Elise recognized her handwriting before she recognized what it said.
She held the photographed routing sheet against the civic table and moved a finger above one letter. Not touching, tracing the shape she expected her hand to make.
“Here,” she said. “I turn back before I finish it.”
Naomi set a clean sheet beside the copy. “You can try if you want.”
Elise took the pen. She formed the small initial, paused, then drew the returning stroke. The line matched.
Mara watched her face. Nothing lit up in the way she had expected a person finding a lost piece of herself to look. Elise seemed irritated.
“I can do it,” she said. “It doesn’t mean anything comes back.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Naomi answered.
