Chapter 7 - The Story Spreads

She woke to the smell of burning.

For a panicked moment she thought the lighthouse was on fire. She'd fallen asleep in the chair across from the Cartographer's Daughter, the map of seams still clutched in her hands, and now smoke was curling through the room.

But it wasn't the house. It was the hearth. The old woman was standing there, feeding papers into the flames.

"What are you doing?"

The Cartographer's Daughter didn't turn around. Just kept tearing pages from a book and dropping them one by one into the fire. The flames ate them greedily, orange and hungry.

"They're coming back wrong," the old woman said. Her voice was distant, dreamy. "The words keep changing. I write something down and when I read it again it says something else. Something that isn't true."

She got to her feet, stiff from sleeping in the chair. Crossed to the hearth and looked at what was burning. Maps. The old woman was burning maps.

"Stop." She grabbed for the book but the Cartographer's Daughter pulled away, surprisingly strong.

"You don't understand. They're lying to me now. The maps used to tell the truth but now they're lying." She tore out another page and the firelight caught it before it fell. A coastline she didn't recognize, islands scattered across blue water. Gone.

"Those are your records. Your proof."

"Proof of what?" The old woman looked at her with cloudy eyes. Confused. "I don't remember what I was trying to prove."

She felt it then. The same cold dread she'd felt watching Morrow forget, watching the sailor forget. The Cartographer's Daughter was slipping away.

"You were showing me maps of what the world used to look like. Before the cuts."

"The cuts." The old woman repeated the word like she'd never heard it before. "I don't know what that means."

"You knew last night. You told me about the Vethren Reach. The Sorrow Chain. Places that got erased."

Nothing. The Cartographer's Daughter just stared at her, the burning book still in her hands, smoke rising between them.

"You told me about someone who came to see you. Someone who looked like me." Her voice cracked. "You said they went to the Sutured Lands. You gave me a map."

The old woman looked down at the book in her hands. At the pages she'd been burning. Something flickered in her eyes, there and gone.

"I've been collecting maps my whole life," she said slowly. "My mother told me to. She said the world was bigger than it looked. But I can't remember why that matters anymore."

She watched the Cartographer's Daughter turn back to the fire. Watched her tear out another page, let it fall, burn.

There was nothing she could do. She couldn't force the memories back any more than she could force the ink to return to her journal pages. The forgetting was a tide, and once it started rising there was no holding it back.

She looked at the map still clutched in her own hands. The seams. The one piece of proof she'd managed to get before the old woman slipped away.

How long until she couldn't remember what it meant?

She left at dawn.

The Cartographer's Daughter was still by the fire, still burning things. She'd moved on from maps to letters, then to books, then to anything with writing on it. Purging the lighthouse of words, of records, of anything that might remind her of things she couldn't quite remember.

There was nothing to say. Nothing that would help. So she shouldered her bag and walked out into the gray morning and didn't look back.

The path down from the cliff was easier in daylight. She could see the ocean stretching out to the horizon, gray-blue and endless. Somewhere out there were the Sutured Lands. Somewhere out there, maybe, were answers.

The map in her bag felt heavier than it should. Paper and ink and the last gift of a woman who'd spent her whole life collecting proof that the world was full of holes.

Now that woman was burning everything she'd gathered. And soon she wouldn't remember why she'd gathered it in the first place.

Was this what happened to everyone who got too close? First the memories went soft, then the purpose, then the self?

She thought about Thren's words on the road. A woman asking questions in the port cities. Looking for someone who got erased. People who try to help her start losing things.

The Story Disease.

Maybe it wasn't a disease at all. Maybe it was a defense mechanism. The world protecting itself from people who asked too many questions, who noticed too many inconsistencies. Learn too much and you become a threat. Become a threat and you get erased.

Simple. Elegant. Horrifying.

She kept walking.

The coastal road wound south along the cliffs. Rocky terrain, sparse vegetation, the occasional fisherman's shack huddled against the wind. She passed a village around midday and stopped long enough to refill her water skin and buy bread that was only slightly stale.

The villagers looked at her the way people looked at strangers. Curious but cautious. She didn't stay long enough to invite questions.

By afternoon the terrain started to change. The cliffs gave way to marshland, soft and treacherous. The road became a raised causeway, stone slabs laid over the muck by someone a long time ago. Whoever had built it was probably gone now, erased along with everything else.

She was thinking about that when she heard footsteps behind her.

Not the casual sound of another traveler. These were quick, deliberate, trying to catch up. She put her hand on the knife at her belt and kept walking.

"Wait."

A female's voice, young, out of breath. She stopped but didn't turn around.

"Please. I've been trying to catch up to you for hours."

She turned.

