“So what really transpired?” a towering bearded man asked, his reeking dirty tee soaked in sweat.
He kept wrestling with the transmission stick to find the next gear on the Soviet willys.
“What did you see in the forest? What happened to our village drunk?”
I already told you what happened. What I saw. Suddenly there was a pillar of fire between the trees and by the time I arrived only smoke remained. Both of us saw the body.” A young man with green eyes and high forehead started to speak. “The fact that you don’t like my story or that the Officials from the North have their own vision on what happened, does not mean that I would have anything new to say.”
“I’m sorry.” The obese Mayor said, adjusting the flat cap on his head. “That village drunk was once a good man, y’know. Back then he was known as Aivo and he hated the drink with a passion, as it kept him from doing his job. That was back during the Soviet era when he drove the bus between this and other nearby towns. Six o’clock every morning he started up his LAZ autobus and first started towards Tontla, on his way also detouring to the Agroprom and then to Valgepalõ on the coast of lake Talaba. Sometimes he even stopped at the Combine, Center Station and at the smaller villages near his route.”
“So what happened then?” Toomas asked, scratching his sloppily shaven chin. “Why did he start to drink?”
“Why, why.” The Mayor mocked. “The Russian period came to an end. The military left, bases were abandoned, Luiga was closed down, Agroprom was closed down, Center Station was closed down. Even the fish factory at Valgepalõ closed down because suddenly, no fish found its way into the nets. People lost their jobs, died, moved away or, like Aivo, lost themselves into the bottle, some of vodka, others of ether. The saddest part is that he wanted to get sober and again drive his bus between the towns. He kept speaking about how wealth had returned to Valgepalõ, after the local sacristan was given a beating and then driven from the town. He said that the people were returning because the nets now catch fish but also strange ancient items of gold.”
“Sounds suspect.” Toomas said. “And also similar to something I have heard before.”
“Oh really? And how does that story end?” the Mayor asked.
“With the whole town going mad and burning it all down when the capital sent forces to look into the matter.” Toomas replied.
“In that case I am not too surprised that those slick looking Boys from the North have this deep an interest in the Forbidden Forest as well as the water flowing out of the forest and up a slope. And that at all times they can be seen around.
The willys started to violently shake, as it slowed down. The Mayor directed it towards the side of the road to turn onto a field trail right at the next railroad crossing, indicated by a rusty road sign ahead.
Toomas lowered his gaze onto the spartan metal dashboard of the willys. He slid his fingers across screw holes and signs of equipment having been mounted on the dash.
“Is this a… former military vehicle?” He asked.
“Oh yeah! Yes it is!” The Mayor started to laugh.
“There’s a funny story with that. In the olden days I drove that old Chaika you can see in the courtyard of the town hall. But a few years after the Russians had left, the engine on it went to complete shit. I could never get it to run again. I then took a closer look at the engine and it seemed to me that the engine had gone to complete shit once before, as it had been replaced once already. How else could it have a truck engine, right? A massive monster with 8 pots and plugs. And as the Russians had left, there were no longer any parts to be found anywhere. Even if somebody had parts left over they would not part with them, not for rubles not for anything else. The only thing all the young people wanted was foreign currency.
“But then I heard that the Russians had also abandoned the Officers’ Village and for some reason all the vehicles in it as well. Of course they had done their best to destroy and ruin everything that they could not take along. However between the Officers’ Village and the local mechanized infantry corps base I managed to assemble a working vehicle and also found tons of spare parts to boot.”
The Mayor depressed the clutch and turned off the engine, letting it come to rest right before the ditch at the end of a small clearing.
“And we’re here.” He said. “Just like during the night.”
He twisted himself on the small driver seat to look out from the rear plastic window.
“Wow, the Boys from the North are not messing around this time. Look at that! Five cars with fins! That’s exactly what I wanted!”
“I don’t think we were here during the night, were we?” Toomas asked. “We went through the Cottage District and then came along a small footpath which headed into the forest opposite the Cottage cooperative.”
“I remember us being here.” the Mayor said. “The three of us even made it back to the car right here and then we drove straight back to town.”
“We may have driven back to town from here, but I am fairly certain that we did not initially arrive here with the willys.” Toomas said as he opened the door to get out. “It is very weird that I feel like this is the first time of me visiting this spot. Or that nobody knew that one could get this close to the… its named Forbidden Forest right? To this forest by car.”
“To wander in the Forbidden Forest is only considered entertainment by children and the child-minded. Be those child-minded either insane or drunks. The grownups know all too well about the dangers lurking in the forest and thus they don’t venture here without a cause. Life is too precious to risk it looking for non-existent churches and lost military equipment.”
