WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.119 Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. The lad you 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.400 are here, Let's get into it. It's started, as most 3 00:00:11.400 --> 00:00:14.359 small mysteries do, with a bit of code intention, returning 4 00:00:14.359 --> 00:00:16.280 an oddment that wasn't mine to the people who cared 5 00:00:16.280 --> 00:00:19.239 about such things. I'd found the map by accident, tucked 6 00:00:19.239 --> 00:00:22.039 inside a packet of misdirected mailbound in about a paper band. 7 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:24.239 The sendo long since passed on as far as anyone 8 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:27.399 at the post office could tell. I've recognized the recipient's 9 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:31.320 name on the included letter, Missess Callum at a historical society, 10 00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:33.240 so I decided to deliver it myself on one of 11 00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:35.840 those early spring mornings when the town still smells faintly 12 00:00:35.880 --> 00:00:39.200 of the sea in daffodils. The Historical Society occupies the 13 00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:40.960 two back rooms of the old Dons House by the 14 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:44.119 Market Square. It's a fusty, dignified nook with a glass 15 00:00:44.159 --> 00:00:46.359 topped counter and the frown of history in every creek 16 00:00:46.399 --> 00:00:50.000 of the floorboards. Missess Calum herself was not yet rived, 17 00:00:50.039 --> 00:00:51.799 so I left the bundle for her, but not before 18 00:00:51.880 --> 00:00:54.560 enrolling the strange old map for a quick glance. I 19 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:57.479 love a good map for forty odd years I tramped 20 00:00:57.479 --> 00:00:59.799 every street in our town by froat, by bicycle, even 21 00:00:59.799 --> 00:01:02.439 by sledge one infamous winter Fustus a postman then as 22 00:01:02.439 --> 00:01:05.079 a sort of an official guide for anyone lost or curious. 23 00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:07.439 I know the cities by ways as a person knows 24 00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:10.920 their own kitchen drawers. So that morning, in still dark 25 00:01:10.959 --> 00:01:13.560 and surprisingly cresp despite the age, I traced my finger 26 00:01:13.599 --> 00:01:16.359 along the familiar veins and arteries the market, the salt Lane, 27 00:01:16.359 --> 00:01:19.000 the crooked terraces are past Wren's Landing, the taid network 28 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:22.480 of alis behind the port side. All accurate, all exactly 29 00:01:22.519 --> 00:01:24.680 is remembered, until I found something I could not place. 30 00:01:25.439 --> 00:01:29.159 Paplin Lane, tiny nestled between Greeve's Alley and the old 31 00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:32.519 Clockmaker's workshop. An exquisitely drawn thread with two butterfly shapes 32 00:01:32.519 --> 00:01:35.640 set statia end. Its name Paplin was written in a neat, 33 00:01:35.640 --> 00:01:37.879 looping script, and like the blunt block letters of every 34 00:01:37.879 --> 00:01:42.000 other street, I blinked cross, referencing memory and compass. The 35 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:43.799 place at mark would be well. It ought to be 36 00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:45.840 the gap between the back of Minton's bookshop and the 37 00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:47.760 garden wall of the workshop. But as far as I 38 00:01:47.799 --> 00:01:50.040 could recall, there had never been a lane there just 39 00:01:50.040 --> 00:01:52.319 a solid run of brickwork and a cluster of viruses. 40 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:55.200 I frowned, running the tip of my index finger over 41 00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:57.719 the thinning track again. The rest of the map fit 42 00:01:57.799 --> 00:02:00.760 reality like an old glove. I could see every alley 43 00:02:00.799 --> 00:02:02.920 I'd ever posted a letter to, every short cut I 44 00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:05.799 had ever sworn by. But no papal In lane, never 45 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:08.439 in all those years. On my way home that evening 46 00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:10.479 curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to 47 00:02:10.479 --> 00:02:12.800 warp the long way round pass Minton's and the clock 48 00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:14.919 makers disused shop from shutter tight as a drawn These 49 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:18.120 