was broken and burnt, with chunks of wood scattered down the large stone steps and the other panel barely clinging to its hinges. Inside were high ceilings were rows and rows of bookshelves. Long tables with green lamps, mostly just piles of shattered glass now, filled a spacious hall. Campfires had been lit in the center and it looked like people had been camping out. I pulled the charred spine of a book out of the fire pit and read the label. Nothing I recognized.
“This is where you grew up?” I asked. “All alone?”
“For a few years anyway,” April said. “There were other humans, they came and went. Nobody found my private stash though.”
I followed her behind a wooden counter, and she pointed out a small slat in the wall.
“See, they’d return the books here; and they’d go into an underground room. That’s how I knew there must be something down there. It took me weeks to find it.” She reached underneath the desk and groped around, then smiled. I heard a ripping sound, then the jangle of keys as she retrieved her hand.
“Still here,” she said. I followed her as she walked down the steps, through two more rooms. I paused briefly, listening, as I thought I heard something moving above us.
“Do you hear that?” I asked.
“It’s just the wind,” she answered. “The floors creak sometimes. Check this out.”
She gripped the edges of a small shelf that was built into the far wall, and wiggled it until she could pull out the whole section of the panel, revealing a dark space behind.
“It must have gotten covered up in reconstructions,” she said, stooping into the space. Behind it, completely sealed off, was a small door, which she unlocked with the key and pushed open.
I took a breath and stepped inside. It was narrow, about the size of my bedroom in Algrave, without a window, and built like a silo with a high ceiling. I glanced up and saw the thin line of the book deposit up above.
In the room was a miniature study desk, a mattress, piles of books against the wall, a flashlight and a stash of batteries. A pink stuffed elephant was tucked into the blankets, half hidden under the pillow. One corner was filled up with tins, cans and plastic wrapped food.
The wall was covered with posters, charts and drawings, and illustrations that looked like they’d been torn out of children’s books, with dragons and castles. My eyes immediately went to the large map on the wall, covered with blue circles and red X’s.
“It was useful,” she shrugged. “Like a treasure map. All these little towns, hidden in the forests. Most of them had at least a pharmacy and a grocery store, and if those were looted, some of the houses had cellars or garages with food and supplies. What did you say the town was called again?” she asked.
“Fanno Creek,” I said. She pulled the map off the wall and set it on the floor, then switched on a flashlight hanging from a string and held it still until it stopped wobbling. The map was dense, and crowded, with thousands of names. It was nothing like the one Penelope had drawn.
I was starting to give up hope when April’s finger shot out and jabbed at a spot on the map. In tiny print, so faded I could barely make it out...
Fanno Creek.
“It’s real,” I breathed.
“You doubted?”
“I was trusting Penelope, what she told me right before she attacked me.” Was it really where Damien grew up? If so, there could be a lab there, where his father had created the elixir… and maybe an antidote.
I pulled April into a hug, wiping a tear out of my eyes. I didn’t realize I’d been putting so much hope into this. But it was our only option. It might be wild and irrational, but the choice was outright violence, and I knew how that would end: the elite would crush the rebellion, they’d murder all the humans, they’d destroy any compounds that stood up to them... and then they’d just start over, and rewrite history, again. We had to break the cycle.
“Where are we now?” I asked. April pointed at a spot on the other side of the map. A large black circle marked the city. April had scribbled in a red star for the citadel of lights. I pulled out Penelope’s map and turned it until the hard line of the sea lined up on the left.
There were nine