A Small Light

Hana found the rusted key behind the bakery’s old wooden bench. It was a curious thing, no bigger than her thumb and warm from the sun. The key had no tag, no familiar loop to hang it on — just a soft, worn brass that hinted at many hands before hers.

That evening the town wrapped itself in thick fog. Lanterns along the quay flickered and hunched figures moved through the mist like slow ghosts. Hana, who carried a small camera everywhere, felt the key heavy in her pocket and wondered what door it might open.

She wandered toward the river where, by the warehouse doors, a thin sliver of yellow light shivered through cracks. Someone had left a window half-open. Hana pressed her camera to her chest and stepped close enough to hear the quiet: the room inside smelled of lemon oil and books. On a shelf lay a row of old boxes, and each box had a tiny brass lock that matched the key perfectly.

Hana turned the key in the first lock. It fit as if made for that very click, and the box opened to reveal a tangle of postcards tied with blue string. Each postcard held a short note — small, plain sentences about trains that went away and came back, about rain that smelled like summer, and about people who kept promises by leaving a mark on a map.

She read slowly until she reached a postcard with her own street written in a careful, looping hand. The note said: “If you find the key, leave a light where the fog waits. Someone will read your postcard one day.” Hana didn’t know who had written it or when, but she knew what to do.

She stepped outside into the fog and walked home with the postcards tucked under her arm. The next morning she placed a small lantern by the bench behind the bakery. It was not a grand light — only a copper lamp with a small flame — but it warmed the fog like a promise. Days later, she discovered a second key on the doorstep, and with it, a new postcard: “Thank you. The light found us.”