by Heidi Heilig
“Better.”
She laughed. “What is better than money?”
“A cure.” I opened the box, and the caladrius tilted its head up toward her face and stared for several heartbeats. I watched the film spread like a caul over the pebble-black eyes. The bird ruffled its feathers, then shot straight up out of the box and toward the sun to burn away the blindness.
I regarded Joss. Her eyes were as wide and clear as a cloudless night sky.
“Ah,” she said, after a very long moment, still staring at the empty box. She blinked twice, and on her wrinkled lips, the hint of a genuine smile. Her eyes roved over my face. “You do look like her. Your cheeks. Your chin. But . . .” The smile faded.
“You do not have her confidence. You are adrift, like your father. You are his daughter more than hers.” She turned away. “Come inside,” she said, leading me into the shop.
I set down the empty crate inside the door. I didn’t mince words. “You know how to Navigate.”
“I traveled in my youth, yes,” she said. Her voice was soft, distracted, as she peered around the shop she must not have seen clearly for years. “Your father is special, but he is not unique.”
“How many others are there?”
“I have only ever met two I recognized as such. Other than myself.” She walked down the length of the store, drawing me behind her like a ship after a tug.
“Who?”
“You know them well.” She ran her hand over the top of a glass jar and grimaced at the dust on her fingertips.
I narrowed my eyes. “Then my father is one . . . but who is the other?” She gave me a disappointed look, but I had already come to the answer. “Me? But that’s . . . how can you know for sure?”
“I told you. I have seen your future.”
I gnawed my thumbnail, unsure whether or not I believed her. “What did you see, exactly?”
“You told me you didn’t want to know.”
I made a face. “I should have known better than to pay in advance.” I reached into my pocket and fished for coins. “If you want your half-dollar—”
“That’s no longer the price.”
“Well, that’s all I’m willing to pay.”
We stared each other down, and to my surprise, she broke first, her eyes sparkling as she laughed. It made her look very young. “I was wrong. You are like her.” She reached out and touched my cheek; her hand was soft and cool. Then she drew back and tottered to her spot behind the counter. “I saw you at the helm of the black ship. You took hope to a barren shore and gave a woman a new life.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s sufficiently vague.”
“It will come to pass by the time the week is out. Afterward, you may regret not asking further into the future.”
“I don’t care who I’ll marry, and I don’t want to know how I die.”
“I don’t see why not. I myself will never marry, and I will die in the Great Fire in 1886.”
Suddenly the room seemed to narrow, and my heart squeezed in my chest. How did she know? “The Chinatown fire?”
“Where else would I be?”
“You can really see the future.”
“Can’t we all? I just have clearer eyes than most. Especially now. A favor to ask,” she said then.
“For a price?” I countered.
Joss laughed again. “Certainly. In exchange I will give you hope.” She slid a cylindrical leather case out from under the counter and put it in my hands, moving confidently now. “I will keep this box,” she said, picking up the crate I’d brought the caladrius in. “As part of your payment to me.”
I opened the case and slid out the map: Chinatown in 1886, in the aftermath of the fire. “Ah.” A thick black line demarcated the outline of the destruction of the blaze, and near the center, someone had inked an X in red. “Where did you get this?”
“From your father, fifteen years ago. He asked me to tell his fortune. This map was his payment.”
“What does the X mark?”
“X marks buried treasure.” She went back to the counter, dragging the box behind her. “A note. An elixir for my condition. Money. A map of 1841. Everything I’ll need for a new life.”
Hope, she’d said, and a barren shore. “You’ll come here in 1886 . . . after the fire you died in?”
“I came here in 1886, which was after the fire I will die in. I was a young woman at the time I arrived, and poisoned besides, but with the payment from Mr. D, I was able to make my way.”
“Poisoned? You—” I put my hand to my temple, trying to piece it all together. “You came here in 1886, dug up this box, and went back to 1841. I give you a new life?”
She only smiled, but the importance of that had come to me. “And you introduced my parents.”
No answer. She took out a sheet of rice paper and a brush, drawing choppy characters in short, quick strokes.
“If you know you’ll die in the fire, why stay here now? If you know your fate, why wait for it?”
She paused then, her expression almost puzzled. “Because it is mine,” she said, as though it was obvious. “Everything must come to an end, Nix. Your father would be happier if he could accept that.” She glanced over the letter she was writing, finding her place. “Besides,” she murmured, “there is always a sacrifice. If I was already there, I never could have come.”
“You can’t come to a map where you already exist?” She didn’t answer my question; rather, she already had. My hand crept up to my necklace. “New York, 1981. That’s why it didn’t work.”
“Didn’t you ever wonder why all the maps he’s collected failed?”
“Of course I did. But he wasn’t here in 1868.”
“No,” she said. “You were.”
I put my palms down on the counter to steady myself. “So this whole plan is pointless? The map Mr. D is selling is a dead ender?”
“As long as he tries to take you with him.” She paused in her brushstrokes. “Of course, as long as you stay with him, you know you are safe,” she said.
“So it’s possible? He could erase my past?”
“That I cannot say,” she said, and her regret nearly seemed real.
