I saw a dream. At least I think I saw a dream. I cannot be sure. I hope what I saw was a dream. It felt so real that… I awoke from it, at least. In that I am certain of. But what disturbs me most is that I have no idea when exactly did I fall asleep. I don’t know whether I fell asleep, I don’t know where the border of dreaming is. At the same time I remember perfectly everything that happened.
It happened last week. I had finished my day shift in the vodka plant of the Village Dude Peeter and was sitting in old Leopold’s bar with a few other workers and the village folk. That was the first time I heard of them. Somebody’s errant remark of a band by the younger folk which was on its way to the town to perform at a concert in the Substation.
It seemed rightfully funny to me. A concert inside the Substation? The Substation had been locked up for years now. Nobody has managed to break in there. Nobody knows where the keys which once opened those doors have disappeared to. And truthfully there wasn’t anybody, who even knew anybody who had ever entered or exited said doors to the Substation. The only sign that something was still going on in the Substation, was coolant pool for the radio tower which was filled with hot water at all times.
Despite that I did not think it a bother of me to step closer to the counter, ask the barkeep for a beer and keep listening to what it was that had driven the villagers to such a fervor. Strangers arriving into the Nameless Town was always an event, but musicians arriving… and somebody other than a local musical collective from Tontla or Valgepalõ playing age old songs over and over again, that was a big event unto itself.
“But I said, I only heard it form other village folk that those boys are already on their way here with their guitars and their amplifiers.” A man with a thick bushy mustache said. He had not shaved for a few days and there was a fain smell of stale fish hovering around him.
“Hey, Fishy George! Are you sure heard it from around here? When on the town?” Old Leopold asked. “and not from the Fish Factory at Valgepalõ?”
“I’m sure it was from somebody discussing it here!” The man said. “I don’t know, maybe it was Eduard or...”
“Hey fisherman, don’t even try to drag me into it!” A short and frail man with a reddish face shouted from a table nearby. “You heard shit from me!”
“… or maybe it was the Mayor.”
“The Mayor, eh? That old and fat can’t even tell the weather, never mind rumors!” Village Hag No.5 with her purple coat placed her cane on the counter and then leaned against it. “Hey old man! Pour me a vodka!”
“You’re usually at Virve’s are you not?” Fishy George asked, trying to get the creases out of his striped polo.
“I am. But these days nobody else visits Virve any more. All the other village hags sit at home. “This place hurts, that place hurts, cannot get up, cannot sit down.”” She mocked. “Dammit! All of them are at least a decade younger than I am!”
The old lady downed a shot with no difficulty and hit it against the counter.
“Virve ran out of coffee. Eduard, that boy forgot to bring more from the town.”
“I’m going! I’m going!” Eduard grumbled from his table. “Let a man finish his beer and I’ll go get your coffee from Tontla!”
“Hey, what kind of tunes do these youngsters produce in that band of theirs?”
My attention was grabbed by a younger man who had appeared to sit by the counter next to me. Worn jeans, dirty shoes, cotton sweater full of small holes burnt by embers on a bare body. Yeah, Rops it was.
“What?” Village Hag no.5 asked, looking in my direction.
“I mean what kind of music are they making with their band?” Rops asked again,
“Aah! I head about that!” the village hag started to talk excitedly. “There are three or four of them. The come in some big ZIL, just like the one those Boys from the North drive around but taller and boxier, Behind it is a big round silver trailer, full of all their instruments. Oh, and it looks like an airship of the sky folk.”
“How do you know?” An old man asked, stepping closer.
“Y’think I ain’t seen the sky folk ships before, ‘uh?” She asked getting annoyed. “Just the other Saturday one hovered above the road!”
“I told you! I told you!” Rops shouted, vindicated.
“Oh, go fuck yourself, boy!” Leopold shouted. “All other young people have long since left this place for the North. Some to Yuryev, some to Reval, some even further. If you had any sense left in that head of yours, you too would be somewhere else, at least in Yuryev, doing something useful!”
“Leo, don’t get angry at a child!” a sharp yet old voice cried out from somewhere.
“Old crone?” the village hag at the counter became more excited.
“Yeah, it’s me.” The source of the voice moved behind the backs of the men sitting by the counter and finally Village Hag No.6 appeared, standing next to the other old lady.
