She had lowered herself to her knees, pulling the skirt of the bed aside to look beneath it. With a grunt she reached under the bed and withdrew a box, sliding it across the floor. “Help me up, Peter.”

He took her by an elbow and eased her to her feet, then lifted the box from the floor. An ordinary cardboard shoe box, with a hinged lid and a flap that sealed it tight.

“Go on now.” Auntie was sitting on the edge of the bed, her naked feet dangling like a Little’s, skimming the floor. “Open it.”

He did as she’d said. The box was full of folded paper—he had already figured that out. But not just paper, he saw. Maps.

The box was full of maps.

Carefully he lifted the first one free of the box. Its surface was worn smooth, so brittle at its creases he worried that it might dissolve in his hands. At the top were the words AUTOMOBILE CLUB OF AMERICA, LOS ANGELES BASIN AND SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

“These were my father’s. The ones he used on the Long Rides.”

He gently withdrew the others, placing each on top of the bureau. SAN BERNARDINO NATIONAL FOREST. LAS VEGAS STREET ATLAS. SOUTHERN NEVADA AND ENVIRONS. LONG BEACH, SAN PEDRO AND THE PORT OF LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA DESERT REGION, MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE. And, at the bottom, its folded edges squeezed against the sides of the box: FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, MAP OF THE CENTRAL QUARANTINE ZONE.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Where did you get them?”

“Your mother brought them to me. Before she died.” Auntie was still watching him from the bed, her hands resting in her lap. “That woman knew you better than you know yourself. Give them to him when he’s ready, she said.”

A familiar sadness washed over him. “I’m sorry, Auntie,” he said after a moment. “You’ve made a mistake. She must have meant Theo.”

But she shook her head. “No, Peter.” She smiled a toothless smile; her vaporous cloud of hair, backlit by the spots pouring down outside the windows, seemed to glow around her face—a halo of hair and light. “It was you. She told me to give them to you.”