The Blank Map

The map fit on an inn table and showed nothing useful. Kenzo turned it, held it to the light, and asked the innkeeper for a second lamp. The valley stayed blank, with a margin note in his aunt’s hand: Do not write. Writing is how it keeps you.

“If it’s blank, how do I know I’m crossing it?” he asked.

The innkeeper, who had seen other maps from that family, pointed at the window. Despite noon, the path at the back of the field was putting out steam. “When the fog gives your name back in someone else’s voice, you are in. When it stops bothering, you are through, or you are staff.”

Kenzo put the pencil at the bottom of his pack, under the blanket, where foolishness costs more effort. He paid for supper in advance, in case the return trip belonged to a different person.