The scream came from Lantern Lane. Mara and Mrs. Alder rushed into the street just as the clear sky folded over itself and burst into rain. It fell in one narrow circle around the lane, leaving the rest of Bellweather dry and confused.
At the center of the rain stood Mr. Vale, the mapmaker, staring at his own front door. The brass knob rattled violently though no one touched it. His apprentice, Pell, crouched behind a rain barrel with a bundle of maps clutched to his chest.
“It keeps knocking from inside,” Pell said, his voice thin. “But Mr. Vale was outside when it started.”
Mara lifted the lantern. The blue flame sprang up, and the rain stopped falling downward. Instead, each drop froze in the air, trembling like glass beads. Then the drops slid together, tracing streets, roofs, bridges, and alleys until a glowing map of Bellweather hovered between Mara and the door.
People gathered at the edge of the strange rain, whispering from the dry street beyond it. Some made signs against bad luck. Others called for the constable, though no one seemed certain what law a haunted door had broken. Mara felt every eye on the lantern and hated how quickly curiosity could turn into blame.
Three places pulsed with blue light edged in black: the old bridge, the clocktower, and a narrow mark behind the bakery. The mark at the clocktower throbbed brightest, like a bruise under skin.
Mrs. Alder went very still. “Those are touchmarks. Places where the Gloam has pressed itself against our world.”
“There were stories,” Mrs. Alder added, more to herself than to Mara. “Not the kind people tell at festivals. The kind they stop telling because children ask too many questions.”
The door to the mapmaker’s shop burst open. For a heartbeat, Mara saw only darkness inside, deep and crowded. Then dozens of rolled maps flew out like startled birds, slapping against the wet street.
One map landed at Mara’s feet. Lines rearranged themselves across the parchment until they formed the old bridge, the clocktower, and the bakery wall. Beneath them, new words appeared in ink so blue it glowed.
Find where the bell forgot its voice.
Mara looked toward the clocktower. Its hands pointed to noon, but its face was dark, and no bell rang over the town.
For a heartbeat, Mara wished she could hand the lantern to someone older, wiser, and less frightened. But the map at her feet pulsed in time with her heartbeat, and the lantern’s handle warmed beneath her fingers like a hand squeezing back.