Following the Breadcrumbs

Los Angeles's sweeping apathy started to feel less crippling and more like a challenging puzzle that Mateo had to carefully put together. A necessary governor on his raging impatience, Seraphina's warning continued to echo. There was no place for carelessness. The key was careful movement and observation.

His first practical assignment was to solve the clue from Griffith Observatory. Finding the precise viewpoint Seraphina had described—the view from somewhere possibly close to her, looking towards the observatory, and perceiving it as "a crown on the hill"—was more important than simply seeing the landmark. To do this, the usual tourist gaze had to be reversed.

Mateo returned to the Los Feliz area with a bus day pass in hand and a map app on his phone that was having trouble with the erratic signal in the hills. He avoided the throngs of people making their way to the famous structure itself by avoiding the main entrance to Griffith Park. Rather, he started to systematically investigate the meandering residential streets that ascended the hills across from the park, the ones Seraphina might presumably gaze out from.

The work was slow and exhausting. The area was a tangle of pricey residences concealed by towering hedges, gated entrances, and 'Private Road' signs, which immediately made him feel uncomfortable. Aware of his backpack and his non-resident status, he walked for hours in the California sun. From discreet corners, security cameras appeared to monitor his progress. A few times, sleek, silent electric cars whispered past, their occupants giving him a sidelong glance of mild interest or outright disinterest. He had the impression of an ant scuttling on the brink of an opulent, forbidden realm.

He concentrated on locating public vantage points, tiny parks, or even just turns in the road that provided a direct view of the observatory. In an attempt to reconcile the view with Seraphina's description, he glanced back across the canyon. There were glimpses everywhere, but none felt quite right. He eventually came upon a tiny, nearly unnoticed public overlook—nothing more than a bench and a railing on a hairpin turn—after negotiating an especially steep, narrow road.

He approached the railing and peered outside. And there it was. The Griffith Observatory, white, domed, and majestic against the misty blue sky, sat atop its hill across the intervening space. From this particular height and viewpoint, it certainly did look like a crown. The crown of Seraphina. He could almost imagine her sharing this exact viewpoint as she peered out from a nearby window. He experienced a strong sense of connection mixed with an almost intolerable annoyance at the remaining distance. Needing to document the moment, he took out his sketchbook and used graphite on paper to anchor the brittle breadcrumb trail. Not only did he sketch the building rapidly, but he also captured the atmosphere of the scene, including the distance and the implied gaze.

Then, in Chapter 9's dream aftermath, he drew a fainter breadcrumb from dream memories and Seraphina's brief, hurried visit to the ordinary coffee shop, 'The Daily Grind,' next to the mural of migrating birds. He found it using his map app once more; it was surprisingly far from the wealthy hills, back in a busier, more varied neighborhood near Melrose. Although it seemed unrelated to the observatory clue, it was noteworthy in its own right and represented yet another small point of convergence in their wildly divergent paths.

He traveled there by two buses, illustrating how disjointed LA is. He saw the faded bird mural as soon as he emerged onto the crowded street. And there was the store, as simple and unremarkable as he had imagined. The aroma of real coffee was a pleasant familiarity as he entered. He sat at a small table by the window, possibly the same place where Seraphina had experienced that brief moment of normalcy prior to the paparazzi intrusion, and ordered an espresso, which was reasonably priced compared to the cafes near the hills.

As he nursed the tiny cup, he watched the bustle of people outside, including office workers, artists, and students. A world away from the artificiality of Seraphina's public persona or the quiet exclusivity of the hills, it felt real and grounding. If her life permitted it, could she find peace in places like this? He stayed, doodled aimlessly, taking in the mood, feeling oddly more connected to her here, in this everyday routine, than he had when he gazed at her possible view.

He got his first, oblique look at the machinery that surrounded Seraphina as he was leaving the coffee shop and making his way back to the bus stop. Three black, identical Escalades with heavily tinted windows swept down the street in a convoy, moving at a deliberate pace. They made a seamless turn onto a side street with towering gates and high walls, similar to those he had seen in the hills before. Although he couldn't see who was inside or whether it was her entourage or another affluent resident, it was clear that those cars were a show of contained power and that they were extremely expensive and secure. It was a mobile, silent fortress built to keep its occupants isolated from the everyday world.

During the lengthy bus ride back to his motel, that brief image lingered in his mind. The breadcrumbs had been successfully followed by him. He had located the vantage point and was standing where Seraphina might be. She knew the coffee shop where he had sat. He had witnessed firsthand how lives like hers were surrounded by a security cocoon. He had walked around the periphery of her world.

But rather than feeling victorious, he was overcome with deep self-doubt. Observing those black cars, sitting in that cafe, and standing on that overlook all contributed to highlighting the enormous, possibly unbridgeable, distance between them. He was a young man pursuing a relationship formed in sleep, navigating a foreign city on shaky public transit, with a sketchbook and a dwindling bank account. Encased in layers of fame, fortune, and professional handlers, she was a worldwide phenomenon whose unexpected, short visit to a typical coffee shop triggered a paparazzi alert.

He glanced at his drawing of the observatory, where the "crown" now appeared mocking and far away. The black Escalades, emblems of an impenetrable world, crossed his mind. He had reached the brink of her reality thanks to the breadcrumbs, but they provided him with no means of getting there or of bridging the gap. With the terrifying suspicion that the star he wished to reach might just be too far away, protected by walls far higher than any he could climb, he felt smaller and more lost than ever, lost in the LA labyrinth.