A Closer Look at Nate, Our Main Character
In working through Nate’s fatal flaw (which all main characters must overcome), I pulled from experiences with former troubled students I knew from my days when teaching in an inner-city school system. None of what you will read in these story excerpts is meant as a psychological guide or as a substitute for professional assistance when someone is troubled. This is mostly a curious assemblage of various things that seem to fit together in the form of a particular story about a main character named Nate Elliot.
Before getting to the two featured chapters of this week’s newsletter, I wanted to return and reflect on the opening chapter to this entire series—the chapter when we first met Nate before raises any chickens. So let’s start this edition of the newsletter there. You will likely discover that there was another main character hidden away in plain sight all along in this, the first chapter of Volume One: Into the Garden. If you find this surprising, then you have proven just how clever our minds or a mind like Nate’s can be when necessary for safety.
You will likely notice that Nate is introduced with only the barest of backstory here in Volume One. We will discover what we need to know about him as the story progresses. It isn’t until Volume Three that his backstory needs to appear to explain why he must—at Amelia’s insistence—take his own leap of faith.
Note that this is told from the perspective of the songbirds in Nate’s Garden. From the beginning, I hope, readers will realize this is not an ordinary place filled with ordinary characters. We can not fully understand what someone else has experienced before we meet them, but we can hold warm wishes for their future.
On the day The Boy first came to the garden, we heard the car scrape the curb. We saw The Boy’s head jerk from the abrupt stomp on the parking brake. We watched as The Mother got out, but The Man with the Shadowy Face stayed inside to keep the red Bel Aire’s engine running. He rolled down the window to listen and lit a cigarette.
“Here. He’s yours,” The Mother said, dropping the cardboard suitcase and shoving papers into The Grandfather’s hand.
We thought she might cry. But instead, her face turned red with anger and then fear.
“I don’t care what you do with him. There is something wrong with him, and he will never be good enough. Everyone can see it. He’s not going to ruin my life.”
The Boy held Teddy more tightly.
The Grandmother pulled him closer, bent down, and whispered into his ear, “You are so much more than good enough. We are only going to love you.”
Her apron smelled like cornbread and honey.
“How old are you now, son?” The Grandfather asked.
“And what is your name?” The Grandmother asked.
The Mother slammed the car door as it lurched backwards and scraped against the pavement. The Boy blinked hard at the sound as if he had been struck rather than the curbing.
The Man with the Shadowy Face flipped on the car radio, revved the engine, and then they were gone.
The boy’s soft brown eyes looked all the way up into The Grandfather’s eyes. “Three,” he said. Then he looked into The Grandmother’s eyes and said, “Nathaniel.”
From atop the pink camellia, a mockingbird called out, “Na-than-i-el. Na-than-i-el. Nate. Nate. Nate.”
“Well, Nate,” said The Grandfather, “This is your home now. For as long as you want it to be.”
“And here you can do anything your heart dreams,” said the Grandmother.
The Grandfather and The Grandmother were the second owners of the house, built on what had been farmland by the river. Their lot was wide and stretched from one street to another where The Virginia Railroad Line cut through their neighborhood. The slow rumble and clanking of the empty freight cars leaving Port Norfolk made a lonesome rhythm that prompted sleep at day’s end.
Nate would wait by the tracks for the noonday lunch whistle to blow and for The Grandfather to come across those tracks for lunch. Then, he waited again in the evening for The Grandfather to return for dinner. That was the longest wait, but it was also the most rewarding because they had a wonderful meal and time together.
On summer evenings, The Grandparents would push the clamshell metal chairs aside, bring out their record player, and stack up their favorite albums. Then they would dance slowly together in the garden while the fireflies rose from the ivy. It was a magical place, filled with beautiful memories.
We had watched him grow up in that small, almost-square house, just as we had watched The Mother grow up there before him. He had always loved the garden, but The Mother never did.
