I can still smell the black ink on my fingers. It is the only thing that stays. Everything else: names, faces, the way back home: is leaking out of my head like water from a cracked jar. My son, Saul, thinks we are hunting for gold. He is twelve years old and his boots are two sizes too big. I let him think about the gold because the truth is a heavy stone to carry. The truth is that his mother is becoming a ghost while she is still breathing.
I was the best mapmaker in the territory. I could draw the curve of a river from memory. But last month, I walked into my own kitchen and did not know what the stove was for. I stood there staring at the iron until I cried. The doctors call it a wasting of the mind. I call it the great erasing.
We are deep in the Shifting Peaks now. People say these mountains move when you are not looking. They say the rock slides and the valleys fold like blankets. I used to think that was just a story for drunk miners. Now, I know better. I have to find the Old Library hidden in the high caves. The old stories say the books there hold a cure for the fading. I need those words. I need them before I forget Saul’s name.
The wind up here is a cold knife. It cuts right through my wool coat. Every few miles, I stop to draw. My hands shake. The lines on the paper look like spider legs. Saul watches me. He has his father’s eyes: dark and steady. He looks at me with a kind of pity that makes my stomach turn. A boy should not have to pity his mother.
“Is the trail right, Ma?” Saul asked this morning.
I looked at my map. I looked at the mountain in front of us. The mountain had a jagged peak that looked like a broken tooth. On my map, I had drawn a flat ridge. The land had changed while we slept. Or maybe I had drawn it wrong. A cold sweat broke out on my neck. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
“It is right,” I lied. My voice sounded thin. “The peaks move, Saul. You just have to listen to the stone.”
We climbed higher. The air got thin. My head felt light, like it was filled with feathers. I kept repeating things to myself so I would not lose them. Saul. Twelve years old. Blue coat. Gold gold gold. We are looking for gold.
By noon, the fog rolled in. It was thick and smelled like wet wool. I reached out to touch the rock wall beside me. It felt warm. It felt like skin. I pulled my hand back and tripped. Saul caught me. His hands were small but strong.
“I got you, Ma,” he whispered.
I looked at him. For a second, just a tiny tick of time, I did not know who he was. I saw a boy with dark eyes and a dirty face. I saw a stranger. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run until my lungs burst. Then, like a sunbeam through a cloud, his name came back. Saul.
“I know,” I said. My eyes stung. I wiped them with the back of my hand, leaving a smear of ink on my cheek.
We found the cave as the light was dying. It was a dark hole behind a waterfall that had not been there an hour ago. We crawled inside. My lantern cast long, dancing shadows on the walls. Saul stayed close. He held onto the back of my coat.
The Library was not what I expected. It was not filled with gold or velvet. It was just rows of stone shelves carved into the belly of the mountain. There were hundreds of jars. Inside the jars were scrolls of thin, gray skin.
I ran to the first shelf. I grabbed a jar and pulled out the scroll. My hands were trembling so hard I almost dropped it. I needed the cure. I needed the words to stay. I looked at the writing. It was old. It was beautiful.
But I could not read it.
The letters danced. They looked like the jagged peaks. They looked like the squiggles I had been drawing on my map. The “fading” had taken the words too. I stared at the scroll until my vision blurred. I tried to remember how to make the sounds. I tried to remember the alphabet. It was gone. The door in my mind had slammed shut and the key was lost in the dark.
“Ma?” Saul asked. He was standing by a pile of old coins on the floor. He didn’t care about the coins. He was looking at me. “Did you find it? Did you find the map to the gold?”
I looked at the scroll. I looked at the ink on my fingers. Then I looked at my son. I realized then that the mountain had not moved at all. The world was where it always was. It was only me that was drifting away.
I dropped the scroll. It hit the floor with a soft thud. I sat down on the cold stone and pulled Saul into my arms. He felt so solid. He felt so real. I buried my face in his hair. It smelled like pine needles and sweat.
“I found it,” I whispered.
“The gold?” he asked.
“No,” I said. A hot tear ran down my nose. “I found the way home. We have to go now, Saul. We have to go while I still know the way.”
I took my map out of my pocket. It was a mess of nonsense. It was just circles and scratches. It was a map of a mind that was already lost. I folded it up and tucked it into the cracks of the stone shelf. I did not need it anymore.
We walked out of the cave. The stars were out. They were bright and cold. I held Saul’s hand so tight it must have hurt him, but he did not pull away. We started down the mountain.
I don’t know how long I will remember this night. I don’t know if I will know his face when the sun comes up. But as we walked, I kept saying his name under my breath. Saul. Saul. Saul. It was a rhythm. It was a prayer.
I could still feel the ink on my skin. It was starting to dry. It was starting to flake off. I knew that soon, I would be a blank page. But for tonight, I was still his mother. For tonight, we were walking home together in the dark. That was the only map that mattered.