“Music is interesting.” The girl in black said. “When somebody is making music, doesn’t matter if he writes it or listens to it in his mind or performs it in a way that can be heard, he has a chance to enter into contact with a kind of spirit hidden in the music. Creating music while being in connection with such a spirit, the spirit may take over the creation and start conducting it, making it look like the music is creating itself. The Ancient Greeks were aware of this, that’s why they started to differentiate music into what was prudent for man to be listening and what is not.”

“Is this story related to all those musicians who are suddenly appearing in town?” A young politely dressed man with blonde hair asked.

He did his best not to lean against the car to not make his pleated pants dirty.

“In some aspects it is. The thing is, that around here, things do not happen in the same fashion as in the Big Wide World. The forces are greater. And should a musician make a connection to some sort of a spirit during his creative process, then this spirit may be so strong that it takes over both the musician and the music like a marionette doll. The musician thinks that inspiration has struck him, but really, the spirit is becoming music itself, becoming inseparable from it. It may even burrow into the recording of a track, especially if it is being mastered somewhere deep in the forest.

“This magical spirit will take over the musicians and start guiding them here where the secret and invisible spirit powers are the strongest. Some come for the Institute, some for other establishments past or present. Those called Sõjaruun were the first and luckily they only came for the Forbidden Forest. But more are coming. Lots of musicians have left the Glass City and most of them have not made their connection with such a folksy and positive spirit like the Forbidden Forest.”

“That was positive?” Kadri asked.

She adjusted her black skirt which almost reached the ground, then pushed her long black hair back over her shoulders, still staring at the one everybody kept referring to as the Girl in Black.

“That really scared people.” Kadri continued. “Both dreams about the Substation and the witch, as well as how they ended up performing in the bar.”

“Some musicians have made their connections with demons.” Mariann continued. “That last one that came here, Zorg for example, with the spirit of the Glass City. A connection with a demon is especially bad. The demon will most certainly take over the music and use it to burrow itself into the souls of those who listen to it, like an illness being passed around during the cold season.”

“But how do you know that they have… willingly come here?” Tiina asked. “And won’t they return?”

Mariann looked at the girl leaning against the black car further down the side of it. Eyes of dark brown, hair of dark blonde. Neat bangs with hair ends covering eyebrows.

“The road here and the road back are not the same.” Mariann replied. “Usually when people come here, a mark is left behind of the moment and the place they crossed the boundary. Usually it takes the shape of a car which is left abandoned somewhere regardless of how the people crossing over explain their journey. I cannot say why precisely a car. But I do have a thought about it. The road here is like a lock and a car would be a key. Why one car opes one position of the lock and another opens a different one, that is a question unto it’s own. Maybe nobody beside us hasn’t even noticed this. Zorg, for example, came with the police cruiser from the Glass City, which they say is strangely angular to a spectacular degree and has an evil look to it. Reportedly the car is still hidden in the roadside brush somewhere as it requires a tractor to get out.”

“And?” Siim asked, crossing his hands over a knitted waistcoat.

“Some people have explained that they have unexpectedly found themselves in this place and although they cannot remember how they got here, the first thing they saw when waking up was some kind of an old car.” Kadri said.

“Exactly.” Mariann smiled. “I’ve been to Glass City. Once, many years ago. And the police cars of Glass City are indeed very strange. Big from the outside, small from the inside, low to the ground, with bucket seats, huge wings for downforce and huge wheels. Angular and heavy like small tanks. Something like that cannot fit six people. And according to the band themselves, they came here with all of their instruments and equipment. But if six people cannot fit into a two-door, then neither will six people and all their instruments. And yet...”

“And yet they are performing in the bar.” Siim said.

“Exactly.”

*

“Anyway, some time ago, when I was sitting on the trunk of of car, I told you that the Nameless Town where we are and the real nameless town somewhere further in South are different places. That is not exactly correct. They are different in the sense that there are two of them. But they exists with one on top of another. And at any given point in time it is not possible to say whether we exist in one or the other. We are in both, because they exist as the same precise time and occupying the same space. We maybe in contact with both at the same time without even realizing it. This kind of synchrony or same-timeness and same-placeness of things is a kind of key to understanding what is going on with this place.”

