Mara and Pip did not move.
The footsteps below them came closer.
The footsteps above them came closer too.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Pip whispered, “Perhaps we should choose one direction.”
“Which one?”
“The quieter one.”
Mara listened.
The footsteps above stopped.
The footsteps below stopped.
Everything was silent.
Then a voice from above said:
“Good morning, Mara.”
A voice from below said:
“Good morning, Mara.”
Mara closed her eyes.
“Which one is real?”
Pip thought about it.
“Perhaps neither.”
“That's not helpful.”
“I've noticed that.”
Mara opened her eyes.
The staircase was empty.
Both voices were gone.
At the top was a small landing.
At the bottom was another small landing.
And somehow, although they had not moved, Mara was standing at both.
Pip was too.
Mara looked down.
She could see herself standing below.
The other Mara looked up.
They waved at each other.
Pip waved too.
The other Pip waved back.
“That's enough,” said Mara.
She sat down.
The other Mara sat down.
Pip sat beside her.
The other Pip sat beside his Mara.
“We need a map,” said Mara.
Pip nodded.
“Yes.”
“A proper map.”
“Yes.”
“One that doesn't change.”
Pip hesitated.
“Do you think the house will agree?”
“No.”
“Then why make one?”
“So we can know where we are.”
Mara took a pencil from her pocket.
She had been carrying it since school.
She found a scrap of paper.
On it she drew a square.
“This is the room.”
She added a door.
“This is the door.”
She drew a corridor.
“This is the corridor.”
She drew the staircase.
“This is the staircase.”
Pip watched.
“What about the other staircase?”
“There isn't one.”
“There is.”
“Not on the map.”
Pip considered this.
“That's convenient.”
Mara drew it.
Now there were two staircases.
She drew the garden.
The house.
The library.
The green door.
The hall of mirrors.
The room with the changing furniture.
The tiny door.
The staircase that went somewhere else.
She drew everything they could remember.
Soon the map filled the page.
Pip looked at it.
“It looks like a spider.”
Mara looked.
It did.
A very complicated spider.
“With doors,” she said.
“Perhaps it's a house-spider.”
“Perhaps.”
She drew another line.
The map changed.
Not on the paper.
The house changed.
A door appeared in the wall beside them.
Pip stared.
“You drew that.”
“I know.”
“So the map made the door.”
“Or the door made the map.”
Pip frowned.
“That's worse.”
Mara drew a window.
A window appeared.
She drew a staircase.
A staircase appeared.
She quickly crossed it out.
The staircase disappeared.
They stared at each other.
Pip took the pencil.
He drew a biscuit.
Nothing happened.
He drew another.
Still nothing.
“Perhaps it only draws rooms.”
“Try a chair.”
Pip drew a chair.
A chair appeared.
He drew a table.
A table appeared.
He drew a cat.
Nothing happened.
“That's disappointing.”
Mara took the pencil.
She drew a door.
Nothing happened.
She drew another.
Nothing.
A third.
Nothing.
“It's stopped.”
Pip pointed to the map.
“Perhaps it's full.”
Mara looked at the paper.
There was hardly any space left.
She turned it over.
The other side was blank.
She began again.
A square.
A door.
A corridor.
A staircase.
The house changed.
Mara stopped.
She looked at the map.
Then at the house.
Then back at the map.
“I think I know what it's doing.”
“What?”
“It isn't showing us where the rooms are.”
“What is it showing?”
“Where the rooms can be.”
Pip looked impressed.
“That's much more confusing.”
Mara continued drawing.
She drew a room with no door.
The house produced a room with no door.
She drew a door with no room.
A door appeared in the wall.
She drew two rooms connected by a staircase.
The house rearranged itself.
She drew the same two rooms connected by a mirror.
The house rearranged itself again.
The map wasn't describing the house.
It was changing what the house could become.
Pip took the pencil.
He drew a tiny square.
“What is that?”
“Nothing.”
“You can't draw nothing.”
“I just did.”
Mara looked.
Inside the square was an empty space.
She drew another square around it.
Then another.
Then another.
The house began to tremble.
“Stop.”