The Mayor opened the door and then grabbed the door and window posts of the vehicle to be barely able to extract himself from the vehicle. He then pulled up his dirty pants and pulled the tee down to once again cover his massive gut.
“Only when...-” he suddenly sneezed and then used the long sleeve on his shirt to wipe his nose.
“This fucking forest air, I say!” He continued. “Only when a total shitstorm has hit the fan, like right now, the people come to take a look full of curiosity, like children.”
With some effort, the Mayor left his willys behind. His worn down slippers were not of much help on the wet ground. Rather, there was a chance to lose them forever into one of the softer and remoter mud holes. This could happen even before he could step onto the forest floor under the black canopy which offered slightly more traction and started not fifteen meters ahead. Despite that, the Mayor was in luck on his journey. Neither did an especially soaked patch of ground find it’s way under his step nor did he slip crossing the low ditch between the wet grassland and the car woods.
“Agent Toomas, come!” The Mayor shouted, grabbing around the nearest tree with his hairy arm to rest his legs and back. “You see, everybody’s coming!”
Toomas glanced over the cloud-covered wet clearing towards the grassland where they had come from. He noticed that this seemed to receive the warmth of the sun, although looking at the sky, he could not say from where. He could also see three peculiar vehicles approach.
The first one was of immaculate black color and curved forms, full of chrome adornments including a grille bisected into two oval pieces, headlights in bottom-mounted pods and tail lights sitting inside chrome circlets above the bodywork. It was quite like one of the cars belonging to the Boys from the North, but yet somehow different.
Behind that there was a long green two-door car with a green vinyl top. A bit more boxy looking. The front had an inordinately long hood, which at the same time looked perfectly proportional to the rest of the vehicle. A tombstone shaped grille and massive rectangular steel bumpers.
Behind that there was something clearly influenced by the design of those black cars used by the Boys from the North. It definitely had the same overall styling, in the front and on the sides with quad headlights, pronounced bumpers, egg crate grille and fins in the rear. But this one was white, had the body of a station wagon and on the roof, there were red rotating emergency lights. If he did not know any better, then he would certainly think it an ambulance.
The mayor finally let go of the tree and headed deeper into the forest along the trail obscured by the thick woods and lower shrubbery. His point of reference was the Village Dude not 20 steps ahead of him. He soon reached some more familiar folks standing around examining something. The Village Dude was as tall as he was, but instead carried a strong body full of muscle and no excess flab anywhere in sight. There was also Eduard with his small dark eyes, shiny head and generally looking like a starving corpse. And of course Virve, the shopkeep.
The Mayor sighed into his thick gray beard, pressed the flat cap onto his head and quickened his lumbering pace. His main concern was that all the onlookers would keep their hands clear of the body and would leave something for the doctor to examine as well.
“Oh! Hey, Fartbag!” The Village Dude exclaimed, he was wearing some heavy-framed glasses and had not shaved for a few days.
“Fart… bag?” Eduard started to laugh, but then he saw that the mayor was not laughing at all. “I mean mayor, sir, hello.”
He raised one of his bandaged hands to scratch the back of his head.
“Mayor Fartbag.” Virve gave a nod as a greeting, accompanied with a dry smile.
“Comrade Village Dude.” The Mayor started with a disappointed voice. “We have known each other for decades now. Is it not enough for you, in order to leave behind the jokes of our school life, show me even a little bit of respect and call me by my Christian name?”
“I would gladly call you as such, if I still remembered your Christian name.” The Village Dude said, pushing his glasses to a higher position on his nose. “But for a long time I have not thought of you in other terms than a fartbag or the mayor.” He took a curious smile at both Virve and Eduard. “And honestly, you are much more of a fartbag than a mayor. My uncle who went stupid after getting a piece of artillery shell stuck in his brain in the Patriotic War would have been ten times the mayor you are.”
“Honestly, If you weren’t the only fucking person to get fuel from, I would fuck you up right now!” The Mayor said.
“Yes, but you get your fuel, like the others. Which probably means somebody’s gonna throw another brick through my window!”
“Wouldn’t be my first time, you know!” The Mayor shouted.
“Boys! Boys!” Virve tried to calm down the two. “Aivo is here. His body isn’t even cold yet and you’re already fighting! People are coming. Do you really want to offer them a spectacle?”
“True. True.” The Mayor said as his calmed down. He took the sweat-soaked flat cap from his head and pressed it against his chest.
