The Mystic Travelogues (Volume 1)

by J. C. Nusbaum

  Though Tug understood none of it, the imagery added to the blanket’s warmth and comfort, and when he got up he pulled it off the bed and wrapped it around his shoulders. Before heading downstairs, Tug went to close the open window and stopped to look out over the landscape from their perch high up in the tree. The forest all around them was lush and dense, with no towns or roads that Tug could see. In the distance, the forest ended abruptly at a great expanse of sandy desert that continued on to the horizon and faded in a haze of heat and ether.

  “I don’t know where home is, but I have a feeling this isn’t it,” Tug said to Leopold, who let out a confirming growl.

  Tug kept the blanket wrapped around him when he went downstairs with Leopold. The old woman was embroidering more fabric in the same spot by the fire where they had left her.

  “So you found your blanket?” she asked. “I’ve been working on it a long time.”

  “My blanket? Is it really mine?”

  “Of course, it couldn’t belong to anyone else.”

  Tug crossed the room and hugged Nan, and she smiled at him for the first time. “But I’m worried about the loose ends, it doesn’t look finished.”

  “And it never will be. It’s your fate blanket.”

  Tug lifted up the designs again to look at them. “You mean that’s what these pictures show? My future?”

  “Some. And some are your past. And some are still being decided and woven in, if the blanket doesn’t unravel first.”

  “But if they aren’t decided, or if they can come unraveled, it’s not really fate.”

  “Fate could never begin if it could never change.”

  Without explaining any further, Nan folded the piece of fabric she was embroidering and got up to serve Tug a bowl of oats, fruit, and honey.

  “I wish I could remember what the pictures on my blanket are about,” Tug said.

  “That’s more than most boys your age. Too often they willingly let go of their childhood memories and never think of them again.”

  “But that’s their choice.”

  “Yes,” said the Scribe, and sat down next to Tug at the table. “Would you like to know how to read your fate blanket?”

  Tug nodded, then remembered Nan couldn’t see and said, “Please.” Nan lifted the blanket and laid it out across the table.

  “Every part is connected, some directly, some not. Yours is particularly graceful, though I couldn’t help this nasty bit of ugliness up here,” and she pointed at a patch of thorny blackness and a cracked hourglass. From there she traced her fingers around the swirling patterns. “See how they turn into each other and at some places branch off? Those are departure points of decision and uncertainty. Often you’ll find yourself coming back to the same dilemmas again and again.”

  “Until I make the right decision?” Tug guessed.

  “Sometimes. But more often you repeat things until you learn what you needed to.”

  Tug thought about it some more. He was not certain if having his past and future laid out on a blanket was entirely good, or even something he should be looking at. “How do you know all these things about my life?”

  “Plato tells me. He relates what he sees and what he can tell about you. Some say that ‘thoughts have wings,’ but most don’t understand how true that can be.”

  “Why did Plato pick me to watch?”

  “He has been interested in you for a long time. You’re very special, though I doubt you ever suspected as much. Plato can spot someone with the ability to learn new things, often when they are still very young. Those who are open to learning— truly open so that they allow it to shape them while still questioning what they are learning— those are the ones who have the most interesting things happen to them. And they are the ones whose fate I weave into a blanket. If and when the time is right, they find themselves here and collect their blanket. It serves as a reminder of what they’ve learned.”

  “But I don’t remember anything about what I’ve learned,” Tug said, his voice rising slightly in frustration. “Can’t you tell me what these things mean? The house with three chimneys, and this other house with all the people in front of it, is that my family? I know I have a mother and father somewhere and I need to get back to them.”

  “It is difficult, I know,” the woman said in a soft voice. “But you must not follow what has passed. If you let your wake propel you, you will only be buffeted in the wrong direction. No, these patterns represent your fate, and that is bigger than all the events of your past put together.”

  Tug couldn’t understand and was becoming more upset that the old woman would not tell him anything specific about his life. But before angry words could be spoken, Nan closed the subject.

  “Take your bear and go for a walk in the woods. Try to learn something on your own. Plato will watch over you, and when you are ready to understand more, follow him home.”

  Tug took Leopold by the paw and left the tree cottage. From the meadow, Tug could see Plato gliding in circles high overhead.

  “Which way should we go?” Tug asked Leopold.

  The bear turned around and scanned the tree line at the edge of the clearing. There were no paths into the woods that they could see, so Tug began walking to the nearest bit of forest. They had scarcely stepped into the trees when a doe and her fawn crossed before them. The young deer came nearer to inspect the visitors, and its mother looked on with large eyes that blinked slowly and without concern. When the fawn began sniffing Leopold, the bear froze in place, clearly unaccustomed to this sort of attention. And when the fawn began licking his ear, Leopold let out his rumbliest growl to show his displeasure.

  Tug laughed and the mother seemed amused as well, until at last she pressed her head into the rump of her fawn, pushing it on its way. Both deer looked back at Tug and Leopold before leaping deep into the forest.

