neetha Napew - The Paths Of The Perambulator

Talea reached over to run a hand through Jon-Tom’s hair. Her presence made him feel very much better. “Hush and don’t take it to heart, Jonny-Tom. For some of us the future is not to know.” She put her lips to his ear. “But I can predict some very good things coming to you in the near future.” Her voice dropped even lower, and Jon-Tom couldn’t help but grin as she continued whispering to him.

He was still upset, though, and told Colin so. The koala frowned, struggling to retain consciousness.

“As a matter of fact, I did read the runes one last time before we cast ‘em into the current of fate, so to speak. Sort of a farewell prediction.”

Jon-Tom bent forward. “Whose future did you read? Not mine, or you would’ve said so already. Mudge’s? Talea’s?”

“Nope.”

“Clothahump’s?” The koala shook his head. “Sorbl’s, then?”

“Nope. None of those. I was interested in where the perambulator was off to, after listening to you and the old one going on and on about how it can go anywhere and everywhere. I got curious, wondered if maybe it was going to come back to our world and start up the troubles all over again.”

Jon-Tom shook his head. “That’s nothing to worry about, unless by some unbelievable coincidence it lands in Braglob’s vicinity again. Though since he isn’t crazy anymore, even that isn’t very threatening. We don’t have anything to worry about anymore on that score.”

“Maybe most of us don?t, but you might.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because it’s on its way to your world. It’s going to stick around there for a while and do its dance. Things there are going to go a little crazy, maybe for a few years instead of a few months. I couldn’t see a time line clearly. Why, it’s probably there already, right now, even as we’re sitting here talking about it. And I’m afraid it’s gone and gotten itself stuck. That’s what the runes said, anyway.” He let his head back down on his hands, rolled over. “Now go away and let me sleep. All of a sudden I’m kind of tired.”

“No, wait!” Jon-Tom shook him again. “I’ve got to know in case I do get back. Maybe it’s stuck someplace where it can’t do any real harm. You’ve got to tell me where it’s going to go!”

Colin murmured something under his breath, blinked sleepily up at the insistent Jon-Tom. “Where? Oh, some little town called Columbia, in a district or state called Washington.”

Jon-Tom let out a relieved sigh. “That sounds pretty harmless. Way up in the north woods somewhere.”

“Or,” Colin mumbled uncertainly as he drifted back to sleep, “was it someplace called Washington, in the district of Columbia?”

“Colin? Colin?” Jon-Tom finally stopped shaking the erstwhile rune-reader. He was sound asleep and snoring loudly. “I wish I knew which was right. It may be there already, undetected and unseen, twisting and turning, working its mischief.”

“It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you can do about it.” Talea was easing him backward, planting small but intense kisses on his neck and chest as she did so.

Soon he was gazing thoughtfully up at the stars. “What the hell,” he finally muttered, “they’d never notice the difference there, anyways.”

Then he was staring up at Talea instead of the stars, and not an iota of beauty had been lost in the transition . . . .