The Mystic Travelogues

by J. C. Nusbaum

  “Oh, the other side of the parallel, and thereabouts,” Uncle Oscar responded.

  Tug wanted to ask what he meant by the parallel. But before he could, Oscar gave a knowing smile and asked Jodie a question that seemed to startle her. “You do still have your key, my dear?”

  “Key?” Jodie echoed back, as if she wasn’t sure what he meant. But even Tug knew what he must have been referring to. “Ah… Tug has it.”

  “Very good,” he said. “I will do the responsible thing and refrain from telling you where the cavern entrance is, but know that you can use the key to enter it if you should ever need to. You can follow the parallel underground until you reach the crossing; a sort of staircase to another realm, if memory serves.” And then he added, “Your companion has been down there too, though it was long ago. I wouldn’t rely on his sense of direction, but he might be useful to bring along.”

  “Who?” Tug asked, unable to believe the only logical answer.

  “Leopold, of course,” Oscar said, and winked at the bear.

  SOON after hearing Uncle Oscar’s cautionary tale, Tug and Jodie forgot their fears and began to speculate where the cave entrance was. The farmhouse and barns had several old doors with rusty locks to try. They even tried the key on those doors that were not locked to begin with to test its use. But the key did not fit any lock they found, and they could not begin to puzzle out what kind of door would open to water deep enough to swim through.

  The fact that Uncle Oscar knew about the key made Tug curious as to what its purpose really was. He couldn’t let himself believe in its ability to unlock an underground world of mischievous Nomes. It was short work to explore the root cellar and determine that the only door in and out had no lock. This ended Tug’s suggestions for underground entry, but Jodie was not burdened with a store of logical facts the way he was.

  “What about those cabinets in the dining room, or maybe the kitchen cupboards?” Jodie asked. “Maybe one of them is locked?”

  “I don’t think any of them have locks,” Tug answered, trying to sound as if he were seriously considering the suggestion. “Anyway, none of them would open to a source of water.”

  “That doesn’t matter. It might not be a key to something near water. Maybe it’s to one of the old tractors, and we can ride it through the water. Or maybe the keyhole is in one of those woody knots that are all over the walls here. There could be a tunnel behind the wall that goes underwater. We should start trying them.”

  But the more possibilities they exhausted the more Tug doubted that having a key with no explanation could really be useful to them. At the end of each day they made a habit of recounting to their uncle all the places they tried, hoping he might give some hint or a suggestion. But his response was always the same and always of little help: “I don’t suppose you’ll find any doors around here that will be a fit for that key.”

  “But you said we could use it to enter the cave,” Jodie protested.

  “That I did,” Uncle Oscar agreed, with no other explanation.

  When the day arrived that Uncle Oscar announced his important engagement in Burlington, Jodie and Tug had already exhausted their quest for the cave entrance. Had it not been a rainy sort of day, the children might not have given a thought to the key. But there were no adventures beckoning from outside. As Tug watched raindrops zig-zagging down the trellised window in the kitchen, Jodie interrupted with a very sensible question.

  “Isn’t it strange that an old house like this has no attic?”

  Tug considered the question and tried to think of the most reasonable explanation, “Maybe there is one, and we don’t know it.”

  “But we’ve tried every door looking for the cave entrance and never found the attic.”

  “The attic might not be through a regular door, it might be in the ceiling or behind a panel. Besides, we were mostly looking around downstairs; it is a cave we were searching for, after all.”

  Jodie shook her head in protest. “But, if there is an attic, we should explore that as well. That must be the place to use the key if we’ve tried everywhere else.”

  Tug shrugged at Jodie’s logic, unable to suggest that it just might be that no lock was a match for the key. Without waiting for an answer, Jodie picked up Leopold and carried him upstairs. Tug soon followed, finding it difficult to resist Jodie’s enthusiasm. Tug and Jodie went through each room and closet, trailing fingers along the paneling in the passageways and looking up at the ceiling for possible openings. At last they ended up at their Uncle’s bedroom. They had looked in while passing the open door, but neither had dared to enter it before.

