S. Grove: The Glass Sentence

Grandmother Pearl linked her arm through Sophia’s. “Perhaps you’re right. But you never know. There may yet be a time when you see the scars fade away.”

—13-Hour 40: At the Nochtland Palace—

VERESSA AND MARTIN returned to the boldevela some time later with Calixta, and they reported that the palace was entirely abandoned. Soon afterward, Theo and Burr arrived victoriously with Mazapán, his wife Olina, and large wooden crates full of food and chocolate dishes. In the dying light of the afternoon, they prepared a banquet on the ship’s deck.

Burr and Peaches carried Shadrack up the spiral staircase, and every manner of gilded chair from the cabins was brought topside. It was a night for celebration. The meal was delicious, the chocolate tableware was superb—both as serving dishes and dessert—and there was more than enough for everyone. Peaches discovered a harp that someone had left behind in the Nochtland gardens, and for several hours the sweet, lulling sound of ballads filled the air.

When they all finally went to bed, even Sophia had forgotten some of her troubling memories. Most of the pirates returned with Martin and Veressa to the palace, where they promptly took command of the royal suites. Theo and Sophia stayed with Shadrack on the boldevela. She fell asleep almost at once.

But she awoke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, panicked by a nightmare that she could not remember. She sat up, stretched her sore legs, and looked out the porthole at the pale moonlight. Her heart took a little while to stop racing. When it did, she quietly climbed out of her blankets.

The deck of the boldevela was still littered with remnants of the feast. Sophia stepped over the plates and cups and walked to the edge, resting her arms on the polished railing.

The moon hung over the Nochtland palace and its gardens, pale and ponderous, like the wondering face of a clock with no hands. There was the faint rushing of water from the fountains in the palace gardens.

A footstep on the deck made her turn. Theo came up and leaned his elbows on the railing beside her. “Bad dreams?”

“I can’t even remember what about.”

“Maybe this’ll help,” he said, handing her a chocolate spoon.

Sophia had to smile. She bit off a piece of the spoon and let it dissolve on her tongue. “Do you hear that?” she asked.

Theo cocked his head. “You mean the fountains?”

“No—something else. It’s farther away,” she hesitated. “Someone crying?”

If she had not known him better, Sophia would have said Theo looked almost worried. “I don’t hear anything,” he said softly.

“There must still be Lachrima in this city. Who knows how many.”

“You’ll hear them less once you leave.”

Sophia was silent for a moment. “I suppose everyone will go different ways now,” she said, taking another bite of chocolate.

“Veressa and Martin said they’ll stay as long as Justa doesn’t return.”

“Do you think she will?”

Theo shrugged. “I doubt she’ll want to—with the ice just miles from the gates.”

Sophia considered the blank face of the moon. “What about you?” she asked. “Are you going to stay, too?”

“Nah. Sure, the palace is nice, but who wants to sit around all day and look at flowers? I want to be out doing things, seeing new places.”

Sophia’s mind turned to the pirates and how quickly Theo had taken to life aboard the Swan . “I’m sure Calixta and Burr would be happy if you sailed with them.”

“I don’t know,” Theo said doubtfully. “What I’d really like is to get into exploring.” He paused. “Do you think if I could get papers into New Occident, Shadrack could maybe get me started?”

Sophia felt an inexplicable wave of elation wash over her, cutting through the sadness like a current. Suddenly negotiating for entrance into New Occident, contending with the July 4 border closure, and awaiting parliament’s decision at the end of August seemed trivial. “I’m sure he could,” she said. “Shadrack can get you papers, because he got them for Mrs. Clay, didn’t he? And there’s no one better to talk to about exploring,” she went on happily. “Maybe you could go with Miles when he’s back. If it weren’t for school, I’d go with you.”

Theo smiled. “Well, maybe we could be summertime explorers.”

Sophia laughed.

Then he reached his bandaged hand out toward her. “You’ve got chocolate all over your chin,” he said, wiping her chin with his thumb. His hand rested briefly on her face and then slipped easily across her shoulders. Sophia leaned comfortably against him and looked up, finding the dark sky suddenly bright. The blank face of the moon looked down wistfully on the pair and tried to lean in just a little closer.

—1891, July 6: Leaving Nochtland—

THE GREAT MYSTERY of how and why the Glacine Age had suddenly manifested would trouble cartologers in New Occident, the Baldlands, and the United Indies for many years to come. It lay beyond their knowledge. Martin posited, and the others agreed, that being in the underground city had saved them. They were already in an outlying pocket of the Glacine Age when the rest of it arrived; the border that would otherwise have transformed them into Lachrima had left them untouched. But no one understood how the Age had shifted its borders or why draining the carta mayor had halted the glacier’s progress.

The map that Sophia had brought with her from the pyramid seemed to hold more questions than answers. It described a strange history that began with distant tragedies—rumors of plague and illness traveling across the continent, spreading fear and then panic. The animals of the Glacine Age fell as they grazed. The birds swooped to earth to seize a worm or seed and were struck down, dead. And the people, too, fell, as the cities and towns gradually emptied. It was as though the entire Age had succumbed to an unseen poison. The mapmakers could offer no explanations: they could only record the gradual disintegration of their Age. The memories of the map faded away with the last inhabitants of what had once been a great city, and then they ended.

After a long talk with Shadrack, which lingered considerably on the question of the four maps and the surprise of locating the carta mayor , Veressa determined that it was best for her and Martin to remain in the Baldlands. There had been no sign of Justa’s return to Nochtland, and it was rumored that she was traveling north in the attempt to rejoin her long-absent father. Besides, it would have been futile to try to persuade Martin to leave the city. He longed to study the soil of the Glacine Age—the soil that now lay only three miles from his doorstep.

Sophia entrusted the pyramid-map and the riddle it contained to Veressa, as well as the three maps that she had kept hidden for so long. The glass map would return to Boston.

They lingered a few days more in Nochtland, but then it was clear they had to depart—to go home. “These books are for you, Sophia,” Veressa said, as they stood outside the palace greenhouses for the last time. “A few of mine about the Baldlands that you might like and one by someone else that I’ve never been able to figure out. Maybe you can.”

Sophia juggled the pile of books and noted the one on top with a curious title: Guide to Lost, Missing, and Elsewhere. “Thank you,” she said.

“It’s a lovely old book of maps. Maybe you’ll understand it better than I do, since you’re the best at cartologic riddles.” She hugged Sophia.

“Come back as soon as you can,” Martin said, embracing her as well. “There’s plenty to explore in those caves. And I shall need a mapmaker.”