  With lifted spirits, Tug picked up Leopold and continued to explore. They couldn’t get far before some variety of woodland animal came out to look at them, or, as was more often the case, sniff them. Leopold never seemed to get used to their intrusive investigating, but Tug found it delightful.

  “Isn’t it curious?” Tug commented to Leopold. “They are so tame. Maybe they’ve never seen a boy before, and probably not a teddy bear.” Leopold stood between Tug’s legs and looked up at him and nodded.

  Plato was never far away, flying from tree to tree and watching them interact with the animals. Tug wondered if the other animals might be interested in the same way Plato was, but he felt certain that the animals were more curious about Leopold than they were about him.

  At one point, a black bear came up and nuzzled his nose into Leopold’s fur. Tug thought the comparison was humorous, but was surprised to see the great bear lower its head on its front paws and bow before the teddy bear. Leopold nodded at the black bear and let out a friendly growl that was echoed in much greater volume by the larger bear.

  Tug considered how much more the animals could interpret from smells than he might be aware of.

  “I think I’m ready to go back,” he said to Leopold, and the two turned around, following Plato’s guidance back to the scribe’s tree.

  Once inside the cottage, Tug began relating all the animals they encountered, how curious they all seemed, and their keen sense of smell that Tug was just beginning to appreciate.

  The woman listened attentively and added, “Most humans have long lost the more subtle of the physical senses. We do not even have words to talk about the whole range of delicate cues that connect an animal to its surroundings. ‘Smell’ certainly doesn’t cover it.”

  “Can we learn how to use them again?”

  “Once these abilities are lost, it is difficult to get them back, but it is possible.”

  Nan set down her embroidery and got up to retrieve a small cloth sack from a cupboard near the door. She then sat at the table and patted the next seat for Tug to join her. Tug watched her turn the sack upside down. What looked like about a dozen
marbles rolled onto the table. They wobbled about and Tug could see they weren’t perfectly round and, instead of glass, they seemed to be made out of different types of stone. Nan picked up a green one and held it out to Tug.

  “Jade,” she explained. “Hold it up to your nose and see if you can pick up anything.”

  Tug tried to make out some scent. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to smell like,” he confessed.

  “Close your eyes,” The scribe instructed. “Try to listen to what it smells like. See if you can hear its age. Try to get a sense of what feelings surround it.”

  Tug thought he might have imagined a flash of a river flowing through a jungle, but he didn’t trust his imagination.

  “Now,” she said, taking the marble from Tug and placing back in the sack with the rest, “see if you can pick it out from the other marbles without looking.”

  Leopold, who had been listening from his chair by the fire, stood up on top of his seat to watch the outcome. Tug reached into the sack and screwed up his face as he felt the marbles roll around between his fingers.

  “They all feel the same,” he said in defeat.

  “Listen!” Nan reminded him.

  While Tug was still feeling around, Plato flew through the kitchen window and perched on the back of Tug’s chair. Tug felt the crow’s keen senses watching everything. The boy shut his eyes and imagined how Plato might experience the marbles. As he put his fingers around one of the stones, he heard rushing water from somewhere a great distance away. He withdrew his hand and placed the jade marble into Nan’s hand.

  “Very, very good,” she said. For a moment, Nan seemed lost in thought. “You know you must face a difficult and dangerous task.” Tug nodded, sensing it was true. “You are also growing up very fast. You will need to understand the parts of yourself that will see you through the challenges ahead. If you can keep developing these faculties, you stand the best chance.”

  “Best chance of what?” Tug asked.

  “Saving the Nome Kingdom.”

  TUG continued his lessons with the scribe for many days. She rarely responded to questions with a direct answer, but Tug soon discovered that if he was patient and open to what she was teaching, he slowly learned much of what he wanted to know. Often, she would send Tug out to the woods to find answers.

  “The elk, the oak tree, the smallest fern— they are not lost,” she would explain. “If you do not understand why there are elk, oaks and ferns, then you are lost. Go to the woods and wait. Let them find you. They already understand where you are, and why.”

  And Tug continued to study his fate blanket, though he was never able to know the details of his past and Nan could only share the abstract ideas that Plato had brought to her.

  “I have some memories of my mother and father, but I have such strong feelings about this girl next to the key,” Tug said, running his hand over a figure embroidered with green, brown and pearl-white thread.

  “The heart never forgets,” Nan said. “Even if our memories escape us.”

  “Somehow, it feels like I have to choose between finding my parents and finding this girl.”

  Nan looked knowingly at Plato, perched at the window.

  “You are listening to what story the images tell you. That is very good.”

  “But how do I make a choice like that? I don’t even know who this girl is.”

  “What does your heart tell you?”

  Tug thought for a moment, and then closed his eyes and focused on what he was feeling.

  “It feels like she is also my family.”

  “Then you have a difficult choice to make. Try to remember what you now know about yourself. Knowing who you are inside will help you know what to do.”

  Everyday, Nan helped Tug develop an awareness of himself that went beyond his memories. Throughout these lessons, Leopold never left the boy’s side, and Tug would often look to the bear for cues on how he might interpret and respond to the challenging experiences that Nan introduced. Leopold seemed cautious of the scribe’s guidance and often tugged at his ears in bewilderment when she gave vague advice, but he was always receptive to her kind nature, and Tug trusted Leopold’s judgment.

