At the office of Lucas Law, Alma’s father was at his desk, papers spread out before him.
“Hello, Alma,” he said. “I absolutely want to hear about your day, at dinner. But Gwen, I really need another pair of eyes on these Third Point Farm files. Have a look?”
Alma’s mother went over to his desk, and they started talking in their serious work voices. Alma stood by the table at the front window and unbuttoned her coat.
Alma’s parents specialized in real estate law, and underneath the glass of the table there was a huge map of the town of Four Points. The map had come with the office, and it was very old and brown-edged. Alma imagined it would crinkle if she took it out and held it in her hands. She liked to look at the map. She liked to look at the map instead of doing her homework.
Through the glass, Alma would press one fingertip to Lucas Law in the downtown of Four Points. Then she would travel through the four neighborhoods that made up the town, tracing a path up to the green hills of First Point in the north, then over to the mountain ridges that lined Second Point in the east. South her finger would go, across the beginnings of the wooded Preserve and then into the farmlands that bordered her own neighborhood, Third Point. Finally, she would journey up to Fourth Point, where the Preserve broadened and spread to the far west edge of the map, the greenness broken only by the winding, weaving path of bright blue creeks.
Alma went everywhere on the map with her finger, but so far she had refused to visit any of those places in real life.
“But maybe today,” Alma whispered, “I will.”
Because today, she didn’t want to do her homework—or pretend to. Today, she didn’t want to do the same thing she did every day. Today, with the flyer in her backpack and the just-a-little-bit of Alma-ness sparking inside her—today, for the first time in a long time, Alma wanted to do something new.
“I think,” she said, “that I’m going to take a walk.”
Her parents both looked up.
“A little one,” Alma said. “Around the town. It’s just … such a nice day.”
It wasn’t. It was early March, and it was still freezing outside, windy and cloudy and miserable.
Alma’s parents exchanged glances. Surprised glances, Alma thought. Unsure glances.
Which was understandable. In Old Haven, they hadn’t been able to keep her inside. She had waded through streams and traipsed through fields and scaled trees, collecting rocks and feathers and flowers, lost in her own thoughts. But since the move, Alma had spent her time only at home, school, or office; home, school, or office, months without going to the library or the coffee shop or church or even the enormous backyard that her parents had been sure she would love.
“Well, I guess that would be okeydoke,” her mother finally said. “We have been wanting you to get out there and see the sights.”
“But stick close to the office,” her father said. “And steer clear of that crazy tower.”
“I won’t go there,” Alma promised. “I won’t even look at it. I will be super safe.”
She buttoned her coat back up. Her parents watched her—they watched her a lot ever since the episodes—then bent back over their papers, trying to make it look like they weren’t watching her.
As soon as they did, Alma pulled the flyer out of her backpack and slipped it into her pocket.