days glass reppled with age. I counted the paces from 50 00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:20.400 mat Memory eighteen to the garden gate, then a shop 51 00:02:20.479 --> 00:02:23.280 right where papal And should begin. Instead, there was nothing 52 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:25.639 but a low stone wall, half smothered at hannasuckle, at 53 00:02:25.680 --> 00:02:27.879 a cramped better forget me nots bloish in a dusk. 54 00:02:28.599 --> 00:02:31.319 I even circled the block twice, hoping perhaps the map 55 00:02:31.360 --> 00:02:35.120 was skewed by perspective of old cartographic standards. Still nothing, 56 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:38.240 My feet found only the collision of toeperary and ancient 57 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:41.159 red bricks. I kept looking for a signed derret Warren, 58 00:02:41.199 --> 00:02:43.479 as if by passage hinges for a lass gate, even 59 00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:45.879 the shadow of a long removed street lamp, but found nothing, 60 00:02:46.439 --> 00:02:49.560 only the stray scent of something sweet and unseasonably fresh. 61 00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:52.759 I let it go, but not easily. I pride myself 62 00:02:52.759 --> 00:02:55.360 on my internal map of this town. I remember time 63 00:02:55.439 --> 00:02:58.879 nines of neighbour's illnesses, which garden roses bloom first, every 64 00:02:58.919 --> 00:03:02.199 dog by shortcut, and no Hablam lane did not belong. 65 00:03:02.879 --> 00:03:05.719 Yet there it was undeniable and black and white as 66 00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:08.800 real salt lane of Spiller's Court. I told myself it 67 00:03:08.840 --> 00:03:11.360 was likely some defunct slipway blocked off and paved over 68 00:03:11.479 --> 00:03:13.879 years before my time. But as night pulled in the 69 00:03:13.879 --> 00:03:16.400 corners of my flat, the one above the shuttered post office, 70 00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:18.960 my little empire of memory, I found myself drawn back 71 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:21.719 to the puzzle. I pictured the two wink butterflies, their 72 00:03:21.759 --> 00:03:25.000 wings at stretched across an impossible passage. Why would a 73 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:27.479 map so accurate in all other respects in vent one lane? 74 00:03:27.960 --> 00:03:31.199 Had the cartographer lost their mine? Or had I? The 75 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:34.840 question burrowed in, soft and persistent as rain against stone. 76 00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:37.919 The next morning I resumed my well worn routine, trying 77 00:03:37.919 --> 00:03:39.800 not to let the maps enigma seed me. I live 78 00:03:39.879 --> 00:03:42.280 above the old post office, mostly because I never saw 79 00:03:42.280 --> 00:03:45.599 the scent. In moving elsewhere it suits me find creaky floors, 80 00:03:45.639 --> 00:03:47.639 the muffle chime of the port bells, and an almost 81 00:03:47.639 --> 00:03:50.879 proprietory view of the town's main arteries. The post office 82 00:03:50.919 --> 00:03:53.319 shuttered now for six years, but left largely in change 83 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:55.439 marks the center of what some call the old town. 84 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:59.000 Beyond the Square in the market, things get stranger, more knotted. 85 00:03:58.960 --> 00:04:01.960 A street's name for vanished trays, gull's wheeling, odd weather vanes, 86 00:04:01.960 --> 00:04:03.840 one in the shape of a stag, another a sheaf 87 00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:06.560 of wheat, and another for reasons nobody seems to remember 88 00:04:06.599 --> 00:04:09.319 an angel clutching a clock. My days shuffle along a 89 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:11.800 pleasing order. Morning walk along the harbor, exs and te 90 00:04:11.919 --> 00:04:14.199 from Miss Esterow at her pop up market stall. An 91 00:04:14.199 --> 00:04:16.319 hour over the chessboard with my neighbor Tom, who cheats 92 00:04:16.360 --> 00:04:18.279 as often as he forgets the rules. Then a quiet 93 00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:20.680 pined at the square and compass. Come afternoon, and if 94 00:04:20.680 --> 00:04:23.240 there's still some energy left, stroll among the alloways as 95 00:04:23.240 --> 00:04:25.839 the dust comes on. If there is a steadier creature 96 00:04:25.879 --> 00:04:27.839 by habit than me, I have yet to meet them. 97 00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:30.879 It's a town that rewards such steadiness. But only so far. 98 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:33.600 The place is made of centuries of careful forgetting and 99 