Letter 53

A map.

June 19, 1947
Ashford Manor

I was cleaning. Not for any real reason. Just... restlessness. Or maybe habit. I’ve always believed that if you make a space tidy, the inside of you might follow.

The nursery felt heavy after yesterday. The bird hasn’t moved. I left it food and water. I can’t bring myself to touch it, but I also can’t bring myself to carry it out.

So I wiped down the floorboards. Dusted the bookshelf. And then I noticed something strange: the wallpaper near the western wall, just beside the window had started to curl away from the plaster.

It had always been a bit bubbled there, but now the edge lifted clean, almost asking to be pulled.

So I did.

What I found beneath wasn’t paint or wall. It was paper. Pasted flat beneath the wallpaper, aged and yellowed, but unmistakable:

A map.

Hand-drawn. In pencil or charcoal, faded in places. It shows the house, the grounds, and beyond. Fields. Paths. Trees. The orchard. But then something I don’t recognize.

A winding trail that leads past the orchard’s edge, where I thought the land turned wild.

And there, tucked into the crook of the woods, a small square, labeled only: S.

A shed? A station? A name?

I think I need to find it.

Tomorrow, if the weather holds, I’ll follow it.

Even if I’m afraid of what I’ll find.

—Calliope.

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