“May I be the first to say I find it a relief that the fucker is dead?” Eduard asked.
“Yes, you may.” Virve replied. “I agree. Nevertheless, what a pity.”
“But still, an exemplary peckerhead.” Eduard said, pausing for a few moments. “Not that I have anything against him. He was a fine man and his bus line was a good thing. But man, when he started to drink, he turned into a peckerhead of the first order. Remember what happened when he was told from Valgepalõ that the bus route is done because the factory is closed? He got drunk, destroyed the whole bar and then as a cherry on top, his victims had to do CPR on him, because what else are you going to do to recoup the damage.”
“He then tried to get back to work but got drunk and then hit a tree on a stormy night. If was a miracle that he was alone in his bus and nobody else got hurt!” Village Dude said.
“Remember how he tried to explain it away?” Eduard asked. “That he skipped his regular drinking for one night and started seeing all sorts of things.”
“Yeah, all sorts of things… while drinking, he told me that he only hit that single lonely electricity pole only because something with red eyes, tentacles and leathery wings flew into his windshield!” the Mayor said.
“He tried to hit on me.” Virve said. “He even tried to rape the Market Hag. But her old man was still alive back then. And he gave the drunk such a beating that he managed to stay relatively sober until the funeral of the old man.”
“Still, what a dickhead.” Village Dude repeated.
“But still a pity,” the Mayor said. “There aren’t many people left anyway.”
“Everybody’s left. Either to the a bigger town or even further. And those that remain try to drown their sorrows into the bottle or try to get by on their own.” Eduard sighed.
“Nothing new under the sun.” Village Dude said. “The powers that be may have changed but life did not. One still has to make his own hooch. Of most of the every day consumables, there is a lack of and paper money means precious little to anybody.”
“Look, even now, a local misfit is wandering around in the forest.”
Virve said, pointing at a man standing between the trees not far from them. His skin burnt brown in the summer sun, a knitted moth-eaten long-sleeved top hanging loosely on his body while his bottom half was covered by workman’s cargo pants with the suspenders hanging down.
“I know that guy.” Eduard said, looking at the man with messy curly hair and long matted beard. “That’s Sangaste kid.”
“Sangaste kid?” Virve asked. “That young history teacher who worked at the local elementary school before it was closed down?”
“That’s the one.” Eduard said.
He blew his nose into his hand and then wiped his fingers into his pants.
“He started to drink when he found out that the Institute could not offer him a position and nobody else in town would have a job for a young man whose last job was 6 months of teaching experience in an elementary school with 15 students.”
“And now?” Virve asked.
“Now, sometimes he mows grass for me, sometimes he burns tar. He’s getting pretty good at burning tar but nobody needs tar at current time. He’s no good for making firewater as he had a habit of drinking it before it has even been properly filtered.” Village Dude said. “But somehow he still gathers his money for vodka and sausage.”
“Good afternoon!” an approaching man in a white lab coat shouted out.
Doctor Sare with his balding head proceeded on the footpath with unsteady steps. Predatory eyes close-by and embedded deep into his skull, sharply regarded every piece of ground he was about to step on and every piece of shrubbery or moss rising above the forest floor. Clearly signifying that for the doctor, woods of this sort were an especially unfamiliar place.
“Gentlemen, ma’am.” The doctor lowered his gaze in a nod as a greeting.
“Wow! Does the honorable lady always go about her business looking so beautiful and well made up?” the Mayor asked.
He looked around, seeing Virve look at the nurse with measurable envy.
The silent assistant for the doctor only gave a smile and said nothing.
“My assistant and colleague does not speak.” The Doctor said. “Nevertheless she perfectly understands what I am thinking about or what I wish, even without me having to say anything.”
“Is her silence voluntary… or is it a kind of medical issue?” Eduard asked with curiosity.
“I don’t know.” The Doctor said. “I have never asked her. It has never come up as a topic to discuss.”
“Mariann!” Am male voice sounded out.
The Mayor raised his eyes to see a balding man with glasses and a leather jacket, who had appeared as if from nowhere. Almost as tall as he himself was, with a strong slim build. Defined face and a week’s worth of gray beard growth.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Oh, professor!” The Mayor said loudly. “Professor Kotkas, you made it!”
“I did.” the man replied, “where else would I be going.”
“So, what is the official position of the Institute in this matter?” The Mayor asked, rubbing his nose.
“I don’t know that the Institute has an official position on this.” The professor smiled. “If they did, they would have sent their own representative. I am only here to represent my own opinion.”