The girl couldn't have been more than seventeen. Dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, travel-worn clothes, a pack on her back that looked too big for her frame. She was breathing hard, cheeks flushed from exertion.

"I heard about you," the girl said. "In the village. They said a woman came through asking about maps. About places that got erased."

Her stomach went cold. "I didn't ask about anything. I bought bread."

"Not today. Before. A fisherman said he'd talked to you. Told you about the road that played tricks, the lighthouse at the edge of the world." The girl took a step closer. "He said you were looking for someone who got taken out of the world."

The fisherman. She remembered him now. Drunk in a tavern, talking too much, giving her directions she hadn't asked for. She'd thought he was harmless. Just a man with too much ale in him and a story he liked to tell.

But stories spread. That was the whole goddamn problem.

"You should go back to your village."

"I can't." The girl shook her head. "I've been hearing things for months now. Whispers about a woman who remembers. A woman who's searching for something that doesn't exist anymore." She looked at the bag, at the journal she knew was inside. "Is it true? Can people really get erased?"

She should lie. Tell the girl it was all nonsense, rumors, the kind of thing bored sailors made up to pass the time. Send her home before she learned anything that could hurt her.

But she remembered the Cartographer's Daughter burning her maps. Morrow's face going blank. The sailor who'd knocked on her door and forgotten why before he could tell her anything useful.

If the Story Disease was real, if knowledge of the erasure made you vulnerable to it, then this girl was already infected. She'd already heard too much. Already started asking questions.

Sending her away wouldn't protect her. It would just leave her alone when the forgetting started.

"What's your name?"

"Linn." The girl said it quickly, eagerly. Like she'd been waiting for someone to ask. "My grandmother used to tell me stories about places that weren't on any maps. Islands and cities and whole countries that nobody else remembered. Everyone thought she was crazy, but she swore they were real. She swore she'd been there."

"Where's your grandmother now?"

Linn's face clouded. "She died three years ago. But before she went, she made me promise to remember. Even if nobody else did. Even if I started to forget too."

She looked at this girl standing on the causeway, pack too big, eyes too bright. Chasing stories she didn't understand, making promises she couldn't keep.

Just like someone else had done, once.

"What do you want?"

"I want to help. I want to know the truth. I want—" Linn stopped, collected herself. "I want to understand what happened to my grandmother. Why she remembered things nobody else did. Why it mattered so much that she made me promise before she died."

"Helping me is dangerous."

"I know."

"I'm not talking about bandits or bad weather or getting lost. I'm talking about forgetting. People who get too close to what I'm looking for, they start losing things. Memories. Names. Themselves."

Linn didn't flinch. "I know. The fisherman told me that too. He said the woman who remembered left a trail of forgetting behind her. Everyone who helped her ended up with holes in their heads."

The words hit like a punch. A trail of forgetting. Was that what she was doing? Leaving a wake of destruction everywhere she went?

She thought about the informant in the tavern. The sailor at her door. The Cartographer's Daughter burning her life's work by the fire. All of them touched by her search. All of them paying the price.

"Then why would you want to help me?"

"Because my grandmother said the same thing." Linn's voice was quiet now, steady. "She said remembering was dangerous. She said it would cost me. But she also said some things were worth the cost. Some people were worth the cost."

She looked at Linn for a long moment. Young and stubborn and probably going to get herself erased. But there was something in her eyes that was familiar. That same desperate certainty she saw in the mirror every morning.

Some things were worth the cost.

Wasn't that what she told herself every day? Wasn't that what kept her going when the pages went blank and the memories slipped away?

"If you come with me, you might forget everything. Your grandmother's stories, your own name, why you wanted to help in the first place. You might end up like the people I've already hurt."

"I know."

"And you still want to come?"

"I have to." Linn shifted her pack on her shoulders. "I've been remembering things I shouldn't know. Places I've never been. People I've never met. It started a few months ago, right around the time people started talking about the woman who searches." She met her eyes. "I think I'm already part of this. Whether I want to be or not."

She didn't know what that meant. Remembering things you shouldn't know. But she didn't know what most things meant anymore. The world was full of gaps and holes and broken pieces, and every day brought new impossibilities.

Maybe Linn was another inconsistency. Another piece that didn't fit. Or maybe she was just a kid chasing fairy tales who would get hurt for her trouble.

Either way, sending her back wouldn't help. The Story Disease was already spreading. The forgetting had already begun. The only choice now was whether to face it alone or together.

"Fine." The word came out rougher than she intended. "But you stay behind me. You don't touch the journal. And if I tell you to run, you run."

Linn's face lit up. "Thank you. Thank you, I won't—"

"Don't thank me. This isn't a gift." She started walking again, south, toward the Sutured Lands. "I'm probably going to get you killed. Or worse."

