Aberrant by Ruth Silver Page B

first arrived in
Haven. I still had a few days until the council meeting and hoped I could
further delay dating other men. Joshua was all I could think about.
    "Find anything interesting?" he asked, sitting
down with me as I curled up on the bed and perused the texts.
    "In the books or the town?" I glanced up at him. He
looked tired and worn. I wondered what was going on with him. I reached out,
brushing my thumb across the slight stubble on his jaw line. I smiled when he lazily
kissed my palm.
    "Either?" His eyes watched mine as I studied his
lips. I shook my head, trying to push those thoughts aside. It was the one rule
neither of us could afford to break.
    "No." I couldn't remember seeing anything that had
been important. "What'd you come across?" If he was asking, he must
have found something.
    "You sure you're ready for it?" His face lit up. I
couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him so happy.
    "Go on," I encouraged, eager to hear about his
discovery.
    "A museum," he emphasized, and I raised an eyebrow.
"There are all sorts of old artifacts from before the Third and Fourth
World War, even photographs from present time dating back to the early nineteen
hundreds."
    “I know. I was at the museum a week ago.” I remembered
Jacqueline showing me the old artifacts and cameras from generations before our
time. I couldn't help but laugh. “Well what then? What’d you find that I
didn’t?” I knew he was ready to brag. That bright smile on his face was telling
me he’d struck gold.
    "I found a series of maps behind glass."
    "So did I," I didn't see what the big reveal was. I
gave him a curious look. It wasn't a secret there were maps of Cabal in the
museum.
    "No," he stared at me seriously. "I found a
map hidden in the museum. Okay, so I might have been snooping. Did you know the
cases aren't locked?"
    "What?" My eyes widened as I sat up in bed. "You're
not serious?"
    Joshua laughed, watching me grow restless. "I guess
they trust everyone here."
    I couldn't believe it. "You stole a map?" I didn't
want to think about the repercussions if anyone had caught him. In Genesis he'd
have been banished for theft. I didn't know the punishment in Haven and didn’t
want to find out.
    "Borrowed is the precise term," he corrected me.
"They won't notice it was gone because it was hidden behind the giant map
with the rebel cities. The map on display is a forgery."
    I didn’t buy it. "Come on, Josh. Why would they put a
fake map in a museum?" It sounded ridiculous.
    "Technically, the real map was there, just behind it.
The map on display is a larger replica, but they removed a city from it."
He frowned at a loss for why Haven would have done something like that.
    "I never took you for a thief." I still couldn't
believe he had the nerve to steal from the museum.
    "Are you kidding me?" Joshua laughed. "You'd
have done the same thing. You can't tell me you're not curious about a town no
one knows about."
    I shrugged, not wanting to reveal too much. Of course I was
curious! Why had they wanted to hide it? What secret did it possess?
"Maybe it's a ghost town?" I laughed, lying back on the bed, staring
up at the ceiling. "Do you think they'll notice it's missing?"
    "I doubt it," Joshua was confident in his
decision. "Unless they start looking behind maps for smaller duplicates,
no one will be the wiser. I bet most people don't even know it exists."
     "Well, someone does," I reminded him.
"Someone put it in the case, and someone had the forethought to create a
duplicate."
    "Then I guess they should have locked the glass
case." He showed no remorse for his actions, and I didn't exactly blame
him. They’d put us in a tough situation, and the map could be our key to our
survival.
    I sat up. "Let me see it," I practically begged
and felt him shift against the mattress, his grin growing. The thought of a map
with a city not tied to Haven sounded promising. Perhaps Joshua and I could one
day travel there and make a home for ourselves.
    Joshua