We had hardly established the fact of each other’s company when a group of dancers surrounded us and demanded we dance with them. You could not be in the common and fail to dance. That was the unspoken rule. The group grabbed us and forced us to spin, to dance, while their bells made a cacophonous racket. For an instant, just an instant, I felt the joy in my heart join with a thousand bells throughout the square. It made me dance harder, and I moved to Jack and put my arms around him, held him, told him I loved him in every part of my soul. He told me he loved me, too. He put his arms around me and kissed me. We danced apart from the world, our foreheads together, our breaths mingled, our bodies finding the charge from each to each. He told me that the people in Batak believed the souls of the dead could live in trees, and if that were true, he promised to live in the Esche, where I could find him when I needed him. He said he would be in Paris always, our Paris. We continued to dance, bracing ourselves against the fate that had offered us so much and removed it so easily, and we killed winter at last. We danced until I could not breathe, until whatever I was had somehow entered the alpine air, had pushed away the cold in my heart and kept my eyes on the mountains where spring waited, where hope started again each season.
About the Author
J. P. Monninger is an award-winning writer in New England and professor of English at Plymouth State University. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Part Two
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE MAP THAT LEADS TO YOU. Copyright © 2017 by Temple Hill, LLC. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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Map © Archive Photos/Getty Images
Cover design by Michael Storrings
Cover photographs: couple © Jim Franco/Getty Images; map © Archives Photos/Getty Images
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-06076-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-15316-6 (international, sold outside the U.S., subject to rights availability)
ISBN 978-1-4668-6656-0 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466866560
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First U.S. Edition: June 2017
First International Edition: June 2017
The Map That Leads to You Page 30