00:04:33.639 --> 00:04:36.399 slig adaptition. You can walk a circuit one morning and 100 00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:39.839 pass three freshly painted window frames. A postpot will located 101 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.160 a make sure cafe where yesterday there was a hab 102 00:04:42.199 --> 00:04:45.319 or Dasher's window. Some sail our Brinton layout is just 103 00:04:45.319 --> 00:04:47.879 the result of old boundaries and shifting tides. Others claim 104 00:04:47.879 --> 00:04:50.360 the streets simply don't like to be pinned. There's the 105 00:04:50.439 --> 00:04:52.360 legend of the stone urn and alley that every few 106 00:04:52.399 --> 00:04:55.680 generations takes a different doglic confounding surveyors and the annoying milkmen. 107 00:04:56.319 --> 00:04:58.920 People laugh, but everyone has a story. The pub that 108 00:04:59.040 --> 00:05:01.399 wandered a few feet, the bell tower that swears its 109 00:05:01.439 --> 00:05:04.639 shadow never falls in quite the same place. The clockmakers 110 00:05:04.639 --> 00:05:07.560 Shop sits at the very edge of this looseness, once 111 00:05:07.720 --> 00:05:11.240 h Orn and Sun Clockmakers. Its sign is faded, windows 112 00:05:11.279 --> 00:05:13.800 thick with dust, door sealed since I was barely forty 113 00:05:14.360 --> 00:05:16.600 the plot. It sits on a small oddly wed shaped 114 00:05:16.639 --> 00:05:18.600 clearly marked on that engine map, with a bold black 115 00:05:18.639 --> 00:05:22.240 square terminus, supposedly for papal And Lane. These days it's 116 00:05:22.279 --> 00:05:24.800 a curiosity, a place for scaffolding to gallo lenam for 117 00:05:24.839 --> 00:05:27.959 cat's nap in the wan sunlight. Our annual clock Fair 118 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:30.000 is held in the square, a slow celebration of the 119 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:34.079 peculiar pottery, local cheeses, and naturally clocks replica timepieces, sun 120 00:05:34.120 --> 00:05:36.600 dials to brass our glass that wanders from table to table. 121 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:39.120 Children delight in a friendly race to see who can 122 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:41.319 make the most clocks chime at once, an event whose 123 00:05:41.360 --> 00:05:44.560 ownly outcome is noise and general confusion. No one remembers 124 00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:46.959 quite why we began. The fair or White revolves, like 125 00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:50.079 so much else around time, in its unreliable keeping. The 126 00:05:50.120 --> 00:05:52.720 town perhaps is most at home in these tiny uncertainties. 127 00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:56.000 The cisk callum the societies long time stewart gently charges 128 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:58.879 anyone who fusses over a phantom foot bass. They are 129 00:05:58.920 --> 00:06:01.639 always coming and going. She'll say, bess you accept it 130 00:06:01.720 --> 00:06:04.279 and get on. Alfy who owns the pop likes to 131 00:06:04.279 --> 00:06:06.439 collect the autel salaways that sprout a few feet one 132 00:06:06.480 --> 00:06:08.920 way or another, deeds that don't match the ground's reality. 133 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:12.519 Architect dre even half mad by moving property lines. Everyone 134 00:06:12.519 --> 00:06:15.279 takes it in stride. There are bigger things to worry 135 00:06:15.319 --> 00:06:18.040 about than allies and maps. But to me someone whose 136 00:06:18.040 --> 00:06:20.000 pride is staked on knowing every doorstep. I could not 137 00:06:20.120 --> 00:06:22.639 let it go. Paplin Lane itched in my mind as 138 00:06:22.639 --> 00:06:25.399 I went about the day. I ran errands, ducked into 139 00:06:25.399 --> 00:06:28.040 the musicians, stopped at Missus Darrow's to fetch a tartful later. 140 00:06:28.759 --> 00:06:30.839 All the while the question hung about had I missed 141 00:06:30.839 --> 00:06:33.079 something or did the town conspire in small ways to 142 00:06:33.079 --> 00:06:36.879 cover its own tracks. I started by asking Missus Darrow herself. 