The Route Home

The second point lay nineteen paces behind the place where Tamsin had stood.

Sorrel counted from the ash tree’s brass pin, following the figures on the vellum. The ground rose slightly there, thick with roots and last year’s leaves. Tamsin walked the line with the survey strip in one hand and the tube in the other, stopping each time Sorrel checked the interval.

“You’ve got the distance?” Tamsin asked.

“Twice.” Sorrel marked the final pace with the heel of her boot. “This is it.”

Tamsin looked down at the leaf litter. “It looks like every other patch of ground.”

The old measure showed no building, road, or marked stone. It gave a point, a line, and Tamsin’s position between them. Sorrel had expected a pin like the one beneath the tree. She had not expected the point to be empty. The point was what they had come to find.

She set down the map case and cleared the leaves with the side of her hand. A flat stone appeared beneath them, no wider than a dinner plate. Its edge had been cut square, then buried flush with the soil. Tamsin crouched beside her and brushed dirt from a narrow groove in the center.

“That isn’t natural,” she said.

“No.” Sorrel laid the vellum across the stone. “The measure ends here.”

The vellum’s two plotted points aligned with the tree pin and the stone. Tamsin’s marked position fell between them, closer to the pin. Sorrel took the brass pin from its wrapping and fitted its blunt end into a shallow socket at the stone’s center. It settled with a small click.

The ground gave no sign of movement. Then the vellum tightened beneath Sorrel’s fingers. A thin brown line appeared between the plotted point and the edge of the sheet, running away from the tree.

Sorrel lifted the vellum. The line remained.

It crossed the stone’s surface, then turned at a second notch cut into the rim. Its direction led back toward the release house.

Tamsin leaned in. “That wasn’t on the measure.”

“Not on the face of it.” Sorrel rubbed soil from the stone’s side. “Help me lift this.”

They worked their fingers beneath the edge. The stone shifted, held by roots and packed earth. Tamsin wedged the brass tube under one side while Sorrel pulled at the other. It tipped enough to reveal a metal plate fixed to its underside.

The plate had been protected from weather. Its engraved lines were still sharp. Three small circles marked the ash tree, the place where Tamsin had stood, and the point beneath their hands. A fourth symbol, a divided circle, sat beside the third. A line joined all three points, then continued off the plate in a narrow channel.