The Glass Sentence

39 The Empty City

1891, July 2: 12-Hour 31

Lunabviate: to conceal one’s thoughts or feelings by presenting a blank face. From luna, or moon. The common perception that the moon has a blank face is applied to those who present a bright or pleasant expression but hide their sentiments.

—From Veressa Metl’s Glossary of Baldlandian Terms

THE GLACIER RETREATED to the edges of Lake Cececpan and then stopped, planting its frozen feet into the earth below and turning a cold shoulder to the sun overhead. The Glacine Age would draw back no farther. And as the glaciers cemented their hold, their hard surfaces shining starkly only three miles from Nochtland, the borders of the Ages were redrawn.

The vast, depopulated Glacine Age stretched from the southern edges of Nochtland to the very tip of the continent. Late Patagonia had disappeared. Much of the southern Baldlands had vanished as well. Where the Ages met, three different cities lay abandoned, their streets emptied by desertion and disaster. Below ground, the mineral city remained silently calcifying, its high towers shining in the light cast by the botanist’s trees. Above the ice, in the northernmost city of the Glacine Age, the empty buildings surrounded the ruins of the great pyramid like silent mourners. And in Nochtland a strange hush had fallen upon the once busy streets.

Thousands upon thousands had departed, fleeing the glacier’s advance. In the weeks that followed, they walked and rode on until rumors began to reach them that the great change had concluded. Some, hearing this, stopped where they stood; they put down their packs, unhitched their horses, and rested. A short respite became a longer one, until many simply began to rebuild their lives on the very spot where they had stopped. New towns sprang up in a long, meandering line stretching northward.

But others could not believe that the glacier had truly halted its advance, and they walked on, heading farther and farther north until they found themselves in the Northern Baldlands. There, among strange people who had never even heard of the glaciers, they threw down their belongings with relief and tried to forget the catastrophe that had driven them from their now-vanished homes.

Still others had lost more than their homes. It was in the Lachrima’s nature to seek solitude, and so it appeared at first that the thousands of Lachrima to emerge from the Glacine Age had disappeared as soon as they had come to light. But they had not disappeared. Many people who had once lived in Xela, or the high cities of Late Patagonia, now wandered the new terrain as faceless creatures; dreading human contact, they haunted the edges of every town on the route from the Baldlands to New Occident.

As the boldevela neared Nochtland, there were some on board who were thinking of the Lachrima’s fate. Sophia, after dutifully eating and drinking what Grandmother Pearl had put before her, listened to the dull, distant wailing and thought about Blanca. Shadrack was found, Nochtland was safe, and New Occident lay waiting for them; and yet, unaccountably, she felt an uneasy grief. Blanca’s cry might have saved her, driving her from the pyramid in time—but that cry had also found its way into her heart. She had no wish to look at the map that had been the sole piece of the pyramid to survive. Handing it over to Shadrack, she sat at the foot of his bed holding the silk scarf that had once been Blanca’s veil. As she twisted the thin fabric between her fingers, she thought about the scars that it had served to conceal. Sophia realized that the more she had seen of the Lachrima’s scars, the less they had terrified her. They moved as Blanca spoke; they reflected her thoughts and emotions just as clearly as a mouth, nose, and eyes. There was even something beautiful about the way those scars had conveyed the cold, dignified determination that lay behind them.

“Sophia,” Shadrack said now. “You need to get some sleep.”

“I’m not sleepy. I’ll just stay here with you.”

“Why don’t you go ask Peaches which room to use, and just try putting your head down. If you like, send Veressa to keep me company—she’ll want to see this.”

It was easier to agree. Sophia found the Metls looking out over the side of the boldevela at the icy water below. “Veressa,” she said. “Shadrack wants to show you the map—the one I brought from the pyramid.”

Veressa eyed her thoughtfully. “Had enough of maps for one day?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Very sensible.” The cartologer rested her hand briefly on Sophia’s shoulder. “I’ll go down and see him.”

As she left, Martin called, “Look at this, Sophia.” She joined him and saw that the wheels of the boldevela were once again visible. The waters had grown shallow. The ship shuddered as the wheels made ground, and Burr shouted orders to the pirates adjusting the sails.

“We’re almost at the Nochtland gates,” Sophia said with surprise, looking up with at the high walls.

“Yes, almost there,” Martin said.

“Why are we going back?” She looked warily at the unguarded gates, which stood ominously ajar. “What about you and Theo?”

“We’ll be fine. The last thing anyone cares about now is a few iron bones.”

“Burr wants to go back to look for Mazapán,” Theo himself said, joining them. “Everyone says he’s probably gone, but Burr says no.”