“Does this mean that here one thing can be in two different places at the same time?” Tiina asked.

“Not quite. More likely that here two things can be in one place without coming into conflict with one another. However the question of what “at the same time” means, is a rather difficult one. This is because although the time of the nameless towns can be set atop of each other like a matching punch card pattern, they do not have the same point of origin. There exists an offset between the timelines.”

“So are we or are we not in the Nameless Town, if we are here...” Siim asked, looking around him, “...on an overgrowing concrete landing strip?”

“The simple answer would be that it is impossible to say. We may be freely slipping from one into the other and back without ourselves or anybody around us noticing anything different. That’s the theory. But all theories are generally from the other side of the border crossing and become useless as soon as one crosses over.”

Mariann paused for a moment.

“The things we have talked about, have you seen all of them happening here? You have not, have you? Seems like a completely normal provincial town in Southern Estonia. In the forests, there is an active border trade with the Russians and nobody cares much for the Latvians. And places like Death Woods, Forbidden Forest, Irradiated Woods, and the Combine are old names still carried on the lips of aged country folk rather than actual names for places. And only the oldest of people still talk about the building in the middle of the town as the Institute with a capital I.”

“So we are not.” Kadri said.

“It is still an interesting thought.” Mariann replied. “For example, have you ever heard of Tontla? And I mean the town in this general area, and not a forest of the same in Alutaguse. Of Valgepalõ? By the Lake Talaba? Or of Yuryev?”

“Of Yuryev? You mean to say Tart-...”

“I mean exactly Yuryev.” The girl in black stopped Kadri. “That’s interesting, right? Of the Nameless Town there are two, but there are one of everything else. Why do you think that is? These are different worlds. When we end up in this real Nameless Town then exiting it we cannot get back to where we were before entering it. It may even be a blessing that we cannot get there without passing by the Lake of Forgetfulness first. However, since these two nameless towns are as if placed on top of each other, we can find the signs of that real town everywhere. Whether we want it or not.”

“But where is the Lake of Forgetfulness located?” Siim asked.

“I have no idea where.” Mariann replied. “It would have to be much easier to find than the Town itself. But only for those who really seek it. But not far from the Nameless Town. In theory. In the same county if not in the same parish. Stories say that it is located behind the Underground Base. But how would you go locating the Underground Base from here?”

“It all sounds rather pointless.” Siim said, walking further away and stretching his legs.

“It is rather pointless. In here. But in there things get a lot more interesting.” The girl in black said.

“How do you know all this?”

“Because I’ve been to the Nameless Town. Maybe I am still there. Maybe even now and I am not really realizing that you are only shining through the thin fabric between the worlds. And you are not realizing that I am only shining through.”

Mariann fell silent again, before continuing.

“And if you ask why exactly here then... nobody really visits old airfields. Not here and not there. Which mean that the world fabric has had time to recover and grow thin again, as usually it is the action and hustling of people which wear it thick. Or, the inverse may be true, and they have worn it thick here. I have also no idea how it works. But I know that should all of us be in different Nameless Towns... if all of us are in different towns then in none of them would anybody consider it weird that a person in thought is leaning on a car in the middle of a disused overgrowing airfield.”

“Wait, is this not your car?” Siim suddenly got interested. “I had always thought it to be yours.”

“Nope. I have no idea whose car it is. Maybe it is not important. Maybe it has all the importance of the world. Because like the Nameless Town, this car is everywhere. Maybe a little different in every place, but still the same. Like a common center.”

“Like the Nameless Town?” Kadri asked. “Because it is a key?”

“Not quite. It is a center because it is an anchor. A weight on the world fabric pushing it into contact with another one. The way it is the key is a property independent of that. However I have no idea how it is possible that something that is a composite and impermanent like a passenger car has been turned into some… thing like this. But it is interesting that none of you know whose car it is.”

She smiled, thinking of something else.

“Does any of you even know how we got here…?”

“We…,” Siim started. “I…, we…, I cannot remember.” He kept staring at the girl in black with some trepidation. “I cannot remember! Your god damn stories have made it into my mind and stated to affect it!”