“And what is your opinion?” the Mayor asked.
“To soon to tell.” the professor replied.
Under the thirsty looks of the village men, the assistant for Doctor Sare raised one leg and balanced the huge doctor’s bag on one knee. Having no trouble with balancing on one leg, in a stiletto heel on soft ground. She produced a silver medical instrument and handed it over to the doctor.
With some effort and a painful sigh, he knelt down to the body and then stabbed the instrument into it, as he observed the dial at the end of the instrument.
“Is that a meat ther-…?” Eduard started to ask but then shut up after receiving a heavy nudge from Virve.
“Yeah. There’s nothing for me to do here.” The doctor said. “He’s done.”
“So completely cooked through?” Mariann asked, feeling the gazes focus on her.
“Yep.” The doctor smiled. “deep inside, he’s still warm.”
“I did not need to know that!” Jaan said with disgust in his voice.
“That’s why you did not come to Yuryev to learn medicine with the rest of us!” The doctor said, he reached out to his silent assistant, who was still standing on one leg, with the doctor’s bag open on a raised knee. She had no trouble helping the doctor get up again. “You could not keep the medicine down. Nor me putting a bovine eye in my martini.”
“Let me think: pack it up and to the Institute?” Mariann asked with disinterested tone.
“Exactly my idea!” the doctor remarked. “The medical corps of the Institute has way more room to autopsy this poor thing than my hospital! Sometimes it feel like Luiga is indeed overcrowded.”
“Does anybody… have any idea what happened… to this poor man?” the Mayor asked in a hoarse voice, rivers of sweat pouring down his face, having soaked half his shirt. “Perhaps spontaneous combustion of the human body?”
“Sure, most definitely.” The doctor said in a sarcastic voice. “Has anybody ever heard of natural law?”
However the mumbling in the crowd signified that almost nobody really cared for his opinion. What was of much more importance to some of them was whether the assistant, in addition to assisting the doctor offered... cough-cough… other services.
“It cannot be spontaneous combustion.” A younger male voice said.
Everybody’s eyes now turned on a skinny young man with distinctive green eyes. The only thing betraying that he was no longer a child was a faint red stubble on his face.
“Yes, agent Toomas.” The Mayor said. “Why cannot it be that?”
“Because too much of the deceased remains.” The young man with green eyes replied.
“Let’s leave aside all kinds of inane theories, shall we?” a man in a black suit, black fedora and long black overcoat said. “It must have an organic and scientifically falsifiable cause.”
“Falsifiable?” the Mayor asked.
“Well, something that can be proven or disproven with a controlled experiment.”
“Oh.”
The Mayor looked how the professor and the girl in black left the group and went deeper into the forest.
“Honestly, in your position, mister Mayor, I would not trust this young man.” The man in a long coat and gray suit continued. “I know him, and he has quite a bad reputation in the professional circles that I frequent.”
“I have ideas.” Toomas replied in defense. “Usually these ideas explain-...”
“You brat are ruining the name of every half-decent paranormal investigator!” the man in a fedora raise his voice, a small scar under his left eye twitched.
“This guy only gets to investigate the things that Volke throws off his desk into the trash bin. Starting with drunks who see giant rabbits all the way to spontaneous combustion events of the human body and looking into weird electrical hums.”
“In that case, mister..”
“Taak.” The man said, he removed his fedora in greeting, revealing slick combed back hair held in place with pomade. “Karl Taak, at your service.”
“If Igor Volke has no interest in this, then why are you here?” the Mayor asked in a doubtful voice.
“The fact that Volke is not interested does not mean that there would not be other organizations or forces in Yuryev interested in what goes on in and about the Esoteric Institute, or the town surrounding it. Just like during the Russian times: there is always somebody who listens, always there is somebody who is interested.”
“So you drove here from Yuryev?” Edward asked
“Oh, no.” Karl Taak smiled. “I work in Valgepalõ in a branch institute of the University of Yuryev.”
“And what is your opinion on what has happened here?” the Mayor asked.
“You have a village drunk in a forest with a flaming torch and an open bottle.” He said. “What do you think happened? Having a careless swig while already drunk, the clothes became covered in vodka, the vapors ignited. Because most of the human body is water, so if he burned to death it is possible that some kind of heat remained in the body.”
“I know what burning to death means.” the Doctor said. “One needs not to be cooked through, only a surface burn is enough if it is over a sufficiently wide area. And a bottle of vodka is not enough to create such a heat that the flesh would be cooked to the bone. Is there anything else here or can we leave?”
