The Orchard Map
When my aunt died she left me her bakery, her cat, and a map of the valley that redraws itself every night. Whatever I draw on it comes true by morning, a little, and costs me a memory I did not choose. A cozy fantasy about a small place, a large debt of kindness, and the one thing worth forgetting for.
Sign in to begin- Genre
- Cozy fantasy
- Reading time
- 1½–2½ h
- Told in
- First person, past tense
- Your choices
- at least every 5 pages
Where it begins
- warmth
- grief kept in a drawer
- small mischief
- long light
Ilse Varrow, thirty-four, has come back to the valley town of Thimble to run her dead aunt Marit's bakery for one season before selling it. In the flour bin she finds Marit's map of the valley, which redraws itself every night to show what the valley is like, and on which anything Ilse draws comes a little true by morning. Each drawing takes one of Ilse's memories in payment, and she does not get to pick which. The town has a debt to Marit it has never repaid, the orchard on the hill is dying, and the season ends at the apple fair.