When the traveller woke, the map was still beside the bed.
She stared at it for some time.
She had remembered losing it.
She had remembered, very clearly, that she had lost it.
Yet there it was.
She picked it up.
The map was unchanged.
The streets were marked in black ink. The squares were carefully named. The river curved around the eastern wall. The city gate was shown at the bottom edge.
Everything was in order.
Except for one thing.
There was a door drawn in the middle of the map.
She had never seen it before.
It stood between two streets that, according to the map, did not meet.
She traced it with her finger.
A small rectangle.
Nothing more.
She looked around the room.
There was no door there.
The innkeeper had told her that the city had no map.
She was beginning to suspect that he had been right.
She folded the map and went downstairs.
The innkeeper was sitting by the window.
“You found it,” he said.
“Found what?”
He nodded towards the map.
“The first door.”
“I didn't find it. It appeared on the map.”
The innkeeper smiled.
“That's one way of putting it.”
“Where is it?”
He looked at her for a moment.
“Wherever it is.”
She was beginning to dislike this manner of speaking.
“Can you tell me where I can find it?”
“I can tell you where it was yesterday.”
“Where?”
He gave her an address.
The traveller wrote it down.
“Will it still be there?”
The innkeeper shrugged.
“If you go looking for it.”
She left the inn.
The address led her towards the older part of the city.
The streets narrowed as she went. Buildings leaned over them. Bridges crossed between houses. Small signs hung above shops whose names she could not pronounce.
She checked the map frequently.
For the first time, she noticed something unsettling.
The map did not merely fail to show the city.
It seemed to be following her.
Several streets she had walked that morning had appeared only after she had walked them.
She stopped at a corner.
The street behind her was now on the map.
She turned the page.
A small alley had appeared beside it.
She looked up.
There was no alley.
She looked back at the map.
Still no alley.
She took one step forward.
The alley appeared.
She stopped.
It disappeared.
She stood perfectly still.
The alley remained absent.
She stepped forward again.
It returned.
She laughed.
It was the sort of laugh people make when something is too strange to be frightening.
“Very well,” she said aloud.
A man passing by looked at her.
“Are you speaking to the map?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“Then it is listening.”
He walked on.
She decided not to ask.
Eventually she reached the address.
It was a narrow street ending at a blank wall.
There was no door.
She checked the number.
It was correct.
She checked the map.
The door was there.
She looked at the wall.
Nothing.
She walked along it.
Nothing.
She returned to the beginning of the street.
Nothing.
Then she noticed a small mark in the stone.
A vertical line.
She touched it.
The line became darker.
She stepped back.
A second line appeared beside it.
Then a third.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, a rectangular outline emerged in the wall.
The traveller did not move.
The outline continued to darken.
An iron handle appeared.
She stared at it.
The door had not been there.
Now it was.
She reached for the handle.
Before she touched it, she hesitated.
“What are you?” she whispered.
The door did not answer.
She opened it.
There was a room beyond.
It was small and circular.
There was no furniture.
No window.
No other door.
The walls were white.
In the centre of the room stood a chair.
The traveller looked at it.
She felt, absurdly, that she was being invited to sit down.
She did not.
Instead she stepped back through the doorway.
The street was still there.
She turned around.
The door was still there too.
She closed it.
Then opened it again.
The room was unchanged.
She closed it once more.
A woman was standing across the street.
She had been watching.
“Is that your door?” the woman asked.
“No.”
“Whose is it?”
“I don't know.”
The woman nodded.
“That is usually the trouble.”
The traveller looked at the door.
“Have you seen it before?”
“Of course.”
“When?”
“Before you opened it.”
“And what was behind it?”
The woman looked puzzled.
“The room.”
“Yes, but what was in the room?”
“Nothing.”
The traveller thought of the chair.
“There was a chair.”
The woman looked at her.
“No, there wasn't.”
“There was.”
“Then there is one now.”
The traveller frowned.
“What do you mean?”
The woman pointed towards the door.
“The room isn't always the same.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are not always the same.”
The traveller stared at her.
“That makes no sense.”
The woman smiled.
“It will.”
She walked away.
The traveller opened the door again.
The chair was gone.
She stepped inside.
The room was completely empty.
She looked around.
The walls were white.
The floor was bare.
There was no chair.
She stepped outside.
The street seemed different.
Not dramatically.
A shop that had been on her left was now on her right.
She looked back.
The door was still there.
She opened it.
The chair was back.
She closed it.
The chair disappeared.
She opened it again.
The chair returned.
After several attempts she stopped.
She began to feel that she had discovered something important.
Then she realised that she did not know what it was.
She sat on the chair.
Nothing happened.
She waited.
Nothing.
She stood.
The room remained.
She walked to the opposite wall.
Nothing.
She returned to the chair.
Still nothing.
She opened the door and stepped outside.
The street was empty.
She looked back.
The door was gone.
She waited.
Nothing.
She looked at the wall.
It was blank stone.
She touched it.
No outline.
No handle.
No sign that a door had ever been there.
She returned to the inn by a different route.
The innkeeper was still by the window.
He looked at her.
“Well?”
“It disappeared.”
“What did?”
“The door.”
He nodded.
“Did you go through it?”
“Yes.”
“Then it has done what it was for.”
“What was it for?”
He looked out towards the street.
“To let you through.”
“That is what doors do.”
“No,” he said.
“That is what you think doors do.”
She waited.
He continued.
“A door does not merely stand between two places.”
“Then what does it do?”
He turned back towards her.
“It makes there be two places.”
The traveller said nothing.
The innkeeper poured another drink.
“Before you opened that door,” he said, “there was nowhere for you to go.”
“There was a street.”
“Yes.”
“And a wall.”
“Yes.”
“So there was a place on the other side.”
“Was there?”
She looked at him.
He smiled.
“You saw the room only after the door opened.”
The traveller thought of the empty street.
The wall.
The outline appearing in the stone.
The room.
The chair.
The disappearance.
She suddenly understood why the map had been so unhelpful.
It had been trying to show her where things were.
But perhaps the city did not work that way.
Perhaps some things were not there until there was a relation in which they could be there.
She looked towards the window.
Outside, a child was standing in the street.
The child was staring at a blank wall.
The traveller watched.
The child raised a hand.
Touched the stone.
And a door began to appear.
The traveller stood up.
“Where is she going?”
The innkeeper did not look around.
“Nowhere,” he said.
Then, after a moment:
“Not yet.”
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