  When Tug and Leopold were alone in their room at the top of the tree, they would look at Tug’s fate blanket together and Tug would try to get more clues from Leopold with what he might know of his past.

  “These pointy looking rocks,” Tug said, looking at a cavernous motif on the blanket, “that must be where we came out of before I woke up in the woods.”

  Leopold gave an affirmative growl and nodded.

  “It feels recent, too. I remember how cold and uncomfortable the stone was. It made the forest bed seem soft.”

  Leopold crawled over the blanket and pawed the outline of a spoon amidst an ornate swirling pattern. The bear looked up at Tug and raised his furry brow. Tug leaned over and opened up the top drawer in the chest next to the bed and brought out the spoon to examine it more closely. It seemed like a common table spoon, but Tug closed his eyes and tried to understand its significance by the means Nan had been teaching him.

  “It came from near here,” he told Leopold. “But it was made long ago.”

  Tug could not determine anything else, but could tell it was very unusual and probably unlike any other spoon.

  “Do you think we should show it to Nan?” he asked.

  The bear thought about it for a moment, and then nodded his head.

  When Tug showed her the spoon the next morning, Nan smiled and thanked him for sharing it with her.

  “Plato could tell right away that this spoon was important,” she explained. “I wish I could tell you why, but I honestly don’t know.”

  Leopold thumped his head in frustration, as if he were trying to figure out some riddle about the spoon for which he didn’t know the answer.

  “Well,” Nan suggested, “I think you should keep it with you always, and you are right to be careful whom you show it to.”

  Although the days spent with the scribe were filled with blissful wonder, Tug’s nights became increasingly restless. He would wake up many times throughout the night, haunted by dreams filled with the imagery on his fate blanket. Leopold was always there, keeping a watchful eye over the boy while he slept. Sometimes, all Tug needed was the bear close to him until he was able to fall back asleep. But more often he was awoken by nightmares that required Leopold to light a candle and listen patiently while Tug recounted his dream, pointing out the scenes on his blanket that began to take on new meaning.

  “My family is in trouble, I know it,” Tug told Nan after a particularly restless night.

  She nodded and her blank eyes looked deep into the boy. “There is much more I had hoped to teach you, but I am afraid that if I should keep you from your task any longer, that would be the wrong lesson.”

  “Please tell me more about the Nome Kingdom,” Tug asked, though he had done so before and Nan only said the same thing over again.

  “I wish I knew more, but I believe the Nomes are in danger that they do not realize. It is up to you to decide what matters most.”

  “How do you know the Nomes are in danger?”

  “I do not know it. It is what the animals understand. The Nomes’ domain is below the forest, and the trees often shake from the tremors underground. Plato has seen bats fleeing the underground kingdom, and a family of badgers recently reported losing their home before escaping above ground. But none of the animals understand what is causing these disturbances. At one time I was more familiar with the Nomes’ ways, but I can’t seem to recall much about them now.”

  Tug clutched the fabric of his pant legs and scrunched it up in his fists. He held them like that a moment before letting go and stretching his fingers out. “Please, Nan, try to remember.”

  “I wish I could. You see, the Nomes also stole my name. It was a long time ago, and I had to discover my fate without the memories of what had passed. I had to trust what I knew abo
ut myself, apart from what I remembered.”

  “But I already have another life, and people who need me. I have to get back there. I have the most terrible nightmares about my parents, and I have more dreams about this girl surrounded by darkness. But I don’t know how to find any of them.”

  “Plato will lead you wherever you want to go, even back to where your life was with your parents, if that is what you wish to do.”

  “How do I decide?”

  “Let’s not worry about it for today, and maybe tomorrow things will seem clearer.”

  That afternoon, Tug and Leopold picked wild blueberries and helped Nan bake them into a pie. They drank nursery tea late into the evening while Nan and Tug took turns making up stories with happy endings. Leopold kept the fire stoked while Nan worked on her embroidery.

  “Whose blanket is that going to be?” Tug asked Nan.

  “Another very special girl.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “I’m afraid that wouldn’t do. Only the blanket’s owner is allowed to look at their fate, and it is up to him or her to decide to share what is on it with anyone else.”

  Tug imagined how he would feel if just anyone looked at his blanket, and he understood why the scribe guarded the owner’s privacy.

  Nan continued with a story about all the woodland animals helping to raise the last of the great Sasquatch. This story reminded Tug of the girl in his dreams, the same one by the pointy rocks on his fate blanket. Like the mythical Big Foot in Nan’s story, she was separated from her family, too. But Nan’s tale had other similarities as well in the way she told the story. Somehow Tug knew the girl would like hearing it.

  Before Nan finished the tale, Tug’s eyes got heavy and he felt sleep jumbling up his perspective of the waking world. He started to imagine that this girl was the one telling the story. Tug didn’t make it to the end before falling asleep, and Nan had to wake him to get him to go to bed.