She shrank down a bit. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw dozens of people entering through the gate, none of them deigning to show any sort of identification or pass. In the lost city, Leora realized, going in is never a problem. The guards are there to prevent people from going out.

“Just a local map, if you have one,” she stuttered.

The guard grumbled a bit, then took out a key and unlocked a drawer of the desk in front of him inside the gatehouse. The drawer burst open, and Leora saw that it was filled with all sorts of papers—typed pages, printed pages, mimeographed pages, handwritten pages in brown ink on yellowing paper. After rummaging for a full five minutes, the guard retrieved a small scroll. Passing the scroll to her through the window, he made an impatient gesture with his hand, growled again, and resumed his reading. Leora hurried through the gate, pausing within the city to unfurl the scroll’s waterlogged yellow edges. But once she had opened it, she found that the map was nearly blank, depicting just the contours of the ocean floor—a map only of what used to be. And so she wandered, unable to aim herself anywhere, through the crowded streets.

The streets of the lost city were packed. Contrary to what you might expect, though, there wasn’t anything very strange about them, once you got used to the gas streetlamps, the lack of cars, the chatter of the Manhattan language, and the people breathing through gills. In fact, it was almost unnerving how normal it seemed. People were returning from work, hurrying by as if they could think of nothing but the dinner or child or lover waiting at home for them. Some were running errands, shopping for butter churns and sewing machines, while others were window-shopping, debating whether to invest in a reading from the local phrenologist. Still others were just out for a leisurely stroll—young couples holding each other’s waists, old couples holding each other’s hands, in-between couples piled high with children on their backs. Nothing could have been more normal. Not content with all this normalcy, Leora wandered some more until she discovered the lost city’s zoo.