A route without street names
Nora found the folded paper beneath a tray of wooden spools while preparing her aunt’s sewing box for the village exhibition. At first she thought it was a dress pattern. There were long lines, short cross marks, and a row of small circles. Then she noticed an arrow and three words in her aunt’s handwriting: start at home.
The paper contained no street names, but its longest line looked like the road past the old mill. Nora carried a copy outside and tried following it. The first turn took her to the baker’s delivery gate. The second pointed through a hedge. By the third, the route would have crossed the river where no bridge had ever stood.
Her aunt, who now lived with Nora’s cousin, laughed when she heard the description over the telephone. She remembered making a map, but not that one. There had been so many lists during the last months before the workshop closed. She asked Nora to leave the sewing box intact until she could visit on Sunday.
Nora agreed, then looked again at the original. One of the circles was not drawn in ink. It was a small hole surrounded by a faint rust-colored ring. Every other circle had a similar mark. Whatever the paper described, someone had once pinned it down carefully, and the longest line ended exactly at a fold.