The star atlas had not been borrowed in years. Its pages smelled of dust, and its cardboard checkout pocket belonged to a time before barcodes. While repairing the book for the school library, Mei unfolded the old card. One name appeared eighteen times between 1972 and 1975: A. Rahman.

Most borrowers kept a book for two weeks. A. Rahman returned for the atlas month after month. Curious, Mei searched digitised yearbooks and found an Amina Rahman in the astronomy club. A recent community newsletter supplied another clue: Dr Amina Rahman, a retired satellite engineer, was giving a talk at the local observatory on Saturday.

Mei took the atlas to the talk. Dr Rahman recognised its blue cloth cover before Mei said a word. As a student, she explained, she had lived above her parents' bakery, where city lights hid most of the stars. The atlas let her learn the sky indoors. She had traced each constellation onto baking paper, then carried the copies to the roof.

Dr Rahman opened the back cover and found a faint pencil mark beside the library stamp: a tiny arrow pointing to the constellation Lyra. She admitted adding it at thirteen and apologised to the librarian. Mei laughed. The mark was now part of the book's history.

The atlas returned to the library in a display case for one week, open to Lyra, with its checkout card beside it. Afterwards, it went back onto the shelf—not as an untouchable object, but as a book waiting for its next borrower.