There was something wrong with all of them.
I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. They were all dirty, their clothes covered in something dark, and moving like zombies. Even though their eyes were glazed with shock, I could see the streaks down their faces through the grime. They had been crying—all of them—it looked as though they’d been crying for a hundred years, until they were no more than husks of themselves.