The Mother had been singularly beautiful, with pale blonde-white hair as delicate as corn silk. She went to school each day dressed in the fanciest and frilliest outfits, like the prized peonies lining the front of the garden.
The Grandmother had sewn each dress and painstakingly hidden that they were not store-bought. The look of homemade clothes and the hands of a gardener would have ruined everything for her little girl who hated pulling weeds.
The only thing her little girl despised more than getting dirt under her fingernails was wearing garden gloves that hid her perfectly tapered fingers.
But Nate was different. We songbirds knew immediately that he belonged in the garden just as much as we do. He understood how this backyard garden had become a magical place because of his grandparents. They had given him their love, just as they had given the garden their love, and he had given his love back to them.
Any place with love is a magical place. He knew this from when he was young and his grandparents would dance with him in the backyard garden. He would stand barefoot on their shoes as they guided his feet, and then he would chortle with delight. Those must have been some of his favorite times.
Too soon, Nate had only memories like twisted shadows on the weather-worn garden posts, frail and formless like ghosts. First The Grandfather left, and then The Grandmother. They were gone all too soon following the way of the golden-yellow limp blossoms of summer squash, leaving only memories of what had been and reminders of what would never be there in the garden they had left for him. And so, he bought some newly-hatched baby chicks.
Dancing helps make a place magical, especially with someone you love. This is one of the secrets we songbirds know, which people often overlook. Perhaps one day, Nate would dance like that with someone he loved. That is what we all hoped. That is what we, the songbirds of The Living Library, all wanted for him.
Did you find the hidden main character? Read on in the next two new chapters from Volume Three: Through the Gate. You’ll know for sure if you were right, and you’ll also get more information about how events are beginning to be brought to a close with no loose ends. Even the dream and desire for Nate that the songbirds of The Living Library have been holding onto should feel close to being fulfilled.
Just as a reminder, in our last installment, we read how Amelia was telling Nate something very important: “There is one more thing that I can try to do for you, and that is to read the scars on your heart left by the hands of others. The Raven with Blue Eyes alerted me to them and said that I was destined to help heal those scars. And now as I look at you, those scars are all I can see. They are just as real as I am real, and you have incorporated them into the stories you have created about us in your journal. You have named them The White Peacock and The Black Heron to hide how they are instruments of The Absence of Love. You must take a leap of faith and release yourself from their power and the power of their lies over you. None of us were with you when those scars happened. There was only you and Teddy. I believe with my entire sentinel mind and heart that the part of you have needed to face your uncle is hidden away in Teddy and somehow once the two of you have gone through the gate that Emily is drawing, the part of you hidden in Teddy will be able to take a leap of faith back into your heart, and your scars will be healed.”
The “expert” in this next chapter is The Laughing Gull, a great comedian and the first one to appreciate Pearl’s gifts of comedy and performing. Like all comedians, he is a keep observer of human nature.
From his perch high on the back porch roof we heard The Laughing Gull saying, “I completely agree. I have seen it happen again and again,—particularly at the waterfront when people are waiting for a ferry to take them across the river. Little boys will play with their army men, and the part of them that wants to be fierce and powerful goes into the toy soldiers where it can do no harm.”
“So everyone remains safe and no one is punished,” surmised Amelia.
“Exactly right,” said The Laughing Gull. “Except the negatives do not get transferred back into the little boys again, as you are suggesting will happen with Nate and Teddy.
“And so I’m wondering if those were truly negatives that were transferred from Nate to Teddy. Maybe there were some positives too, or at least things that could go towards either the negative or the positive. It may depend on how the little boy or little girl thinks about them. They are likely too young to realize that a trait or a desire can be the source of either good or evil, more positives or more negatives.
“Negatives move in only one direction, and they can attract more negatives and stronger negatives.
“Negatives push away positives. It takes five positives to push away a single negative. I believe that is why people have five fingers on each hand to remind them of this rule in their nature.
“Anytime one person says a negative to another person, they should remember to follow it with five genuine positives. Then the negative thing will be pushed away. Saying ‘sorry’ or ‘my mistake’ doesn’t do much.
