The House at the Edge of the Map, Part 10: The Last Day Before the Holidays

The House at the Edge of the Map, Part 10: The Last Day Before the Holidays

The Story Begins

A new mark appeared on the old map beside the house.

Nina bent over it so closely that the pencil behind her ear almost slipped onto the paper. Between the thin lines of streets they already knew, a small rectangle shone. It was divided into neat little squares. It looked like a classroom seen from above.

Right beside it was a name.

Samuel Horský.

The ink was pale, as if someone had written it with rainwater.

“So it was not just a name in a photograph,” Oliver said. He held his small flashlight in one hand and his grandfather’s old brass compass in the other. The needle did not point north. It trembled gently toward the house at the edge of the map.

Mia pulled her yellow scarf closer around her neck. “It looks as if the paper does not want to let him go. The name is here, but only just.”

Behind them, the narrow house rose out of the mist. Its roof was dark, and one window gave off a soft blue light. The children already knew that the house did not call to them with a voice. It was enough for the map to change, and a familiar stone path appeared at their feet.

Nina placed her palm over Samuel’s name.

The paper was icy cold.

A moment later, the air grew cold too. The mist around them did not thicken. Instead, it stretched out, as if someone had built a corridor from it. From its far end came the sound of rain drumming against large windows.

“School,” Oliver whispered.

At that moment, the gravel beneath their shoes became old tiles. The air smelled of wet coats, wood, and chalk. Faded display boards hung on the walls, though the pictures on them could not be made out.

The door at the end of the corridor bore the sign 5.B.

Nina looked at her friends. “If this is the last day before the holidays, we have to pay attention to everything. Even things that look ordinary.”

“That is usually the worst thing about mysteries,” Oliver muttered. “Ordinary things pretend to be innocent.”

Mia gave him a quick smile. “And sometimes they really are ordinary. People just have not noticed them properly.”

The classroom door opened by itself, just a little.

Inside, old desks stood in rows. Strips of bluish light moved across their tops, like reflections of rain. But it was not raining indoors. Drops of light gleamed on the wood, then vanished, as if they belonged to a memory rather than real rain.

A large paper chart hung on the wall.

It was fastened with four yellow drawing pins, and tiny pieces of crepe paper curled along its edges. Someone had once written across the top in coloured markers: Last Day Before the Holidays.

Under the heading were names and tasks.

Who would bring juice. Who would prepare the music. Who would hang up the paper sun. Who would offer a short thank-you to the teacher. Some names had smiley faces beside them, others had stars or little drawings.

Nina scanned the whole list. Then her eyebrows drew together.

“There is a gap here.”

Oliver stepped closer. Between the names Patrik and Silvia was an empty space. It was not an ordinary gap between lines. The paper bore a faint trace of erased pencil.

“Samuel Horský was meant to be here,” Nina said. “Exactly between them. Alphabetically.”

The boy took out the compass and held it close to the chart. The needle tilted toward the empty space. Then he shone his flashlight on the lower edge of the paper.

When Things Start to Change

“Look. The names were not written all at once.”

Different shades of ink were visible on the list. The first lines were written in dark blue, the later ones in a lighter shade. Beside several names, small scratches from an eraser remained.

“Someone copied it over,” Oliver continued. “Maybe from a notebook. Then they made hurried corrections.”

Mia leaned toward the right-hand corner of the paper. “There is a fingerprint here.”

A grey curve really was visible in the white space. Beside it was a faint pencil stroke, then another. Like the beginning of a letter no one had finished.

Something rustled in the classroom.

It was not loud. It sounded more like someone turning pages in a notebook two desks away.

Then two blurred figures appeared by the back wall. The children could not see their faces, only shoulders, the sleeves of school hoodies, and moving mouths.

“Did you notice it?” one quiet voice asked.

“The teacher will surely fix it,” the other replied. “She has the original list.”

“But Samuel…”

“Wait. Everyone is carrying things into the classroom now. Later.”

The figures faded away.

Only the murmur of rain remained.

Nina clenched her fingers around her map notebook. “So they did notice.”

“At least two people,” Oliver corrected. “But we do not know whether they had time to do anything. Or whether anyone reminded them afterwards.”

“That does not make it any less wrong,” she shot back.

Mia stepped between them before their voices could rise. “Nina, you are right that it was unfair. Only… perhaps we are not looking for someone to point a finger at.”

The girl turned back to the chart. The anger inside her had not vanished, but it was no longer as sharp. It was more like a pebble in her shoe, impossible to ignore.

Oliver studied the order of the pencil marks and scratches. “First, Samuel’s name was on the original list. Then someone copied it onto this large chart. During a hurried correction, it was left out. Two classmates noticed and expected an adult to fix it. Perhaps the adult expected the children to say something.”

