Image by Jim Cooper from Pixabay
A Short Story by Hazel E. Guler
There once was a girl who carried an ember in her pocket. She found it in a lantern once, long ago, when she was still mapping out her future with trembling hands and idealistic eyes. It belonged to a cartographer–an older one–whose maps weren’t only of lands but of minds, hearts, and voices.
He had lit something in her–not a fire, exactly, but a glow. One that warmed her steps when the path was uncertain. One she mistook for a star to follow.
The cartographer admired her sketches, once. Told her they were unlike anything he had seen. She etched them deeper because of that–on paper, yes, but also on skin and bone, where praise turns into prophecy.
She walked years with that ember.
But embers can deceive. They flicker with memory, not presence. And sometimes, she noticed, the cartographer would vanish behind veils of ice–distant, unreadable. The maps he made for others never included her. Or if they did, it was in invisible ink.
She began to question if the glow had ever come from him at all.
One morning, much later, she stood atop a hill she'd climbed alone. The ember still nestled in her coat, but she noticed now–it wasn’t warming her. Her own breath in the cold air felt warmer. Her own pulse was a fire.
She buried the ember beneath a cairn of stones. Not out of bitterness, but gratitude. It had taught her how to feel. And how not to wait.
From then on, she carried flint instead. And when she drew maps, they included all the wild, sacred places she’d discovered on her own–unmarked, untamed, fully hers.
There once was a girl who carried an ember in her pocket. She found it in a lantern once, long ago, when she was still mapping out her future with trembling hands and idealistic eyes. It belonged to a cartographer–an older one–whose maps weren’t only of lands but of minds, hearts, and voices.
He had lit something in her–not a fire, exactly, but a glow. One that warmed her steps when the path was uncertain. One she mistook for a star to follow.
The cartographer admired her sketches, once. Told her they were unlike anything he had seen. She etched them deeper because of that–on paper, yes, but also on skin and bone, where praise turns into prophecy.
She walked years with that ember.
But embers can deceive. They flicker with memory, not presence. And sometimes, she noticed, the cartographer would vanish behind veils of ice–distant, unreadable. The maps he made for others never included her. Or if they did, it was in invisible ink.
She began to question if the glow had ever come from him at all.
One morning, much later, she stood atop a hill she'd climbed alone. The ember still nestled in her coat, but she noticed now–it wasn’t warming her. Her own breath in the cold air felt warmer. Her own pulse was a fire.
She buried the ember beneath a cairn of stones. Not out of bitterness, but gratitude. It had taught her how to feel. And how not to wait.
From then on, she carried flint instead. And when she drew maps, they included all the wild, sacred places she’d discovered on her own–unmarked, untamed, fully hers.