“But there are some positives that prevent negatives from ever returning or taking the place of positives. Those are positives which are filled with so much goodness and truth that they can never be pushed away by the negatives.
“Here is an example in the form of a song. Pearl, I’m going to whisper the song into your ear, and then you can sing it for everyone. I know you wanted to sing for everyone today.”
Pearl listened carefully, and then she rhythmically moved her head up and down in agreement with what The Laughing Gull had said. This also helped her to get herself ready to sing.
“Everything you knew was good and true to you
And made for your joy,
The day you joined the world.
Those things haven't gone away.
“Everything you knew was right for you
And made special by you,
When you just joined the world.
They haven't gone away.
“All the things you loved are beautiful
And have been waiting for you,
You’ve kept them safe,
So wear them proudly like a brand new hat.
Don’t wait a minute more.
You’ll get it right, and find they’re still a perfect fit.
Everything you love. Everything you trust.
Everything that makes you who you are.
“And if there is doubt in anyone,” said Pearl, “Remember these words which are not in the form of a song. They are words in the form of my heart and I do wish Gracie’s wren would save a record of them. Maybe having them recorded in something as important as The Living Library will help them to matter. I don’t know if we will ever be able to return to our Garden home without them.
“You are loved. You have meaning. You have purpose. Bad things are going to happen. Don’t let them surprise you. Bad things happened to me and Blanche, but we were equipped with what we needed to get through them and become stronger, better, and able to help others like ourselves.”
Amelia looked at Pearl. She would tell me later that it felt as if it was the first time she had ever truly seen Pearl. She could see the truthfulness and pain in every word she sang or said.
“Pearl, I have something that you need to do as part of our journey. There have always been six of us chickens. I want you to bring the drawing that Emily made for you of Blanche, the sixth member of our flock. It needs to go through the gate with the rest of us, and it needs to be rolled together with one of the drawings you made of her in secret that you’ve never shared with us.
“Whatever needs to happen to Nate and Teddy needs to happen to those two drawings first. This may sound silly to you, just as silly as how the things you often say may sound to us. But my senses as a sentinel tell me this must happen too.”
Sometimes we wait for something to happen “at once” when in actuality, it is best for it to happen “at last.” It was like that for getting Gracie to Paris. But it took a pair of comedians to let me know exactly when it was the right time for making that journey.
“Bonne nuit, mon amour,” I said to each of the chickens before giving them a bedtime kiss on the top of their heads.
I was sure we would hear much more of the French language once we had gone through Emily’s Parisian Garden Gate, but it was getting late and we all needed our rest, especially Gracie and Emily. They were the main players in our departure which had been set for the next morning, and they needed to wake up rested and refreshed for the adventurous journey ahead of us.
As I headed into the house, a car pulled into my driveway, and I could tell it was Uncle Buddy. He was carrying a suit of clothes on a coat hanger, and he handed then to me.
“Now go hang these up in the house. You’ll need to put them on tomorrow morning when you get up just like it was a church day, but it’s not a church day. You and your Aunt Grace and I are going to the court to see a judge like I said we would have to do if you didn’t straighten yourself up. Your Ma and her friend with the fancy Bel Air are going to be there too. Your Aunt Grace doesn’t want you showing up in your old chicken clothes. Personally, I think those clothes will prove that I’ve been right about you all along.
“And don’t go doing anything to make your Aunt Grace cry about any of this, or I’m going to move every single chicken right on out of here and directly to The Chicken Place Restaurant. As fat as they are, they will bring a premium price, and I can guarantee that as sure as I can guarantee your Ma has had her eye on this property since your grandma passed on.
“She is a closer blood relative than you are anyway. It won’t matter what no legal paper says once the judge gets a look at you and sees there’s something wrong with you—even with all your best Sunday clothes on.”