  “I don’t think we should go in,” Tug said.

  “But it’s the only place we haven’t looked,” Jodie argued. “Besides, we are looking for the attic, not snooping on Uncle Oscar.”

  “Well, maybe we can just look from the hallway,” said Tug.

  Both children stood at the threshold and craned their necks into their uncle’s room. Piles of books with faded spines covered the furniture, even most of the bed. There were very few personal effects, and both children scanned the bare walls and cracked plaster ceiling for an entrance to the attic, but none existed. When Tug turned to leave Jodie grabbed his sleeve and thrust Leopold into his arms before running into the room.

  “What are you doing?” Tug asked.

  “The closet,” Jodie answered. “We have to look.”

  Before Tug could argue, Jodie disappeared into the closet.

  “I knew it!” she yelled back to Tug.

  Emboldened by the discovery, Tug made his way over to the bedroom closet, clutching Leopold much tighter than necessary. Inside, the closet turned at a sharp angle and tapered off to a narrow staircase that spiraled upwards. Jodie had already gone up, and Tug could hear her rummaging around somewhere above him.

  “Wait for me,” Tug called out in a pitched voice.

  At the top, a small dormer window cast splinters of sunlight into what there was of the attic. It was a small, tight space, tucked under the eaves of the farmhouse. There wasn’t even enough room for Tug to stand up properly. Along the walls was some old furniture, much of it with missing legs and split seams rupturing with wadded cotton. Garments hung from the rafters under dusty sheets. And pushed up against the wall was a musical device that seemed to be fitted with black tubes, rather than phonograph records.

  Though the attic was dim and cluttered, the children could trace the exposed rooflines through the open rafters. Tug quickly discerned that there was no other door to the attic than the one they came through. Still, he soon forgot about the key and continued to poke around out of curiosity until the growing dust clouds he created threatened to suffocate him. Tug had begun to make his way, coughing, back to the closet staircase when he heard Jodie call out to him. He found her in a dark corner, barely able to make out a wooden trunk that must have been under the dirty sheet now pooled at her feet. She was working her fingers under the lid.

  “It’s locked,” she said, with excitement. “Go ahead… try the key.”

  “Let’s drag it into the light first, otherwise we won’t know what we’ve found.”

  Tug set Leopold on top of the trunk, and the bear let out a growl that lasted several seconds. The trunk was less heavy than it looked, and by pushing and pulling, the children quickly moved it under a patch of sunlight. In the light, they could make out faded designs that had been painted on the chest with scrolling flourishes and intricate patterns. Tug was distracted by the trunk’s curious markings, but Jodie prodded him until he reached in his pocket for the key. While Jodie’s enthusiasm never seemed to wane, no matter how many locks they tried, Tug had long since lost hope that their key would work on any lock they were likely to find. Besides, this was a trunk, not a door. When Tug slipped the key into the trunk’s lock and turned it with an audible click and a snap, it made him jump back from the trunk as if it had shocked him.

  Tug stared at it another moment before Jodie moved Leopold
to the floor so that she could lift the lid. Rusty hinges whined with angry protests, and both children leaned forward to peer down into the trunk. Anything would have been easier to accept than what they found there. The trunk was completely empty. Tug began to press all around the sides and bottom, even the lid, looking for a scrap of paper or a secret compartment. But gaps between the wood at several joints made it clear that there could be none.

  At last Tug looked up at Jodie, feeling cheated. It was as if all of his birthdays and Christmases had been collected in one beautifully decorated present that contained nothing once he unwrapped it.

  Tug stood up and kicked the trunk so that the lid slammed back down into the latch. “I’m getting out of here,” he said, not bothering to collect the key that still sat protruding from the lock. He stopped to pick up Leopold and turned back to see Jodie staring down at the trunk.

  “Should we take the key?” Jodie asked, “Or leave it with the trunk, now that we know it fits?”