143 00:06:36.879 --> 00:06:39.480 She's lived here nearly eighty years, has an eagle's memory 144 00:06:39.480 --> 00:06:42.160 for small changes, and an appetite for alarming details in 145 00:06:42.199 --> 00:06:45.240 local law. She was wrapping up pristole when I asked, 146 00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:48.279 casual as I could, whether she recalled Papulin Lane anywhere 147 00:06:48.279 --> 00:06:51.839 near the clockmaker's place. She paused, lipped burs hand, stilling 148 00:06:51.879 --> 00:06:56.160 over the tart box. Well, Paplin, she mused, never quite 149 00:06:56.160 --> 00:06:58.519 in the same spot. I suppose best shortcut in town 150 00:06:58.560 --> 00:07:01.279 when it fancied co operating trema endously convenient, though you'd 151 00:07:01.279 --> 00:07:03.240 lose it again if you blink. Haven't thought of it 152 00:07:03.279 --> 00:07:06.519 in years? Why is it back? Her eyes brightened with 153 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:09.279 the sword of mischief that in Missess Darrow often prefaces 154 00:07:09.319 --> 00:07:12.040 a tall tale. The straightforwardness of her aunts had caught 155 00:07:12.079 --> 00:07:15.399 me off guard. I meant the question as rhetorical. You 156 00:07:15.480 --> 00:07:18.040 mean it moved, I pressed, trying not to sound as 157 00:07:18.040 --> 00:07:21.279 skeptical as I felt. Oh certainly had a mind of 158 00:07:21.279 --> 00:07:23.399 its own, but always useful if you could find it. 159 00:07:24.040 --> 00:07:28.120 I left her to her packing, unsettled. The librarian, Missess Callum, 160 00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:30.480 was no less enigmatic when I found her arranging books 161 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:33.120 in the reference room. Baple and Lane, we don't have 162 00:07:33.199 --> 00:07:36.439 much recorded, she said, thumbing absentndedly through an index card. 163 00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:39.720 Forte mention it now and then seems to pop up 164 00:07:39.720 --> 00:07:41.879 at odd times, especially for those who need a shirk. 165 00:07:41.959 --> 00:07:43.839 I'll check the ledges, but it's not on any of 166 00:07:43.879 --> 00:07:47.920 my reliable maps. Curiosity gnawed harder at the pop I 167 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:50.240 tracked down offy forty thick fore arms, an easy laugh 168 00:07:50.319 --> 00:07:52.560 not given to Fancy, who always enjoyed debunking the more 169 00:07:52.600 --> 00:07:55.879 outlandish town myths. He frowned a little when I asked, 170 00:07:56.480 --> 00:07:58.879 Paple and Lane E if it ever existed? It doesn't 171 00:07:58.879 --> 00:08:01.079 now kids run up looking for it for dares. Just 172 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:03.839 find a brick wall and some Walton capmen. He waved 173 00:08:03.839 --> 00:08:07.120 the hand. Town's got more vanished busin standing once. If 174 00:08:07.120 --> 00:08:09.600 he count up the old stories still people want to believe. 175 00:08:10.319 --> 00:08:12.879 I thanked him, my skepticism bending but not quite breaking 176 00:08:12.920 --> 00:08:15.839 under the weight of such casual contradiction. Back at home, 177 00:08:15.879 --> 00:08:17.879 I rifled through my own shelves about or to West 178 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:21.000 map from the sixties, my Bible for local deliveries, and 179 00:08:21.079 --> 00:08:24.879 a reproduction Victorian survey purchased from the Historical Society. I 180 00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:27.000 laid these side by side with my memori's map and 181 00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:29.560 the ancient hand drawn when I'd returned that morning. On 182 00:08:29.720 --> 00:08:32.399 both the official maps, the street in question didn't exist. 183 00:08:33.159 --> 00:08:35.639 All other rows match perfectly, but where papal and Lane 184 00:08:35.639 --> 00:08:37.960 should have been nothing, just the blank spam between Minton's 185 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:40.480 and the workshop, not even the faint suggestion of a 186 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:43.360 foot bath. Sheer precision of the omission gnawed at me. 187 00:08:43.960 --> 00:08:46.399 The old map wasn't simply ancient. It was explicitly at 188 00:08:46.399 --> 00:08:49.200 odds with every known wrecker. I was just about ready 189 00:08:49.200 --> 00:08:51.679 to chalk it up to local eccentricity, affiction nested within 190 00:08:51.759 --> 00:08:54.120 the slow memory of stones. When I glanced at the 191 00:08:54.159 --> 00:08:57.000 hand draw map again by the lamplight. At first glanced 192 00:08:57.080 --> 00:08:59.799 papal and Lane as exactly as before, curling a soft arc, 193 00:09:00.039 --> 00:09:03.559 linking two familiar streets. But as I paved closer, something 194 00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:06.639 had shifted the lanes. Entry point on the western edge 195 00:09:06.639 --> 00:09:08.679 now pointed to the back door of the clockmaker's shop, 196 00:09:08.840 --> 00:09:12.279 not the garden gate by Minton's. The eastern end, previously 197 00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:15.440 overlaying the book shop, now strayed Hair's bread north, seemingly 198 00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:17.759 connecting to a sliver of walled garden, never reference on 199 00:09:17.799 --> 00:09:21.480 any other diagram. The change wasn't dramatic, but it was unmistakable. 200 00:09:22.120 --> 00:09:24.600 I compared where I traced my finger not twelve hours before. 