Compass and rose with Wanderlust banner

The compass had a ring at the top for a cord, and under the glass a card painted with the four letters, and in the middle a rose drawn so close you could count its petals by lamplight. His father had brought it home from a quay in Bristol and said the rose was for a woman who had waited there for a ship that never came. Ned had never seen a sea. Every night he held the thing to the window and watched the needle swing and settle, and every night the rose in the middle stayed exactly where it was.

He set out before dawn, following the needle north past the lambing pens, through drifts up to his knees, until he stood on Harrow Hill and saw the whole valley laid out white. Far below, a thread of smoke rose from the farmhouse chimney. He looked at the compass, then at the smoke, then at the compass again, and understood that the needle had never been pointing away from anything. It only ever told you which way was home, and the rose sat in the centre to remind you what it cost to be the one who stayed.

So he came back down by the needle, and the kitchen lamp was already lit in the window. Mind the gate on your way out, and don't go wandering past the beck. Wanderlust is a fine word, but it's a long walk back in the dark.