CHAPTER 69 The Village Beyond the Map

Chapter 69

The Village Beyond the Map

The afternoon had settled quietly over Nevermore Valley.

Thomas Vale walked with his notebook tucked beneath one arm, careful not to let the damp air reach the pages. The forgotten road had carried him and Gideon Marsh farther than he had expected, winding between trees before gradually descending toward the lower part of the valley.

Behind them, the forest had already begun to hide the road they had travelled.

Thomas stopped.

He turned and looked back.

For several moments, he said nothing.

The road seemed different from this direction.

Not changed, exactly.

Simply older.

Moss covered portions of the stones. Roots pushed through the cracks. Fallen leaves gathered along the edges, softening the outline until the road looked less like something built by human hands and more like something the forest had chosen to remember.

Gideon noticed his silence.

"You are thinking too loudly again."

Thomas glanced at him.

"I was not aware that was possible."

"It is when a man stares at a road as though he expects it to answer him."

Thomas smiled faintly.

"I am a mapmaker. Roads are supposed to answer questions."

"Only the ordinary ones."

Gideon continued walking.

Thomas followed.

Ahead, the trees began to thin.

Beyond them lay rooftops.

A church steeple rose above the distant buildings, its dark silhouette softened by the afternoon mist. Smoke curled lazily from several chimneys, and somewhere beyond the trees came the faint sound of a wagon wheel striking uneven ground.

Thomas stopped again.

"Nevermore Village?"

Gideon nodded.

"We have reached it."

Thomas opened his notebook.

He carefully drew the road they had followed and added a small mark where the forest gave way to the settlement.

Then he hesitated.

"What should I call this road?"

Gideon looked back toward the trees.

"It has no name that I remember."

Thomas wrote:

Unknown road leading toward Nevermore Village.

He closed the notebook.

"That will do."

Gideon gave a quiet approving sound.

"Good. A map should tell the truth before it tells a story."

Thomas glanced toward him.

"That sounds like something you have learned the hard way."

"Most useful things are."

They continued toward the village.

Neither man noticed the faint impression their footsteps had left in the damp earth beside the old stones.

Nor did either of them notice that, several yards behind them, a single raven had settled upon the highest branch of an ancient tree.

It watched until they disappeared beyond the first cottages.

Then it lifted its wings.

Meanwhile, back at Breedlove Manor, the afternoon had taken on a different character.

The manor remained busy.

Servants moved quietly through the halls. A fire crackled in one of the sitting rooms despite the mildness of the day, and somewhere in the kitchens came the familiar sounds of dishes being prepared for the evening meal.

Outside, the gardens rested beneath a veil of pale cloud.

Beatrice Violet Breedlove stood near one of the tall windows, looking across the grounds.

She had not intended to stop there.

Something had simply caught her attention.

The trees.

They were still.

Almost too still.

She narrowed her eyes.

A breeze moved through the far garden, stirring the leaves near the stone wall.

Closer to the manor, however, the branches barely moved.

Beatrice rested one hand against the window frame.

"Strange."

A quiet voice came from behind her.

"What is?"

She turned.

For a moment, she did not answer.

Then she looked back toward the grounds.

"I am not certain."

The other person waited.

Beatrice finally smiled.

"Perhaps I am imagining things."

But she did not move away from the window.

There was a feeling in the air.

Not fear.

Not danger.

Something subtler.

As though the valley itself had taken a breath.

Far beyond the manor grounds, a wagon rolled into Nevermore Village.

Thomas watched from the roadside as villagers went about their afternoon.

A baker carried a basket through an open doorway.

Two children hurried past with muddy shoes.

An elderly woman stood outside a small shop, speaking with a man who appeared to be a farmer.

Nothing about the village seemed unusual.

That was precisely what interested Thomas.

He opened his notebook again.

"People have lived here for generations," he said.

Gideon nodded.

"They have."

"And yet the old road leading here is absent from the maps I have seen."

"Perhaps the maps were incomplete."

Thomas looked at him.

"Or perhaps the road was forgotten."

Gideon studied the village.

"Those are not always the same thing."

Thomas slowly closed his notebook.

The words remained with him.

Forgotten.

Remembered.

The cavern had said the water remembers.

The old road had seemed to remember where it was going.

And now they had reached a village that had stood here long before Thomas ever placed a mark upon his map.

He looked toward the distant hills.

For the first time since entering the valley, Thomas wondered whether he had been mapping the land...

or whether the land had been quietly leading him.

Gideon started toward the village.

"Come."

Thomas followed.

Neither man looked back.

At Breedlove Manor, Beatrice finally stepped away from the window.

The feeling had passed.

Or perhaps it had simply moved elsewhere.

She could not say which.

Outside, the clouds parted enough for a narrow beam of afternoon sunlight to touch the oldest stones along the garden wall.

For just a moment, one of those stones appeared to bear a mark beneath the moss.

A crescent.

And beneath it, something that resembled the spread wings of a raven.

Then the sunlight moved.

The mark disappeared beneath shadow once more.