Lila Finds the Old Compass in Grandma’s Attic

The June sun slanted through the maple trees in Lila’s backyard, gilding the clover stems and the tufts of dandelion fluff that dotted the grass, as the 10-year-old knelt on her knees, scanning the dirt for a flash of white fur. Her left sneaker was caked with mud from where she’d tripped into the vegetable garden ten minutes earlier, and a smudge of chocolate from her afternoon snack was smudged on her cheek, but she didn’t care. Mr. Fluff, her scuffed white stuffed rabbit with the lopsided left ear and the faded blue patch on his tummy from when she’d sewn him up after a raccoon bite the year before, was missing.

“Mr. Fluff!” she called, her voice cracking a little at the edges. She’d carried him everywhere for three years—he’d sat on her desk during math tests, tucked under her arm during thunderstormsc, and even ridden in her bike basket when she’d gone blueberry picking with her mom last weekend. He’d been right next to her when she’d climbed the rickety wooden ladder to the attic yesterday afternoon to hide from her little brother’s tag game, and now he was gone.

The attic door at the back of the house creaked open a second later, and Lila’s mom leaned out, wiping her hands on her apron. “I saw a wisp of white fur on the third step of the attic ladder, kiddo. I bet he’s up there. Grandma used to say that attic holds all the things people forget they love.”

Lila’s heart skipped a beat. Grandma Elena had passed away the previous winter, and Lila still half expected to walk into the kitchen and find her sitting at the table, stirring a pot of lavender tea, her silver hair braided down her back and a smudge of flour on her forehead from baking cinnamon rolls. She’d only been up to the attic twice since Grandma died, and both times she’d gotten teary looking at Grandma’s old coat hanging by the door, so she’d stayed away. But if Mr. Fluff was up there, she had to go.

The wooden ladder groaned under her weight as she climbed, each step sighing under her sneakers just like it had when she was smaller and Grandma would lift her up to the attic to show her old photo albums. The air up there smelled like cedar chests, old wool blankets, and the faint, sweet scent of lavender sachets that Grandma had tucked into every corner, just like she always had. The only light came from a tiny diamond-paned window at the far end, and dust motes swirled in its golden glow like tiny, slow-moving fairies. The roof sloped low on one side, so Lila had to hunch a little as she walked past stacks of cardboard boxes labeled in Grandma’s looping, slanted handwriting: *CHRISTMAS DECOR*, *OLD PHOTOS*, *ELENA’S ADVENTURE GEAR*.

“Mr. Fluff?” she whispered, kneeling to peer under a pile of old quilts. No rabbit. She lifted a stack of board games—*Candy Land*, *Chutes and Ladders*, the one with the pirate map that Grandma had taught her to play last summer—and set them aside. Still no rabbit. She was just about to lift a old fur coat off a hook to check behind it when her hand bumped against a stack of cardboard boxes tucked in the corner behind the coat, the one labeled *ELENA’S ADVENTURE GEAR*.

Grandma had never talked much about what was in that box. Lila had asked her once, when she was seven, and Grandma had smiled that secret smile she got when she was thinking about something that made her happy, and said, “Oh, that’s just old stuff from when I was your age. Nothing important.” But Lila had always wondered. The box was made of thick, brown cardboard, the edges frayed, and the label was written in the same blue ink Grandma used to sign her birthday cards. The brass latch on the front was rusted shut, so Lila dug in her pocket for a bobby pin, jiggling it into the crack until the latch popped open with a soft *click*.

The first thing that hit her was the smell: old leather, pine resin, and the faint, sharp scent of metal, like the time she’d held a handful of pennies at the bank. She lifted the lid, and her breath caught in her throat. Tucked under a faded red knit hat with a pom-pom on top was a pair of scuffed leather hiking boots, laces frayed at the ends, sized for a 10-year-old’s feet. Lila’s feet were exactly that size. She lifted the boots gently aside, and her hand brushed against something cool and smooth, wrapped in a scrap of dark blue velvet.

She pulled it out, and her eyes went wide. It was a compass, brass, the edges worn smooth from years of being held, the glass face smudged with tiny scratches and a single crack running across the top, right above the needle. The needle itself was silver, and it spun lazily for a second before settling, pointing straight north, the tiny arrow on its end glowing faintly green in the dim attic light. Lila ran her thumb over the back of the compass, and her finger caught on a tiny, carved pine tree, the same kind that grew all over the hills behind Grandma’s old village in the Swiss Alps. She’d seen that pine tree carved into the handle of Grandma’s old walking stick, the one that hung by the front door.

Tucked under the velvet was a folded piece of paper, the edges yellowed, the ink a little faded, written in Grandma’s handwriting. Lila’s hands shook a little as she unfolded it.

> My dearest one who finds this, > > If you’re reading this, that means my old brass compass has finally found its next adventurer. I carried this thing everywhere when I was your age—up the tallest pine tree in the village, along the creek that cuts through the woods, all the way to the hilltop where the sun sets the sky pink every evening. But the grown-ups in my village kept telling me girls don’t belong on long hikes, that nice girls don’t climb trees or get their boots muddy, that I should spend my time learning to sew and bake bread instead of wandering the hills. So I tucked it away here, in this old box, and I’ve been waiting 60 years for someone brave enough to take it where I never got to go. > > If you’re holding this, I know you’re that person. You’ve got the same wild glint in your eye that I had at your age, the same stubborn set to your jaw when you decide you want something. Don’t let anyone tell you where you can or can’t go. The world is yours to explore, every mountain, every creek, every hidden grove of wild strawberries. Go on all the adventures I never got to have, and when you get back, tell me all about them. I’ll be listening. > > All my love, > Grandma Elena > December 12, 2022 (two weeks before she died)

Lila stared at the words, her throat tight. She’d seen that handwriting a thousand times—on her birthday cards, on the notes Grandma used to leave in her lunchbox when she stayed overnight, on the labels of the jam jars Grandma used to give away to the neighbors. But she’d never seen those words written for her. A tear slipped down her cheek, landing on the corner of the paper, and she wiped it away quickly with the back of her hand, scared she’d smudge the ink. She ran her finger over the tiny smudge of rose-colored lipstick on the bottom corner of the note—Grandma’s favorite shade, the one she wore every Sunday to church, the one that smelled like roses and cinnamon. Lila remembered pressing her cheek to Grandma’s after she kissed her goodnight, and the lipstick would leave a pink mark on Lila’s forehead that her mom would laugh about when she saw it in the morning.

She looked down at the compass in her hand, turning it over so the tiny pine tree carved into the back caught the light. She remembered the photo album Grandma had shown her once, the one with the black and white photos of Grandma when she was 20, her hair braided with wildflowers, wearing those same scuffed hiking boots, standing on top of a mountain with the snow-capped Alps stretching out behind her. Lila had pointed at the photo and asked Grandma why she never went hiking anymore, and Grandma had smiled that sad, secret smile and said, “Some roads have to wait for the right person to walk them, baby girl. Some doors take a long time to open.”