  “What difference does it make? There’s nothing in it to lock up.”

  Jodie stooped down to snatch the key out of its matching lock before turning to follow Tug down the staircase.

  They spent a long while that afternoon staring out the kitchen window at the rain that wouldn’t seem to let up. For the first time, it seemed Jodie had nothing to say, no games to suggest. They would try no more locks, even if they happened to find new ones. And anything else they might do didn’t seem worth the effort.

  OH, how it rained. For days it poured down, so much and so long that everyone had forgotten when the last sunny day was. Tug and Jodie had been at Three Chimneys just long enough to feel settled-in, no longer new visitors with the entire summer in front of them. This meant they were not as grateful to be away from the unpleasantness they left behind. This also meant that a long spell of rain was enough to dampen their spirits. And worst of all, this meant that strange occurrences at Three Chimneys were annoying to the children, rather than peculiar.

  Like the morning that Jodie and Tug made oatmeal and maple syrup for breakfast. When it was ready to eat, they found that all the spoons had disappeared out of the silverware drawer. On a day without rain, Jodie would have concocted fantastic reasons to suggest how every spoon might disappear without a trace. But on that morning, upon discovering they were missing she immediately called out to Uncle Oscar to ask for his explanation.

  When their uncle’s face paled and he muttered “Oh, dear…” in a soft whisper, both children became frustrated and asked what was to be done with the oatmeal. On a sunny morning they would have had more sense to be concerned about the whereabouts of the spoons and not how they might eat their breakfast.

  At night, when the rain sent a gentle patter through the metal-clad roof, Tug found it a constant reminder that the world outside Three Chimneys would not be any drier tomorrow. And rather than lull him to sleep, it interfered with his dreams so that the slightest creak or crackle stirred him awake.

  One night, after many such noises, Tug was awakened by the sound of something muttering in his closet. In his drowsy state and after several nights of rain, his first reaction was to be bothered rather than scared. But then the noise became a scuttle, and Tug reached out for Leopold and drew him close. Tug lay motionless on his side and stared through the blackness at his closet door, imagining it was simply a mouse or a squirrel that had found its way into his bedroom.

  But just about the time he believed whatever it was had found its way out again, a shadow the size of his nightstand drifted out of a dark corner across the room. It moved swiftly along the wall and around the foot of his bed. Tug had not been afraid in a very long time, but now he became stone-still with fear. He could not see where the shadow had moved to, and did not dare roll over to look. He imagined stale breath from behind him and waited for something to reach out to the exposed parts of his body.

  Before Tug could steel up the courage to move, Leopold gave a long, low growl. Through Leopold’s growl, Tug could hear scratching sounds moving under his bed, and then his bedroom door squeaked slightly as something brushed past it on the way out of the room.

  Several moments passed before Tug could perform the simple task of turning on his bedside lamp. He left it on all night, and it wasn’t until a murky sun spilled more light into his room that he was able to fall back asleep.

  That morning it was raining harder than ever. But, as frightful experiences are often likely to do, when Tug related his disturbance in the night to Jodie, both children were brought back to an awareness of the mysterious things happening all around them. At breakfast, Jodie peppered Uncle Oscar with questions, displaying an enthusiasm that had been absent for some time. And Tug held his shoulders back with a sense of purpose as he was asked to recount what he remembered.

  “Well,” Uncle Oscar replied to the fantastic story, “it sounds like a Nome to me, plain as day and black as night.”

  Of course, Tug had considered that it might have been a Nome, though he was reluctant to believe it. And when he looked to Jodie, he could see by the hard squint she made that her fantastic imagination was at a loss to explain it otherwise.

  Tug continued to puzzle over it, and finally spoke his thoughts out loud, “That parallel you talked about when you gave us the magnifying glass… that’s where the Nomes come from.”

  “You see,” Uncle Oscar beamed, “I knew there was more to you than disillusioned schooling. My boy, you already know what it’s all about.”