“Exactly. This may give some sense that I might be right. Things are definitely not as they seem.”

*

“Do you know how the town of Tontla has gained it’s name? Do you know know that it is not a town at all? Despite the cobblestone paving everywhere and the low 2 story houses built in the mid 1800s on one side of the main street and the three and four story building on the other side of the street built in the turn of the century in German Art Noveau and Jugendstil. Despite those, Tontla was still a village. Even the two massive churches too big for a small village, each built on the opposite side of the main street, were not enough for to make it a town. Once in a long time ago a courier was dispatched from the Glass City with a missive that gives Tontla the rights of a town. But as you may see, he has not yet arrived. It is possible he won’t arrive before the world ends.”

“I have heard of the Tontla bog were all sorts of weird things happen in the night.” Tiina said.

“Exactly. Tontla is a peat village. Tontla village was established when they started to drain the Tontla bog and started taking peat peat out of it. That happened way before the first World War. At the turn of the century perhaps. That’s why the rail connection. However as time passed, peat lost it’s importance, people found other jobs. But Tontla remained. All of it’s wealth also remained. Also, there were stories that not all the wealth came from peat. Not from the peat itself, but what was hidden beneath that peat. These stories did not cease even when the Russians returned in ‘39 and built Agroprom with all it’s secrets. Agroprom consumed far more peat that people had been extracting during the Republic. It consumed more than was necessary for producing the peat bars for burning in the stoves or to use as fertilizer. It was never revealed what Agropom got up to with the peat. Or why every week tens of carts of the stuff were delivered to secret bases in the Moscow oblast by armored trains.

“Not even the years of war changed anything. The Russians started building the Agroprom, the Germans continued and after the Stalingrad gave it back to the Russians without a single shot fired.”

“Without a single shot?” Siim was surprised. “I sincerely doubt it, the Germans have always demolished important building and structures when retreating.”

“They have, without exception.” Mariann said. “But not here. It was considered too dangerous. And by that time, the Germans had already burned themselves with their thoughtless activities. The whole Schwartze Sonne division had been reduced to a single dusty folder in the half-burnt archive of the Ahnenerbe.”

“Since the Russian era, all sorts of things have been told of Tontla.” Kadri said. “Always have been.”

“Always have been. But why do you think that Tontla is considered this important? Why was it necessary for Agroprom to be built on that small hill where it is, while the experimental fields were located around the Nameless Town? There are many ideas regarding that. For example, did you know that Tontla has a small park built on the edge of the cliff? I think they even named it the Edge park. It affords a wonderful view to the Nameless town and the roads and fields not obscured by the forest.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“However if you try to look for Tontla and the Edge park from the Nameless Town, it is not even clear which direction one should look at to see it. Although they say that the forest is in the way, sometimes it seems that the sky itself is in the way. As if the dome of the sky above the Nameless Town has it’s edge touch the ground before it reaches Tontla. Or maybe the transparency of the atmosphere varies exactly in that singular direction. However on some rare occasions, some local crazies here in the Nameless town have seen the hills and the buildings above the forest. Sometimes only in the corner of their eye, sometimes even longer. Images have been drawn and painted, but there is not a single clear photograph. Of the unclear ones there are several albums’ worth. Scores of people have gone into the forest trying to locate the hill or the cliff face atop which the houses should be located but nothing has come of it.

“There is even a large picture book the locals sell to the tourists, filled with photos of all the strange things that have appeared here. Photos which you can neither authenticate as real nor as fake. Neither is is possible to tell whether they were really taken around here, or are they from the Big World or that other nameless town. The subtitle of the book is a very significant “Silver Halide Does Not Lie”.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Siim asked.

“It has to do with everything being planned and premeditated. The choice of buildings and building sites, the skill of the builders to make use of the strange properties in this place, perhaps even add to them. The Edge park offers the common man a first chance to see if something has gone terribly wrong in the Institute or the Substation, the Center Station, Train Yard or in the cottage district. From simple explosions to everything that people cannot find the right language for until they sit at length at a glass of vodka.”

