6

A Trail of Feathers

1891, June 15 to 21

The lenient laws of New Occident have long allowed foreigners to enjoy the benefits of residency without requiring their formal application for citizenship. Only foreigners wishing to vote, run for office, or form a corporation have been required to apply. As of July 4, these laws will change. Full naturalization will be necessary for all foreigners. If you are a foreigner and you wish to work or reside in New Occident, you must apply through the attached form for documentation and a foreigner’s lifewatch. All those without documentation and watches will be deported on July 4.

—From Application for Citizenship Pursuant to the Patriot Plan

FOR THE REMAINDER of the day Sophia studied the maps of Boston in February 1831, and Shadrack taught her the intricacies of the four map forms. She learned how to use different quills in order to see more or less detail; she learned how to close in on a particular minute or second; and she began to grow more accustomed to the flood of memories that weren’t hers.

The glass map still made her uneasy; remembering people she had never met left her feeling disoriented, as if she had woken up in someone else’s skin. But she began to find ways of distinguishing between her memories and those she experienced while map-reading: the memories from the maps were far clearer and more vivid than her own. At least one aspect came so naturally that she had nothing to learn: the fact that days, minutes, and hours unfolded at different paces; the sense that time could be short or long, depending on how one chose to read. More than anything, Sophia loved this quality of the memory maps. Though they revealed unknown places, their manner of compressing and expanding time made her feel entirely at home.

In the days that followed, Shadrack began his ambitious plan to teach Sophia about the cartology of the other Ages. She learned that these maps needed particular care; they had to be cleaned and stored carefully to ensure their safety. Mapmaking, Shadrack explained, was a science and an art practiced in every Age, all over the world. The dynamic memory maps had probably been invented in either the Baldlands or the Middle Roads. No one knew for certain, but he believed their invention would only have been possible in one of those regions where the various Ages had been so jumbled that past, present, and future were interwoven.

Shadrack had learned to make memory maps at the academy in Nochtland. The mapmaker’s guild was powerful there. The production and circulation of maps was carefully regulated; every Nochtland-created map had to bear the insignia that guaranteed its truthfulness—the tiny mountain range atop a ruler.

His collection of memory maps opened Sophia’s eyes even further to the wonders of cartology beyond New Occident. She saw parts of the world she had never imagined she would see. The maps varied in scale: some recalled only a few rooms, others an entire city; some contained memories from only a minute or an hour; others held the memories of a whole year. One map captured twenty-four hours in the Alhambra, in Granada. Another showed the passage of a year in the capitol of the Russias. And another recalled the crucial four months of rebellion that led to the creation of New Akan. It occurred to Sophia, as she studied the maps, that space and skill were the only constraints. On the third day of her studies she turned to Shadrack. “Shadrack, do you think there could be a memory map of the entire world?”

His face had an odd expression. “It would be unimaginably difficult to make such a map,” he finally said. “Though there are stories of something called the carta mayor, a hidden map that traces the memories of the whole world from the beginning of time to the present.”

“That would be incredible.”

For a moment, Shadrack’s face tensed. “Explorers have spent entire lifetimes pursuing the carta mayor. Some have lost themselves searching.”

“So it exists?”

“It almost certainly does not exist,” he said quickly. “I have always argued that it is a Nihilismian myth—one that serves their purposes well but has no basis in fact.”

“How is it Nihilismian?” Though there was a large following of Nihilismians in Boston, Sophia knew little about them beyond what she had learned in school.

Nihilismianism was one of the many religious sects that had sprouted in the wake of the Great Disruption. Many people still followed the old religions of the West, but a growing number believed in the Fates, whose temples depicted over the entryway the three goddesses, each holding the globe on a string. Others practiced Occidental Numism, or Onism, which held that all material and immaterial things were a form of currency to be bought and sold, exchanged and bartered with the higher powers. Sophia had seen an Onist’s account book once, when Dorothy—always more intrepid—had stolen a look at the private Book of Deeds and Debts that one of their teachers kept on his desk. It was filled with precise and, to Sophia, terrible calculations. One in particular often occurred to her when her mind wandered: “Twenty-one minutes of daydreaming about last year’s trip to the seaside with A, to be paid for with twenty-one minutes of housework.” It was said that the Onist lifestyle was wonderfully productive, but Sophia found the prospect dreadful.

And there were Nihilismians who believed that the true world had been derailed by the Great Disruption and replaced by a false one. It was unsettling to think that a world no longer in existence was thought by some to be more real than their own.

“The Nihilismians are sure that the carta mayor would show the true course of the world—not this one,” Shadrack said now. “But I fail to see how such a thing is even possible.”

