The Mystic Travelogues (Volume 1)

by J. C. Nusbaum

  “Well, I was thinking. I have some birthday money saved, and if you were going to pay for a bus ticket maybe I could pay the rest towards another train ticket and me and Tug could go together, for the summer.” She added the for the summer part, though Tug knew it meant something different for Jodie than for him.

  Tug was afraid to look up at his aunt, and took a wet plate from her while staring only at her hands. As if she were seriously considering it, his aunt slowly said, “I’m sorry, Jodie, I just don’t think that would be a very good idea. And I’m not sure Tug’s uncle would feel right about it; he’s a man living alone. It’s one thing for Tug to go stay with him, but the two of you— it wouldn’t be right.”

  “So if Tug’s uncle thought it was okay, I could go?”

  “No, you should stay here with your family.”

  “But you said that we are Tug’s family.”

  “We are, but Tug has other family, like his uncle in Vermont. You’re not even really related to Tug’s Uncle Oscar.”

  “But I’m related to Tug, and Tug’s related to his uncle, so that must make us related, right?”

  “Sort of,” her mother said, sounding like it would take too much effort to clearly explain the difference. “Besides, you’ve never been away from home for more than a sleepover. What if you decide you want to come back after a couple days?”

  “What if Tug does?” But since there was no real answer to that question, Jodie hurriedly continued, “Neither of us will ask to come back, not if we go together.”

  So far, Jodie had a quick response for everything her mother said, and Tug wondered if she had thought it all out in advance. But what Jodie said next sounded uncomfortable and unsure.

  “It might save a lot of money if I weren’t here for the summer.” Jodie let her voice trail off. She stopped putting dishes away and looked at her mother. But instead of responding, her mother turned her back on Jodie, and in another moment, Tug noticed his aunt’s shoulders turn downwards and she began to sob silently. And then she said something Jodie could not have anticipated.

  “You’ll have to get used to the idea that Tug is not going to be a part of this family, not anymore, not the way we thought.” Her mother turned to Tug, acknowledging him for the first time in the conversation. But she just closed her mouth again after she opened it, as if it were having trouble forming any words for him. Finally, she said, “Sorry.” But it sounded like she was excusing herself to Tug, not making an apology, and then turned back to Jodie. “Besides, I told you it’s not appropriate.”

  Tug hated that word, appropriate.

  There was a long silence that followed. Tug had believed that he was going to be another son and brother before he had even arrived at his aunt and uncle’s. They told him he was coming to be part of the family. What could he believe now? He felt helpless to do anything on his behalf before the matter was closed off to him the way that adults often do when speaking to children. And before he could think of anything, the phone rang. It rang so loud that Tug jerked stiff upright as if he’d been shocked. He thought it was the angry silence that had made the ring so jarring. But an instant later a clatter of dishes told him that Jodie and her mother had been startled as well. Before the phone could scream at them a second time, Tug’s aunt darted over and picked up the phone with wet, soapy hands.

  Whoever was calling did an excellent job of directing the conversation. Jodie’s mother listened for long intervals, and only responded with a series of oh-yeses and I-supposes and even ended with an agreeable “that sounds like a sensible idea, thank you for suggesting it.”

  When her mother hung up the phone, she turned to Jodie and said with a smile, “That was Tug’s Uncle Oscar.” Although it was the kind of smile that meant her mother wasn’t exactly sure what to say to them, Tug could also tell that it was probably good news. “Why don’t you two go and watch television with your brothers and sisters for a while. And, Jodie, please ask your father to come in here for a moment.”

  Tug waited a moment, hoping his aunt would offer more of an explanation. Instead, she continued looking at them with a glassy smile until Jodie grabbed Tug by the sleeve and led him down the hall to the living room. Jodie’s father folded his newspaper twice before getting up from his chair and going to the kitchen. Everyone else was intently watching a car chase on the television, but Tug and Jodie stared down the hallway. Tug tried to decipher the muffled tones coming from the kitchen, but they gave no hint at what his aunt and uncle were discussing.

  When at last they came into the living room, it was Jodie’s father who did most of the talking.

