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Mark waking up didn't concern her; on the way up, Caroline had thought up no less than four excuses and contingency plans in the event that he tried to stop them, but she was relieved that he made this easier on all of them by just drifting right off again.

"Yeah, Mark. Sure will." She smiled, and very cautiously bent to give him a kiss on (the approximate area of) his cheek, taking care to not disrupt any papers still remaining on his head.

With that taken care of, and the bag suitably replaced, she turned back towards the boy and the door and considered the next item on their list.

"Um." She wiped at her eyes with the back of her arm - or maybe wiped off her mouth, it was impossible to tell - and nodded once, guiding him out into the hall. Not that he needed much encouragement to get out of there. "You got clothes and things you're gonna need? It's okay if you don't--I've got money to cover it for you when we're out. But if you do, where's those? Otherwise...guess my stuff's next."

Just like everyone else, Caroline wasn't sure why he wanted to leave before dark. In her opinion, darkness was probably to their advantage, but she didn't question it. If it was a sore spot, she didn't want to poke at it.

"Won't take long," she said, taking his hand this time as she led him down several flights of stairs to her little room. It was still faintly illuminated by a soft, cheery rainbow of Christmas lights strung along the top of each wall, and was in the same state of slight untidiness that it always had been.

Oddly, she really hadn't been exaggerating about the amount of time she needed: she retrieved a bag beneath her bed and put only one or two other things inside it, seeming to suggest that she was always packed to leave at an instant.

"Oh, hey! Do you like snacks?" She emptied the remaining contents of two Little Debbie boxes, depositing a pile of Swiss rolls and chocolate cupcakes on her bed. The roll of money that tumbled out of one of them was tucked casually into her cleavage while he wasn't looking. "Pack 'em in your bag if you want them--so you can have them whenever. Good to go after that."

On her way out, she paused and grabbed an extra Emerston university hoodie, and a recently acquired pink cat-eared hat.

The word 'map' ensnared her attention in an instant, and whatever train of thought she'd been coasting along was now completely abandoned as Caroline stopped and stared down at the map. It looked like it might have been a map of the island, but the majority of it was so intricately marked and annotated that she couldn't rule out something more figurative than the physical island itself.

"Is this your map? You made it?" As with everything else they'd been discussing, there was no condescension or confusion - just a tone of understanding, even if she didn't understand the map itself. "When I was trying to get out, I'd write my maps--my plans--in ways that only made sense to me. My thinking's kind of stuck in my way of writing, so--don't worry, I can still help. Just need a minute to adjust to this."

She squinted at all of the little points and tried to make out any pattern, either to the points themselves or the labels attached to them.

Seeing Carl hold onto the map the way that he did made her smile again, which slowly faded away as she continued her efforts to make sense of it. The separation of those seven specific colors was ringing bells, but not ones that made her feel very hopeful in their circumstances.

"Might help. I won't take it--promise. Won't even touch it if you don't want me to, I can--oh!" This sparked an idea, and she fished the tablet that Mark had given her out of her bag, tapping at it until it turned on. "I got this just for maps."

That wasn't entirely true, but it sounded good.

"So--well, maybe, if it's okay...I could just--we could take a picture of your map with this and, you know, then it'll--then I won't have to touch it, and we can draw on it and stuff without messing yours up. Plan our way. Keeps yours all safe, and helps us get out at the same time. Yeah? And if we're stuck figuring out how to make sense of it, we can see--"

She was interrupted by her own startled scream, having glanced up from the map to see Mimsy standing patiently behind him, waiting just off to the side. She didn't look happy, and certainly didn't when her mother screamed at the sight of her.

"--uh." Obviously shaken, she fumbled with the tablet that she'd nearly dropped in surprise. "Your sister."

"It's okay, it's okay!" Caroline quickly interjected, reaching back towards him in an effort to give him some comfort. The knowledge that he trusted her enough to hide behind her for protection gave her far more satisfaction than it should have, and even though she knew he wasn't in danger, she instinctively held her arm protectively out in front of him, nodding at Mimsy to urge her to say something.

"I have neither a desire nor intention to kill you," she confirmed. The 'you' may or may not have been plural, but undeniably referred to Carl either way, as she was looking at him while she spoke. That stare moved up towards her mother as she continued, brows quizzically raised. "Sister?"

Caroline gave Mimsy a look that wordlessly asked if she was blind, but having scarcely seen that look before now, she had no idea how to label such an expression and failed to perceive it.

"Listen, it's not--so, the important thing is he's been kidnapped. And we're getting him home--getting him free," Caroline insisted, giving his shoulder an encouraging squeeze. "You want her to look at it--just look? See if she knows anything? Make the notes on the tablet like we were talking about? We won't do anything you don't want. All your choice."

While she was busy smiling down at him, Mimsy just blankly stared, not sure what she'd expected.

The hesitation to trust Mimsy was easily registered by Caroline, as she was well aware of exactly what that looked (and felt) like. She held her breath while waiting for his decision, exhaling in relief when he opted to hand it over to her - then subtly took a set of pictures of it from their short distance as it was examined, before tucking the 'map tablet' back into her bag without another word about it. Just above the top of the map, Mimsy could see him looking next to her, where she was quite sure no one was standing. She checked once for the sake of it, and returned to her task.

"The simplest observation is that each of the colors indicated on one side corresponds with a Legacy," she began, looking very critically at the 'unchanged' written there, softening her expression to something more pleasant before addressing Carl. "Are you familiar with the subject to which I am referring?"

"Ooh!" Caroline piped up, giving his shoulder an energetic and affectionate pat. "If you aren't, I'll tell you my favorite part! It's about--there's a strong, awesome lady in red that becomes queen, and her really spooky kid who helps--"

"That is not especially relevant to present circumstances," Mimsy informed him, forcing a smile. "Perhaps we should initially focus on the coordinates indicated on the opposite side. They indicate locations that are not on this island, and a location elsewhere is where you want to be, correct?"

"He said not far," Caroline pointed out, causing Mimsy to chance a look at the space beside her again. "Maybe what's closest--what's fastest. He wants to go."

Stuck on what she'd assumed was some misconception about Mimsy, Caroline sheepishly tried to correct him.

"No, she's--she's not from Halloween, but--"

"Stop," Mimsy abruptly commanded, as if she were speaking to a dog - she didn't have time to try to quiet her any other way. A change in her demeanor was visibly apparent, and in stark contrast to everything up to this point, she looked happy. Really, truly happy.

"Alice is here! Is she here with me? Is she the one that you have been addressing?" She tried to hand the map back to him as she asked, no longer interested in pretending to care about it. "She is correct. I know her very well, and she is important to me. You can see and communicate with her? Please, tell her hello!"

Caroline had never come to a satisfactory conclusion that Alice wasn't currently part of an ongoing delusional hallucination that her daughter was experiencing as a coping mechanism, so she looked awkwardly back at Carl and hoped that any of this was real.