She heard Linn fall into step behind her, pack creaking, boots squelching in the mud at the edge of the causeway.

Another person. Another liability. Another memory that could get erased.

But also another pair of eyes. Another witness. Another person who might remember if she forgot.

The compass was heavy in her pocket, still pointing at her fear. She didn't need to check it to know. The fear was always there, always waiting.

But maybe, with Linn behind her, giving up would be a little bit harder.

They walked until dark.

The marshland gave way to grassland, then to scrubby hills that reminded her of the road to the lighthouse. The causeway ended and became a dirt track, winding through terrain that felt empty in a way she couldn't quite explain.

Not uninhabited. She could see farmhouses in the distance, smoke rising from chimneys, the occasional figure working in the fields. But empty somehow, like the land itself had been drained of something vital.

Linn noticed it too. "It feels wrong here."

"It feels like a seam."

She pulled out the map the Cartographer's Daughter had given her. Spread it on a flat rock and studied the web of lines crossing the landscape. They were close to one now, a thick dark line running east to west through the hills ahead.

"What's a seam?" Linn crouched beside her, looking at the map. "The fisherman mentioned that word but he didn't know what it meant."

"When something gets erased, reality has to fill in the gap. Like sewing up a wound." She traced the line on the map with her finger. "The seams are where the stitches show. Places where the world doesn't quite fit together anymore."

"That's why it feels wrong."

"That's why it feels wrong."

They made camp in a hollow between two hills, out of sight of the road and sheltered from the wind. She built a small fire while Linn unpacked food from her bag. Bread, dried fruit, cheese that had seen better days. More than she'd been eating, that was for sure.

"Can I ask you something?" Linn said around a mouthful of bread.

"You're going to anyway."

"Who are you looking for?"

The question hung in the air between them. Fire crackling, wind sighing through the grass, the distant sound of night birds calling.

She should tell her. Linn had already risked everything by following her. She deserved to know what they were chasing, who they were trying to find.

But when she opened her mouth to answer, nothing came out.

Not because she didn't want to tell. Because she couldn't.

The name. She'd known it once. Had carried it with her for years, spoken it in her head a thousand times a day. But now, reaching for it, she found nothing but empty space.

"I don't know." Her voice came out strange, hollow. "I can't remember their name."

Linn stared at her. "What do you mean you can't remember?"

"I mean it's gone. I knew it yesterday, I think. I knew it for my whole life. But now it's just..." She gestured helplessly. "A hole. Where the name used to be."

The journal. She grabbed for her bag, pulled it out, started flipping through the pages. Looking for any mention, any reference, anything that might remind her of what she'd lost.

But the pages where she'd written the name were blank now. She could see the indentations where her pen had pressed, could trace the shapes of letters that no longer existed. But the ink was gone.

"This is what happens." She could hear the edge of panic in her own voice. "This is what the erasure does. First the records disappear, then the recent memories, then the older ones. Eventually you're left with nothing but the shape of someone who used to exist."

"So you're searching for someone but you don't know who?"

"I know who. I just can't..." She pressed her palm against her forehead. "They were younger than me. They had a yellow scarf. They asked questions about things that didn't make sense and I told them to stop and they didn't listen and then—"

And then what? She couldn't remember. The memory was there, she could feel it, but every time she tried to grab it the thing slipped away.

"And then they got erased." Linn finished the sentence quietly. "Someone erased them from the world."

"The Editors." The word came easier than the name. "That's what the Cartographer's Daughter called them. The ones who decide what gets cut out."

"Why? Why would anyone erase a person?"

"Because they found something. They were collecting proof that the world is full of holes, and they found something big enough that it got them noticed." She looked at the blank pages in the journal. "And now they're disappearing. Piece by piece. And I'm the only one who still remembers they existed."

Except she didn't remember. Not really. Not the things that mattered.

She couldn't remember their face. Couldn't remember their name. Couldn't remember the sound of their voice or the way they laughed or any of the thousand little details that made a person a person instead of just a shape.

All she had left was the yellow scarf and the guilt and the desperate certainty that she had to keep searching even though she was losing the reason why.

"My grandmother talked about that," Linn said after a long silence. "About loving people you couldn't remember. She said the love stayed even when everything else was gone. Like... like a scar. You don't remember getting hurt but the mark is still there."

She looked at this girl across the fire. Young and foolish and probably doomed. But for a moment, just a moment, she felt something other than the relentless weight of the search.

"Your grandmother was smart."

"She was the smartest person I ever knew." Linn smiled, small and sad. "And nobody believed her about anything."

They sat in silence after that. The fire burned low and the stars came out and somewhere in the darkness an owl called once and was answered.