  “It seems your Uncle Oscar just called out of the blue with the idea that one of your cousins should travel with you to Vermont. We certainly wouldn’t have asked,” he added, as if the notion would be out of the question. “But he said he has plenty of space, and he thought having two children would be as easy to take care of as one.”

  Tug turned to Jodie, not believing what he heard until he saw the excited look on her face. He then noticed that all of his cousins were looking at him, then at each other, as if they were trying to make up their mind if a visit to Vermont were something any of them wanted to do.

  Tug’s uncle continued, “I think if we were to send anyone else along, maybe it should be one of the boys.”

  “It was sort of peculiar,” Jodie’s mother interrupted. “Oscar just referred to Tug bringing a companion, and he kept referring to ‘her’ as if he expected it to be a girl. Perhaps he knew we had a daughter close to the same age. Oscar obviously feels that it is okay or he would not have called to extend the offer like he did.”

  “He probably doesn’t care who it is. I suppose it’ll be easier on him if the kids can entertain each other and not disrupt his life more than necessary,” Tug’s uncle concluded.

  None of the other children suggested taking Jodie’s place, and before it could be debated, she jumped up and then pulled Tug to his feet. Tug started to follow Jodie out, but paused in the living room doorway.

  “Thank you,” he said, looking at his aunt. She smiled and nodded at him, then looked intently down at her clothes and began smoothing out the fabric.

  “Make yourself useful where you can,” Tug’s uncle said, as if Tug had been addressing him. “And Jodie, for heavens sake, try not to bother Tug’s uncle with fanciful notions and pesky questions.”

  Jodie offered to help Tug pack, but Tug understood she really wanted to relish their good turn of fortune and start making plans for a summer in Vermont. In the bedroom Tug shared with the boys, his suitcase was still standing against the wall from when he arrived a few short months ago. He lifted it onto the bed so that he and Jodie could pack his things for the next morning’s travels. Between them, Jodie and Tug had more questions than they could keep straight and they spent the rest of the evening asking them to each other as they finished packing.

  “Do you think it’s a farm with animals, or one with crops and stuff?” Tug wondered.

  “Maybe he thinks we’ll work for free and that’s why he called to offer for two of us to come.” Jodie suggested. “What if we spend the whole summer picking cotton or something?”

  “I don’t think they grow cotton in Vermont. They make maple syrup. I remember learning about it at my old school.”

  “Well, maybe it’s a syrup farm and we’ll spend the summer making syrup.”

  “That only happens in the spring,” Tug tried to suggest without sounding like a know-it-all.

  “Whatever we do will be better than spending the summer here, all of us packed in this kid-kennel. Just think of it, in Vermont we’ll have a whole farm to explore.”

  “What if the farmhouse is haunted?” Tug asked, more joking than serious. But this was all Tug needed to spark Jodie’s fancy. While she launched into a series of speculations on the summer of ghost hunting that lay ahead, Tug was only half-listening with a skeptical ear. But if anyone had been able to tell him the real sort of haunting magic that was in s
tore for him and Jodie, he scarcely would have listened to that either.

  UNCLE OSCAR generously paid for the second train ticket for Jodie, a detail that Tug’s aunt and uncle failed to mention until they pulled into the train station the next morning. Tug was relieved that he wouldn’t be forced on and off of a bus every couple of hours. He already knew the discomfort of that mode of traveling from the trip from his last life to the interim stop at this one. But Jodie saw more than comfort in this mode of travel, and said their train voyage was a sign of things to come.

  “You can’t go anyplace truly wonderful on a bus,” she said. “Buses are the same things that take you off to school everyday, even if people try to disguise them in different shapes and colors.”

  There was scarcely anyone on the train, and Tug and Jodie found two double seats to themselves in a train car that was nearly empty. Good-byes were said, without tears, and the children settled into their seats. When the train pulled away from the station, it rocked slowly from side to side with a quickening click, clack, click, clack. Tug felt his heart beat a little faster, trying to match the train’s pace and rhythm.

