That last bit hit her especially hard.
She’d been hoping, she told me, that this tragedy might have cured Wally, somehow, rather than driving him even more deeply into his obsession. That we wouldn’t have to do what she knew we needed to.
I didn’t understand at first. And then when I did, I didn’t want to agree.
But your mother is right.
There’s no easy way to say this, Nell. But the only way to protect all of us from Wally is to make him believe that she’s really gone, because that’s the only way he’ll also believe the town is really gone, too. And the only way we can do that is to keep her here. In Agloe.
As long as she stays, and as long as Wally believes the last copy of the map is really gone, there’s no way he can reach her. She’ll be safe from him—and able to save the town, too.
Because if your mother can manage to completely map Agloe from the inside out, the way she always wanted to as part of the Dreamer’s Atlas, this town—the most incredible, important discovery of our lives and in the history of cartography—can be preserved. Because even if Wally manages to find my copy of the map, there will still be one more. He won’t have total control.
In the meantime, my job will be to search for Wally in the outside world, so we know where he is and what he’s up to. And, even more importantly, to keep the map she hid with you a secret, until it’s safe for us to return to get her.
We know it’s dangerous for me to have it, but it’s the only way. If your mother keeps the map with her, she could leave Agloe whenever she wants, but she’ll never know when it’s safe to do so—Wally could be waiting right outside in the field for her, and she’d have no idea until it was too late.
Our only hope is that she can finish her version of the map, and I can track him before he ever begins to suspect me.
And that’s why, Nell, we have to leave. To pull all this off, Wally has to be convinced that I believe your mother really died in the fire. If you and I stay and live in Rockland to be near her, it’ll be too suspicious. He’ll know we still have the map for certain. I have to appear like I’ve given up hope and moved on with my life, and yours, too. I have to take you away from here, to find a new job for me and a school for you, and raise you on my own. Just the two of us, starting over together. Pretending that Agloe no longer exists.
We know this seems cruel, for your mother to stay here, and for me to hide the truth about it from you. It is cruel. It’s just that there’s no other way. Nothing else will stop Wally.
We talked for hours that first night, asking if and reassuring each other that we were doing the right thing, until it was nearly dawn, and I had to go back before you woke up in the motel. I swore to your mother that I would find a way to return to Agloe at least one more time before I left Rockland for good and would bring you with me. It took until today, when the sheriff closed her case, for Wally to finally give up and disappear—but we know that he won’t stay away forever. He won’t be able to let go. And so, we have to set everything in motion tonight. Too soon to say goodbye, but anytime would have been too soon. It was always going to be impossible.
But your mother was always impossible to say no to, too. God help me if you turn out to have even half of her stubbornness, half of her drive and brilliance. I already have no idea how I’m going to raise you by myself, terrified I’m going to do a horrible job, but your mother is convinced we’ll make it. I promised her that I would do anything in the world to protect you, no matter the cost.
And I will, Nell. I promise you that, too.
No matter what happens, whether in the end I tell you all of this or you read it, I promise that part, at least, will always be true.
It’s time, Nell.
You are so beautiful, as I look at you in your father’s arms. So perfect. I can hardly finish this letter because it means I have to turn away from you to do it.