“it is not his fault that he’s a bit dull.” An old woman with green eyes and silver white hair that barely reached her neck spoke.
“It really is.” Leopold said.
“You yourself were quite the same at that age.” The old woman said. “Yes, you were! I remember just fine!”
“If these boys made the same kind of music as Jaanus, Rein and Urmas when they were young then one might actually go and see them.” I said.
“Yeah, they are not.” The older village hag said. “They are young. They’re from Pölve, and like most people from that place, they are not right in the head. Nobody there understands the music of our younger days. All of them make some sort of screeching music fit for beating dust out of the carpets. Nobody sings either, they just scream into the microphone so you can’t understand crap.”
“Well, I can see then that nobody really goes to see them.” Fishy George said. “Maybe those two girls from the Institute, that one from the nuthouse and Rops will be going, but that will be it. They should be plenty young to understand music like that.”
“I don’t understand what business do they have here anyway.” The village hag in purple coat remarked. “All the young people have long since left this place. Who are they performing to? To themselves? There has to be some kind of gimmick to it.”
“And the Substation itself is also just a little shack!” Rops said loudly. “There is no way that it can fit the band, their equipment and all the village folk!”
“Oh they’ll fit.” The old village hag said.
“Wait, what?” Fishy George asked, having stopped laughing.
Silence fell around both the counter and seeming the entire rest of the bar as well. Everybody wanted to be a part of the mystery the village hag was about to reveal.
“I have seen the Substation from the inside. Once, when I was a little girl. The brick shack you see is just the above ground portion. The true Substation lies several floors below that, where there are hidden halls as wide as the eye can see and several stories high, full of strange machinery. Some of which work by emitting a scary hum, others are glowing hot and even pour out smoke. Little lights of every conceivable kind and color glowing and blinking in mysterious patterns. Illuminated dials moving back and forth.”
“What machines?” Fishy George asked.
“I don’t know what machines, I was maybe five years old then. But they were big. My dad was already a big man, but the machines were big even compared to him, more than twice his height. I don’t remember much by now, just big black machines, thick cables and hoses and forged black wheels carrying belts. The wheels were likewise fastened to hand forged metal frames with designs of loops and curves. One side of the wall was full of them. I guess they were some kind of old scientific machines or calculating machines. Most certainly connected with that tower and the mists rising from the pool.”
Silence again fell into the bar, as the village hag finished her story. It seemed as everybody was deep in their thoughts. Only Leopold was refilling the beer glasses with shaking hands, not making a sound about money. Ans also there was some tension in the air, as if somebody had outed some great big secret. As if right this moment, the door to the bar would open and a whole bunch of men in black suits would enter to…
The door to the bar suddenly opened and anybody who had even a partial line of sight to the door, turned to look towards it and see what wondrous creature was going to enter. Whether it was Boys from the North or the girl in black or somebody altogether different. But there was no wondrous creature. When my eyes recovered from the sudden influx of evening light, I could see that it was honorable doctor Sare. A brown belt tightened on his worn formal pants and a white labcoat over dark tartan patterned shirt.
“Wow, there’s a lot of you in this bar tonight. As if the whole village was here!” The doctor said, rubbing his bald head. He stopped, looking around the bar. “What’s this? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“There are stories abound that musicians from Pölve are coming to town and the whole village is excited.” I said.
“Musicians you say?” The doctor walked to the counter and with the indifference of a car, pushed Rops aside and sat on a bar stool right next to me.
“What would the honorable doctor wish?” Leo asked. “Vodka?”
“Beer.” Sare said. “I took a tea glass just before coming here. And refill my friend’s glass as well, I’m buying.” He slapped me on the back.
“Thank you, doctor.” I said.
“Actually I came for a nice drive around the county.” Doctor Sare said. “And then I thought, what the point of aimlessly driving around, I’d rather come here, get a beer, talk with the townsfolk and then get back on my way. The last time there on the edge of the forest, when I drove that ambulance, I actually started to like it very much. How it rode, nay sailed over the potholed roads without me feeling anything. But the ambulance is so damn long I cannot tell where the back end is. It is also low and fat like an obese dachshund. But then I went to the Boys from the North and asked them.”