“No, doctor, there is one other thing.” Toomas said. “The Forest Lake, or rather, what is left of it.”
“Yes, the Forest Lake,” the Mayor said. “We need to investigate that as well.”
“And why is that any of my business?” the Doctor asked. “I’m a doctor, not a geologist!”
“Come, I will show you.” the Mayor said.
“What’s the deal with the Forest Lake anyway?” the Village Dude asked.
“Toomas said that he saw how the Forest Lake evaporated away in the night.” the Mayor explained.
“Not only evaporated.” Toomas said. “I saw people, made of moonlight, who carried the water away with buckets made of moonlight and poured it into a ditch where it flowed through the forest towards the town.”
“People made of moonlight?” Taak asked laughing. “Ghosts? Spirits?”
“You did not tell me of people carrying away the water.” The Mayor said.
“I did not. But that’s what I saw.”
“I’m not surprised, the little guy is completely off his rocker this close to the Institute.” Taak said in a quiet voice.
“Enough!” The Mayor shouted. “This is the Forbidden Forest. All sorts of things happen here. I am not the least bit surprised if agent Toomas says he saw spirits. Especially at night. In the Forbidden Forest, people disappear at night, they meet ghosts, aliens and soldiers who disappear into thin air right in front of them. I myself have wandered the Forbidden Forest when I was young and have seen strange lights moving around between the trees, heard people speaking without understanding a word. I have felt touched by people and creatures I am not capable of seeing. Once I even found an overgrown cobblestone road and heard the carts rolling on it.”
“You…?” the Village Dude asked. “You have wandered the forest in your youth? At night?”
“Yes.” the Mayor said. “If at night you see those ghostly lights darting between the trees and hear carts rolling by you cannot see then you will not rush to tell others about it. Otherwise you won’t be let out of the house in the evenings.”
“It can all be explained...” Taak started.
“Not only people have disappeared into the Forbidden Forest but an entire village center.” The Village Dude said, looking at Taak who was still carrying a skeptical smile on his lips and the downcast Doctor. “The church, the church yard and several houses swallowed overnight. Did you think the Institute was built in an empty place? It was built at some distance from the villages and the Lord’s Manor. And as the Institute grew when people came to learn and work, so did the town surrounding it. But where is the Eastern Village now? Where is the village that lied roughly half way between the Institute and the von Schwann manor?”
“Mr. Taak,” The Mayor started in a stern voice. “You may be well-educated and proficient in using science to disprove explanations created by common peasant knowledge. But you know nothing of the Institute, the Forbidden Forest, or of our town. You don’t know what goes on here, especially in the dark of night when a torch illuminates more than the most powerful electric light. The Forbidden Forest demands only respect, nothing more. That should be sufficiently cheap to keep one’s life, should it not?”
The Mayor used his hat to wipe the sweat from his face and then, without a change on his face, he used his hand to push aside the last of the tall nettles on their way. The stopped on the edge of mud hole having the shape of a wide yet shallow funnel. It was surrounded by low bushes and shrubs. In the middle of it towered a twisting black tree. No canopy, no leaves of thinner branches of any kind. There were only five large branches reaching for the sky, growing out of a single point which made it look like bony fingers growing out of a diseased palm. These thick branches carried no sign that they had ever had a canopy. In some regard, it looked like a petrified dead body of an unimaginable monster from the depths of the sea. Something that could drive anybody who really knew what they were looking at, completely mad.
With suspecting eyes, the Mayor looked at the vacuum tubes, antennas, spirals and devices creating free air arcs that the Men from the North were observing, unable to analyze the tree in one way or the other. Their bewilderment was clear and it was also agitating the village folk. This was clearly contrasted by the professor and the girl in black standing some distance away from the crowd and the girl in black with her camera. Their demeanor seemed to say that they knew exactly what was going on. Knew more than the Boys from the North, in a strange way. But this did not cause them any fear or worry, not even any tension.
“What is sacred to some, may be desecrated to the others.” Toomas said.
“Eh? What?” The Mayor asked, turning around.
“What is sacred to some may be desecrated to the others.” Toomas repeated. “To us, this monstrous aberration here,” he pointed towards the dead tree with twisting roots and trunk in the middle of the mud hole, “might be desecrated ground. But to those two...” he pointed at the professor and the girl in black. “...it might clearly be something more positive and familiar.”
“Agent Toomas!” the Mayor raised his voice. “Professor Jaan Kotkas is a well-respected gentleman and a fixed employee of the Institute. We have no reason to doubt his motivations and impartiality! And if he trusts this girl to accompany him then I have nothing against that.”