Sophia squinted pensively, considering.

“It is a dangerous myth to believe in,” he concluded, with an air of finality.

Every so often during her studies, Sophia would wander over to the wall map, where the blue and green pins marked the voyage her parents never took and the places where they’d appeared. Shadrack told her everything he could. An explorer from Vermont believed he had traded food with them somewhere deep in the Prehistoric Snows. An explorer from Philadelphia had spoken to a street vendor in the Papal States who had sold salt to a pair of young adventurers in Western clothing. A cartologer from the university had spoken to a sailor who might have boarded a ship with them in the United Indies. All of the encounters were brief and vague and inconclusive. Shadrack had noted every one.

Sophia felt a terrible impatience when she contemplated the eventual purpose of her studies. Part of her wanted to leave at once, tracing the path of the green pins wherever they led. She had to remind herself that gaining the right store of knowledge for the journey posed a more significant and important challenge than any she might face later. Every moment of learning was essential. “Step by step,” Shadrack encouraged her, gesturing towards the wall map. “We have little enough time as it is, Soph. In truth, I wish we could work more slowly.”

While Sophia learned to work with the maps, Shadrack shuttled back and forth between the map room and his ground-floor study. He had managed to secure forged papers and a lifewatch for Mrs. Clay, but this task had been only the first of many. Desperate friends from every corner of New Occident began arriving at 34 East Ending Street with requests for maps and route-guides to other Ages. Explorers were leaving the states in droves, panicked by parliament’s decision. Shadrack barely had time to answer Sophia’s questions.

For her part, she became so engrossed in her studies that she hardly noticed how many days had passed, let alone hours and minutes. Her fascination with map-reading was genuine and all-absorbing; moreover, there were no competing distractions. Yes, it was summer, a time when ordinary schoolchildren spent all day swimming and wasting time and wandering with friends. But with Dorothy gone to New York, there was no one to knock on the door and drag her out into the sunshine.

At the end of the week, Shadrack descended into the map room after a long meeting with an explorer who was leaving for the Russias, and he looked with some concern at his niece, hunched over the leather-topped table. With her dark blonde hair messier than usual, her face pale from lack of sleep, and her light summer clothes uncharacteristically rumpled, she looked more like an overworked office clerk than a child.

Sophia was entirely unaware of Shadrack’s scrutiny; she was wrestling with a puzzle that she’d stumbled across while comparing two maps. From the shape and configuration of the islands rendered up them, she could tell that the maps depicted the exact same location. But one was labeled United Indies and the other Terra Incognita, and they seemed to show two different Ages.

The former held the sound of bells at midday in a quiet stone courtyard; a pair of nuns walked past Sophia in the memory, talking quietly to one another, and the smell of the sea was in the air. The latter showed a cold, stony landscape with no signs of life. The only clue to their difference lay in the fact that the Terra Incognita map had been made more recently: ten years after the United Indies map.

How is this possible? Sophia wondered. How could the place have changed so much so soon? She was studying Terra Incognita, scouring the map for signs of what had happened to so alter it, when Shadrack’s voice yanked her out of the memory.

“Sophia!”

“Yes?” She looked up, startled.

“You’re getting pale from living in this basement. I know we have a lot to do, but you mustn’t entomb yourself here. Your limbs will turn to jelly.”

“I don’t care,” Sophia said absently. “Shadrack, did anything happen recently at the eastern edge of the United Indies? I can’t figure this out. These two maps show the same place, but one of them shows a convent and the one from ten years after shows . . . well, nothing.”

“I determined that the map was mislabeled,” Shadrack said peremptorily. “We can look at it later; right now, you need to escape this room for a little while. It will clear your head.”

“I don’t think it’s mislabeled. It’s the same spot, but different. And it occurred to me—do you still have the letter Casavetti sent? I think—”

“Sophia!” Shadrack walked over and pulled back her chair. “Your enthusiasm does you credit. But it will not serve our purposes if you can’t carry a heavy pack or walk ten paces without collapsing. We’ll make a deal. Six days of being an indoor cartologer and one day of being an outdoor explorer.”

Sophia grumbled. “It’s too hot outside anyway.”

“How would you know? You haven’t even been outside! I’ll tell you what. I have hardly left the house myself, what with all the incoming traffic. When we do leave on our voyage, we’ll be utterly unprepared. Let me give you a list so you can begin gathering our supplies.”

The prospect of buying supplies made the journey seem suddenly quite real; her pulse quickened. “That’s a good idea.”

Shadrack chuckled. “I’m glad you approve. All right, I think your best bet will be Harding’s Supply out on the wharf. You were near there the other day.”

