What A Father Left
Saskia took the box down. It was lighter than she had expected.
She sat at the foot of the oak. She opened it.
Inside the box was a small bottle of ink, very old. A folded letter. And a single tiny iron key.
She read the letter first.
*My Saskia. If you are reading this, you have walked east, you have trusted the map, and you have found the tree. I am very proud of you, although I am almost certainly not here to say so.*
*The map you carry was made by my mother — your grandmother — and I have only been keeping it for you. It is not finished. No mapmaker's map is ever finished. The job of the mapmaker, in our family, is to walk and to record, and then to add what we have learned to the map for whoever walks after us. I have added to it. So did my mother. So did her mother. And now it is yours.*
*The ink in this box is for you. It is the same ink we have used for four generations. Use it sparingly. The key opens the workshop in the village to the east — a small stone building you will find behind the inn. The workshop is yours now. So is the apprenticeship, if you want it. The mapmaker there is an old friend of mine. She is expecting you.*
*Saskia: this is not a treasure hunt. This is a job, in the slow, careful family meaning of the word. You may say no. You may walk back home, give the map to a museum, and live a different life. That is alright. But if you say yes, you