“Exactly, he is an employee of the Institute.” Toomas said.
“The fact that he is an employee of the Institute does not mean that he would represent the opinions of the Institute.”
“Exactly!” Toomas exclaimed. “Look at the body language of those two! If I know nothing else then at least I can read body language! It clear here that the girl is the authority in these matters and not the professor. Look at who is following who and who is giving explanations to whom!”
“And what are you suspecting?” the Mayor asked. “What are you trying to say?”
“I want to say that maybe this girl represents the official position and explanations of the Institute which we have no right to know.” Toomas explained.
“You really think so?” the Mayor asked.
“Later, ask the professor what he thinks. And then ask him what the girl thinks. I am sure that there is not much difference in their opinions.”
The Mayor and Toomas turned to see two men in black suits carrying towering piles of wooden cargo pallets. These were laid on the soft muddy ground to create a path from the edge of the mudhole to the tree. This activity also made the girl in black act, as she packed up her camera and then approached the mud hole stopping at the very edge of it.
The Mayor looked around to see the crowd growing bigger. All village drunks were present, some were even sharing a bottle of vodka. All village hags and other more shy and reclusive folk were present as well. Even “Lord” Peeter who usually kept to the boarded up von Schwann manor house, was present. Keeping near the bushes and observing the proceedings from there.
“Well, doctor, after you.” The Mayor said, smiling.
“What do I know of trees?” Sare asked. He took a small metal flask handed to him by his assistant with unearthly good looks, took a drink of it and handed it back. “Did I get up this morning only to look at a tree? Whether it is as a cupboard or fire wood or a forest, it is all the same to me. A wood is wood.”
Despite his grumbling he accepted a small silver hatchet from his assistant who was once again balancing on one leg. He then started approaching the tree. He slid his hand on the surface of the tree and then used the hatchet to hit the tree several times, trying to extract a small piece for study. But already the first hit caused a flow of reddish-brown liquid reminiscent of blood, as it slowly crept down the black bark.
“The tree is bleeding! The tree is bleeding!” Somebody in the crowd started to shout.
“Shut up, you Sangaste brat! Drink a little less, will you?” Virve said, angrily pressing the words through her teeth.
“Why really! This just stupid!” The doctor also raised his voice, but the tone remain apathetic and almost sarcastic, disinterested if anybody really heard him.
The doctor wiped the thick red fluid off the bark and tasted it.
“Damn it!” he said, frowning.
He raised his face and locked eyes with the girl in black, still standing on the edge of the mud hole, roughly to the left of him. The mysterious smile on her face seemed to imply that this was the reaction she had been expecting.
Sare then nodded towards his assistant and she handed him a small medical vial made of glass which he used to collect some of the fluid for further analysis.
“So what is going on in this forest of mine?” the Mayor asked, having approached the doctor on the path made of wooden pallets.
He was careful in his step, trying not to mind the wood creaking too much. He did not fully step on the pallet the doctor was on, instead opting to remain slightly behind them, with one foot one one pallet and the other on the other one, and the gap between the pallets was slowly growing.
“Is it or is it not a tree? What kind of tree is it? Why is it like this? Why is it here anyway?”
“I’m a doctor, not a dendrologist!” Sare loudly said, annoyed. “I don’t know why it’s here. Anybody beside me is more qualified to answer this question, especially that girl in black over there. But as a doctor I can say that this tree is bleeding.”
“Excuse me?” the Mayor asked. “Can you repeat that please?”
“The tree. Is bleeding.” The doctor repeated slowly through his teeth with utter disgust and annoyance from having to say it again.
From the crowd at the opposite edge of the mud hole shouts started up again about the tree bleeding. However this time nobody ordered the shouter to quiet down.
“What does that mean?” the Mayor asked, looking around him, but nobody answered.
He looked towards the girl in black, only to see her and the professor disappearing into the forest again.
“It means that if something looks like blood, smells like blood and tastes like blood, then I’ll be very surprised if it turns out not to be blood.” The doctor said with a forced calmness in his voice. “I have had up to here from this mud hole. Can I go now and collect the body from the forest? I will use a courier to keep you up to date with everything I discover when I examine the body, the piece of wood and this diseased juice, okay?”
“I will agree to this.” The Mayor said, turning around and heading out of the mud hole, this time not caring about the creaking and the chance that the wood might break under his weight, plummeting him face first into the soft mud.