201 00:09:24.679 --> 00:09:27.879 The difference was real. I tried telling myself I'd misread it, 202 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:30.679 or maybe the map sink had faded unevenly. Yet the 203 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:32.639 rest of the map was as clear and as unyielding 204 00:09:32.679 --> 00:09:36.960 as before. Maybe paper settles, I thought, maybe my brain does. 205 00:09:37.720 --> 00:09:41.080 But instead of feeling tricked, I was absurdly invigorated. I 206 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:44.000 wanted to know which reality was bending. That night, I 207 00:09:44.039 --> 00:09:46.639 slept lightly, half dreaming of inclines that wavered and blinked 208 00:09:46.679 --> 00:09:49.799 out between the houses. By next morning, my curiosity was 209 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:52.960 boiling over. Rather than following my usual harbor route, I 210 00:09:53.039 --> 00:09:55.639 tucked both maps, ancient and official, into my shoulder back 211 00:09:55.720 --> 00:09:58.679 and set off on a systematic test. My palm was 212 00:09:58.679 --> 00:10:01.320 half logic, half ritual. Were trace everywhere it marked on 213 00:10:01.399 --> 00:10:04.000 both maps. Note every difference. See if papal and Lane 214 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:07.399 was alone aberration or only the most conspicuous little differences 215 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:10.360 abounded if you look close enough. A corner shop marked 216 00:10:10.360 --> 00:10:12.120 the beffery in the old script was on my map, 217 00:10:12.159 --> 00:10:15.200 and in reality, though belfry a shop winter rendered as 218 00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:17.240 a cheerful square of lace curtains in the old map 219 00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:20.200 was nowadays he breked over rectangle, dubbed and feeded blue 220 00:10:20.559 --> 00:10:22.840 on the coockmaker's shop itself. The old map shored a 221 00:10:22.919 --> 00:10:25.120 side door opening onto a small flag yard. No such 222 00:10:25.159 --> 00:10:27.120 door existed to day, but there were Telldale scars in 223 00:10:27.159 --> 00:10:29.799 the brockwrook, half sunk by the passage of time. I 224 00:10:29.879 --> 00:10:32.919 took notes, feeling less sure of each step. Was it 225 00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:34.840 the town that changed, or just the way we bother 226 00:10:34.919 --> 00:10:38.559 to remember it? The library became my next stop. Miss 227 00:10:38.600 --> 00:10:41.080 s Callum, now it's gone by small forests of statued 228 00:10:41.120 --> 00:10:43.480 registry books greeted me with a mug of strong tea. 229 00:10:44.039 --> 00:10:47.039 Did you find anything about Papouline, I asked, waven The 230 00:10:47.080 --> 00:10:50.600 old map, she smiled, far away. Not much in the 231 00:10:50.600 --> 00:10:53.120 official books, though, Come to think of it, I remember 232 00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:55.120 slipping through a little lane behind the workshop once. It 233 00:10:55.240 --> 00:10:57.519 was years ago during the clock fare after the rain. 234 00:10:57.600 --> 00:10:59.360 The alley was narrower than it should have been, almost 235 00:10:59.360 --> 00:11:01.639 a tunnel. Eno led out near Minton's. But the next 236 00:11:01.720 --> 00:11:04.200 year I could never find the entrance again. She tapped 237 00:11:04.200 --> 00:11:07.000 her temple. Maybe I dreamed it, or maybe it didn't 238 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:10.399 want to be found. Parentzo left a warm, half melancholy, 239 00:11:10.480 --> 00:11:13.240 half delight. I tried a different tack with Alfy at 240 00:11:13.240 --> 00:11:15.799 the pub. He was restocking the glasses, but let me 241 00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:19.679 tuck him aside. He ever found that lane yourself? I pressed, 242 00:11:19.759 --> 00:11:23.679 less hopeful than before. He grimaced, searching his memory, not 243 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:27.080 sober at any rate, he allah, I've heard it'll sometimes 244 00:11:27.080 --> 00:11:29.519 shortcid the round about, mostly at night. Tell you what, 245 00:11:29.600 --> 00:11:31.919 there's something odd about the clock chimes. When the towers 246 00:11:31.960 --> 00:11:33.879 are out of sink places you think you know you'll 247 00:11:33.919 --> 00:11:35.720 go straight through and wind up at the harbor instead 248 00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:38.320 of the square. Never bothered much with worrying about it. Mine, 249 00:11:38.399 --> 00:11:40.960 so long as you get where you're headed. I thanked him, and, 250 00:11:41.159 --> 00:11:43.559 feeling almost giddy, resolved to map, at my own memory, 251 00:11:43.639 --> 00:11:45.960 name every lane and twist each shop as I knew it. Day, 252 00:11:46.519 --> 00:11:48.879 I sat at my table with pencil and paper, sketching 253 00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:51.919 from rical alone. Even as I bore down on the details, 254 00:11:51.960 --> 00:11:54.720 I found myself second guessing. Had the clockmaker shop always 255 00:11:54.759 --> 00:11:57.480 had that tall Chinni stack? Why did I remember a 256 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:00.399 green shutter where none currently existed? The shop at the 257 00:12:00.440 --> 00:12:02.759 lanes then seemed to flicker through three names in my mind, 258 00:12:02.799 --> 00:12:05.480 and none quite settling before the next assertion took shape. 