  As the train journeyed northwards, Jodie and Tug encountered those sights unavailable to a traveler of roads: unspoiled landscapes punctuated by farms with crops more colorful and cattle more lively than those made mournful by the droning haze of too many cars and trucks. The narrow train tracks cut with precision along jagged outcroppings, which missed the train by inches, and led them through long tunnels of darkness more black than Jodie or Tug had ever experienced. The tracks continued along lakeshores and riverbanks so that the train seemed to skim across the water’s surface with a whisper. And when the train passed through cities, it did not share crowded avenues with other vehicles, but slipped between the buildings. Here the train passed windows into the goings-on of factory and office workers, and the children were able to see vivid snapshots of these strangers’ existence as the train sped into their lives and out the other side.

  When time did not pass on its own accord, Jodie would amuse Tug with stories and speculations about what types of creatures live in the recesses of the tunnels they passed through or what they should do in case of a train robbery. Likewise, Tug tried to entertain Jodie with facts about the things they saw through the window, like what horses like to eat and how certain flowers follow the sun across the sky each day. Tug feared this must be frightfully boring compared to the fantastic notions Jodie could create from her own imagination.

  But Jodie seemed genuinely interested in the things Tug knew. “I like seeing things happening in the world,” she said, after Tug pointed out the big wheels on a tractor, explaining the greater traction that provides. “It’s not like reading about it in some textbook next to a small picture that might have been taken anywhere, probably far, far away.”

  Tug thought about it and nodded. He was too embarrassed to admit that he liked learning about things whether or not they were relevant in his life.

  After two days worth of stories and naps and games of Go Fish, the conductor entered the train car to let Tug and Jodie know their stop would be next. They gathered their things and stood at the door between the train cars. Station signs began to flash by, too fast to read at first. Jodie cried out the name when they could at last read Burlington, Vermont above the platform.

  The train had scarcely stopped before Tug and Jodie stepped down onto the station platform. There were several people milling about, but before they could spot the sort of man likely to be an Uncle Oscar, they were swept up in the crowd of passengers. Tug grabbed Jodie with his free hand and weaved through the crowd. They huddled against a stand of pay phones. Next to them was an elderly man speaking into a telephone receiver with enthusiasm, “Yes, arrived in one piece, by the looks of it. We’ll call again once we’re all settled.”

  After hanging up the receiver, he turned to them both and looked as if he had a message to relay.

  “Right-oh, if you’ve no calls to make yourself, we can be off.”

  “Uncle Oscar?” Tug asked, unsure.

  “Yes, my boy, a pleasure to meet you. And greetings to you, too, Jodie. Welcome to the Green Mountains.”

  If Uncle Oscar hadn’t known Jodie’s name, Tug would not have believed this man could be his uncle. This person was far too old, and in his heavy overcoat and stiff looking clothes, he looked even more removed from the idea of an uncle who should be the same age as his parents. But despite how out of place he appeared, standing next to them on the platform as if by chance and wearing the sort of clothes that makes one feel flushed just to look at them on a summer day, Uncle Oscar had a crackling glint in his eyes that made Tug feel he could trust him.

  He took their luggage and tucked both cases under one arm and guided them through the train station with surprising swiftness. Uncle Oscar’s car seemed as out of place as his clothes. It was not exactly antique looking, but bigger and boxier than cars you would expect to see on the road. Jodie jumped in the back right away, avoiding a front seat next to this odd man. While Uncle Oscar was putting their bags in the trunk, Jodie leaned forward and whispered in Tug’s ear.

  “He looks older than my grandpa. Are you sure he’s your uncle?”

  “I don’t know. I remember my mother talked about her uncle and how she used to visit him when she was younger. Now I’m thinking maybe he’s really her uncle.”

  When they were on their way, Jodie broke an uncomfortable silence by asking what she should call him.

  “I suspect Uncle Oscar will be good enough,” he answered.

  “But we’re not really related,” she said.

  “Now, how could I be a relation of Tug’s but not yours?” His eyes smiling as he looked at her in the rearview mirror.

  Jodie smiled back, apparently pleased that her initial understanding was correct, even if she had doubted it.

  “What sort of farm do you live on?” She asked next.