“Professor Kotkas and that girl!” He panted at the edge of the hole, again wiping the rivers of sweat pouring down from his forehead. “Which direction did they take?”
Slowly, some of the people started pointing towards the trail which lead back towards the body and the cars.
“Okay!” He said and started after them as fast as he could, hoping to reach the professor before he got into his car and left towards directions unknown.
The mayor made great effort to head straight through the forest. Whether he was actually on a trail mattered little to him. Neither was he deterred by the need to break through thick patches of man-sized ferns and large clearings of tall nettles, which looked so big that perhaps some unnatural mechanism had carried them here from prehistoric times. These were no longer shrubs under the trees but forests unto their own.
The mayor finally stopped, realizing that he had gotten lost. Lost somewhere between the forest of 3 meter tall nettles and a pine ripped out of the ground with its roots. The nettles carried an intoxicating smell full of warmth and moisture which permeated this section of otherwise cool forest. He could see no people around him to use as a reference where the trails could have been. At the same time he was doubtful that he could find anybody else walking in the forest at this time, as most of the townsfolk were still by that mud hole.
He walked towards the root cluster of the tumbled over pine and then stopped to look at the irregularly shaped stones which had been hidden under the roots. These did not look natural to him, instead befitting images of petrified eggs of a monstrous lizard, drawn in a shaking hand and found in dusty tomes located in some forgotten library of the Institute. He did not actually know whether they were petrified, as they seemed to be made of some strange black rock.
He raised his eyes for a moment and then noticed chrome shining between the trees in the distance. Meaning the clearing with the cars was in that direction. And at the same time, that location seemed off to him. The direction in which it lied was off. Despite that he started towards the shining chrome, being more afraid to lose sight of it. If he tried to compare the direction he was walking in and the path he had taken from the cars towards the body and the mud hole, it felt like this clearing with cars was located on the opposite side from the first one, with the mud hole sitting in between the two. It was hard to believe that mere 5 minutes of rushing through the forest off the trails was enough to corrupt his sense of space and direction in such a way that he could not even walk straight.
“Professor Kotkas! Professor Kotkas!” The Mayor started to shout as soon as he noticed people in the forest.
The professor and the girl in black were not the only ones who stopped. There were also doctor Sare, agent Toomas, and Karl Taak, who were now standing in a small circle, waiting for the Mayor. A moment later the girl in black continued towards the dark green 2-door.
“So, gentlemen.” The Mayor started. “You have now had time to think over what you saw. What’s your opinion? What is going on in our forest?”
“Nothing’s going on, other than the forest being full of patients.” The Doctor grumbled, looking at the ease of which his assistant carried the black vinyl body bag with the deceased towards the car. “I had nothing to say ten minutes ago and I have nothing to say now. Until I haven’t examined everything under a microscope, there is no point in asking me to put forth any theories. I’m a doctor. I have no passion for theorizing. There is nothing wondrous happening here, the forest is a forest and the secrets within can be explained. If not medically then at least scientifically.”
“I agree with you one hundred per cent, Herr Doktor.” Taak said. “The village folk and the employees of the Institute have overdone themselves here with mystical explanations. This tree is but a tree. Maybe with a strange shape, maybe diseased, but still but a tree. To claim that merely yesterday something entirely different stood in place of it is frankly moronic. The mosses and lichens on the roots and in sparse areas of the trunk speak that this plant has stood there for far longer than just a day. With regards to those Officials from the North, their activity is farcical spectacle. What they are doing and why for, is completely unfathomable to me. They cannot even repair the outside telephone line. In Tontla and Valgepalõ the phone lines within the town are functional, but not here. And the cables running between the towns still contain an unexplained overcurrent.”
“That fact that you don’t understand it, does not mean that it is irrelevant.” The young man with green eyes and a red stubble said. “And the fact that they haven’t repaired it does not mean that they are not trying, or that they shouldn’t try at all.”
“Yes, agent Toomas.” The Mayor said, raising his hand to force Taak to stop talking. “What are your thoughts on the matter?”
“My first thought is that something is wrong. Wrong with this place here. I am certain that during the night we entered the forest from next to the Cottage Suburb. And we wandered for quite some time before we got anywhere near the Forest Lake. But when we returned from the forest, we came here, to the edge of the forest by the grazing lands. How it is possible I don’t know, but there is no explaining this scientifically.”
“Everything can be explained scientifically.” Taak remarked.