“I know where it is.”

“So I have an old pack that will do fine, but you need one. Don’t get one that’s too big—have them size it for you before you buy it. The other thing we need is a hard roll-tube for paper maps. Mine have all fallen apart, I haven’t used them in so long. Get two. And look for a weather-proof case for your lifewatch.” He thought for a moment. “That’s enough for now. Put it on my credit at the store; I have an account. Sound good?”

“Pack, roll-tubes, watch-case,” Sophia repeated. “Sounds good.” She climbed the steps to the study, noticing as she walked through the house that the rooms had grown messier and messier during the days she had spent in the map room. Mrs. Clay did her best, but she was really no match for Shadrack’s explosive fits of energy. Sophia reached her room and sat down to change her shoes. As she did so, her eye lighted on her sketchbook, and a thought made her rise slowly and turn back the pages to June 14, the day before she’d first gone into the map room—the day she’d gone to parliament. She found herself looking at the drawing she’d made of the caged boy from the circus. Who knows what will happen to him, she thought. She stared at the bars she had drawn. Maybe he’s still there. I might see him again. The prospect gave her a brief flutter, but it was accompanied by a sobering thought. I wonder if he’s ever let out of that horrible cage. I can’t believe he might have to eat and sleep in it and everything. A sudden idea flickered through her mind. He doesn’t belong in that cage, she said to herself, her thoughts soaring. He shouldn’t spend another minute in that cage.

With a rising sense of excitement, she finished lacing her boots and ran downstairs. Seeing that it was almost lunchtime, she hastily wrapped a piece of buttered bread in a napkin and tucked it into the apron pocket of her dress. “Bye, Shad,” she shouted before heading out the door.

— June 21, 11-Hour 57: Leaving to Buy Supplies—

THE HEAT HAD let up somewhat, dropping into the low nineties. During any other summer, such temperatures would have driven every resident of the city to Cape Cod, but with parliament’s deadline hanging over New Occident, Boston bristled with uneasy activity. The accusations against foreigners published in the newspaper had grown more frequent and bitter and had resulted in an unending stream of protests.

As Sophia rode the trolley downtown, she noticed knots of people walking in the direction of the State House. As they passed the building, her eyes widened; it was surrounded by police officers, and hundreds of people were shouting and carrying signs. Shadrack had told her that the police were patrolling around the clock, checking the identity papers of everyone they passed. Anyone without papers found themselves abruptly shuttled to the nearest point of exit from New Occident.

The trolley stopped briefly on the far side of the common, at some distance from the State House, and then veered off, careening into the tunnel that connected to the wharf. Sophia felt nervous at the thought of once again seeing the boy in feathers. Maybe I should get the supplies first, she thought. But I don’t want to be carrying the supplies if I try to open the cage. I should go to the circus first.

The trolley emerged from the tunnel and the conductor called the Wharf stop. Sophia stepped off, edgy with excitement, and looked for the warehouse where she’d seen the circus.

The chaos at the wharf made the protest near the State House pale in comparison. Crowds of people—determined explorers, anxious tradespeople, and exiled foreigners—wove along the cobblestone street and toward the waiting ships. Police officers walked tensely among them, truncheons drawn, checking papers and shepherding people into lines. Every manner of vessel filled the waters beyond the wharf and waited to board passengers, seeking to profit from the sudden exodus. Sophia turned away in dismay as she heard a ship’s captain haggling with an explorer over an outrageous fee for passage to the Closed Empire.

Catching sight of a faded warehouse nearby, Sophia pushed past the crowd and hurried toward it. Sure enough, there was the sign for Ehrlach’s Circus of the Ages. But something had changed. There was no line for admittance, and the warehouse door was closed. There was no trace of the little man, the ticket vendor, or the boy in the cage.

For a moment she stood hesitantly, watching people pass. Then she approached the door and gave it an experimental push. It seemed to be barred by something on the other side. She pushed a little harder and the door gave way.

“Oh, no,” she said out loud. The cavernous warehouse stood completely empty. A pile of hay, a few broken pieces of a set, and some netting lay scattered on the dirt floor. Sophia stood and stared. She recalled once again the boy in feathers—his air of careless grace, the easy way he shoved aside the circus master’s cane. Now he was gone. She imagined him traveling to some unknown place, imprisoned forever in his horrible cage, until his lofty expression faded and his eyes lost their animation.

Sophia left the empty warehouse, closing the door behind her. “Excuse me,” she said to an old man carrying a heavy traveling case. “Has the circus gone already?”