He had a odd smile on his face that reminded me of a smirking cartoon character, and added “When it’s your turn to speak to the judge and they call your name, try not to look as goofy as a gopher.”
With that, my uncle disappeared into the darkness. Then the lights of his car lit up the driveway and garage before they dimmed from his backing up.
I headed inside to bed and held Teddy close to my chest and under my chin. Together we thought about the horrors that would revisit us if The Man with the Shadowy Face and The Mother moved into the other bedroom where my grandparents had slept.
I held Teddy closer to my heart and whispered into his ear, “Teddy, I have to get Gracie to Paris like I promised her I would, but you will be safe. They only ever hurt you to make it easier for them to hurt me. When I’m not here, they won’t hurt you.”
“We have shared more secrets than we should have ever needed to share,” Teddy whispered back to me, “but no one will ever learn the secret of where you have gone or how you got there. No matter what The Man with the Shadowy Face might do to me. Those two were made for each other, the vain White Peacock and the predatory Black Heron. They belong together and far away from here where they can torment only each other.”
“Teddy, I’m beginning to think that The Laughing Gull was right, especially after Pearl sang that song. What do you remember about what took place in those days before we came here to this house and this Garden?”
“I remember it was a time that you were worried about becoming like The Man with the Shadowy Face. You did not want to become like him. You wanted to be like someone else.
“Then, in your own young childlike way, one night it seemed to you as if the curtains of heaven were pulled back, and you saw the world burning in flames against the billowing smoke and the darkness of the night sky. You saw that as your future, your destiny, and your legacy.
“You didn’t know that you were going to be dropped off here with your grandparents and would want to become like your grandfather.
“So you hid away all of the parts of you that could turn into The Man with the Shadowy Face. You hid them away in the safest possible place where no one could get to them—in me, your best friend. I’ve kept those parts of you safe and unspoiled. I think Amelia and Pearl would tell you that now is the time when you simply need to take a leap of faith and then grab those parts of you back again.
“Those are the parts that will make you grow into the man you are intended to be, the man who can face your uncle with the words that need to be said. Those words will keep you and your chickens safe. They will also keep The Garden safe.”
“But what will happen to you, Teddy?”
“If you knew the answer to that questions, you might no longer be willing to take your leap of faith, but I love you Nate. You must love yourself too—whatever becomes of me. You must go on. Without you, there is no me.
“Listen to the songbirds outside our window. They are singing to us. They are singing about how someone is coming to visit us, and it will be someone we both love.
“When our visitor arrives, you will know that now is the right time for you to take your leap of faith just as The Laughing Gull and Pearl have told us.”
As you may have guessed by now, often snippets of dialogue will hint at what is to come. An example from this newsletter is Teddy’s statement: “You must go on. Without you, there is no me.”
Until Next Time
If you have any comments—good or bad—please share them on Substack or you can also reach me directly at John.Spiers@yahoo.com. We are looking forward to sharing with your exactly what happens when our cast of characters journeys through Emily’s Parisian Garden Gate!
Our Best Advice for the Days Ahead: Remember your own youthful joy at everything around you when you were just a child and everything was good and true and beautiful. Remember the words from Pearl’s heart!
Thank you for reading!
John, Gracie, Bessie, Blanche, Pearl, Emily, and Amelia (Yes, six names for six chickens—just as Amelia said were so important when journeying through Emily’s Garden Gate drawing.)
Hi John I love the turn your story is taking for obviously older readers than your earlier work. It is straight from your heart and love centered beliefs- as well as giving Nate a more fulfilling childhood - I love it. I am, however, becoming les and less able to spend as much time reading and writing as I'd like and so will likely not be giving comments form here on in as I lose more of my abilities to MS. Not a tragedy, just life, and grateful for the journeys you work has taken me on. Still here, nothing imminent, but cutting back as I must. look forward to reading about Paris. Judi Bachrach
"He's not going to ruin my life!" Ouch!
You again amaze me with the delicateness of your text and your way of giving characters names that fit them perfectly.