The Cartographer of Unspoken Words

Granny Hanna lived in a house on a cliff, right above the sea, and she drew maps. Not the kind you find in a school atlas, but strange ones, full of islands no captain could ever find.

That summer, Yaryna and her mom came to stay with her for a whole month. Mom and Granny were very polite to each other. Much too polite.

“Would you like some tea, Mom?”

“Thank you, sweetheart. Would you?”

“No, thank you.”

And then they’d go quiet. Yaryna looked from one to the other and thought, They talk like they’re tiptoeing across thin ice.

One evening Granny called her up to the attic. It smelled of dust, dried mint and old paper. Under a little round window stood a table, and on the table lay a leather map tube.

“My eyes aren’t what they used to be,” said Granny, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I can’t see the smallest islands anymore. So now this map is yours.”

She slid the map out of the tube and unrolled it. Shhh-shhh went the paper, like a wave running up onto the sand.

The map was blue, so very blue, and islands were scattered all over the sea. Some were as small as peas, others as big as the palm of your hand. Beside each one, something was written in tiny letters.

“‘Thank you for the soup,’” Yaryna read. “‘I like your hat.’ ‘I wasn’t really angry.’ Granny, what is this?”

“Unspoken words,” said Granny. “When someone wants to say something but keeps quiet, the word doesn’t just disappear. It falls into the sea, and an island grows from it. Little words make little islands. And big ones…”

She pointed to the edge of the map. Where the sea turned very dark, the faint outline of an island just barely showed through. It had no name. Only fog, drawn in thin, fine lines.

“And whose is that one?”

Granny was quiet for a long time. Then she sighed.

“Ours. Our family’s. All my life I meant to sail there. But I never found the courage.”

“Why not?”

“Because the words that lie there are frightening to say.” Granny smiled, but it was a sad sort of smile. “Well, that’s enough for today. Off to bed.”

But Yaryna didn’t sleep. She spread the map out on her blanket and gazed at it until the moon peeked into the room.

And then the map began to glow. The ink began to stir. A dot beside the compass swelled, stretched out and — hop! — a little seagull jumped out onto the pillow. She was deep blue, as if made of ink, with a tail curled like a comma.

“At last!” said the seagull, shaking out her wings. Drip, drip — two blue drops fell onto the blanket. “Forty years I’ve waited for someone to look at this map by moonlight. I’m Comma. Where are we sailing?”

“I… nowhere,” said Yaryna, flustered.

“Uh-huh.” Comma tilted her head to one side. “Then why is your finger on the fog?”

Yaryna looked down. It was true: her finger was resting right on the nameless island.

“I want to go there,” she said quietly. And she was surprised how easily it came out.

“Then fold a boat,” Comma ordered. “From the edge of the map. Carefully, now — don’t tear off somebody’s ‘sorry.’”

Yaryna folded back the bottom edge, where there was only sea and no islands, and made a paper boat, just the way Dad had once taught her. The moment she creased the last corner, the boat trembled, grew — and the room vanished. Water lapped beneath her feet, stars shone overhead, and the wind smelled of salt and ink.

The first islands appeared very soon. There were so many of them that the boat could barely squeeze between them. They were small and round and covered in soft grass, and each one squeaked quietly.

“Thank you!” squeaked one.

“Thank you, thank you!” chimed in another.

“That was delicious!” called a third, a teeny-tiny one.

“The Thank-You Archipelago,” Comma explained, settling on the bow. “The biggest on the map. People often forget to say thank you. Not because they’re unkind. They’re just in a hurry.”

Yaryna leaned toward one little island. On it was written: Thank you for sewing up my teddy bear.

“That’s me!” she gasped. “I meant to tell Mom, but I ran off to play…”

The little island squeaked and grew a bit dimmer, as if it were waiting.

“Say it out loud,” Comma suggested. “It works here, too.”

“Thank you, Mom, for sewing up my teddy,” said Yaryna.

Bloop! The little island dived under the water. All that was left were bubbles, and they looked like laughter.

“That’s how it’s done,” said Comma, pleased.

Farther on, the sea grew darker. There were fewer islands, but they were bigger. On one grew prickly bushes, and from them came a grumble: It’s not my fault, he started it. On another rose a tall rock with the words: I want you to play with me too.

“The words are heavier here,” said Comma. “People carry them inside for longer.”

And then the fog came. White and soft, like cotton wool. It crept up quietly and wrapped itself around the boat, and suddenly Yaryna felt terribly, terribly sleepy.

“Later,” the fog whispered. “You can sail there later. You can say it later. Tomorrow. Someday. What’s the hurry?”

“That’s true,” Yaryna yawned. “What’s the hurry?”

She sat down in the bottom of the boat, and her head drooped onto the side all by itself.

“Yaryna!” Comma tugged at her braid. “Don’t listen! This is the Fog of Later, the trickiest thing in the whole sea. So many people have dozed off in it and never said a thing!”

“Oh, who cares,” Yaryna mumbled. “Later…”

And just then she remembered Granny. How she had said, All my life I meant to. But I never found the courage. A whole life of later. Yaryna went cold, and her sleepiness vanished in a flash.

