Page 6 of Atlas of Unknowable Things
My temples throbbed, and my heart beat so loudly in my head that it was hard to hear much else. I’d read about altitude sickness, but had never experienced it—something to do with the body not getting enough oxygen as it attempts to adjust to the lower levels available at extreme heights.
“It should pass if you rest and hydrate. Let’s get you to your room.”
When we arrived back at my quarters, he gave me a gentle pat on the back. “I’ll have your dinner brought up to you—we’ve a marvelous cook, and all our produce is grown right here at Hildegard—and if your symptoms worsen, we will have you examined.”
“I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“You’re no trouble at all. Eat, rest, and you can get started with your work as soon as you’re feeling up to it.”
After Dorian left, I made my way over to the window and opened it, letting the fresh mountain air wash over me. In the distance, the tops of large pine trees swayed like fragile dancers. An array of brightly colored birds flitted through the garden, darting between hedgerows and fountains. Leaning farther out, I inhaled deeply. The air was amazing, fresh and fragrant, riven through with a hint of floral spice I couldn’t quite identify. From my perch high above the rest of campus, I felt like a cartographer staring down at her map, tracing lines from building to building, from garden to garden.
After showering, I felt a little better, so I set my computer up on the rustic oak desk and streamed some shows, mostly old episodes ofThe Twilight Zone, including my favorite, the oneabout a mannequin who gets lost in a department store. Later that evening, Dorian arrived at my door bearing an enormous tray filled with delicacies: cassoulet, fresh salad, rolls, and even crème brûlée. After he set it down, he pulled a bottle of Advil from his pocket.
“Thank Christ,” I said, immediately downing a couple.
“You look like you’re feeling better.”
“I think I am.”
“Eating will help. I can sit with you, if you like.”
I dragged a wingback chair over and we sat together, talking while I ate.
“The land is gorgeous here,” I said. “And the air is something else.”
“This entire area is breathtaking. And there’s a village a few miles down the mountain. It’s an interesting spot, settled by a small group of French immigrants in the nineteenth century. They still speak the language in the village. Hardly any English.”
I set my water down and chose my words carefully. “I read about the town. Petit Rouen, isn’t it? A young woman was killed there recently, right? An animal attack?”
There was a long pause, and immediately I regretted speaking too soon. He cleared his throat.
“Excuse me,” he said, his tone heavy. “You must forgive me. I didn’t want to burden you with our recent troubles, but yes, a young woman was killed down in the village, and as you know, our dear friend Professor Casimir left not long after. The trouble, you see, is that no one has heard from her since. There is no logical reason to connect the two incidents, but they happened such a short time apart that one fears…”
“I’m sorry about your friend,” I said, the enormity of the situation really hitting home. Isabelle Casimir wasn’t just somecardboard cutout representing the apotheosis of my research pursuits; she was an actual person with friends and loved ones who were obviously worried about her. I felt a squalid emptiness inside my chest that slowly began to fill with guilt. “Can I ask about the circumstances? Do you have reason to believe she was… that something bad happened to her? Could she maybe have just left without telling anyone where she was going?”
“That is what the authorities think. She did take a bag with her, and her ID and her phone were missing. But it was so unlike her. She gave no indication that she was going to do anything strange. She was working on a big project at the time. I’m sure she would have wanted to see it through.”
“But if she took her ID, at least you know it was planned to some degree.”
“Yes,” he said, but his tone made it clear he didn’t actually believe what he was saying. “But my fear is that she went into the woods. The woods here are very dangerous. You must never go off the marked trails. Never. There’s a history, you see. And she disappeared at night. If she went into the woods at night and came across… You know, bears take the bodies back to their dens. We might never find her.”
“But why would you think she would go into the woods in the middle of the night?”
“We just don’t know what happened. One moment she was here, the next she was gone. To understand Isabelle, you’d really have to understand this place. It’s more than just a college; it’s a community, and during the summers, those of us that stay on campus form bonds that go beyond just being colleagues. In some ways, Isabelle was the epicenter of those bonds.”
He went on for some time, describing the card games, the soirees, the shared meals. To hear him tell it, it was hard toimagine how any of them ever got any work done. It sounded like carousing with Jazz Age artists and intellectuals. One could practically hear Zelda Fitzgerald throwing a jealous fit on some champagne-soaked terrace.
At one point, he disappeared down the hall and returned holding a single photo. In it, Dorian stood smiling between a man and woman, both in their late twenties. They looked positively joyous—bright smiles and outstretched arms. You could almost hear the echoes of distant laughter, the festive music that must have filled the air, and immediately I was gripped by an uncanny ache for a life I’d never had.
“That’s Finn Jeon,” Dorian said, pointing to the man in the photo. Asian, with attractively tousled hair and a chin line like cut glass, he was smoking a cigarette with so much aplomb that I found myself momentarily wishing the habit would come back in style. “He’s in systems science. And that’s Aspen Thomas, our director of horticulture. If you’re interested in herbology, you will want to talk to her.”
Aspen was Black with a nose piercing and Clara Bow lips, and she seemed to be in the midst of a flapper dance, her right leg kicked out to the side to reveal knee-high boots and sparkling tights. The general air was one of very glamorous, fun people cutting loose with wild abandon. They were a lot cooler and looked like a lot more fun than the academics in my department, and I felt a twinge of jealousy, or perhaps it was a vestigial longing for acceptance. I suddenly wondered if they might be hiring a historian anytime soon.
Taking a closer look at the photo, I noticed a blond woman standing a few feet behind the others, her face just out of the frame.
“Who’s that? It’s not Professor Casimir, is it?”
“No, Isabelle was taking the photo, if I remember correctly. That’s Lexi Duarte. She’s our behavioral psychologist. She’s actually a distant cousin of mine. I think you’ll like her.”
