Eliza Finch found the photograph tucked between the pages of an old book.
It was a Polaroid, yellowed around the edges, with a small strip of masking tape attached to the bottom. Someone had written two lines in faded ink.
Animalcula — XIII
Pisum sativum / scale
There were a gaggle of little creatures in the photograph.
They were peculiar things, brightly colored, with strange antennae, enormous eyes, and expressions that suggested they had been interrupted in the middle of something.
A small dried pea rested in front of them.
Eliza recognized Pisum sativum as the botanical name for the garden pea. Someone, apparently, had been studying these creatures closely enough to include a reference for their size.
Which meant they were very small indeed.
But it was their expressions that held her attention.
A blue creature appeared to be studying the pea with extraordinary concentration. An apricot-colored fellow seemed to be leaning away from it. And a pink one stared directly into the camera with the unmistakable expression of someone caught doing something he shouldn't.
Eliza laughed.
Then she wondered where they had gone.
The book had come from a box of unwanted things outside the old mill. It seemed a reasonable place to begin asking questions.
The miller was carrying a sack of flour when she arrived.
"Have you ever seen anything like these?" she asked, holding out the photograph.
He studied it for a moment.
"Well, that's a curious thing."
"You recognize them?"
"Not all of them. But I had a yellow fellow sitting on a flour sack last month. Thought one of the children had left a toy behind."
"What happened to it?"
"Couldn't say. It was gone the next morning."
He handed back the photograph and returned to his work.
Eliza made a note.
Yellow. Mill. Disappeared.
At the bakery, she showed the photograph to the woman arranging fresh buns in the window.
"Oh!" the baker exclaimed. "I had the pink one!"
"Which pink one?"
"The surprised-looking one. Sat right there on my windowsill for nearly a week. Made me smile every time I saw him."
"Where is he now?"
The baker looked toward the window.
"Well, goodness. I don't know."
She seemed rather disappointed to realize this.
Eliza bought a bun and continued along the lane.
At the cottage near the edge of the woods, the keeper invited her in for tea.
"A blue one?" the woman said, studying the photograph. "Yes, I remember. Found it beside the fireplace. I thought a guest had left it."
"Did anyone claim it?"
"No. I put it on the mantel for safekeeping."
"And?"
The cottage keeper glanced toward the mantel.
It was empty.
"How very odd," she said.
She poured Eliza another cup of tea, and they spent the next half hour talking about the cottage, the woods, and the little birds that nested beneath the eaves.
Eliza nearly forgot why she'd come.
By the time she reached the post office, she had begun to wonder whether the entire village had been visited by these peculiar creatures.
The mailman was less enthusiastic.
"Found one in my satchel," he said. "Green. Little arms sticking out everywhere. Nearly gave me a fright."
"What did you do with it?"
"Put it on the counter."
"And then?"
"Then I delivered the mail, Miss Finch. That's what mailmen do."
He turned back to sorting envelopes.
Eliza decided not to press him.
Her last visit was to Lady Sparrow, who was tending the roses in her garden.
Lady Sparrow looked at the photograph for a long time.
"Ah," she said.
Eliza waited.
"Have you seen them?" she finally asked.
"Three of them, beneath the birdbath."
"When?"
"Oh, some time ago."
"What happened to them?"
Lady Sparrow handed back the photograph.
"I really couldn't say."
"Do you know what they are?"
"No, dear."
"Do you know where they came from?"
"No."
Eliza was beginning to suspect that Lady Sparrow was enjoying this conversation considerably more than she was.
"Doesn't it strike you as strange?"
Lady Sparrow smiled.
"Very."
And returned to her roses.
That evening, Eliza spread her notes across the kitchen table.
Thirteen creatures. Five villagers. Five different accounts.
Nobody knew who had taken the photograph.
Nobody knew how the creatures had arrived.
And nobody could tell her where they had gone.
She examined the Polaroid again.
The blue one was still studying the pea. The apricot one was still leaning away. The pink one still looked startled.
She wondered whether the creatures had traveled together, wandered separately, or simply been carried about by people who never gave them a second thought.
Perhaps they were toys.
Perhaps they were something else.
She had no way of knowing.
But something had changed.
Before finding the photograph, Eliza had never spoken to the miller. She hadn't known that the baker talked to her buns while arranging them in the window. She hadn't sat beside the cottage keeper's fire, heard the mailman's dry humor, or watched Lady Sparrow tend her roses.
All of these people had been living their lives around her.
And until today, she'd hardly noticed.
Eliza placed the photograph in her journal and wrote beneath it:
Fifteen little creatures.
Five new acquaintances.
One village that seems considerably larger than it did yesterday.
She studied the photograph once more.
Then she added a final line.
Perhaps the wandering was mine.