The Cartographers

by Peng Shepherd

Fra Mauro, it was called. It had been created in 1450 a.d. by a Camaldolese monk of the same name, who had designed it in his small cartography studio in the Monastery of St. Michael, in that glittering, floating city of Venice. Fra Mauro had researched his map by interviewing merchants traveling through the area from afar, which allowed him to depict the known world of the time with far greater accuracy than those cartographers who had come before him.

Even to this day, the Fra Mauro map was considered one of the finest pieces of medieval cartography in existence.

The Fra Mauro map—the real Fra Mauro map—was on permanent exhibit in the city of its creation, in Venice’s Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana.

cheap facsimiles.

Once, she’d been staring at a bright future ahead of her. She’d attended the best schools, successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation, and landed an internship at none other than the awe-inspiring main branch of the New York Public Library, in its prestigious conservation department. She was on her way to someday matching, perhaps even surpassing, the illustrious reputation of her father, one of the NYPL’s most celebrated scholars. People had even started to whisper about “the new Dr. Young” in the halls as she passed. Once, for a brief moment, she had been just a little bit famous in that tiny, overhead-fluorescent-lit,

cluttered world of endless stacks and musty archive drawers.

“Nell, Nell, Nellllll.” Humphrey sighed over her, gesticulating dramatically. “Historical accuracy, due respect to the original work, the code of conservation, a cartographer’s honor. Spare me for once.

Nell sighed, deflated. Humphrey was right, and she hated it. “I get it,” she finally said. “Look, I get it, too,” Humphrey replied, his voice gentler now.

I love the banter between Nell and Humphrey. I think that they have a love-hate relationship and that the relationships mean a lot to both of them.

The library. Nell went to her desk and set the coffees down, then gently picked up her mobile as if it were a small, not quite tame animal. Humphrey was still there, but was staring awkwardly at the pile of junk papers on the desk they used for dumping old mail instead of at her. Trying to give her support and privacy, but in fact just making everything more awkward.

time. I’m sorry to call you like this after so long, but there’s been an emergency. Call me back as soon as you get this.

“Oh my,” she said. “You . . . you’re Dr. Young’s daughter, aren’t you?” “I am,” Nell admitted. “Helen Young. Nell.”

“Your father passed away at his desk early this morning.” What? Nell blinked, not understanding at first. “He’s—he’s dead, Nell.”

Map Division that had secretly kept her heart. The library had been built in 1898, a year that had seemed impossibly long ago when Nell had learned the fact as a child, and contained tens of thousands of books and atlases, and almost half a million sheet maps, in its vast archives.

Every time he’d brought her with him to work in her youth, he’d sat her on its well-worn cushion and promised her in his deep, solemn voice that this office would be hers one day.

She definitely wanted to follow in her dad’s footsteps, and become a great cartographer like he did

Her father thought of himself as an artist, but not in the chaotic, inconsistent way of tormented painters and musicians.

The study and making of maps demanded an organization and precision in line with the most technical of fields: the meticulous record keeping, the endless research, the calculations to ensure absolute accuracy. He had always kept his space so pristine, it sometimes reminded Nell more of a science lab than a museum curator’s office.

ravaged by a tornado.

Dr. Young had always kept his records filed neatly in the cabinet behind his leather chair, but they were open now, their contents dumped around the room. Aside from the corner of his heavy oak desk where the police had stacked their evidence bags, every surface was covered in papers—flying loose, wadded up, torn apart,

“I

won’t be much help,” she mumbled. “Sure you will,” he replied encouragingly. “You’re family.” “I haven’t seen him for seven years.”

Dr. Tamara Jasper-Young.

A whole family of cartographers

Dr. Tamara Jasper-Young had been even more famous than her father in their world, and had done it in such a short time.