She took out the journal and the pen. Started writing, even though she knew the words might be gone by morning.

Day unknown. Can't remember the name anymore. It's just gone, like everything else. Still have the yellow scarf memory. Still have the guilt. Still have the feeling that I loved them, that I failed them, that I have to make it right.

Met a girl named Linn. Her grandmother remembered things too. She wants to help.

I should send her away but I can't. The Story Disease is spreading. Everyone who learns about the erasure becomes vulnerable. But maybe that means I need witnesses. People who can remember if I forget.

We're heading for the Sutured Lands. A week's travel, maybe more. The map shows a thick seam in that direction. That's where the sibling went. That's where I have to go.

I hope I can still read this tomorrow.

I hope I can still remember why I wrote it.

She closed the journal. Linn was already asleep, curled up near the fire with her pack as a pillow. Young enough to sleep anywhere, to trust that the morning would come and things would be okay.

She remembered being that young once. Before everything went wrong. Before the person she loved was cut out of the world.

The compass was in her pocket. She took it out, opened it, watched the needle point steadily at her chest.

Still afraid. Still terrified of giving up, of letting go, of waking up one day and deciding it wasn't worth the pain anymore.

But maybe the fear was useful. Maybe it was the only thing keeping her moving when everything else was dissolving.

She closed the compass and put it away. Lay down on the cold ground and stared up at the stars.

Tomorrow they'd keep walking. Tomorrow they'd get closer to the seams. Tomorrow she might wake up with more blank pages, more empty spaces, more holes where memories used to be.

But she'd also wake up with Linn. With a witness. With someone who might remember her even if she forgot herself.

It wasn't much.

But it was more than she'd had yesterday.

She closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.

The dream came, the way it always did.

She was walking through a city that didn't exist anymore. Streets that made sense, buildings that stood where they were supposed to stand. People moving through the crowds with purpose, going places, living lives.

And beside her, someone was talking.

She couldn't see their face. Couldn't hear what they were saying. But she knew them, knew them the way you knew your own hands, your own heartbeat. Knew that they were important in a way that went beyond words.

They were pointing at something. A crack in the wall, a seam in the street, something that didn't belong. Their voice was excited, eager. They'd found something. They wanted to show her.

She tried to listen. Tried to hear what they were saying. But the words dissolved before they reached her, scattered like ashes in the wind.

And then they were gone.

One moment beside her, the next just empty space. Not walking away, not vanishing, just gone. Like they'd never been there at all.

She stood alone in the impossible city, surrounded by people who didn't remember, and screamed a name she couldn't hear.

She woke up gasping.

The fire had died to embers. Linn was still asleep, breathing softly in the predawn darkness. The stars overhead were fading as the first gray light crept across the sky.

She'd had the dream before. A hundred times, a thousand. The same city, the same presence, the same disappearance. Every night the same loss playing out over and over.

But this time something was different.

She closed her eyes and tried to hold onto the fragments. The city. The person beside her. The crack in the wall they'd been pointing at.

And there, in the fading afterimage of the dream, she saw something she hadn't noticed before.

Their hand. Reaching toward the crack. And on that hand, wrapped around the wrist, a familiar yellow thread.

The scarf. They'd been wearing the scarf.

It wasn't much. Just a detail, a fragment, a piece of color in a sea of gray. But it was real. It was something she hadn't remembered before.

The dream was giving things back.

She grabbed the journal and wrote it down, fast, before it could slip away.

Yellow scarf in the dream. On their wrist. They were pointing at a crack in a wall. They found something. They wanted to show me.

Maybe I can remember things in dreams that I can't remember awake.

Maybe the forgetting isn't complete.

Maybe there's still time.

She closed the journal just as the sun crested the horizon. Linn was stirring, yawning, sitting up with straw in her hair and confusion in her eyes.

"Morning already?"

"Morning already." She stood, stretched, felt her bones protest the cold ground. "We should move. Long way to go."

Linn scrambled to her feet, started packing up her things. The girl moved quick when she wanted to, efficient despite her youth.

They were on the road within the hour, heading south toward the seam line on the map. The grassland stretched out ahead of them, empty and wrong, marked by something invisible that made the air feel heavy.

Linn walked beside her now instead of behind. Chattering about nothing, filling the silence with words. Stories about her grandmother, complaints about the cold, questions about where they were going.

She let the girl talk. It was easier than silence. Easier than thinking about the blank pages and the missing name and the slow dissolution of everything she was trying to hold onto.

The compass was heavy in her pocket. The journal was heavy in her bag. And somewhere ahead, in the Sutured Lands, was the next piece of the puzzle.

She kept walking.

It was all she knew how to do.