259 00:12:05.919 --> 00:12:08.519 The next phase of inquiry led me deeper into the archives. 260 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:13.080 I poured over census records, street directories, minutes of council meetings. 261 00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:16.840 Papulin Lane featured fitfully, frustratingly in only a handful of 262 00:12:16.840 --> 00:12:20.360 early directories. Sometimes brassley announced of Papulin's walk from Greaves 263 00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:24.200 to Orange Yard, other times entirely absent. In one registry, 264 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:27.240 the lane was footnoted as formerly Papalin's walker place. It 265 00:12:27.320 --> 00:12:30.799 seemed perpetually halfway between existing and ceasing to be. The 266 00:12:30.840 --> 00:12:33.360 next morning, before the shops had set out their signs, 267 00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:35.759 I walked to the supposed mouth of Papallin Lane at dawn, 268 00:12:35.960 --> 00:12:39.399 retracing the old map's destructions. Cold mis culled round my 269 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:42.720 feet ere bright with birds, and for just a moment, 270 00:12:42.799 --> 00:12:45.159 after ducking behind the clockmaker's hulk of a building, I 271 00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:47.200 found the slight gap in the tangled brambles, a thin, 272 00:12:47.440 --> 00:12:49.600 mossy path, pressed just wide enough for a person, and 273 00:12:49.679 --> 00:12:53.000 exactly a sketch in the old cauthographer's confident hand. I 274 00:12:53.080 --> 00:12:56.360 darted forward, dodging down leaves in an empty bottle. The 275 00:12:56.399 --> 00:12:58.879 path ran twelve steps before dissolving into a bank of 276 00:12:58.919 --> 00:13:01.559 thorny bushes. The faint impression of flagstones ending in a 277 00:13:01.600 --> 00:13:04.399 jumble of violets. Something about the shape the way a 278 00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:07.000 light cut across the stones was compelling, if familiar. Just 279 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:09.200 for that moment, I was walking a street I'd always known. 280 00:13:09.720 --> 00:13:12.840 Before I could go further, the way was blought to overgrown, certainly, 281 00:13:12.960 --> 00:13:15.919 yet not impassable for centuries. I pressed my hand to 282 00:13:15.960 --> 00:13:18.000 the stone wall. The ridges lined up exactly, not with 283 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:20.360 to day street, but with the one from the ancient sketch. 284 00:13:21.120 --> 00:13:23.080 No sooner had I found it than it slept away. 285 00:13:23.720 --> 00:13:25.480 The next day I checked again at the same hour. 286 00:13:26.159 --> 00:13:28.360 There was nothing now, just a wall, neat and solid, 287 00:13:28.440 --> 00:13:30.200 had just crispy, clicked, as if no one had ever 288 00:13:30.200 --> 00:13:33.679 trod between them. No sign of the passes, save perhaps 289 00:13:33.879 --> 00:13:37.080 or with something faintly floral, stubbornly out of season. As 290 00:13:37.080 --> 00:13:40.480 I puzzled, a pattern began to emerge. No two people 291 00:13:40.519 --> 00:13:42.399 recall papal and lay in the same way, but nearly 292 00:13:42.440 --> 00:13:45.559 everyone had an anecdote. No two maps agreed. Even my 293 00:13:45.639 --> 00:13:48.240 own habit bound mind found itself reordering shop fronts, as 294 00:13:48.240 --> 00:13:51.080 if by sleight of hand, their phantom lane refused to 295 00:13:51.080 --> 00:13:53.440 be fixed, not in space or time, not in memory 296 00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:56.000 or in ink. At first I thought the map was 297 00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:59.279 simply outdated or relicant, suitable for modern feet. Then I 298 00:13:59.279 --> 00:14:02.039 suspected at the town had outgrown it, paved over its oddments. 