  “But I don’t,” Jodie admitted. “What’s a parallel?”

  “Surely you’ve seen those concentric lines circling a globe?” Oscar explained.

  Tug nodded, remembering a cartography lesson from his old school. But Jodie shrugged, making Tug wonder if she didn’t know, or just didn’t care.

  “Even though we can’t see them so clearly defined as on a globe, those parallel lines are there, all the same. And some lines mark a divide where some major change occurs, like the exact place where water switches from turning clockwise to counterclockwise while it runs down the drain, or the places that get precisely equal amounts of sunlight and darkness each year. A line like that is exactly the sort of place you should expect to find a parallel crossing: a place where the rules of understanding are broken.

  “Sometimes these parallel lines can cross a spot between two realms that overlap, worlds that usually remain separate and unknown to the other. This farmhouse, for instance, was built right on the parallel half-way between the North Pole and the equator; it comes through over there by the kitchen sink and follows right past the fireplace and between your bedrooms. That makes for all sorts of strange electrical exchanges and mix-ups around here. Sometimes things show up that don’t belong here.”

  “Like Nomes?” Jodie suggested.

  “Right you are. And other times things disappear. Sort of like a photograph that has been double-exposed; things get jumbled up together that belong separate and confined to their own frame.”

  Tug could not shake his skepticism and wondered if his uncle was telling them a tall tale, the way Jodie did with so many rich details you had to keep reminding yourself it was imagined and not real. The parallel crossing might explain the advent of Nomes around Three Chimneys and nowhere else that Tug had heard of. Yet for all that, it didn’t explain why anyone would willingly climb through dark caverns to get to some unknown place, Nomes or no Nomes.

  Tug had a difficult time telling the difference between an imagined story and one that was recounted from facts. He looked to Jodie, who seemed to be listening more closely to the tone of Uncle Oscar’s voice. True or not, Tug felt certain he no longer wanted to wander into any caves, even if his curiosity kept him wondering about the entrance.

  “What are the Nomes looking for?” Jodie asked her uncle.

  “Something that doesn’t belong to them, you can be sure of that.”

  “What? Spoons?” Tug scoffed.

  Uncle Oscar looked at both of the children a moment before
nodding as if he made up his mind to bring them into his confidences. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and drew out the most ordinary looking table spoon.

  “I was asked as a special request to keep this for a dear friend. And so I do. It never leaves my person. The Nomes have been looking for this for a long time, but they have never come here before. Somehow they must have learned it was here.” Uncle Oscar put the spoon back inside his jacket.

  “You still have your key?” He asked suddenly.

  Tug avoided Uncle Oscar’s eyes, remembering the key left behind in the attic.

  “I have it,” said Jodie, pulling out the string from around her neck.

  Tug smiled at Jodie.

  Jodie said nothing else, but Tug felt it necessary to tell their uncle about their trespasses in the attic.

  “We found a trunk that fit the key,” he said.

  “In the attic? And you unlocked it?” Uncle Oscar seemed shocked by the implication.

  “Yes, we’re sorry,” Jodie quickly added. “We were just so determined to find the matching lock. We didn’t mean to snoop.”

  “Never mind that now, children. Did you leave it unlocked?”

  They both nodded.

  “Well, you can’t get in through the attic, but they must have heard you knocking about and that alerted them to our whereabouts. I’m sorry I did not explain more to you both, I just didn’t know what was the safest course to take.”

  The children looked at each other. Tug saw Jodie’s eyebrows pointing down her face in frustration. For once, she seemed unsure of what questions to ask. And before Tug could press his uncle for a better explanation, he heard Jodie shriek and turned to see her hopping from one foot to the other. A moment later Tug knew why when he felt something cold seep up through her socks. Water was running in rivulets across the kitchen floor and pooling in the low spot in the center of the room.

  All at once, the wind rattled the farmhouse with ferocity and rain beat hard against the exterior, finding its way in through some unseen source.