The Mapmaker's Children by Sarah McCoy

after meals of Indian pudding and tea, which she now knew were laced with balsam.
    â€œWe all need rest.” Annie held the cup out.
    Sarah shook her head. Her mother and sister saw this tribulation as inescapable, but she knew better. Her father had entrusted in her
more
knowledge than they or any of the other women in his life, and she would not let him down now.
    Annie put the cup away and slipped into bed beside their mother. “Stubborn Sarah…” She yawned, eyes already closed under the balsam spell. “Good night.”
    The candle was down to its last minute of wick and wax. Sarah found an extra blanket inside a wooden chest. She wrapped herself in it, smelling a season long past, sunshine and vegetables from the laundry line. She posted herself by the window to watch and wait for something. Even if that something was as improbable as the dawn was certain.
    Father
, she thought,
if you must perish, I promise I won’t let you down
.
    Children were created to carry forward a father’s legacy. That’s what he’d taught them. It was nature’s way: the vine showed the seedling how to grow tall; the hatchlings learned to fly from their mother’s breast; the fish swam against the current to spawn. “And God blessed them and God spake unto them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.’ ” Genesis. Her father’s favorite book. The end of God’s solitary existence. The beginning of Creation. She understood now. Today could not have meaning without the promise of ending. Birth and death, beginning and ending—they were one in the universe’s memory.
    But who would remember
her
tomorrow?
    The taper had burned to nothing and fizzled. Outside, the clouded sky gave way and the winter moon shone open as bone.
    She exhaled, leaving a halo of condensation on the windowpane.
    Gypsy bayed and hurried between the house and the barn.
    The bedroom was inky black and smelled of liniment and bodies, but the world beyond the window was lit and waiting. Sarah pressed her nose to the glass, watching the dog trot through the staked rows of dormant tomato plants. Her coat gleamed like a penny coin. She yelped again at something out of view, then circled back toward the house.
    Suddenly, Sarah realized that if her father had escaped and chose not to follow her map, he would still know the way to them here at the Hills’ home. How could she stay within when her father could be below, salvation in hand? Sarah’s heart beat fast, hope renewed.
    She collected the napkin of corn bread and tiptoed out. No pink of candlelight shone from beneath the bedroom doorways. She made her way down the staircase, through the servant’s door, into the kitchen. The hearth coals glowed in sleepy smolder. To the left was a narrow passageway: Siby’s room and the cooking pantry. Sarah made a beeline for the back door.
    Outside, the blanket insulated her body much better than her coat had earlier. The ground frost stung her bare feet, until she found a set of muck boots by the garden trowels. She slipped into them and ventured to where she’d seen Gypsy minutes before. Taking the corn bread from the napkin, she clicked her tongue softly against the roof of her mouth like she did when feeding the guinea hens at home.
    Their yard at home was buried beneath frost and snow and layers of winter, but here, in the month of Christmas, the ground was still bearing. A blueberry bush held a smattering of fruits. Every dollar from the UGRR backers had gone toward the purchasing of wood and flint for the raid spears, as ordered by her father. There was not a coin to spare for store-bought artist paints, so Sarah had learned to make long-lasting stains from harvest juices. Beet juice produced a pink paste; orange and carrot peels, a vibrant yellow; blackberries, a purple black to rival the deepest dim; even a blade of grass left its green memory on paper. Nature was more