299 00:14:02.639 --> 00:14:06.080 But no, the contradictions ran deeper, wider. Some part of 300 00:14:06.120 --> 00:14:08.960 the place, not just its documentation, resisted being pinned down. 301 00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:12.159 I began to wonder, improbable, as it seemed, whether the 302 00:14:12.159 --> 00:14:14.559 map itself was settling like the old bones of the town, 303 00:14:15.159 --> 00:14:17.399 or whether it was participating in its own quiet mischief, 304 00:14:17.480 --> 00:14:20.000 waiting to reveal new shapes to a sufficiently attentive hand. 305 00:14:20.480 --> 00:14:22.679 One an evening, as I revisited the map, I noticed 306 00:14:22.679 --> 00:14:25.919 the delicate, unfamiliar scent, once more like crushed violets, mingled 307 00:14:25.919 --> 00:14:29.519 with something lighter, almost citrus, always near the supposed entrance 308 00:14:29.519 --> 00:14:32.720 to Paplain Lane, never elsewhere. The people of the town, 309 00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:35.360 for all their tolerance of such mysteries, were not immune 310 00:14:35.399 --> 00:14:39.159 to curiosity about shifting geography. Yet there was something resigned, 311 00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:42.360 even proud in their acceptance, as if their wandering of 312 00:14:42.360 --> 00:14:45.000 streets and alas was not a flaw but a private tradition, 313 00:14:45.120 --> 00:14:47.759 a game played by place and people alike. This was 314 00:14:47.799 --> 00:14:50.480 no longer a question of finding a lost shortcut. The 315 00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:53.399 contradiction had expanded, not a missing lane, but a whole 316 00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:55.960 system of subtle shifting geography, a map that did not 317 00:14:56.080 --> 00:14:59.120 just record, but participated in the ambiguity of what was real. 318 00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:02.480 I walked that evening for longer than usual, winding my 319 00:15:02.519 --> 00:15:05.559 way past the old own workshop. On a whim, I stopped, 320 00:15:05.600 --> 00:15:08.320 press my palm to the cold warp boats covering its door. 321 00:15:08.960 --> 00:15:11.159 I could hear clocks within, faint at first, but then 322 00:15:11.320 --> 00:15:13.840 unmistakably a soft course of ticking, as if dozens of 323 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:17.039 time pieces struggled in rugged unison. The building had always 324 00:15:17.080 --> 00:15:19.799 drun me for reasons. I couldn't say. But now, with 325 00:15:19.879 --> 00:15:22.039 papple and lane looping about its foundations on the ancient 326 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:24.080 map again with a new bold, a flickering to night, 327 00:15:24.200 --> 00:15:26.480 was that my imagination? I wondered whether their own shop 328 00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:28.320 was not merely the end of the old passage, but 329 00:15:28.360 --> 00:15:31.320 a kind of keeper of the town's shifting ways, the clocks, 330 00:15:31.360 --> 00:15:33.960 the maps, the memory of a lane every one remembers differently. 331 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:36.120 Perhaps these were for its in the same tangle's gain. 332 00:15:36.799 --> 00:15:39.080 Next morning, as the square and compass wok itself with 333 00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:41.519 the clatter of pine glasses, I stopped by once more. 334 00:15:42.200 --> 00:15:44.480 Pob's windows had that misted clothed they get before noon, 335 00:15:44.559 --> 00:15:47.480 and Afy was still arranging chairs. He knotted me in. 336 00:15:47.679 --> 00:15:49.720 I perched on my usual spot by the corner window. 337 00:15:50.399 --> 00:15:53.320 Tell me something, Alfy, I said, quietly. If a street 338 00:15:53.320 --> 00:15:55.440 could move, how would you know, Not from a map, 339 00:15:55.720 --> 00:15:58.440 not from walking, Its just as a feeling. He grinned. 340 00:15:59.080 --> 00:16:01.320 That would be the onlog. Wouldn't it use to say 341 00:16:01.320 --> 00:16:03.240 the town was built atop an old web, not at 342 00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:05.600 tight in one place, loose in another. He chases own 343 00:16:05.600 --> 00:16:07.440 tail round the block with the knee map every week. 344 00:16:07.639 --> 00:16:09.600 I suppose a moving street would feel like deja vu, 345 00:16:09.679 --> 00:16:12.399 you find yourself somewhere you went expecting, not lost, just 346 00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:14.600 were routed. I thought about this as I walked the 347 00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:17.519 block maps in my pocket, feed it ching for evidence. 348 00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:20.120 I resolved then to speak to Miss s Calum again, 349 00:16:20.200 --> 00:16:21.960 this time invoking my right as a member of the 350 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:25.039 historical society to put my nose where it oughtn't. With 351 00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:27.080 her blessing and a heavy old key in my hand, 352 00:16:27.200 --> 00:16:29.480 I made my way to the own workshop late that afternoon. 