  “Oh, the usual. Lots of land, some old barns, rusty mechanizations lying about, forgotten.”

  “But what do you do on the farm?” she persisted.

  “Not much these days,” he said. “I believe there was once a lot of beets changing hands. But you know how worrying beets can be.” Jodie nodded as if she did. “The Romans wouldn’t even eat them, you know.”

  Tug was happy to know this sort of thing, suspecting that it might be useful information to have some day. He was about to ask more about the beets and Romans, but Uncle Oscar started in on a wholly different matter.

  “I hope neither of you are particularly bothered by interrupting crows. There’s one loitering about the farm, making himself a real nuisance these days, sticking his beak into everything and causing a racket.”

  Tug shifted uneasily in his seat. “What do you mean, exactly?”

  “I mean to say he thinks more of himself than he ought,” Uncle Oscar replied, as if that made the notion perfectly clear.

  Tug felt the car curve as it followed along the edge of a lake that seemed to stretch on forever. Mountains rose up in the distance and surrounded the valley they were traversing, and again on the other side of the lake. After a short time, the car turned off the paved road and bumped along a dirt lane. The branches of willow trees draped down all around the car to form a canopy of yellow and green that obscured the view. When at last the car pulled through an opening of boughs, Tug saw the picture of a country farm that did not disappoint all the images he had constructed in his head countless times the last two days. “Three Chimneys,” their uncle said, nodding at the farmhouse. “Some folks started calling it that long before I got here. I guess you can see why.”

  Three tall brick chimneys topped the farmhouse. It was painted a cheerful yellow with green, metal-clad gables sticking out at odd places all around the roofline, as if several of the rooms had been added to the top of the house as an afterthought. Tug had never seen a house with more than one porch, and Three Chimneys had porches that seemed to start and stop all the way aroun
d the house, creating shaded nooks that sprawled out from all angles.

  Across the property’s broad lawn were several barns that loomed big and quiet, keeping company with towering maples, many as big around as a castle tower. Tug felt Jodie reach over the seat and clutch on his shirtsleeve, signaling she shared the same excitement. He could scarcely wait for the car to stop, and had to restrain himself from jumping out to run across the yard and begin exploring every niche and nook of the place.

  As if Uncle Oscar could hear the thoughts playing in Tug’s head, his uncle turned and looked at them for a moment with raised eyebrows.

  “Well, young travelers, what are you waiting for? Why don’t you go in and pick out your bedrooms.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Oscar,” Jodie said as she hurried herself out of the car. There were several doors into the house on various porches, and Jodie and Tug approached one situated towards the middle. Once inside, they were uncertain where to begin looking for passage up to the bedrooms. Tug led the way, but there were no hallways to guide him, just a series of small rooms that all seemed to be connected with open doorways. He found every space became a part of the next, and created a labyrinth of cloistered places. As they wandered through the rooms, Tug recognized a purpose to each one; there was a room with an old sewing machine next to a wall of brightly colored yarn and fabrics, and another room with stored tins and jarred preserves, hooks hanging from the ceiling, some holding upside down plants that were faded and brittle with age.

  Eventually, they approached the middle of the house and the space opened up to a large kitchen with a wood-burning stove in the middle of the room. As they crossed the kitchen, the floor dipped gently towards a trap door in the center of the room, and then back up again to the other side. Attached to the kitchen was a room containing chairs with lots of spokes, baskets stacked amidst the chairs and what looked like a sink with no drain against the wall. Tug remembered learning about keeping-rooms in a history book, the gathering space where families used to sit and work. In this room they found a small staircase tucked off in a quiet corner, winding upwards in a tight curve. Jodie pushed past Tug, making an excited squealing noise, and went up first. Tug tried to peer past Jodie at the light at the top of the darkness, unsure if this was where they were meant to go. They alighted at the other end onto a small landing that was closed-in by six doors, all shut. Systematically, they opened each one and found a series of small bedrooms, each with its own color and disposition. Jodie let out another happy cry when she opened one of the doors to a bedroom luminous with a brilliant gold color. It was bright with lots of little windows that bathed the children with warmth soon as they stepped inside.