“And the stories? Of Tontla?” Tiina asked.

“The town of Tontla has gained it’s name from the bog of Tontla. The bog has got its name from how many people have drowned there during the centuries and how often the foxlights can be seen there. Part of the mystery is that during the past 100 years, nobody has seen fog in the Tontla bog. The darkness is permeating but always clear. This is also why the foxlights are much more visible. Every single night. They can even be seen in the winter. The Tontla bog never freezing over is another strange sign. The falling snow never makes it to the swamp and despite the cold, the bog lakes never get covered in ice.”

“I think you have told much the same stories about the Devil’s Bog, how it has gained its name for how many people have stayed there.” Siim remarked.

“Most certainly I have not.” Mariann said. “Tontla bog is not similar at all to the Devil’s Bog, or to the Heavenmire. Despite the latter two being nearby to one another. To say what you said is to insult the bog. And we have a pretty good understanding what happens to people who cannot appreciate a bog. The Devil’s Bog has been ruined by the willful but maybe unknowing actions. The Russians, Metsla. Tontla was created by involuntary actions of man.

“The Devil’s Bog to an experienced person is as safe as their own back yard, same with the Forbidden Forest, despite everything people have seen happening in them. But Tontla swamp can swallow even an experienced hiker as he had never existed. Something in there interrupts the minds of men, and to a much greater degree and towards a different direction than in the Forest or in the Devil’s bog. That’s why there are not many who have returned from that place alive.

“When the village of Tontla was first built before the war, the Russians had tried to build a rail line straight through the bog. But nothing came of it. Draining it did not make the ground sufficiently dry and the bog ponds and kolks are essentially bottomless, as none of the steel or concrete pillars rammed into them found any sure footing nor reached bedrock to be attached to. All disappeared into the waters as if nothing was there. The say there’s a place where a pair of rails attached to wooden ties juts out of the water at an obtuse angle, looking like the rear of the ship after the front has sunken into shallow waters.

“Some say that on sunny days, one can even hear a quiet sound of the carts rolling on rails near them. Which is especially weird. Maybe that is a place where sounds from some other Tontla bog echo through, a place where the railway was successfully finished and put into use. Or maybe the bog is remembering the times passed when the sounds of the train on rails could have reached that area of the bog.

“After that fiasco it was decided that a long and meandering line was better that trying to break through the bog towards the South. And even that rail line had a whole set of safety rules for its use which was followed to a T.”

“What kind of rules?” Siim asked.

“Like forbidding all stops within the limits of the bog at nighttime. Even emergency stops. The doors and windows were to be shut, people were ordered to stay away from the windows and under no circumstances were they allowed to take a look outside. All carriages ferrying people or sensitive documents had to be overpressured. Also, should a person while traversing the bog either jump or fall off the train, he would be considered irreversibly contaminated and would be shot on sight if he survived and returned to any of the bases afterwards.”

“Bullshit.” Siim said.

“How many were there who fell out and got shot?” Kadri asked.

“There were far fewer shot that there were those who jumped off the train into the bog. Life went on and if one did not manage to get a bullet from their old friends, they usually hiked out of the bog, came to one of the three towns here and found a job. Soon, nobody cared where they were from. One could even use their gun to make a living as the need for local mercenaries to be used as security detail in dangerous places was great. Of course, being blacklisted by one of the bases meant that exiting this area was no longer allowed. On the border of the county you were turned back at gunpoint.

“The immigrated Russians living in bases had a much more darker vision and darker experiences in this place and thus they honestly believed that to be tied down here was tantamount to death sentence. Of course, the nature also treated the cadre officers differently. Those who jumped or were pushed off the trains in the bogs had to prove themselves and soon became accepted as locals. They even learned the language of the country folk, as without it, they could not get by.

“Also, they say that on the other side of Tontla bog, there is a tar lake. One of five or six in the world.”

“A tar lake? You mean like LaBrea? Full of bituminous tar?” Siim asked in a skeptical tone.

“Yes. I know there are no suitable rock types in these lands for tar, but still, due to some kind of chance or a weird past event, there is a tar lake. Or rather a pond, as it measures about 4 meters by 5 meters.”