“Tragedy Strikes Visiting Scholar Family”

That secretly had become her life’s goal, as soon

as she was old enough to realize how passionate about maps she also was. Other than her mother, who also had been a cartographer, there was nothing Dr. Young loved more than maps, and so Nell had always hoped that if she could only impress him as a cartographer in her own right, that gulf might somehow be bridged, and they might finally, finally be able to open up to each other.

Junk Box Incident,

What is the junk box incident?

early American colonial and post–Revolutionary War maps of the East Coast. We have an extensive collection of Dutch, French, and English naval maps,

“We think it’s unlikely there was foul play,” Lieutenant Cabe continued, apparently mollified. “He wasn’t that young, and other than the mess here, which it sounds like he may have created himself, there’s no suspicious evidence.

“He was very passionate about his work, and that sometimes got him into arguments with other researchers, or even the board.

Tamara Jasper-Young.

“Everything all right?” Swann asked when he turned back around. “As all right as it can be,” she replied.

The rest of the day had been nothing short of torture. Nell

had spent hours answering Lieutenant Cabe’s endless questions and accepting Swann’s comfort, the whole time not daring to open her bag to take out her spare granola bar, or phone, or even her lip balm, lest she draw attention to what was also inside.

Hum...

Humphrey cares about her anf sometimes makes her feel feelings that she doesnt want to feel.

fine. He was from a gigantic one, several generations all crammed together in the same ancient house on Long Island.

controversial. A disputed maritime routes map or an early diagram of Brooklyn, prebridge. Something worthy of a place inside the leather case.

“A gas station highway map?”

Why had he kept it, all this time? She took a long, nervous sip. And especially after what had happened because of it?

So they had fought over The gas station map. I wonder what the significance of this map was And maybe if something to do with her mother

What on earth could one of the NYPL’s most revered scholars be doing with a worthless piece of paper like this?

This was no Vespucci, or Mercator, or Ptolemy mural—it was a little eight-fold on cheap paper that condensed to fit into a glove compartment—but it was still a map, as far removed from those works of art as it was.

General Drafting Corporation. 1930 edition. New York State Road and Highway Map. Carefully, hesitantly, she unfolded it into its full form.

Examining a map to ensure it was authentic before allowing it to be displayed took weeks, if not months. Sometimes, there would be an entire library in and of itself inside a donation box.

An immaculate 1700s Franklin of New York City, a Calisteri of its early docks and harbor, what looked like a Dutch-style Visscher draft of the same—and the very same 1930 gas station highway map of New York State she would find again in her father’s portfolio.

She was stunned to silence. Her father was renowned for his expertise, his abilities incomparable, but still. The speed with which he’d rejected her discovery was shocking.

The elder Dr. Young was well known for his temper when he didn’t get his way with a certain project or his portion of the research budget, but she’d never experienced the full brunt of his anger until that day.

She was disappointed that her father had hidden such an underwhelming map in the portfolio as his last possession, confused as to why he’d kept it all these years despite knowing it was so worthless, and yes, a little upset at his sudden death, even if she was still too angry at him to figure out how to grieve yet. Mostly though, she was just bitter and exhausted.

The interinstitution database was massive. It had been in wide use since the 1980s, back when the internet was still the domain of scientists and academic institutions, and had only grown from there.

Log Identifier: G77089257435

Specimen Name: Esso 1930 Highway Map, New York State Date of production: 1930 Description: Mass produced foldable map depicting major highway routes of New York State by mapping company General Drafting Corporation for distribution at major gas station retailers in the relevant geographic area. Attachments: [COVER.jpg] [COVER2.jpg] [LEGEND] Date of log entry: 24 July 1987 Location: Americana Exhibit, Rochester County Public Library, Rochester, New York, USA. Status: MISSING

“Hope the maps are good wherever you are now, Dad,” Nell finally said.

I think Nell love her father and Didn't want the feud to take away from what they had but unfortunately it did and I think she was bitter because I meant that she no longer could do what she wanted to do which was to be a cartogapher.