The Cartographer of Vanishing Places

Ilse drew the village of Morrow at dawn, every crooked chimney and leaning fence, the way she always did before the market opened. By noon a traveler stumbled into her stall, pale and shaking, asking why the road to Morrow now ended at an empty field. She laughed until she saw his eyes. That night she unrolled the map and found the village had faded to a smudge of dry ink, as though it had never been inked at all. The other drawings watched her from the parchment—the harbor town, the mountain shrine, the city of bells—each one a place she had loved. Her hand trembled over a fresh sheet. If drawing a place could erase it, could drawing it again bring it back? Or would she only unmake something new? Outside, the bells of the far city rang once, faint and final, and Ilse understood she was running out of world to lose.