The Cartographers

by Peng Shepherd

Dr. Young had declared them personae non gratae—even with Swann’s behind-the-scenes attempts to help.

Cartographers don't have to work at libraries or museums. Not sure why they wouldn't have tried to find other jobs using GIS skills. There are a TON.

They could barely feel even the faintest heat of my rage from within the inferno of their guilt.

I can definitely relate to this feeling, being betrayed and having the secret kept from me. I think finding out it was kept secret from me was worse than the betrayal itself.

Grief can raze a face far worse than ten times as many years.

Cartography, at its heart, was about defining one’s place in the world by creating charts and measurements. Nell had lived her life by that idea, that everything could be mapped according to references and thereby understood. But she could see now that she had been paying attention to the wrong references. It was not a map alone that made a place real. It was the people.