Page 43 of The Witches Catalogue of Wanderlust Essentials (Natural Magic #2)

The Blanket of Belonging

The rain in Kyoto arrived suddenly. Clean, quiet, and insistent. I ducked into an antique shop - the kind with paper lanterns glowing softly and shelves that seem to rearrange and restock themselves when you aren’t looking.

The blanket lay neatly folded on a bench near the door. Woven in muted earth tones, nothing about it demanded attention. But when I pulled it around my shoulders, I was no longer in a strange shop on a foreign street. I was in my great aunt’s kitchen in Montauk. I smelled cinnamon buns in the oven, and felt the warm hug of a well warded space.

The Blanket of Belonging folds neatly into a traveling case, no larger than a scarf. But when unfurled, it transforms, softly, subtly, into whatever home means to you. A memory made tactile.

For one traveler, it became a crocheted afghan, threaded with the scent of orange blossoms drifting in from a balcony in Seville. For another, a cotton quilt set on sun-warmed stones beside a lavender field in Provence.

When I asked the shopkeeper where these marvels come from, she only smiled. “Home,” she said, “is not one place. But you can take it with you.”

A companion for wanderers, wayfinders, and anyone who needs a quiet reminder of where they belong.