“You asked them?” Fishy George asked. “For a car?”
“Yes, indeed.” The doctor sipped his beer.
“Wow, some people really are connected up high.” Fishy George replied.
“And they actually had one they could give me. White, two-door, tall fins in the rear and tail lights in the shape of jet exhaust. And oh what a wonder it is to drive. Like a flying carpet.”
“Hey, doctor,” Village Hag No.5 asked. “You probably have many wise saying about vodka. Can we hear one?”
“I have not wise sayings, only experience.” The Doctor replied. “One mustn’t drink oneself under the table. But to drink in such a manner that one does not get drunk, that is agreeable. Vodka is pure, you see. Much better for an ironclad health than water.”
“Really?” Rops asked.
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“Oh yes, my dear boy.” the Doctor assured. “Every day for the past 40 years I have had 2-4 tea glasses of vodka and my health is better than ever before. And vodka no longer makes me inebriated.”
“Words of truth!” the Village Hag remarked.
“So where that looker of a nurse?” Fishy George asked with a glint in his eyes,
“She left behind to keep watch over the hospital. She’s not interested if there is not some kind of medical pathology. And you probably don’t have any drinks fit for her.”
“She only drinks some fancy cocktails?” Fishy George asked.
“Nope. Ether.”
“Ether?” the man was surprised.
“Yes, ether.” the Doctor repeated.
The discussion between the doctor and the rest of the townsfolk had made me forget that something was different from the usual. There was a weird feeling possessing me, a feeling I could not shake off me. Something was wrong. Something was… coming. Something had awaken.
It started quietly. As if a faint music I was only hearing in my thoughts. A gentle but lonely tune played on a guitar, full of cold crows of rooks and the rustling of dried autumn leaves. A music those boys from Pölve definitely could not be making, if the Village Hag was to be believed. A guitar tune which was inviting me along. Both in body and mind, It asked me to focus on it, to submit to it. To forget the rest of the world around me and to just float and flow along with it into the world opening to me through the sounds.
In this way, I had not noticed how the sound had grown from a quiet and gentle guitar tune, reminding one of youth a long time ago when children in the Forbidden Forest sat by the fire right next to the Border, into a music with heavy guitar sound and complicated rhythms, of which the Village Hag had spoken of. It was still inviting me though. It had something, some sort of deeper rhythm hidden within which was impossible to resist. Despite all of it’s heavy otherness, violent sounds and the music generally disagreeing with my ears, there was still something earthy and anciently homely. Something which brought my mind’s eye to warm sun, fresh grass, black forest and grandma’s soft hands.
I managed to force my mind to awaken from this enchantment and realized that I was not the only one beguiled. Something very strange was happening, as the heads of all the people in the bar were moving in the rhythm of music I could only hear in my head. As if everybody had lost themselves into this music and were now genuinely enjoying it, having forgotten their former animosity. This included the Village Hags, Leopold and even doctor Sare, who generally avoided any participation in such matters. I could also see people who were affected by the music to such a degree that they rose from their tables and the counter and slowly lumbered out of the door.
I too started to go, having finished my beer. Whatever was going on, it could not have been limited only to the bar. The whole town was probably involved. As I reached the street outside, I understood what it meant. The streets were full of people with sheer bliss on their faces, moving slowly towards the Substation along the straightest route possible. On foot, exclusively. I could not hear a single engine. Only this alien music with it’s strange effect. It was also most certain that the music was not only in my hear or in the heads of every other person, but also in the air all around the town, as if the band had been playing right behind the next corner.
Something else was also different. It was dark. It had grown dark imperceptibly quickly. The sky was still blue, there were still but a few lonely clouds in there, but there was no sun, just an undefinable dusk of early summer which seemed to grow dimmer with every step closer to the Substation. As the crowd moved, I could see glimpses of the metal doors of the Substation which were now wide open, funneling people inside.
I also quickened my pace, although the music did not have the same hold over me as it did with the other townsfolk. I could not tell why. Maybe it was only a trick of my mind and everybody else was also heading towards the Substation, only to find out what was happening while considering others beside themselves bewitched.
