第95章 The Children's Map

And the map's growing, page by page and name by name, was watched over by the old bus at the seam, which had been parked with its doors open as the welcome station, and the station's board, which read the welcome in both accents, was the first entry in the map's book of keeping, and the book of keeping grew with the map, entry by entry, until the map and the book were the two worlds' whole shared history, and the whole shared history was kept at the seam where the two roads crossed, kept by the children who drew it and the children who read it and the children who would grow up to draw the next page, and the keeping of the history was the keeping of the two worlds, and the two worlds were one, and the one was the map, and the map was the children's, and the children's was the whole of the long route, forever. The map's first page was followed by the second and the third and the rest, and the second page was drawn by the next class and the third by the class after, and each class added its own name to the map the way the keepers added their names to the register, and the adding of names was the keeping of the map, and the keeping of the map was the keeping of the world, and the keeping of the world was the keeping of the children, and the keeping of the children was the whole of the long route, kept by the ones who rode it, forever. And the children's map, which had been drawn by children who insisted on riding the long route for every section of it, was the first document the two worlds had ever written together, the first page of the two worlds' shared book, and the page was kept at the school on the seam and was displayed on the first day of every term, and each term the new children rode the long route and came to the display and saw the map their predecessors had drawn, and each term the map grew a little, a new station added, a new road marked, a new name written in by the newest hands, and the growing of the map was the whole of the two worlds' school, the whole of the shared book being written page by page by children who would grow up on the long route and keep the map for their own children, and the keeping of the map was the whole of the two worlds' third spring, and the third spring was the map, and the map was the book, and the book was the children, and the children were the keeping, forever. The children's map took a whole season to draw, because the children who drew it insisted on riding the long route one more time for every section of it, and the riding of it was the drawing of it, and the drawing of it was the whole of the season's geography lesson, the lesson that a map is not a picture of a place but a record of the going to it, and the going to it, ridden by the children of both worlds for the drawing of the map, was the whole of the two roads' third year, and the third year was the map, and the map was the children's, and the children's was the whole of the shared world drawn by the ones who would live in it, forever. The map was pinned to the wall of the school on the seam on the first day of the third spring, and the whole school, the children of both worlds and the teachers of both schools and the Ferry and the child of Vael and the deep-keeper and Kevin, stood before it the way a people stands before a new chart of its own home, and the chart showed the two worlds joined by the long route and the two roads named together and the seam marked not as a boundary but as the place where the two roads crossed over into each other, and the crossing was the whole of the children's map, because a map that shows the crossing as the center of the world is a map that has understood the two roads better than any surveyor, and the understanding was the whole of the children's gift, and the gift was the map, and the map was the two roads, and the two roads were one, and the one was the crossing, and the crossing was the seam, and the seam was the center, and the center was the school, and the school was the map's home, and the map was the children's home, and the home was the whole of the assessment's answer, drawn by the children, forever. The children's map, drawn by the second school's oldest class in the third spring of the two roads, was the first map of the whole shared world, and it was drawn not by a surveyor or a cartographer but by children who had ridden the long route from one end to the other and had drawn what they had seen, and what they had seen was the whole of the two worlds joined at the seam by a road that ran through both, and the map, pinned to the wall of the school on the seam, was the first document in the history of the two worlds that showed them as one, and the showing of them as one was the whole of the children's gift to the keeping, because a map drawn by children who have ridden the whole road is a map that shows the road as a thing ridden, and a road shown as a thing ridden is a road shown as a thing kept, and the keeping of it was the whole of the children's map, and the map was the whole of the two worlds, and the two worlds were one, and the one was the road, and the road was the map, and the map was the children's, and the children's map was the whole of the assessment's answer given its final shape, drawn by the ones who would ride it, forever.