Armillary sphere with script quote on a calf

The sphere arrived on Tuesday in a crate that smelt of the harbour, and I have not yet managed to make it sit straight on the shelf. Mr Pryce from the auction rooms swore the rings were brass, but they have gone the colour of marmalade where Dad's thumb wore them down over forty winters, and I have decided to believe him anyway. The little stars on the cage are still there, five of them, one with a chip missing from its point. I counted them twice, the way he used to, as if they might have shifted while nobody was looking.

The grey stone in the middle is what I wanted to write to you about. You remember he kept it inside the sphere rather than on the mantel. On Wednesday I opened the back panel and found a scrap of paper folded round it, your handwriting from the year you were eleven, a line about the tide tables and a promise that you would learn to read the sky properly. He never told either of us he had kept it. Some of him is still in the works, Nell, in the bits he never let anyone else touch.

I have spent three evenings trying to set the rings so the stone sits dead centre in the cage, and I think I have it at last. It takes a little tilt on the north ring, which Dad always said was the only way to make anything stay put. Come on Sunday if you can. Bring the tide tables, and bring that letter back with you, because I would like to see your handwriting again before I put it away.

Love, Tom