An Aging Cartographer

"I am lost and in need of your services," she said, "Please. I can pay."

The cartographer knuckled his glasses up his nose and looked up from his charts and his compass. There in the doorway to his little shop was a woman about his age who did indeed look lost. She waited for him to stand up from his table before entering, sounding the bell at the door as she opened it wider. She was carrying a child at her hip, wrapped around her in a bundle, and a basket in the other hand. She looked poor.

"Oh! Come in! Here, you must be tired." He quickly made her a place among his globes and stands. She waited for him to pull up another chair opposite and they both sat down as one.

"What's this, now? How may I help you?"

She placed her basket between her feet and pulled the cloth up over her sleeping babe's head. She patted the round shape and rocked in her seat as she spoke.

"I'm lost," she began, "And I was told you are the one who knows the way."

The cartographer blinked in a careful manner, unsure what she meant and not one to assume.

"Well, I know of many ways to many places. Some near, some far." He gestured to the maps on the walls, the maps rolled and tied with ribbon on shelves. He chuckled gently, "Even to places I've never been to." He had small pots of inks in many subtle shades. "Where are you trying to go?"

"Home," she whispered, looking more lost than ever. She leaned down and withdrew a scrap from her basket, handing to him.

"I have this: it's a map - well, not as fine as any of yours - but," she blushed and smiled apologetically for revealing such a crude scrawl as though equal to his creations. The cartographer looked over the rim of his glasses at it, turning it about and opening the folds delicately. It was a well-worn scrap of parchment, fragile indeed and marked with faint scribbles. It was hardly useful as a proper tool.

"Well so it is," he nodded, squinting, "And did you make this?"

She shook her head, "No. My best friend, she made it for me. We were children and it was so long ago." She sighed, looking around the floor for further explanation. Then she gathered her shawl tightly about her as if to rise. "I'm sorry, this is foolish. I shouldn't be here."

"Please," he waved his hand, patting the air above her knee, "Stay." He handed her back the old document. "I don't doubt that you're out of place, if I may say so. You do seem uneasy. But, can you show me on this map where you wish to go?" He shifted his chair to be beside hers and she held out her hand so that they might both see the map. She pointed with a slim finger.

"There," beneath her touch two small figures with simple smiles stood hand in hand. They were the same size, as sisters perhaps. She looked up at him with searching eyes.

"I'll make us some tea. Do continue."

She spoke aloud so that he could hear from the back of his shop. He could not sit so close for so long; his hands needed to move to keep busy. She told him of her youth, in this village far away. The two girls as friends. They braided each other's hair. They spied on the boys swimming. They fought over trifles and wrote their names in the snow with sticks.

"When my family had to leave - when I moved away - she gave me this map."

"So that you could find your way home," he set down the tinkling tray and she nodded her thanks. The tea steamed between them.

"Yes. I kept it close to me all these years."

"And why now?"

"I have this babe. I want her to know my child's name. She may have one of her own. I need to go home, you can understand that can't you?"

He sipped his tea and nodded, his own home quiet and plain. His cat was sure to be sprawled in his bed this very moment. He had no children aside from his works.

"Well," he said thoughtfully, feeling her eyes upon him, "It is difficult to draw up a map without a first-hand survey of the territory." She looked dismayed and he continued with a smile, "But not impossible. We can begin with what you have here."

He cleared his table and unrolled a fresh sheet of parchment, securing the edges under their teacups. He placed her smaller map in the middle and took up a pen.

"Let's transcribe this and see if we can elaborate with more detail." He began to draw, recreating in a larger scale what her friend had set down so long ago. She leaned over his shoulder, caressing her sleeping child. She spoke to him about what was missing - where the old map had torn away. These were the two fallen logs they rode side by side as knights into battle. Here was the fairy ring that vast moonlit night. All the bird nests were indicated, all the trees climbed. Distances were noted in detail, according to the songs they sang from one place to the other. He wrote her name large and her friend's, and then her child's, using the cursive to tell the coastline and mountains, the shape of the canyons between them. Fantastic beasts breached the waters and he discerned routes of navigation through old troubles and modern pitfalls. Treasures he noted with an X.

In the end, by dawn's light, the parchment was fully detailed and beautiful. A ring of tea or two did nothing to mar the splendor of his craft. As he put the finishing touches upon the compass rose, he paused to push his glasses high atop his nose. He stepped back to view it all. He drew the "N" for north and set the pen down.

She sat near him, her fingers as smudged with ink as his own, nursing her child and peering through wet eyes.

"It's finished, isn't it."

"Unless you've forgotten anything. This is my finest yet."

"No, that's it. That's all, I'm certain." She leaned across the table and pointed.

"I am here. And this," a sweeping trail along a prominent dotted red line, "Is where I need to go."

It ended at a diagram, small but distinct, of two women holding hands: one with a baby in her arms. The other with an older child peeking from behind her legs.

She insisted on paying and he did not refuse, but then secreted the coin into her basket as she prepared to leave; the map folded neatly under her arm. It was only after she had gone that he noticed the smaller scrap left behind, the map from her youth. He placed it carefully upon his shelf with the others in his keep, should she return for it. From her travels.