Lil Rae tilted her head. “That’s a funny question,” she said. “Like asking a river where its last drop is.”
She didn’t explain further. But that night, she drew the erased country’s flag on a napkin: a phoenix over a broken chain. She left it on Marv’s counter.
In the small, forgotten town of Map’s End, everyone knew two things: the road stopped at the edge of the pines, and Lil Rae was from somewhere else.
Marv blinked. Then he laughed, the kind of laugh that cracked open years of silence. “Alright, river. You can stay for supper.”
“Where you from, kid?” asked Old Marv, wiping grease off his hands.