Three holes and a missing name
The notebook entry had no surname, only “workshop.” Lina walked across the courtyard to the repair shop, where Tomas was replacing a chair leg. He recognized the order but laughed at the suggestion that he had been leaving empty bags. The rolls had gone to his aunt’s sewing class in the upstairs room. She used to collect them before the students arrived.
His aunt, Eva, had retired and moved away. Tomas still kept her sewing equipment in a cupboard. Among the patterns was a bundle of narrow paper bags, each pierced near the bottom. Lina expected a hidden message when he spread them out. Instead, the holes lined up exactly with three stitches shown on a beginner’s practice card.
Eva had used leftover bakery bags to teach children how to guide a needle through prepared holes. The blue patch reinforced the paper where a student had torn it. That explained the marks, but not the new deliveries. Tomas checked his messages and found that Eva had recently sent the equipment to a former pupil who wanted to restart the class.
The pupil was Nessa, the quiet woman who had rented the courtyard studio that month. Lina knocked and found her arranging chairs around a long table. A bundle of bags sat beside a spool of blue thread. Nessa looked relieved rather than caught. “I was hoping your father would remember,” she said, and then admitted that she should have written a proper note.