Chapter 37 - The Blue Blanket Pattern
Vivian asked Margaret for the blue blanket.
Margaret unfolded it carefully across the long wooden table.
Vivian smiled the moment she saw it.
"Eleanor never changed the pattern."
Rebecca looked closely.
"I've seen this blanket a hundred times."
Vivian handed her a magnifying glass.
"Then look again."
Each knitted square suddenly revealed tiny differences.
Some stitches were tighter.
Others formed unusual angles.
Arthur leaned closer.
"It's not decorative."
Vivian nodded.
"It's encoded."
Margaret's eyes widened.
"I knitted most of it."
"You knitted exactly what Eleanor asked you to knit."
Vivian rotated the blanket ninety degrees.
The random patches immediately transformed into a geometric design.
Daniel gasped.
"It's a map."
Not a map of roads.
Not tunnels.
A constellation.
Stars connected by carefully hidden stitch lines.
Vivian pointed toward one small corner made from Margaret's late husband's old shirt.
"That's not fabric chosen for sentimental reasons."
"It's the starting point."
Rebecca quickly compared the stitched constellation with one of the old coastal maps.
The pattern aligned perfectly.
Not with the harbor.
Not with Section Thirteen.
It pointed far beyond the shoreline.
Toward a small island that appeared on none of the Foundation blueprints.
Margaret looked at Vivian.
"Eleanor wanted us to find another place."
Vivian quietly answered,
May you like
"She wanted you to find the place even I was never allowed to enter."
---