“Do not tell us that you have been by it.” the young man continued.

“To reach it, it is about a day’s hike around the Tontla bog.” She smiled. “I usually avoid such hikes if I can. If one starts early morning then by dark they might make it. But even if one has light, it would be better to spend the night on solid ground. Looking for it in the dark may easily make a person its permanent resident and in the dark it is much harder to keep away from the Tontla bog.”

“Tell about the ufo as well then.” Kadri said.

“Of the ufo? Very well. To speak of that we must first speak about the foxlights, the marras, as well as the gray sickness living in the bog. Old folks have many tales about the workers who drained the bog or who cut the peat from the bog. Some of them fell ill with some strange illness which the doctors could neither treat nor explain. They tired easily, lost all appetite, developed cold shivers and high fever, some started losing their hair.

“The regular medication for cold had no effect. The only cure was a long rest far away from the Tontla bog. Although there are stories of locals who had received help from their local witch. They had to travel 7 circles around the Tontla bog while sick and would then find the moss-walled witch house under a big willow tree on the border of the bog and the forest.

“The gray sickness is probably still floating around in Tontla bog. Some witch had used the secret words to say the sickness out loud a long time ago and due to the strange properties of this place, the curse has become stuck in the bog air, like radio transmissions get stuck into aether or a phone call gets stuck in the wires. And in the right kind of weather, it leaks out.”

“That sounds like a ghost. The gray sickness is a ghost making people sick?” Tiina asked.

“The gray sickness living in Tontla bog might be.” The girl in black said. “In addition to the weird sickness and the foxlights, to which a clear reason has never been found, sometimes during the night people can also hear cries and screams of a woman, carried by the wind. Some have even seen a lone woman with black matted hair and a dirty dress torn to shreds, sitting on an old trunk or a fallen log. Her skin is as pale as death, eyes are as black as space and her scream will rob a person of his consciousness.”

“How is that connected to the ufo?” Siim asked.

“For a long time, stories like this were told by women in saunas and drunk husbands in the bar. It was a given that lots of vodka would accompany work in Tontla bog. One was supposed be ready for a marras having gotten into one’s soul and coming back home with a person when his dat was finished. It was also considered the last entity one would want to meet on on their way home from the bar. But when the Russians tried to build a rail line into the bog the second time, after the Base Agreement in ‘39, that’s when things went to shit. The locals would rather be sent to Siberia than build the railroad into the bog. The construction battallion took major losses as both the dead and those who went mad. Finally the prisoners of war were brought in. They never managed to build a rail line into the bog, but under the layers of peat they found something that most definitely should have been there.”

“A ufo?” Tiina asked.

“In 1940, there was not yet such a definition.” Mariann said. “In none of the languages. But is is interesting to think how fast a special train from Moscow was dispatched, considering that the protocols on how to deal with such a thing were mostly about destroying and burying the object, rather than excavating and researching it. But Hitler was at the door and Stalin needed lifelines.

“In any case, Project Nesno was started. Named for nesnakomiy object or unknown object. And trains started to arrive in Tontla labeled as nesno-shipments. First there were the military forces and then everything necessary to lay the groundwork for Agroprom.”

“So it was a ufo? A flying saucer?” Tiina still wanted to know.

“I don’t know. There was a strange object. Whether it had ever been flying, nobody could say. But it was most certainly not a saucer. A complete excavation of the object was never achieved but the little that was, revealed that it was big. At least 15 meters wide, Seventeen tall and forty long. Shaped like a rectangular cuboid. And it either sat on or had as its base, a rectangular frustrum with steps on every side. The material seemed to be either granite or dolomite at first look, but it was impossible to damage with the tools or penetrate with a drill bits.

Reportedly it is still hidden under the Agroprom. Unmoved for fifty years and despite the advance of science and technology during that time, nobody has managed to get any closer to it’s secrets. Back in the 1980s they were still trying to excavate and research it. There were tests to see whether it was transparent to radio waves, x-rays or gamma rays, but none succeeded. It was also impossible to penetrate or ablate the surface with lasers. An electron microscope could also not offer any ideas on the material the object. Thus, when the Soviet Union fell, the officers decided to take the same action they did with the object that resided near the military port of Paldiski. Namely to bury it under hundred of cubic meters or concrete. And that’s it.”

