The Cartographers

by Peng Shepherd

“Francis is a Cartographer?” Eve nodded. “So am I,” she said. “The Cartographers were us. All seven of us.”

“Like a little club. Your mother made it up.” “My mother?”

“But the Cartographers . . .” She hesitated. “Broke into the NYPL?” Eve finished for her. Nell looked up to see the older woman staring evenly at her. “And attacked your father?” “How do you know that?” she asked. “Because it’s true,” Eve said. “Or rather, partially true.”

“It was dangerous, that thing. Cursed. Everyone who touched it got hurt.” Her eyes drifted back to the compass rose symbol. “And it’s still not over.”

The morning after the party, Wally was the only one not hungover, of course, so it was decided that he would drive the first car, with Tam, Daniel, and me. Francis, when he woke up, would drive the second, with Bear and Romi.

Our best hope of finishing our Dreamer’s Atlas is to get away from the university, where there will be no distractions.

So, when faced with the possibility of nearly all of us leaving for an entire summer, he became almost hysterical. He cooked up a plan to start on our project in earnest, right after graduation, rather than waiting until fall. He brought up the idea of running off to this remote house to work until we’d emerged victorious, like the scholar cartographers of old used to do. Taken with how romantic the idea seemed, and how excited we were for the Dreamer’s Atlas, it didn’t take much convincing. It would be like an academic retreat, free of distractions and excuses. He’d told us it was a normal-sized place for the area, but if that was true, every house in the area was an absolute mansion.

But I ignored it. We were all exhausted from the drive and eager to get back to the house. Too excited by what lay ahead. I should have paid more attention.

Nell realized that if what Eve had said was true, then she’d been wrong about the gas station map. It didn’t belong to the NYPL—it had only been hidden there.

belonged to her father. Because her mother and Wally had found it, decades ago.

“No, it was an accident. A terrible, terrible accident. She died saving you.”

“You can’t,” Eve answered. “After your mother died, he disappeared. None of us heard from him again. No one knows where he is.”

“What’s so special about this Sanborn map, then?” she asked. “It’s rare,” Eve allowed. “A seventh edition.” “Why is the seventh edition so rare?” she asked. “Your father wouldn’t want—” “I know, I know,” Nell replied, frustrated. It had been the same with Ramona.

“Tell me, and I’ll drop it,”

“Prove it,” she said at last. “Give the Sanborn map back to me.”

“Because it was discovered to be inaccurate,” she finally replied. “Remember, these maps were used by insurance underwriters to determine the risk of damage or complete destruction of a given building due to accidental fire or flood, in order to charge the landlords the right premium. Precision was of the utmost importance. Once the inaccuracy was discovered here, the eighth edition was rushed out, and most of the seventh editions were probably trashed, to prevent confusion.”

“Once the general public had largely become educated, and mapmaking was no longer an arcane art, but a rather commonplace business.

“There are laws protecting intellectual property against that kind of fraud,”

any of the cartographers in her era. “Kind

of a paradox.”

In small-scale maps, which depict buildings and floor plans, we tend to refer to these phantom settlements, these secrets, as just that: trap rooms.”

Ancient maps had always held more prestige and wonder for her, but she had to admit that there was still some magic in modern maps, too.

The secret.

There was a false room in the Map Division. It was tiny and unobtrusive, no bigger than a closet. She hadn’t noticed before, when trying to take in the entire city block the map covered as a whole and not knowing what to look for, but it was clear now.

Why would her father want a map of the building where he worked, where he was murdered, with an intentional error on it in the very same office? She didn’t know yet—but then an idea came to her.

Was this the connection between the two maps? Everything else was similar about them. They were both old, both out of print, and very rare, despite their seeming lack of value.

“Swann!” she said when he finally came on the line. “I may have figured it out!” “Figured what out?” Swann asked, surprised. The taxi set off toward Chinatown as Nell

“The Cartographers,” she said. “It’s not an old story after all. They’re real collectors—but you won’t believe who founded the group.”