Between the metal doors of the Substation, there was only carrion black darkness. At the same time, I was not afraid to step inside it. My foot found a study iron grating for a floor. Soon my eyes started so see a spartan room with brick walls, of which more than half was taken up by a massive cargo elevator with grated walls. In the other corner of the room there was an old metal staircase made of wrought steel with lots of decorations and embellishments. The people were crowding on this staircase slowly moving downwards. I finally decided to join them.
The staircase was much sturdier and firmer than it had first seemed. I don’t know how many turns it made until I managed to get by the black gigantic machinery of some otherworldly past ages which was attached to the ceiling of the great underground hall. This machinery was connected by various gears, chain and belt drives. Finally, I manage to start seeing a mist-filled floor of the hall. The hall was full of people from one end to the other. In the distance a stage was set up on which the band performed, flanked on either side by massive speakers and concert lights.
In here, I was pretty sure I was hearing real music, real sounds which where vibrating my innards, not just something created by witchcraft which, despite cutting through all other sounds, still remained enticingly distant and ephemeral. However the beguilement of the real music was also strongest. In front of me and around me were the village folk. Tens and tens of villagers I was familiar to. Co-workers from the vodka factory, both those of the same shift as well as those who should have been resting or asleep at home.
I tried to shake and talk to a couple of mu co-workers, Matti and Styopa, but they did respond to me, they weren’t even aware of me being there. Both had their gazes fixed on the stage with their bodies, heads and hands moving along with the music. Soon I also saw the owner of the vodka factory, the Village Dude Peeter was present, as well as the Mayor, Virve and even a couple of Boys from the North. The latter were not throwing their hand in the air, but from the way they were nodding their heads along with the music, they too were obviously affected. They didn’t even bother hiding the fact that they were hovering just a few centimeters off the floor.
What was going on here? Why was I the only one this did not affect?
The band on the stage started with a new song which seemed to be about a bloody forest. Some moments after that, I started to sense that something was again changing. There were flashes of something I could not be sure of. For a moment I was sure to see trees, a black sky above me, and suddenly the strange machinery under the concrete ceiling was back. For a moment I even felt a cold fresh breeze which felt like heaven in this stagnant underhall. And also for a moment I no longer saw the stage and the band playing on it but a huge fire in the forest and the band playing on the other side of said flame.
And then suddenly… I do not know how it happened… we were no longer in a gigantic hall under the Substation. We were on a clearing in the Forbidden Forest. And nobody noticed it. A clearing so familiar to me from my youth. On the left, not far, were the concrete posts with rusty barbed wire fastened to them. I could also see a sliver of the brighter sky there, but above my head hung an inordinately dark summer sky. It all seemed very fitting for the Forbidden Forest, all around us were only trees, and before us was a gigantic fire, behind which and it also seemed, in the middle of which, the band was playing. And a moment later everything flashed back into the hall under the Substation.
And yet, all this could not have been only a phantasm of mine. The underhall was still full of cool and fresh forest air. The air was clear like the moonlight and tasted of evening dew on tall grass. And nobody beside me had noticed. The concert continued, the song changed, but people had no idea what was going on. How the site of the concert was changing from Substation into the Forbidden Forest and then back into the Substation. I saw some more flashes, I felt a few more breaths of fresh forest air, a few more glimpses of dark sky, starlight and even tastings of nighttime dew in my nostrils and I finally started to understand.
This blinking between the Substation and the Forbidden Forest was not incidental. It was happening in tune with the passages in the music played. The stronger the band played, the deeper under it’s influence the people fell, the more people were under the influence, the longer the duration of blinks into the Forbidden Forest stretched. Until finally, during a slow and breathtakingly beautiful guitar solo of a particular song, when people reacting to every single note was clearly visible, ...it did not blink back into the underhall.
At the same time people were still gathering. But not by descending the staircase, which was curiously still there, growing out of the dirty ground and reaching into the sky, turning into moonlight a few stories up. Instead they were appearing from everywhere around the clearing. Lots of strange people in weird old-fashioned peasant clothes. All of them beguiled by the music, just like the townsfolk, not even minding the fact that the music could in no way fit into their world and time. And still there seemed to be something in this music for them as well. Something they could not deny. For them as well, this music carried some kind of life force, a reflection of the power which has brought them here. The power which had not let them fade into smoke, morning dew and moonlight after they died.
