The Cartographers

by Peng Shepherd

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.

Maps were love letters written to times and places their makers had explored.