“But that’s just the writing,” Sophia said.
“What do you mean, ‘just the writing’?” he asked, without taking his eyes off the glass.
“It’s a memory map.” Now that she was confronted with it again, she felt reluctant to experience the memories she knew it contained. “Theo and I have read it before. I think it’s the same wherever you place your finger.”
“And then what happens?” Calixta asked.
“You see the memories that are in the map.”
For a moment the pirates stared at Sophia in disbelief, and then Calixta leaned forward. “Me first.” She eagerly placed her fingertip on the glass, and immediately her expression changed. She closed her eyes, her face still and thoughtful. When she took her finger away, she shuddered.
“Heavens, Calixta. What is it?” asked Burr.
“You try it,” she said shortly.
He touched the glass surface, his expression grave as the memories flooded his mind. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said slowly, when they had run their course. “What, exactly, is this map of?”
“We don’t know,” Sophia said. “My uncle left it for me. I’d never seen it before. And it’s strange that it’s all writing. I have no idea when or where it’s from.”
“I’d like to try it, dears,” Grandmother Pearl said, reaching forward. “If one of you will just guide my hand.”
Sophia did so, and as soon as she touched the glass, the old woman gasped. Sophia drew her hand away. “No—I want to see the whole thing,” she said, and Sophia placed her finger once again on the smooth surface.
“Did your uncle ever mention such an event in another context?” Burr inquired.
Sophia shook her head. “Not that I recall.”
Grandmother Pearl finished reading; her face was withdrawn, her brow furrowed.
“The thing is,” Sophia said with some consternation, “I don’t know that much about memory maps. I was only starting to learn about them. Shadrack said that they come from people’s memories of the past. That’s really all I know.”
“Are you very sure, love?” asked Grandmother Pearl.
“What do you mean?” Sophia asked.
“I wonder,” the old woman said. “It reminds me of something. The part in the memory when something heavy is rolled off the edge, and then everything is destroyed. It sounds so much like an old legend my mother used to tell me. Could the map be a story? Could it be something made up?”
Surprised, Sophia returned to the glass map. “I don’t know. Shadrack says a map can only contain what its author knows. I suppose that could be a story, as long as it’s true. It bears the mapmaker’s insignia, which means whoever wrote it swore to make an accurate account. What’s the legend?”
Grandmother Pearl leaned back in her chair. “It’s a story I never told you, Calixta and Burton, because it’s too sad and terrible. In truth, it was very foolish of my mother to tell it to me.”
Burr smiled at her. “Well, now we’re all grown up, Granny. Do your worst.”
Her face lit up with tenderness. “You foolish boy. This story strikes terror into any heart, young or old. It’s a story about the end of the world. I believe my mother told it to me because she was haunted by it herself. She called it ‘the story of the boy from the buried city.’”
—18-Hour 20: Grandmother Pearl’s Story—
“THE STORY GOES like this.
“In a city far away, in a time yet to come, there’s a boy—an orphan. The boy is an outcast; no one wants him because of a terrible burn on one side of his face. He doesn’t know where the burn came from; he only knows that it has left him marked forever, and that no one loves him because of it. He wanders the streets alone, and he is cast out of every doorway. Then, in great sadness and despair, he climbs all the way to the high temple, where, at the top of five hundred steps, the stone god that protects the city sits on a ledge. He asks the temple seer how he has come to be what he is and how he can change it. The seer stares for a long time at the bones that fall in a pattern before her, and finally she tells him this: ‘You are not from here,’ she says. ‘You are from an underground city. That is your true home. That is why no one here loves you and you do not belong.’ The boy asks her how he can get to the underground city, but the seer does not know. She too recoils from his burnt face. ‘All I know is that the stone god protecting us will fall before you find it.’
“The boy is haunted by this knowledge, and he searches through the entire city for some entrance, some doorway, some tunnel to the city underground. He never finds it. Finally, in desperation, he devises a plan. He will make the stone god fall. He will destroy the city and find the passage underground in the ruins. He has been too unloved, after all. Perhaps if there were one person in the city he could think of kindly, he would be unable to do it. But there is no one he can think of in that way. He runs all the way up the five hundred steps and from there to the ledge where the stone god sits. The boy is small, but the stone gives way easily and falls. The entire temple begins to crumble around him, and as he races down the five hundred steps, the fires begin.
“The city burns for a whole week, until nothing but ash remains, and the boy picks through the rubble, searching for the entrance to the underground city. What he finds surprises him. There are entrances to the underground city everywhere—in almost every building and on every street. But before the fire they were carefully boarded up; they were sealed and covered and hidden; it seems when the city was created, everyone was intent on keeping whatever lay underground out.
“The boy follows one of the passages deep into the ground. He travels for hours. And at the end he finds the city that the seer promised him. It is a beautiful city, built underground from shimmering stone. It has vast pools of water and wide walkways. Precious metals line the roads and jewels wink at him from the doorways. There is only one difficulty. The city is empty. As the boy walks through it, he hears his own footfalls echoing through the vast, deserted caverns. He spends many days exploring the empty city, and on the fifth day he discovers, to his surprise, another person. At the very center of the underground city he finds an old—very old—man, who says he is a seer. The boy sits down wearily before him. ‘I have had enough of seers,’ he says. ‘So I won’t ask you my destiny. But tell me. Why is this city empty? Where have all the people gone, and why are you still here?’
“The old man gazes at the boy steadily, and though it pains him to answer, he speaks. ‘This city was abandoned long ago. A seer told the city elders: “A boy from this underground city will destroy your entire city, and every one of you who remains in it will perish.” Fearing the seer’s words, the elders abandoned the city, and they moved to the surface, where they hoped to escape the prophecy. My mother was the seer, and she was the only one who remained. She was of the belief that words, once they are spoken, have a way of coming true. My mother has long since passed away, and now it is only I who live here.’ The boy listens to the words of the seer, and he realizes that in his attempt to find his home he has destroyed it. He weeps until he can hardly see, and his tears make a pool, not unlike the underground pools all around him. When he stops weeping, he opens his eyes and sees his reflection in the pool made by his tears. And then, as he watches, the scars on his face begin to vanish. They fade away, and a whole, beautiful face stares back at him. Those who had known him certainly would have loved him. But no one else survives. He remains underground with the seer, living in the buried city for the rest of his days. And that is how the legend says the world ends.”
They were all silent. “Your mother told you that as a bedtime story?” exclaimed Calixta.