The Map of Moments by Christopher Golden

Author:Christopher Golden [Golden, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-553-90607-3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

chapter

10

Max didn't need Google or the library to tell him about the yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans. Even before the possibility of teaching at Tulane had arisen, he'd covered it several times as both a student and an educator. He'd spent a semester at Boston University teaching a course entitled “Plague in History,” and remembered the most prominent details, just as he did the bubonic plague, and epidemics in London, in Philadelphia, and in ancient societies. By its very nature, an epidemic could be a tilting point in the history of a city or region, changing its cultural fabric forever.

Yellow fever hit New Orleans nearly every summer from the early 1800s until 1905, killing at least forty thousand people, though with the flow of immigrants arriving in that era, the death toll could have been much higher than official numbers reflected. Some years, only a handful of people were taken by the fever, and in others the angel of death might dim the lights in hundreds of homes, even thousands.

The darkest point came in 1853, when the yellow fever had raged out of control, striking down more than eight thousand New Orleaneans in a scant few months, the majority in the sweltering heat of a brutally tropical August. The streets had been deserted, the music halls silent, with most people dead, dying, or tending to the sick. Mass graves were dug and filled, and each morning in August an impromptu parade of hearses and dark carriages headed out to the cemeteries. That image, the burial parade, had remained fresh in Max's mind all the years since he had first read about it.

What he didn't understand was the phrasing of the Fourth Moment. Its meaning seemed clear—the Tordu had done something to rid the city of the yellow fever. But that seemed entirely opposite from what little he knew about them thus far. Had Mireault still been alive then? Why would he have cared how many people the fever took? Max had no idea what the population of New Orleans had been in 1853, or what percentage eight thousand dead would comprise, but it had to be enormous.

Max sighed. He clicked on the car radio and tuned through hip-hop and rap stations until he found a comforting bit of bluesy jazz. The only way for him to find answers was to follow the map, all the way to the end.

He'd managed to get himself tucked away on North Derbigny Street, just off Iberville. According to the map, he wasn't any farther from his destination than he'd been at the library. The only difference was that west of Canal, nearly every street was a one-way, and the map didn't account for that. More than once he had to turn around, but within minutes he found himself turning off Perdido Street onto a road that had no sign.

Both sides of Bertrand Street were vacant lots now. What they had been before Katrina, Max could not decipher. Whatever had been here before had been erased.

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