The compass shop keeps a drawer of needle-sized scarves, each knitted from leftover embroidery floss so a pointer can sit without shivering against the glass. Before anyone asks the way, a needle warms itself, nods to the garden gate, and only then is allowed to show the path home once. The keeper says the scarves are not for fashion. They are for courage.
We asked at the stall by the corner fence. A woman with a grocery bag said she used to spin the dial three times before leaving. "The needle got bashful," she added. "Now it waits for the gate, and then it is always kind." In the thank-you notebook a neighbor had written: "Please do not tap the glass. The red one likes to finish its nod."
By the next afternoon the same woman came back. The gate still held yesterday's courtesy, a little more open, and one scarf on the shelf stood folded as if another way home might yet be due.