“My second idea...” Toomas said, raising his voice for a moment. “...concerns the Forest Lake and this tree. I also doubt that this tree was the forest lake in the night. The Forest Lake was more like a big pond, rather than a lake. Yet it was smaller than the mud hole surrounding this tree-like figure. Neither was it deep enough to shroud the entire tree in the waters. I think that everybody mistakenly believes that this tree and this place is the area of the Forest Lake because this tree is located about as far from the drunk who burst into flames as the Forest Lake was during the night. But in reality, something in this forest destroys one’s sense of direction and the true Forest Lake lies unchanged somewhere nearby.”
“And how do you explain that during the decades till now, nobody wandering in the forest neither day or night has managed to find that tree? But they always manage to find the Forest Lake?” Taak asked with a skeptical smile, almost as if knowing what kind of answer he would get.
“Because this is not a regular forest. The forest is actively shrouding locations hidden within. It affects how we look, in which direction we go. The forest easily betrays our sense of direction. I think the same thing is happening here: people think that they are walking through the forest in a more or less straight line, not realizing how twisted and crooked a path they are actually tracking, if somebody were to plot their paths. This is the only way for it to be possible for people to think they are visiting the Forest Lake, but really they are not.”
“Honorable Mayor!” Karl Taak started. “If you are really going to trust the ideas of this kid then you have much bigger problems than what’s happening in the forest. To think that the forest is affecting-...”
“It is affecting.” The Mayor said. “Earlier when I rushed through the forest, I managed to get lost between the body and the Forest Lake and managed to reach an unknown fallen tree instead. And standing there I saw the cars in the distance which seemed to be in the same direction as I had just come from. How do you explain that?”
“With a psychosis.” Taak said unhesitatingly. “Not at all in a negative sense, herr Mayor!”
“Mr Kotkas, do you have any thoughts?” The Mayor continued his queries.
“At the moment, not much. I need to think it over some more, and also consult the written records at the Institute.” The professor said.
“And what did your beautiful companion think?” Taak asked.
“Her position is harder to put into words.” Jaan Kotkas replied. “But she thinks this is a case of a moved lake syndrome.”
“A what?” The doctor asked with interest, having heard a medical term.
“A moved lakelet.” Jaan repeated. “Her theory was that something insulted the Forest Lake to such a profound degree, desecrated it to such a level that it twisted and turned into it’s opposite in every sense of the word. She thinks that the Officials from the North are as bewildered as we are.”
“First the forest actively interrupts our consciousness and now the Forest Lake feels insulted?!” Karl Taak asked. “Honestly, what’s gonna be your next theory?”
“But why not?” Toomas asked. “These Agents from the North we see around here everywhere. They conduct their mysterious experiments in the Institute, Substation, Center Station as well as in the Combine. Maybe something went wrong and that’s why the Forest is no longer how it used to be. That’s why this tree is here and that’s why the Forest Lake can no longer be located.”
“Of course, there is one other option.” Toomas continued. “What if the tree is not at all a tree? What if when examining the blood and the piece, it is revealed that it is not at all a plant but something that the Boys from the North or the forest has wanted to keep hidden at all costs.”
“What is it then, if not a plant?” The Mayor asked.
“Well, what does it look like?” Toomas asked. “It has five great tentacles. Maybe there is a mouth in the middle of them. I addition, it also has some smaller, but longer and more nimble tentacles, which we currently think to be roots. Maybe it is some kind of unknown creature which usually live in the depths of the ocean.”
“Okay, I’ve had enough.” The Doctor said. “I have other things to do besides listening to your theories. My colleague is already waiting.”
“And why would a petrified corpse of this creature be here?” Taak asked with interest in his voice.
“Who said anything about a corpse?” Toomas asked. “That is not dead which can eternal lie, and wuth strange aeons even death may die.”
“And what significance does this motto, which, may I say, you have quite crudely translated into our country folk language, this motto of the Faculty of Elder Magic of the Institute carry?” Taak asked. “This discussion starts to look more and more like a horror story for children and not a serious scientific discussion.”
“Agent Toomas, do you mean to say that the tree is not at all a tree, but an animal of some sort?” The Mayor asked. “And that animal is not at all dead but instead slumbering?”
“Yes.” Toomas nodded. “It is sleeping and waiting to be awakened. As far as I know, these sea creatures are so prehistoric, so old, that death is unknown to them. Instead of dying, the fall into deep sleep which to us looks like death, or like being a plant.”
“Oh.” The Mayor let out a deep exacerbated sigh. “I think we have no other course of action left to solve this mess, but to go and ask the witch for advice. The witch has always been able to help us.”
“The Witch?” Taak asked.
“The Witch.” The Mayor repeated.