“Because you don’t know? Or because there’s nothing else you want in exchange for the information?”
“Because it would only be what I believe, and that is not what matters when you are traveling through the fog. But I do believe that some things are meant to be.” She blotted the letter, then rolled it and tucked it into the leather case. Then she sighed. “Leave it on the shore, don’t forget. I was close to him, you see, because I was his favorite.”
“Whose favorite?”
“Do you still have the numbers I gave you? Remember them well,” she said, ushering me out the door. “Good-bye, Nix. I don’t think I will see you again in the time I have left. Although you may see me.”
I returned to the ship, walking slowly. She had known what I was planning. Of course she did. She’d seen it years ago. She’d even sold me the map.
But she’d given me this one. The map she needed to escape, and a note to tell herself how. The leather case was heavy across my back.
What would happen if I threw it overboard and let it sink to the bottom of the bay?
I took the case in my hands as I reached the dock, the hungry sea rolling at my feet. Something wild inside dared me; I might discover, in an instant, for a moment, what was truly possible.
But I couldn’t do it.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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I was still standing on the dock when the mapmaker arrived.
“Miss Song?”
I gripped the leather case in my hands like a talisman. Blake was carrying a black portfolio under his arm and a box of pens. “If I am to draw you a map,” he said, “you must first promise me that you’ll not become sentimental over it.”
A
smile began to creep unbidden across my lips; I bit them hard to chase it away. “I suppose you’d best come up.”
Hearing our voices, Kashmir looked over the rail and laughed. “Ah, Mr. Hart. If I’d known to expect you, I’d have gotten a lei, though I suppose I could still dredge up a handful of seaweed.”
“I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot, Mr. Firas,” Blake said blandly. “I can see now that your propriety is matched only by your good manners.”
Kashmir grinned as he sauntered off to knock on the captain’s door. Slate met us on the deck, his eyes bleary and flat. “You.”
Blake didn’t flinch under his unrelenting stare, but the captain was studying him as though he was a new species.
“What are you, an amateur cartographer?” Slate said finally.
“Even worse, sir. An amateur artist.”
Slate scoffed, waving a vague hand in my face. “You’re . . . taking care of this?”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Good,” he said, peering at Blake again. “There’s a drafting table in my cabin. But don’t lay a finger on anything else.”
“I assure you, Captain,” Blake said. “My intentions are honorable.”
Slate cocked his head; understanding dawned on his face. “I meant don’t touch my stuff.” He rolled his eyes. “I need some coffee.” Then he strode off toward the hatch without a backward glance.
But Kashmir was watching, his arms folded, standing against the door to the captain’s cabin. As we approached, he smiled thinly. “Don’t they say the road to hell is paved with honorable intentions?”
“That’s good intentions,” I said, making a face.
“Ah, yes. Of course.” He turned the knob and opened the door with a flourish. “But perhaps Mr. Hart can go to hell anyway.” I stepped inside easily, but Kashmir forced Blake to squeeze past him. I put my hand on the door, but he lingered in the doorway.
“Thank you, Kashmir,” I said.
“I can come in to protect you from his intentions if you like.”
“I can handle it.” I shut the door firmly, with him on the other side of it.
The air in the cabin was cool, and Blake’s expression was chillier still. “I think your father does you a disservice, letting him near you.”
I folded my arms. “He’s my best friend.”
“You don’t exactly seem spoiled for choice.” But he held up his hand. “I apologize, Miss Song. I will not further impugn your crewmate.” His eyes moved past mine, to the shelves lining the walls. “You have so many maps,” he said then, moving around the room. He inhabited the space differently than I did; he was tentative, considerate, as though everything was delicate and of great value. He laid his pens and his hat on the drafting table and reached toward the shelves—I took a breath—but his fingertips stopped inches away from a touch. “Where are you going for the money?”
“What?”
“My father said you need a map so you may return, and it would seem you haven’t yet purchased his map, since he is still in debt. You must be sailing to retrieve the payment. Where are you going?”
“New York,” I said; it was the first thing that came to mind. “My father has his accounts there.”
“Such a long journey. Couldn’t he have the funds wired to California?”
I wasn’t about to get mired in more lies; instead, I went on the offensive. “Do you want to tell my father how to manage his finances?”
It worked. “Forgive me,” he said. “It’s just that part of me hadn’t been expecting something so . . . prosaic. I was imagining treasure maps and gold doubloons,” he said, gesturing at the cupboards. Then he sighed. “And when do you sail?”
“As soon as you’re done with the map.”
“Is that so? No wonder my father was so eager. It might be satisfying to delay,” he said, raising one eyebrow. “And not only to spite the league.”
I tried to look stern. “Mr. Hart—”
“I’m eager to spite your tutor.”
I did laugh then, and his smile bloomed. Then he opened the portfolio and removed a wide sheet of vellum; it floated like a petal in his hands. He smoothed it onto the table, his inky fingers in sharp contrast to the pure cream of the page. “Instruct me, Miss Song. What am I to draw for you?”
“Here,” I said, opening one of the cupboards and selecting a map. “Let me show you what we need.” I unrolled the paper. “Here’s the map we used to get here.”