“You are… aware, right?” I suddenly heard a female voice addressing me. “The music does not hold this power over you?”
Before me stood the girl in black. A bit shorter than I was. No less than seventeen years of age by the looks of it. Knee high leather boots with flat soles, simple black knee high skirt, a black cardigan and dark loose hair reaching down to about elbow level. The girl everybody in town was talking about. The girl who was connected with the disappearance of the Forest Lake, who took photos of people and played guitar in Luiga.
“I have done other stuff as well.” The girl said.
“What?!” I asked with trepidation in my mind, suddenly understanding. “You can read my thoughts!?”
“I can hear them, not read them.” She said. “Just like you here are hearing everybody else’s thoughts.”
“I am not.” I shook my head. “I am only hearing this music.”
“This music is the only thing in everybody’s mind right now. They have no other thoughts. Not the village folk, not the forest folk.”
“Who are you?” I asked. “What’s going on here?”
“The first question is much harder to answer than the second one.” The girl smiled. “And you already know who I am. That’s enough for now. What’s going on is that this is a concert, a bewitched concert. However… …their own fault?”
“Err...” I could not say anything. I understood she asked me a question, but I could not understand what the question was about. Or I couldn’t hear it... Or something.
“I don’t know how exactly, but they brought on themselves.” She continued. “Everybody who is currently here, everybody who is still gathering here is themselves at fault for being bewitched by the music.”
“Me too?” I asked. “What did I do?”
“I don’t know if you too. It does not seem like it because you are not enchanted by the music like the others. I don’t know what exactly happened, maybe they went to see the witch and she was in a bad mood. Maybe somebody made a deal with the fairies in the name of the whole town and then broke his word. Maybe somebody ridiculed the Forbidden Forest and it decided to respond. There are many possibilities here. The balance of the world is weaker here and the world is much stronger in deciding what ii is willing to put up with and what it is not. Of course, the fact that Sõjaruun was invoked, means that something serious is going on.”
“Sõjaruun? Is that the band’s name?” I asked.
“That is their name, that is their soul and that is the method to invoke them. To get a band to perform somewhere is a simple matter, but to invoke the music created and given life by said band… that is something altogether different.”
“And this is what has happened here?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “Either by design or by incidence, but somebody invoked them and their music, called them out of the world that is their home. This music, be it with or without the bewitchment, reflects the ancient life force of the country folk. That’s why why it enchants people this easily. Both those that are still living, as well as those who who have already gone or those who have not come yet. That’s why the forest folk is here. All of those who have died in the Forbidden Forest in this way or that and have become the trees and plants you see here.”
“But how… what can I do?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” She smiled again. “But I do know what’s gonna happen next. If nothing intervenes, the people here will continue to be enchanted until the band finishes their performance. However, should they stay in here for much longer while mingling with the forest folk, they may become forest folk themselves. Which means once the band finishes their performance and morning dawns, they will have to freeze in place and turn into various plants growing in the clearing.
“Wait… what!?” I asked, not being able to believe this girl.
“Until the next concert. Or the next blue moon.” She said. “Whenever those come to pass. However, recently something similar happened to some girl. But not by natural witchcraft but by artificial one. Of course, she did not become forest folk but rather moon folk. Maybe they are different kinds of witcheries...”
“But that means…!” I shouted.
“It means two things.” The girl continued in a calm tone. “Firstly, that by now it is too late to do anything to keep this from happening. Measures should have been taken before somebody invoked their music like this. Maybe even before the band Sõjaruun arrived in Nameless Town. And secondly, even if everything seems lost and hopeless, this artificial witchery can be used to turn everything back, if you manage to use it the right way. The girl I mentioned before… in her disappearance all the elements came together as a coincidence. And something happened that was similar to this thing here...”
She fell in pensive silence.
“There is another chance though...” She then said. “This might all be a dream.”
“A dream?” I asked, suddenly sensing that it was starting to get more and more difficult to resist the music.
“Yes. Either your consciousness has been brought forward in time, or… much more likely that a memory of what happens in the future has been inserted into your dreaming consciousness by a concentrated burst of tachyons. Perhaps by your own self. It is very hard to overcome the field of consciousness and to transmit memories directly. The Russians did some experimenting with this in Center Station during the nineteen-...”