Pip stopped.
The trembling ceased.
Mara stared at the nested squares.
“What were you trying to draw?”
“A room inside a room inside a room.”
“Why?”
“I wondered how far it would go.”
Mara folded the paper.
“We aren't doing that.”
“Fair enough.”
They walked back towards the staircase.
At the foot of it was a door.
Above the door was a brass plaque.
MAP ROOM
Mara opened it.
Inside was a very large table.
On the table was a map.
It covered the entire surface.
Pip walked around it.
“That's our map.”
Mara looked closer.
It was.
Every room they had visited was there.
The green door.
The garden.
The house.
The mirrors.
The impossible staircase.
Even the little room with the changing furniture.
But there was something else.
A small blank square.
In the middle of the map.
Mara touched it.
The paper was warm.
“What is that?”
Pip leaned over.
“I don't know.”
Mara looked around the room.
On the wall was another map.
The same map.
Except the blank square was slightly larger.
And on another wall was another.
Larger again.
And another.
And another.
Each map contained the previous map.
The final map showed the room they were standing in.
Mara's head began to hurt.
“Pip.”
“Yes?”
“We're on the map.”
“Yes.”
“So where are we?”
Pip pointed.
At the centre of the map was a tiny square.
“This is us.”
Mara looked.
The square had a little door drawn inside it.
She opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
She reached into her pocket.
Her pencil was gone.
She checked again.
Nothing.
Pip looked at his hands.
His biscuit was gone too.
“That's odd.”
Mara looked back at the map.
The tiny door was open.
Behind it was a staircase.
And on the staircase stood two tiny figures.
One was holding a pencil.
The other was holding a biscuit.
Pip stared.
“That looks like us.”
“It is us.”
“But we're here.”
Mara looked at the tiny figures.
The tiny figures looked back.
One of them waved.
Mara waved.
The other Pip raised his biscuit.
Pip raised his empty hand.
“That seems unfair.”
Then the tiny Mara drew something on the tiny map.
A small square.
Around it, another square.
Then another.
Then another.
The house shuddered.
The table shook.
The maps fluttered.
Mara grabbed the edge.
“Stop!”
The tiny Mara stopped drawing.
Everything became still.
Mara stared at the map.
There was now a small circle around the room they were standing in.
Outside the circle was the rest of the house.
Inside it was only them.
Pip looked at her.
“What does the circle mean?”
“I don't know.”
“Can you erase it?”
Mara reached for the pencil.
It was back in her pocket.
She took it out.
The map showed the circle.
She rubbed it with her finger.
Nothing happened.
She crossed it out.
The circle became darker.
She tried again.
Darker still.
Pip leaned closer.
“Perhaps it's not a circle.”
“What is it?”
“A boundary.”
Mara stopped.
The word seemed to echo through the room.
Boundary.
Boundary.
Boundary.
Then someone knocked on the map.
Three times.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Mara looked down.
The sound had come from the blank square.
She bent closer.
The paper moved.
Something was pushing against it from underneath.
Pip whispered:
“Don't lift it.”
Mara lifted it.
Under the map was another map.
And under that one was another.
And underneath all of them was a single sentence:
THIS MAP DOES NOT CONTAIN THE ROOM IN WHICH IT IS DRAWN.
Mara read it twice.
Pip read it once.
Neither spoke.
Then Pip said:
“I think we have found the missing room.”
Mara looked around.
The room was exactly as it had been.
Table.
Maps.
Door.
Walls.
Ceiling.
Floor.
Nothing missing.
She looked back at the sentence.
“No.”
“What?”
“We haven't found it.”
“Why not?”
“Because if the map says the room isn't on the map…”
She looked at the blank square.
“…then the missing room must be somewhere the map can't show us.”
Pip nodded slowly.
“Where?”
Mara looked at the walls.
Then at the ceiling.
Then at the floor.
Finally she looked at the piece of paper in her hand.
“I think,” she said, “we're standing on it.”
The map gave a tiny sigh.
Then it folded itself in half.
And when Mara opened it again, there was a new room drawn on the map.
It was labelled:
HERE.