“It has, miss,” he said, taking a moment to rest. “They packed up only this morning.”

“I thought they would stay until July fourth.”

“They could have, sure, but Ehrlach wanted to spend the last weeks in New York. Seems to think there’ll be more business there without the parliament protests to distract them.”

“I see. Thank you,” Sophia said. “Bad luck, I suppose.”

“Bad luck it is—for all of us,” the old man replied, shouldering the case again. “I’m sorry, miss.”

Sophia stood, staring at the sign and trying to shake off her disappointment. I should have thought of it sooner, she said to herself. I didn’t realize how many days had passed. The familiar sense of frustration washed over her, but she had to admit that in this case her broken internal clock wasn’t entirely to blame. She’d been thoughtless in a wholly ordinary way. For an entire week she had forgotten about the boy, and now the chance to help him was gone.

With an abrupt glance at her watch, she realized that she had lost more than an hour and reminded herself sternly of her assigned task. She turned and looked for Harding’s Supply with a renewed sense of purpose. It was nearby, its double doors opened wide to allow for the steady stream of customers purchasing last-minute equipment for long overseas journeys. Having lost so much time already, Sophia hurried through the aisles, inspecting waterproof rucksacks, snowshoes, collapsible hats, silk sheets that folded away into a pocket-sized pouch, canteens, and field glasses. She left the store with a small russet-brown pack, two weatherproof roll-tubes for paper maps, and an oiled leather case for her watch.

— 15-Hour 09: Arriving Home—

IT WAS PAST fifteen-hour when Sophia headed home. The summer sun was still high in the sky, and as she turned onto East Ending Street it occurred to her that she might yet have time to finish solving the puzzle she’d begun that morning. Surely Shadrack wouldn’t mind, now that she had dutifully spent the afternoon out of doors.

Sophia neared the house and was surprised to see the side door wide open. When she reached the steps, something odd caught her eye: a long green feather. She picked it up and examined it. “Very strange,” she murmured. As soon as she had reached the entryway, she could see that something was very wrong.

The house was a disaster. Something intent on destruction had swept through it. Food and broken dishes lay strewn across the kitchen floor. The rugs in the hallway were twisted and shoved together, while remains of burnt papers and maps littered the stove. Almost all the framed maps that normally hung in every room had been knocked down, leaving the papered walls bare. Even some of the floorboards had been torn up. And lying before her near the entryway was a long red feather. She stood for a moment, her panic mounting, and then she dropped the green feather, threw aside the new pack that hung from her shoulder, and ran toward the study.

“Shadrack!” she shouted. “Shadrack!”

He was not there. Maps lay scattered everywhere, many of them torn. The books had been pulled from the shelves and lay on the ground in haphazard piles. With horror, Sophia saw the door to the map room standing open.

“Shadrack?” she called, her voice unsteady, from the top of the stairs. There was no answer. She descended slowly, the wooden treads creaking beneath her feet. When she reached the bottom she stood dazed at the chaos before her.

The glass cases had been shattered, their contents gone. The bureaus lay open, their drawers bare. Here, too, the books had been pulled from the shelves and thrown to the floor. The cabinets that held paper maps stood empty. Sophia took in the destruction, too stunned to call out again. Everything, every single thing in the map room, had been destroyed or stolen. A broken glass map crunched beneath her boot and she looked down blankly at the shards. There was a long, jagged scar across the leather-topped table. She touched it gingerly, as if to make certain that it was real. Then she raised her head and her eye fell on the wall map above the armchairs: the map of her parents’ voyage. It had been torn in half, ripped clear through from one end to the other.

Sophia stared numbly at the pins that lay scattered around her on the chairs and carpet, a single thought running through her mind: Where is he? Where is Shadrack? Where is he? Then she heard a sound at the other end of the room, and for a moment she was unable to run or scream or even move. Heart pounding in her chest, she forced herself to turn slowly in the direction of the stairs. She saw nothing. It had been only a soft shuffle, but she had heard it, and now she was certain: it had come from the heavy wardrobe below the staircase.

She tiptoed across the carpet, avoiding the glass and picking up the broken leg of a chair. She held it before her with both hands. When she reached the steps, she stopped to listen and heard nothing but the rush of blood in her ears. She reached the wardrobe and paused, standing in front of it silently. Then she reached for the brass handle and in one smooth movement swung open the door.

Feathers, she thought, as the thing that burst from the wardrobe knocked her down flat. She lay there, stunned, staring up at the ceiling, and suddenly a face appeared above hers. The face seemed to have feathers sprouting from it in every direction.

Looking down at Sophia was the boy from Ehrlach’s Circus of the Ages.