The Cartographer's Curse
A story about maps that remember and worlds that want to forget.
"My debut novella.
The first chapter in The Leyline Cycle.
A world shaped by memory, desire and the fragile geometry between order and being alive."
-Tut
About the Book
A mapmaker who refuses to follow the path laid out for her.
A world that bends and blinks and rearranges itself when no one is looking.
A choice between the safety of fixed borders and the cost of living outside them.
A world that bends and blinks and rearranges itself when no one is looking.
A choice between the safety of fixed borders and the cost of living outside them.
The Cartographer’s Curse is a novella about the price of precision, the hunger for freedom, and the quiet magic that lives under every forgotten place name. It begins The Leyline Cycle, a series about shifting worlds and the people who try to hold them steady.
Why I Wrote This
I have spent years mapping organisations and building systems that help people find clarity when everything around them moves.
But this story came from somewhere older. A quiet love for myth. A need to create a world that behaves the way people do. Sometimes steady. Sometimes drifting. Always searching for its own shape.
This book is my first attempt at letting that side breathe. A little raw. A little earnest. Honest about what it takes to rebuild yourself when the map is unreliable.
Excerpt
“The world is choosing itself now.
Not being chosen.
That is the whole difference.”
Not being chosen.
That is the whole difference.”
Irena traced the leyline again. The ink pulsed beneath her fingertip, shifting from blue to copper as if waking.
Maps were not meant to do this. Not in front of people.
But the world had stopped asking permission.
Maps were not meant to do this. Not in front of people.
But the world had stopped asking permission.
About the Author
Tut Fruita writes stories shaped by memory, myth, and the quiet tension between order and desire. Their work blends structure with wonder, drawing from a lifetime spent helping organisations understand the systems that hold them together and the unseen forces that pull them apart.
Born in the Caribbean and shaped by many places since, Tut brings a cartographer’s eye to fiction. They write about shifting worlds, forgotten histories, and people who learn to read the truth in what moves beneath the surface.
The Cartographer’s Curse is their debut novella and the opening chapter of The Leyline Cycle.
Follow the journey
Tut Fruita Press
© 2025
© 2025