She stood up in the boat, took the deepest breath she could and shouted into the white cotton wool:

“Not later! Now!”

Her voice rang out clear as a little bell. The fog shuddered. It rippled. And — pff-f-f! — it flew apart in tatters, as if someone had blown on a dandelion.

Ahead lay an island. A small one, with a gently sloping shore and an old willow in the middle. Seashells gleamed white on the sand, like pebbles.

“We’re here,” Comma said softly. “This one is yours.”

Yaryna stepped onto the shore. The sand was warm, even though it was night all around. She picked up the first shell and held it to her ear, the way everyone does at the seaside.

But instead of the sound of waves, she heard her mom’s voice. Younger than it was now, and full of feeling:

“Mom, I’m sorry I left like that and never said a proper goodbye. I miss you so much. Every time I write you a letter, I want to write this — and I never do.”

Yaryna carefully set the shell down and picked up a second one. Now it was Granny speaking, creaky and tender:

“My darling girl, I wasn’t angry with you back then. I was afraid of being left alone. I’m proud of you. I always have been. So why did I never tell you?”

The third shell spoke in Dad’s voice: “Yaryna, sweetie, I miss you so much when I’m away at sea. Your drawings hang above my bunk in the cabin, every single one.”

And the fourth spoke in her very own voice. At first Yaryna didn’t even recognize it.

“Granny, please don’t get old. I’m scared that one day I’ll come to visit, and you’ll be…”

Then the shell fell silent. Yaryna pressed it to her chest. Her eyes stung.

“I didn’t know I had a word here too,” she whispered.

“Everyone does.” Comma landed on her shoulder. She smelled of ink and just a little bit of the sea. “Even the smallest ones.”

“Can I take them with me?” asked Yaryna.

“You can take them,” said Comma. “But you can’t say them for anyone else. Everyone has to say their own word themselves. Still, a shell can remind them. Sometimes that’s all people need: someone to remind them.”

Yaryna put the shells in the pockets of her cardigan. There were four of them, and her pockets grew heavy, as if they were full of pebbles. She climbed into the boat, and Comma flew ahead over the water to show the way. This time there was no fog. The little Thank-You islands squeaked after them, and the stars grew paler and paler…

Yaryna woke up in her own bed. The map lay beside her, rolled up tight. Comma was nowhere to be seen. She was probably sitting by the compass, pretending to be an ordinary ink blot.

It was just a dream, thought Yaryna. And she slipped her hand into her pocket.

The shells were there.

In the kitchen, Mom was making pancakes. Granny sat by the window with a cup. Neither of them said a word.

Yaryna put one shell next to Mom’s plate. Another next to Granny’s cup. The third she tucked into an envelope for Dad. And the fourth she kept for herself.

“What’s this?” asked Mom, surprised.

“Hold it to your ear,” Yaryna asked. “Please.”

Mom shrugged, smiled and held it to her ear. Granny did the same. Yaryna held her breath.

Mom’s face changed. She lowered the shell and looked at Granny. Granny looked back at her. Both of their lips were trembling.

“Mom…” Mom began.

“My darling…” Granny said at the very same moment.

And they both laughed. A little through tears, but they laughed. And then Mom said everything: how she had left, how she had missed her. And Granny talked about her fear, and about how proud she was. The words came out clumsy, tangled up, tripping over each other, and nobody tried to fix them.

Meanwhile, the pancake in the pan got burned. Nobody noticed.

Yaryna squeezed her own shell in her hand. She went over to Granny and put her arms around her shoulders — thin and light, like a bird’s.

“Granny,” she said. “Please don’t get old.”

Granny covered Yaryna’s hand with her own.

“Oh, sunshine,” she said softly. “That’s something I don’t know how to do. But I’m here. And as long as I’m here, we’ll tell each other everything. Deal?”

“Deal,” whispered Yaryna.

Mom and Granny talked all day long. Not politely. Not carefully. They just talked — and laughed, and talked some more. And in the evening, the three of them spread the map out on the kitchen table. Where the nameless island had loomed dark the day before, clear blue sea now lapped. Only at the very edge, if you looked closely, could you see a tiny island: Yaryna, sweetie, I miss you so much.

“Dad hasn’t got the letter yet,” Mom said with a smile.

“That’s all right,” said Granny. “It’ll get there.”

And next to the compass, a blue blot looked suspiciously like a seagull with a tail curled exactly like a comma. Yaryna even thought it winked at her.

Then, all of a sudden, on the clear blue sea, not far from where the fog had been the day before, a speck appeared. Smaller than a poppy seed. It darkened, swelled — and became a little island. Letters began to show beside it, pale and blurry, as if someone had written them in the rain.

“Oh,” said Mom.

“A new one,” Granny said quietly. “Someone just kept quiet. Well, cartographer, whose is it?”

Yaryna bent over the map so low that her nose touched the paper. But she couldn’t read it: the letters hadn’t turned into words yet.

Mom glanced at Granny. Granny glanced at Mom. And then they both fell silent, each thinking her own thoughts. Yaryna began going over her day too, from morning till night: what had she wanted to say today — and hadn’t?

The letters on the little island were appearing slowly, line by tiny line. There was still time.