But Nell didn’t want to run. Just the opposite.
She spun back to the scanner, her eyes locked on the map as it glowed under the blue light, as Felix wrestled for control of the gun.
“Don’t you dare!” Wally yelled as he fought. “Don’t touch the map!”
“Get back!” Nell shouted to Felix, and Felix shouted something back to her in the scuffle. “Get as far back as possible!”
“Tam!” Wally cried again. “Nell, stop!”
Felix and Wally struggled—Felix was strong, but Wally was too, and filled with desperate rage—until the gun suddenly went flying. It discharged as it hit the ground and clattered away, a bullet ricocheting off a shelf and then embedding in a bookcase as Nell screamed and ducked.
“Get out of here, now!” Felix yelled to her. A rush of blistering air washed over them as the fire engulfed the roof. “This place is going to burn down!”
“No,” Wally gasped as he struggled to his feet, his expression full of terror. He was in the grip of his memories now, replaying that horrible day as they fought over the same map again, in almost the same way, Nell knew. He lunged for her and the scanner. “No, not again. This can’t happen again, I will not let it happen . . .”
Felix tackled him. “Run!”
“Hold him, Felix! And get back!”
“You can’t destroy the map—you’ll destroy us all! You’ll destroy your mother!” Wally was shrieking, calling to Nell with everything he had as Felix dragged him backward.
“Farther!” Nell shouted over Wally, watching Felix manhandle him away before she turned back to the machine. It took all her strength to stop the arm of the scanner, but she leaned her shoulder into it and braced against its juddering attempts to continue copying her map.
“Nell, what are you doing!” Felix was frantic.
“Don’t!” Wally yelled.
“Do it!” her mother shouted over him. She appeared from the inferno and rushed forward to grab Wally and help Felix drag him back. Wally howled, trying to hold on to Tamara so she couldn’t escape him and also run toward Nell.
Nell gripped her mother’s fountain pen harder in her free hand as she pushed, but she couldn’t let go with her other to uncap it or the scanner would throw her back. She tilted the pen toward her and bit down on the end.
She understood now, what her mother and Wally had long ago figured out. It was why Tamara had stayed behind for decades to produce her masterpiece, and why he was obsessed with uploading it into his Haberson monstrosity and then destroying the physical version, so only his remained.
If a place existed only within a map, then it existed in every copy of that map. And so, if there was only one copy of a map left, if something changed on that sole copy, it would become true in the physical world, because it would also be true on every copy of the map—since there was only one copy.
Nell didn’t have to destroy her mother’s map. There was another way to save them all, and the town, from Wally’s clutches.
She didn’t need to remove Agloe from the map, or the world.
“Farther!” she yelled at Felix and her mother through bared teeth.
She just had to move it somewhere else.
“Don’t!” Wally screamed. “Don’t you dare—”
Nell pulled the tip free and spit out the cap.
XXVII
Everything was quiet.
Slowly, millimeter by millimeter, Felix opened one eye.
The town was gone.
“What?” He lurched to his feet, slipping on the wet grass. Grass, not factory floor—he was in the middle of the empty field again, one foot in a tangle of weeds, the other in a puddle. Above, the sky was overcast and heavy, the thunderstorm abating. In the distance, he could see County Road 206 slithering past, a dark gray ribbon through the green. He spun around, nearly tripping on himself, but it was true.