Star constellation tattoo on lower back

The chart you left on the dresser has gone soft at the folds, so I've pinned it flat under the teapot and traced it in pencil. Mr Pryce at the chandlery says the man who drew it was a Penzance schoolmaster who never once sailed past the breakwater, which explains the stars. He joined the big bright ones with dotted lines because he thought the sky ought to be tidy, and the dots are his guesses at where the light goes between them.

I took the chart down to the slipway on Tuesday with the tide going out. The gulls were making a racket over the fish market and nobody much cared what I was doing, so I laid the paper on the wet stone and counted the stars against the sky as it came up, one by one, the way Dad taught us. Three of the bright ones were where he said. The fourth had gone out, or never been there. I stood a long while with my hands in my coat, trying to decide whether to trust the schoolmaster or the water.

Then the Marigold came in, and Hal Penrose climbed out shouting about a crack in the hull, and I forgot the chart entirely. When I found it again the wind had taken it halfway to the harbour mouth, folded like a sail.

I'm writing because I've decided to keep the dots. Not the stars. The dots are the part where somebody had to imagine the way between, and I think you should know that's the bit I'd want you to follow home. Come back on the autumn tide, and I'll show you the slipway where the fourth star should be.

Love, Ada