The River Made Her Its Cartographer

You surface into ordinary daylight, gasping. The barge drifts beside you, or the lantern's warmth settles into your palm — either way, you are back on the main river. Behind you, the tributary is simply gone: solid treeline, unbroken bank, as though the water never opened its mouth.

Your charts are covered in your own handwriting. Every margin, every margin, filled — new tributaries, coordinates in your own careful hand, warnings underlined twice. Do not anchor here. Current reverses at dusk. It knows you. You don't remember writing a single word.

You complete the cargo run. You file no report. But the charts multiply, and you follow them — spending the rest of your life finding the unmapped places, and making sure others never go in unwarned. The river chose its keeper well.