353 00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:32.639 Inside the dust was sweet and pervasive, the kind that 354 00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:34.639 seeps into your clothes and makes his knees even as 355 00:16:34.639 --> 00:16:38.480 you marvel. There were clocks dozens, no hundred if you 356 00:16:38.519 --> 00:16:41.799 counted every size and shape. They covered the walls, the mantles, 357 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:43.960 even hung from nails in the rafters, most set to 358 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:47.320 slightly different times. The collection made for racket. Some TICKSI 359 00:16:47.399 --> 00:16:49.559 and shop, other slow and measured. Many stopped at fright 360 00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:52.360 at times that made no local sense. Eleven fifty three, two, 361 00:16:52.440 --> 00:16:55.080 eleven ten nine, and so on. A map of minutes 362 00:16:55.120 --> 00:16:58.039 arranged without logic on a wide back wall. I found 363 00:16:58.080 --> 00:17:00.080 what I'd been hoping for and fearing, an array of 364 00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:03.279 old maps all off the town. Each subtly different. Here 365 00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:06.440 papal And Lane was present. There can in another loop, 366 00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:09.680 big and impossibly round, as though circumnavigating the entire Western 367 00:17:09.720 --> 00:17:13.039 quarridor the name shifted two papal And Lane, Paplin's walk 368 00:17:13.119 --> 00:17:16.799 even butterfly path. In one bizarre instance, and yet one 369 00:17:16.839 --> 00:17:19.119 map fresher than the others, had the date of to 370 00:17:19.200 --> 00:17:22.640 day inscribed in a careful contemporary hand. Mounted on shells. 371 00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:25.559 Beneath were blueprints labeled with a cane terms temporal balance, 372 00:17:25.759 --> 00:17:29.400 a special register momentary axes eastern, where it keeped pattern 373 00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:32.799 but allow for drift. There were unfinished drawings, clocks depicted 374 00:17:32.839 --> 00:17:35.400 not just as mechanisms, but as parts of tiny networks. 375 00:17:36.039 --> 00:17:38.400 A visitor is lobically cracked and listing on a worktop. 376 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:41.000 Its page filled with visitors signatures, none known to me, 377 00:17:41.119 --> 00:17:43.720 and some in a slanting fratchud SCRIPTA could not decipher. 378 00:17:44.400 --> 00:17:47.640 The caretaker, mister Pumphrey, broad chested and unhurried, wandered in 379 00:17:47.720 --> 00:17:50.599 his explored He regarded the chaos as one would an 380 00:17:50.599 --> 00:17:53.759 overgrown garden. They say you should never trust this lot, 381 00:17:53.960 --> 00:17:57.119 he remarked. Jerky a thumb at the clocks. Never write 382 00:17:57.160 --> 00:17:58.960 for every one, but they keep the place on as 383 00:17:58.960 --> 00:18:02.400 if honest the word. Do you ever change them? I asked, 384 00:18:02.519 --> 00:18:05.359 headful of the tik tok Medley. That's the trick, isn't 385 00:18:05.359 --> 00:18:07.920 it change enough? In someone complaints, don't, and they drift 386 00:18:07.960 --> 00:18:11.160 by themselves. He peered at the maps, selecting one of 387 00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:14.119 the frown. Builders and surveyors have been much fixed by these. 388 00:18:14.200 --> 00:18:16.440 No two agree, and none match how the ground feels. 389 00:18:16.519 --> 00:18:18.519 The more you look, the more it seems only confusion 390 00:18:18.559 --> 00:18:22.160 has any fidelity, he smiles. Patient with my confusion, I 391 00:18:22.200 --> 00:18:24.319 opened my mouth, but before I could ask further, a 392 00:18:24.359 --> 00:18:26.240 faint chime rang out from above a boll not set 393 00:18:26.279 --> 00:18:28.880 to the hour. I looked toward the ceiling. Sure enough, 394 00:18:28.920 --> 00:18:32.400 as skylight filtered in ghostly afternoon sun. It seemed clear 395 00:18:32.440 --> 00:18:35.440 to me abruptly that the clocks, the irregularity of their keepings, 396 00:18:35.599 --> 00:18:38.039 and this proliferation of maps all co existed as one 397 00:18:38.079 --> 00:18:41.519 tangled cause, the persistent ambiguity of streets like Paplin Lane. 398 00:18:41.920 --> 00:18:44.559 The town didn't hate certainty, it simply failed to recognize 399 00:18:44.559 --> 00:18:46.880 it as a virtue. On my way out, I saw 400 00:18:46.920 --> 00:18:49.759 the latest map again and realized something chillingly wonderful. It 401 00:18:49.839 --> 00:18:53.039