The boldevela rolled through the open gates, and everyone aboard fell silent. Nochtland was deserted. The fountains and canals still ran with water, and the crowded gardens still leaned out into the sunlight, but there were no people to be seen. “Everyone’s gone,” Sophia said.

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll return,” Martin replied, “once they realize the waters are receding.”

As she looked over the desolate city, she found it hard to believe.

“Look, there’s someone!” Theo said, pointing to a woman who watched them from a window.

The woman waved. “Has the storm passed?”

“Yes!” Martin shouted, waving back. “It’s safe now.” He turned to Sophia. “You see—not everyone is gone.”

The boldevela moved slowly through the streets until it reached the broad avenue at the city center and rumbled to a stop just outside the palace. To Sophia’s astonishment, the palace gates too stood open. There was not a guard in sight. “We’re home!” Martin exclaimed.

While Burr and Theo went in search of Mazapán, Calixta accompanied Martin and Veressa to the palace. Sophia was aware of the pirates resting and talking to one another on the deck, but her mind was miles away, watching Blanca’s face contort as she pushed the heavy stone over the edge of the balcony. The memories were as vivid as they would have been on a map.

“Sophia?”

She started. Grandmother Pearl had joined her.

“How are you doing, my dear?”

“It’s strange,” she replied slowly.

“What is?”

“I can’t seem to get any of it out of my mind.”

“You have seen and heard terrible things,” the old woman replied. “And they are not easy to forget. Nor should they be. Be patient with yourself.”

“We might have all become Lachrima. We could all be wandering now, lost—somewhere out there.” She waved vaguely at the city around her.

“That was not our fate. Your fate,” Pearl said quietly. “Yours is a different story.”

Sophia reflected for a moment. “Yes. A different story. The one you told me—about the boy with the scarred face and the underground city—it’s as if I saw the story happening. It wasn’t exactly the same. But it was still very true.”

“Ah—yes,” Grandmother Pearl replied. “That is almost always the way with stories. True to their very core, even when the events and the people in them are different.”

Sophia looked down at her tattered, salt-encrusted boots. “The underground city was a city from another Age. The boy with the scar on his face was a woman. The city was a hall full of maps. It all happened as the story said it would, only a little differently.” She hesitated. “At least, almost all of it. I don’t think the scars were erased the way they were in the story. But even with that difference, both stories are just as sad.”

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.”

“You have Veressa, don’t you?” she teased.

Martin scoffed. “I shall need more than one.”

The pirated boldevela carried them to Veracruz, where they boarded the faithful Swan and set sail for New Orleans. The journey was not a pleasant one; Sophia was still troubled by her memories of Blanca, and though they had left Nochtland and Veracruz far behind, she continued to hear a distant murmur that often made her sit up straight and fall silent. She felt as seasick aboard the Swan as she had before. And, worse, she knew that when they reached New Orleans she would have to say good-bye to the pirates as well. Theo wisely left her quietly brooding to herself. Only Shadrack and Grandmother Pearl, the one with grand plans for future exploration and the other with gentle words of reassurance, dared come near her.

“Well, Soph,” Shadrack said, as they sat side by side on the deck, “it will be good to be home so we can get back to planning. Things will be different, of course, but I believe in a good way. I’m glad Theo is staying, and not just because he knows the west better than I do; he has nerve, that boy. We’ll have to get papers for him, but I can manage. In the meantime,” he said, sitting up so abruptly that he winced, “you’ll be diving back into your cartological studies. There’s so much still to learn! Though now some of it you will have to teach me,” he added with a smile. “Won’t you?”

Sophia leaned her head against his shoulder. “Yes, I guess so.”

“You guess so? You were at the forefront of a great discovery, Soph!”

But for some reason, she could not summon up the enthusiasm she knew she ought to feel. All she felt was nausea.

When they reached New Orleans, they took leave of the pirates, who were entirely cheerful and not at all concerned about when they would meet next. “I’m sure we’ll see you before the month is out!” Burr proclaimed happily, pumping Sophia’s hand.

“Without a doubt!” Calixta agreed. “They may not let us past the harbor, but they can’t do without the rum we deliver.”

“So sad and so true,” her brother added.

“I’m afraid they’re right, dear,” Grandmother Pearl said, laughing, as she enfolded Sophia in her arms.

“Good-bye,” Sophia said, pressing her face against the soft, wrinkled cheek. “Even if it is soon, it will feel like ages to me.”

“Then make it short, dear,” the old woman replied. “Make of the time what you want.”