“And meanwhile, the school year was ending,” Mia added. “Everyone was busy because they were already looking forward to going home.”

For a moment, no one spoke.

By the window, one desk slowly moved away from the others.

It was not overturned or damaged. It stood only a little apart, almost unnoticed. A paper name tag lay on its top. One side was taped down, while the other had begun to peel away.

Nina walked over to it. Only the first two letters could still be read on the tag.

Sa.

“Samuel’s desk,” she said.

A boy’s reflection flickered in the window glass. His face was unclear; the children could see only dark hair, a school bag at his feet, and a small parcel wrapped in green paper. He stood beside the desk and looked toward the door.

As if he were waiting for someone to return.

Distant laughter came from the corridor. Then music played from a small speaker. Someone called out that the juice was ready. The memory of the class farewell rushed together into one brief moment.

The boy by the window moved, as if he wanted to say something.

But no voice came out.

Instead, they heard only the creak of a chair.

Mia pressed a hand to her chest. “I do not think he was angry at first. I think he simply did not know what to do. When no one tells you where you belong, you begin to wonder whether you belong there at all.”

An Important Moment

Nina swallowed. “He had that gift for the class.”

“Maybe he wanted to give it to the teacher,” Oliver said. His voice no longer sounded as it had when he was simply piecing together facts. “Or perhaps he had prepared it for someone in the class. We do not know that yet.”

Samuel’s reflection vanished. But a green glimmer remained on the desk, the colour of wrapping paper.

“We have proof,” Nina declared, then stopped. “But… proof is not enough, is it?”

Oliver slowly lowered his flashlight. “It is not enough. We know how it happened. But that did not help him then. No one asked him.”

The old classroom whispered with paper. The chart on the wall trembled gently, though the windows were closed. The mist by the door drew back toward the map, which now lay on the teacher’s desk.

At its edge glowed a new sign: a small loop, as if a line were turning back on itself.

Beneath it, a sentence appeared.

I will return for what was left aside.

“That is not a punishment,” Mia said quietly. “It is a promise.”

Nina bit her lip. “Maybe someone knew that a mistake had been made.”

“But did not manage to put it right,” Oliver added.

The curly-haired girl placed her hand on Samuel’s desk. “No one may have done it on purpose. But it still hurt him.”

When her words faded, the bluish light in the classroom changed. It was no longer cold like rain against glass. Gentle warmth spread across the desk tops, like the last rays of sunlight before evening.

Nina took a breath. “All right. We will not blindly search for someone to blame. We will look for whoever remembers.”

At the back of the classroom, the door of an old cupboard clicked.

Oliver raised his flashlight. “That was definitely completely ordinary,” he remarked dryly.

“Oliver,” Nina warned.

“Fine. It was not.”

Inside the cupboard lay stacks of notebooks, dried-up markers, paper cups, and envelopes bearing the school stamp. Tucked among them was a note folded into a triangle.

Mia took it out carefully, as if it might be as fragile as an autumn leaf. On the front, only these words had been written in shaky handwriting:

I will return for…

The rest of the sentence was missing. One corner of the paper had been torn away.

A signature showed beneath the sentence, but the ink had run. It could have been an adult’s name. Or the name of an older pupil. The first letter looked like an M, but the rest had disappeared into a grey blur.

Nina noticed something near the lower corner. “This note was pressed beneath the chart. Do you see the crease? It matches the edge of the drawing pin exactly.”

Oliver nodded. “Someone hid it there, or left it there for the right person to find.”

“And then never came back?” Mia asked.

The classroom did not answer. Instead, a distant school bell rang in the corridor.

Once.

Softly.

Not to announce the beginning of a lesson, but its end.

The world around them began to blur. The desks faded, the rain-light became mist, and the display boards vanished from the walls. Nina had just enough time to slip the note into her notebook when the classroom of 5.B disappeared completely.

Once again, they stood beside the house at the edge of the map.

Its one window still shone, but a moment later it, too, faded into a soft blue glow. Samuel’s name remained on the map. Beside it appeared a thin arrow pointing toward the school and the symbol of a hand returning to paper.

What Comes Next

Oliver switched off his flashlight. “This time, I do not like my favourite saying.”

“Which one?” Nina asked.

“That everything has a simple explanation.” He looked at the compass, then slipped it into his pocket. “Maybe it does. But a simple explanation does not mean a simple feeling.”

Mia looked back one last time at the mist, where the desk by the window had stood moments before.

“At least he is not invisible anymore,” she said.

Nina closed her notebook with the note tucked inside. Above their heads, the wind played with the edge of the map, and the arrow toward the school glowed faintly.

Someone there might still know whom the promise to return belonged to.

And perhaps they remembered what had been left aside, too.