Charting the Unseen — Kari Anne Kilgore

Uncovering Hidden WorldsJamie knows buying real estate brings plenty of headaches, especially for a new business.Endless inspections, unexpected problems, challenges large and small.But Natasha knows the biggest trouble sometimes hides just out of sight.Will her discoveries crush Jamie's dreams, or help them come true?Part of Mystical Maps, an Uncollected AnthologyAn excerpt from Charting the Unseen:Unsuspected Influences All Around Any other Mapper would struggle for accuracy with Natasha's papyrus, and she'd have the same problem with someone else's. The preparation bound the sheets to the Mapper so no other hand would succeed without an unreasonable amount of effort.That didn't mean she'd succeed, of course. Only that others would likely fail.She pulled the eyeshade into place and took a deep breath, drawing in the woodsy, sweet sandalwood. On her exhale, the distractions of the day faded out of her mind.Natasha no longer sat on the floor of an empty warehouse level, with a flourishing neighborhood outside on a cold November day.Her curiosity about Jamie's potential as a Mapper and her vague annoyance at his pushy realtor drifted away.With another breath and exhalation, her consciousness balanced in the connection point where all facets of reality met, seen and unseen.A magical junction she'd suspected as a child, so strongly she was sure she could touch it.And as an adult, she'd learned to do not only that, but to venture forth from that nexus and explore the worlds around her.