“Hey! Hey sleepyhead!” a familiar voice was ripping me away from the crowded clearing in the middle of the Forbidden Forest.
“...-seventies...”
I opened my eyes and lifted my head off the bar counter.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I stared wearily at Styopa’s smiling face.
“I understand you had a hard and tiring shift but I would ba never guessed that you’d fall asleep right at the bar counter before even finishing your beer.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Almost ten already.” Styopa said, brushing his gray beard with his fingers. “It’s time for you to go home.”
“Hey barkeep!” Styopa turned towards Leo. “Give this guy a small shot of your most disgusting drink which awakes him at once and gives his mind a thorough clean!”
A shot glass full of suspicious dark brown liquid appeared in front of me. I remained staring at it with no feeling, trying frantically to keep everything I saw in my dream in my mind. Even if it was only a dream, it was too real. There was to much important within to let it all be forgotten.
“What is this?” I asked, still staring at the shot glass.
“Some kind of old Chinese snake vodka.” Leopold said. “During the Soviet era some traveling salesman was selling it. He said it was the best thing ever for a man’s health and one shot in the evening would make me bed women all night long. So, in my stupidity I bought a whole case. It had none of the promised effect but I did find that it kills morning grogginess so fast that coffee is no longer necessary.”
“Where’s the doctor?” I asked, looking around. “And Rops, and the village hags and Fishy George?”
“All gone already.” Leopold said. “They finished their talks and decided in unison that this coming Thursday, they will not go and see what kind of music those youngsters from Pölve are making.”
“The boys from Pölve...” I mused.
Suddenly I no longer needed to force myself to remember the dream I had, at that very moment the whole dream with every particular was seared into my mind.
“So it was not a dream?” I asked.
“You still cannot tell the difference between the dreamworld and the real world?” Maybe you should really drink less like doctor Sare recommended you do when you started to fall away. Drink your snake vodka and let’s go.”
“So it was a dream?” I asked in a low voice. “Fine.”
I emptied the shot glass in front of me and then felt it using all it’s snake might to crawl back up inside me. Alcoholic, bitter, pungent like pepper. And right away it twisted my tongue, my throat and my stomach into knots.
“Vot-vot!” Styopa said. “And the sleep is all gone!”
“Good night, Leo.” I got up from the stool and walked out of the bar into a dim summer evening.
The snake vodka had not helped one bit, I still felt cold and drowsy. Slowly, I walked across the street towards South, towards the cottages by the old graveyard. Styopa walked alongside me, and ignited a cigarette.
“You do remember, don’t you?”
I stopped. Before me stood the girl in black. She used her back to lean against a concrete fence post. This same girl I had seen in my dream.
“You remember the dream you had, don’t you?” She asked again.
“It was only a dream.” I said.
“Are you sure?” She asked, smiling. “Maybe it is time to start looking into what happened to that girl?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I said. “Go away.”
“On the night of the coming Thursday...” The girl started. “The concert takes place. I myself cannot attend it, I have other affairs to attend to, but...”
“Hey, are you coming?” Styopa asked.
“Yea, I’m coming. I’m coming.” I replied to my friend who had made it much further ahead. “I am still talking to that girl dressed in black.”
“What girl?” Styopa asked.
“With me, I guess.” The girl said, approaching Styopa from the darkness ahead of him. “In his opinion at least.” She smiled. “One of you drank Leopold’s snake vodka, didn’t you? I have told him numerous times that the only place fit for it is a fuel tank. But no, he has to continue selling it to the public.”
“My mistake.” Styopa said. “Really.”
“Well, if you limited yourself to only one shot, then maybe you’re still fine. Maybe you won’t go blind.” She smiled.
“Hey,… what’s your name?” I asked.
“Mariann.” She said. “I thought everybody in town already knew it.”
“Not all of us went to see the sick bleeding tree in the forest.” I said. “Some of us had to go to work.”
“Don’t forget then.” The girl in black was suddenly standing beside me and was holding my hand. “Not your dream, nor what I told you. You have until the next Thursday.”
*
It was a dream. It had to be a dream. One long dream I only awoke from when next morning came. But today is already Wednesday. And people tell that the boys from Pölve are already coming. The name of their band is… Sõjaruun.