“Ah.” His eyes roamed over the page, and after a moment, he raised his eyes to mine. “Sutfin, 1868? But he’s only been in business since 1877. It’s painted right there on his window.”
“He misdated the map,” I said.
“What an odd thing to do.”
“Indeed.” I sensed his questions coming, like a swelling wave, but there was nothing for it. “Now, we’ll need a current map of Oahu to return.”
“But . . .” Blake scanned the page. “This seems . . . but for the date—”
“Yes, it’s a very good map,” I said. “But we still need a new one. You may use the Sutfin as a template,” I continued hurriedly. “But don’t copy it exactly. Anything you know has changed recently on the island, you should make the change on the page.”
His brow furrowed. “Changes in the harbor? Or on the island itself?”
“Either.”
He laughed. “You can’t be worried about running aground on Princess Pauahi’s mausoleum.”
“If it has changed since Sutfin did his map, please just draw it.”
“What happens if I don’t?”
“If you don’t . . .” I hesitated, but in this case, perhaps the truth could indeed set me free. “If you don’t, we will not be coming back once we go. The map must be accurate, or we cannot return.”
He looked at me sideways and, perhaps seeing my expression, for once he did not ask why. Instead he gave me that half smile. “The mystery deepens, Miss Song.”
His eyes were so inviting that for a moment, everything in me wanted to reveal this part of myself, as though the truth was a butterfly, wings fluttering, green and gold and quivering to be free. I was a closed book, a rolled map, a dark territory, uncharted; I was surprised by my urgency, but after all, to be known was to exist.
A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts. Kashmir didn’t wait for an answer; he breezed into the room juggling a lantern, a pair of buckets, and a piece of flat glass.
“I thought you could use this.” He upended the buckets on the floor, put the lantern between them, and balanced the glass over the whole assembly. “You can backlight the original and mark off the measurements,” he said. “Should make it all go faster, and the faster the better.”
“Thank you,” Blake said. “Did your people invent this too?”
“Get to work, Mr. Hart.” Then he propped the door open and went back outside, leaving a long silence in his wake.
I sighed. “Do you have any more questions about the map?”
Blake didn’t answer immediately; he was tapping one finger absently on the table, and his eyes were far away. “I believe you’ve implied,” he said slowly, “that your payment to the Hawaiian League depends on the accuracy of my work.”
“Have I?” My eyes went to the open door, but he had kept his voice low. “You should strive for . . . integrity,” I said. “But if the map is inaccurate, the captain won’t know until it’s too late.”
Blake worked for days. He spent half his time practicing in his sketchbook, sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, his knees bent like an easel with the book propped upon them. Once his techniques were perfected, he’d turn to the map, hunching over the drafting table with intense focus.
He took pains with the path of each meandering stream, careful with the curves of the scalloped shorelines, and traced the lacy edges of bays and inlets with a slow, steady hand. He wrote the names of each region and city with even block letters. He smudged ink into the valleys and shaded the elevation of the mountains us
ing a technique I would have called pointillism, if I could have remembered whether the term was in wide use yet. Instead, I settled on admiring the details in the work.
“Sutfin should have done better. See here.” He swept his pens and inks to one side of the table and unrolled the old map side by side with his version. “On the older version, you see this structure marked ‘Old Ruin’? It’s the foundation of Kamehameha III’s summer home, Kaniakapupu.” He pointed. “I’ve put that in. And here, where his map shows nothing, there’s actually another ruin of a heiau. And of course the waterfall I showed you, and lots of villages Sutfin missed. I hope it’s not too much?”
“You are an expert. You did all this from memory?”
“Ah, well.” He grinned at me. “When you like something well enough, certain details become . . . unforgettable.”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed, delighted.
“I can start over, if you’d like? Try again? With the map, I mean.”
“The map. Of course. No,” I said. “I love seeing the islands through your eyes.” My gaze fell on his sketchbook on the corner of the table, and I reached for it. “In fact, the maps you—”
His hand darted out under mine to cover the book. I froze; his face had gone serious—no, trepidatious. But after a long moment, he removed his hand and turned back to the map. “Go ahead,” he said, almost brusquely, picking up one of his pens to refill the ink in the reservoir.
I took the sketchbook. Suddenly I was nervous too. But my curiosity overcame my hesitation. I opened the book and found what I’d hoped, what I’d feared. “I thought you’d been practicing drawing the map,” I said softly as I flipped through the pages.
“I never thought I’d find a more compelling subject than the islands,” he said, still pretending to focus on the pen. Then he looked up through his lashes. “I wanted to capture you before you are gone.”
My lips parted, but not to speak. Warmth crept into my stomach like sunlight through deep water, but I turned my head, confused, and immediately regretted it.
It took another half day to place the last flourishes. He added a tiny square to represent Princess Pauahi’s new tomb at Mauna ‘Ala, as well as a detailed, decorative compass rose. He did seem to be dawdling as he worked, taking his time at meals, and breaks for fresh air, though he no longer spent time sketching. Eventually, though, despite the distractions and delays, there was nothing left to add but his name, and the map was complete.