“If it really was some sort of a ufo, then it was so far ahead of us technologically that...” Tiina started wondering out loud.

“Ufo this and ufo that.” Mariann sighed. “The sky people and the star folk are such a frequent guests in these areas that the people should be long since aware of what ships belonging to one or the other look like. And go and ask whoever you like, nobody agrees to call the object buried under Agroprom a ufo. Maybe the thing buried on the Northern coast is really a ufo but not the thing here. However if it something cosmic in origin, it is far ahead in technology but not just for us but also for the sky people. Maybe not so much for the Star people, as the Star people has no need for neither vehicles nor space-time to fly through the cosmic aether.”

“So it might not even be a spaceship in the sense or traveling through space in the common sense, but a space ship in the sense that it travels through space by phasing through it. Meaning the ship stays in place and moves the space around it like tape deck.” Tiina said.

“With regards to that idea, there are two interesting concepts to point out.” Mariann said. “The first being that in the 1960 and 70s, alternative theories of sensing were experimented with to gauge the object. Several psychics from all around the world visited the Nameless town, Tontla and Valgepalõ.”

“So what happened?”

“While Valgepalõ and Tontla were of not much difficulty, the Agroprom and the Nameless town were described as requiring special preparation, with very active presences, whatever that meant. The Officer’s Village, the Underground Base and the Institute were deemed as straight up impossible. Meetings that were supposed to take place within a few days had to be extended to several long weeks for the psychics to acclimate to this place. And in the end it turned out to still be an insufficient time when they finally met the object. Almost all seers, when finally taken to the object, went mad. One of them even grabbed the service weapon of the closest solider and used it to shoot themselves in the head. Many of them ended up at Luiga in the military wing. Some had to be evacuated by aircraft and one showed no reaction. Afterwards it was found out that the one having no reaction was an impostor.”

“And? What did they learn?”

“Nobody knows. On a winter night in 1981, the commanders of Agroprom, the Underground Base, and the Center Station met and agreed to sweep the event under the rug. There might even be a photograph of the meeting on the wall of the bar. In any case, the original reports were destroyed. However the documents these reports were based on might still be hidden somewhere in Center Station archives. If anybody dares to go looking for them.”

“What’s the other interesting thing?” Kadri asked. “You said that there were two things?”

“Oh, right.” Mariann said. “The other thing is that reportedly all work in the Valgepalõ mine was stopped when a second similar object was found. That took place before 1981. The wall at the Southern Forest was erected a few years after that. Not at all because of the forest itself but rather to ensure that nobody could get in or out of the mine.”

*

“There is one other matter to talk about: Olav.”

“Olav. That local horror story children are scared with? “If you don’t listen to your parents then Olav will come out from under your bed and eat you with hair and skin and all.”” Kadri asked.

“The very same. But it is not just a story.” Mariann explained. “A true story. And scaring children with Olav is a taboo in these parts. Everybody does it but everybody also condemns doing it.”

“But what’s Olav’s story then?” Siim asked.

“During the 1930s, Olav was a young village drunk, skirt chaser and a freeloader. He was blessed with outstanding looks which drove the women wild. Long golden hair and beard and deep green eyes. But at the same time his personality was generally disdained and turned almost every woman in town against him. In the end, he settled on three favourite activities: drinking, a woman named Kaarin he often visited and wandering the bog of Tontla when drunk.

“The funny think is that pure vodka was not enough for him. He used ethanol with high purity and gathered different medicinal plants from the bog and the Forbidden Forest. Then leaching these from full moon until lunar eclipse. He then brought the strength down to about 50% alcohol content by volume and then drank that until the next batch was ready. It was not rare for the workers cutting peat to meet not with the marras in the dark bog but instead with Olav, with matted hair and beard, face pale and a mad glint in his eyes from the crazy vodka he drank. One of the workers was a hobbyist photographer and even took a photo of him in that state. A large print was made of that image and it was hung on the front gate of the peat mine to let everybody know that this man was not to be admitted. As Olav was a son of a high ranking military commander, he was only named as Olav K.

“The tales start with the day when the morning shift in the peat mine discovered Kaarin’s dead body on the peat fields. Cold, pale and naked. Olav was arrested right away but as there was nothing to connect him with the crime, he was soon let go.

“Kaarin’s death however affected Olav greatly. He started to drink even more and several times he ended up in the medical section of the Institute. Sometimes due to his blood alcohol content, other times due to being poisoned by the medicinal herbs. Until one day when he rushed into the local constable’s office and announced that he knows who killed Kaarin and why. He said that goblins had done the deed, those that lived under the Tontla bog in their Castle of Secret Stone with a hundred and thirteen steps. And they killed Kaarin because he told and showed her what he sees when drunk on crazy vodka.”

“Wait.” Kadri asked. “Castle made of Secret Stone with one hundred and thirteen steps?”

“Exactly.” Mariann smiled. “The constable did not even bother to arrest Olav. With a grin he threw Olav out of the police station and the next day his story could be read on the last page of the Valgepalõ local paper, where there was also a copy of the image mounted onto the fence of the peat mine. Olav became a laughing stock for young and old alike. Especially for young school children who constantly made fun of him because of the goblins. Until one day Olav returned to the constable with a big stinking bag which he emptied on the constable’s desk.

This time the constable did not laugh. He locked Olav up and called into Valgepalõ to get additional forces to guard Olav. The bag had revealed different body parts of seven local orphans. Arms, legs and heads. From the farm of Olav’s father where he lived alone, they also found seven cut up hearts leaching in a large vat of alchohol.

Quickly, a trial was held and Olav was sentenced to indefinite treatment in a new state of the art psychiatric hospital now known as Luiga. He made his escape in 1939 and for a few years nobody heard a peep of him. But then right before the end of the war in 1945, young school children started going missing. First, only orphans disappeared, but then some children from local farms also went missing.

After this, the village men came together and in the light of torches went to the bog at night to find Olav from the last place he could still hide at. He was found that very same night. Still with golden hair and beard and with a crazy look in his eyes. They also found some bedding and the remains of some children. The villagers did not care much for his explanations, Olav was tired up and drowned right there into the bog pond. His body was then recovered and dragged to the center of Tontla where it was set on fire. As no church allowed his remains to be buried in their yards, he was buried without rites into a nameless grave at Luiga’s patient cemetary.”

“That’s one scary story.” Siim remarked.

“But the story does not end there. Children started to go missing again in 49, then 53, then 59. Due to some good detective work, the militsiya found the culprit in no time. And the culprit very strangely looked like Olav K. The court in Valgepalõ blamed the village men for lynching an innocent man fifteen years prior and sentenced Olav to be shot. In the closing days of 1959, the sentence was carried out. The children however disappered again in 64, 70, 81 and 90.”

“That cannot be the same Olav.” Siim said.

“No it cannot. He’s been killed at least twice or thrice since the forties. But it is. He himself is adamant that the goblins won’t let him die. That he might try as he will to keep away from any people or activities during his madness but he will still end up being discovered in some shithole, gnawing on bones of little children.”

“Was Olav captured after 1990?” Kadri asked.

“I don’t know if he was captured, but right now he is in Luiga. In a secure section under the watchful eye of doctor Sare. So in theory, he should not be going anywhere.”

“In theory?”

“A couple of times there have been alarms that Olav cannot be found, but he always ends up back in his cell. He himself only has one word for it: goblins. But children are still going missing, so there is a chance that he is getting in and out unnoticed. It wouldn’t be a first escape from Luiga, even in recent times.”

*

“By the way, can you see that black car on the edge of the grassland?” Mariann asked.

“What car?” Siim asked.

“Black body, black glass and roof. Front bumper decorated with missile nose cones. Fins with chrome edges in the rear. And rear side doors opening the wrong way.”

“I can see it.” Kadri said.

“I think I can.” Tiina said.

“What car?” Siim asked. “I cannot see a thing.”

“You can’t?” Mariann asked. “Now that’s interesting.”