I am back. I am finally back. I don’t know how it happened. When I think back to it, it seems like one single long and impossible dream. Somehow, in the light of the Moon and the Stars, I escaped hell I was bound to. After this is journeyed across fields of dream, bogs of delirium, I forded streams of forgetfulness and climbed over the ramparts of the world. I saw an uncountable number or worlds, I experienced numerous parallel histories retold to me by wrong strange stars and the pale Moon.
And then, at the end of this unexplainable labyrinth, I found myself on a familiar potholed gravel road. The road which passed the rusty chain link fence bordering the cottage district, made a broad turn to the right and continued straight towards the base. This was the road to the Base. It was also the road home. To your grandparents’ farmhouse. To the place where it all began. And the place where it must all end.
I finally understand how your grandmother must have felt in those final years. I feel the same. You are here and yet you are not. Every single thing around me says that you are here and at the same time they so clearly indicate that something is missing. You. The paths you walked, the tracks you left behind. Your bed, the radio equipment. Again and again I find myself sitting on the second floor and waiting. That the rain would return, beat against the roof and the windows, I wait for the cold wind, dark night, hail. So I could sink deeper and deeper into memories. Maybe the heavens and the forest will smile to me and I can pull you out of my memories. Back into this world. Like the old times.
Do you still remember the old times? That quiet fall after grandfather had died? The cold rain, the bare trees, the dark nights when all of nature sudden fell silent. Fall which looked like in the Moominvalley but heavier, blacker, darker, wetter and colder. When even fire in stove could not offer any warmth. When incandescent bulbs could offer no more light than candles.
Grandmother recognized something in all this. She knew something we did not. A secret knowledge her parents and grandparents had also known, but not father or mother of yours or mine. Knowledge that only traveled from grandparents to grandchildren because only the elderly and the very young possessed the common language the adults did not understand. The elderly who had once again started to believe in magic, having seen everything going on in the world. And children who believed in magic because they had not yet seen enough.
To the children they were supernatural, sometimes frightening stories behind which one could not imagine any real practice. To the old, there was only practice, to tell children as stories and thus to also contemplate and try to overcome the unexplainable mystery of the matter.
*
This happened not long after grandpa died. After he had went to some abandoned base in the forest and found metal objects in the shape of a star halo. He brought them home and laid them around the well as decoration. Dragging those pieces home had been hard work and afterwards grandpa spent several days in bed recuperating, with a deathly gray countenance. But as time passed, people in the town learned that things weren’t as simple as grandpa had said. Grandpa had not gone to the base hidden in the forest to only look for metal. And he had also not gone alone. But he was the only one to return.
Grandpa never told anybody what happened in the base, who he had gone with and what happened to the others. Grandpa stayed quiet even when the militsiya came to talk to him. From that day forward he did not say much on anything any more. Also, with every passing day, he grew weaker and weaker. Everybody could see that. At the beginning of the week, it was only slightly difficult to go up the stairs, but by the end of the week even getting out of the bed required the use of a cane. By the end of the following week he was no longer able to even turn the other side in bed and a few days later he closed his eyes for the final time.
And then, a month after grandpa’s death when grandma had been crying every night, something changed. Grandma changed. All of nature changed. Evenings and nights turned deathly quiet. Darkness as a substance flooded in through the smallest of cracks and nights were full of foggy rain. Maybe grandma felt this change and that’s why she again grew more active. She baked cake, burnt candles, mixed the fire in the stove and fireplace. Dusted grandpa’s rocking chair which sat in front of the fire place. And every night she placed a small table next to the rocking chair where she put a shot glass, a bottle of vodka, a pack of cigarettes and a small bowl of gruel. She then ignited a lone candle. She shut of all other lighting in the house and sent us, the children, upstairs with a stern order to not come back down. After which she sat alone in the dark.
At that time we could not fathom what she was doing or why. Maybe on these cold autumn nights she missed grandpa so bad that she could not be alone and had to change the air in the house. To let herself imagine that grandpa was back, that he was alive again. As if grandma was left out from having the dreams we children had had, in which grandpa came to explain how he ad fallen ill, how he had died and how now he was all better.
At first we listened to grandma. But after she had sat and waited like this for several nights, a night came when we did not listen and sneaked back down the stairs. My pajamas, your nightgown. Back then we were like brother and sister. It was devastating to see grandma like this. Sitting and waiting for something which was not possible. That could never happen. Grandpa was dead and buried. We all went to the village church, we all said our goodbyes. We were children, but even we knew that grandpa would never return.
And so, each following night, after grandma had sent us upstairs, we came back down, as silently as possible and his behind the low bookshelf. From behind the bookshelf we actually had a great view on the fireplace and the rocking chair and the table in front of it, as well as the carpet-covered sofa grandma was sitting in. Our wish was to secretly accompany grandma, to sit and wait alongside her even if she did not want us there. Even if nothing happened.
But at one night something did happen. It may have been about two weeks after grandma became active again. A Friday night. When grandma was sitting on the couch just like on many nights before. And we were hiding behind the bookshelf like on many nights before. When everything was set ready on the small table near the rocking chair.
This night was somehow more special. Darkness was darker, The night was colder. Already at ten o’clock in the evening the dew turned into white frost and turned the grass into a glittering field of pale gray. It didn’t matter that the preceding night had been quite warm.
Grandma sat on the sofa between the carpets and blankets and waited. We were in our place behind the bookshelf. It was deathly silent. The only thing making more sound than our own hearts was the fire crackling in the wood stove. My eyes were fixed on the rocking chair near the wood stove. It had struck half past eleven in the night when I felt a cold draft rush though the house as if a window had been left open. But all the windows were closed. For a moment I looked away from the rocking chair and lowered my gaze, feeling how my body shuddered with the cold.
I could only regain my focus when you pulled my sleeve. Even before my eyes found the rocking chair again, I heard wood squeaking. The empty rocking chair was going back and forth as if somebody had pushed it. As if the wind itself was now rocking it. But there could be no wind in the room. Even that cold tide which had passed us was not enough to rock the chair. The empty chair kept rocking back and forth. The suddenly, the candle went out.
It wasn’t the wind which had extinguished the candle. It also wasn’t somebody quenching the flame with a bell or one’s fingers. The flame just died, as if all air had suddenly disappeared. I kept contemplating the disappearance of the for quite some time before I noticed that the squeaking of the rocking chair had changed. It no longer squeaked like an empty rocking chair, instead there was some weight to it. As if somebody was sitting there. I directed my gaze back towards it, but I could see nothing else besides the chair rocking.
Somehow, the room had grown even darker than before. We had been sitting behind the book shelf in the dark room for quite some time and our eyes had already adjusted to the darkness, but now it felt like they no longer were. The glow of fire emanating from the wood stove which had lit up the whole room, had receded into a dull red shine of the ashes barely reaching beyond the stove itself. Grandma and the sofa were still somehow visible, but the rocking chair… I could not say that I did not see the rocking chair but I could not see if anybody was sitting there. And at the same time it felt like somebody was sitting there. A black figure with the same color as the darkness surrounding it, who seemed to spread darkness all around itself. As if darkness were not the lack of light but a fog or a substance unto its own.
During a single blink I did see the figure sitting in the rocking chair. When a match ignited near his face to light up a cigarette. It is hard to describe what I saw. It was grandpa. But it also wasn’t. It was somebody or something that looked like grandpa, but wasn’t. It looked like a doll, as if somebody had made a life-sized doll which looked surprisingly similar to grandpa and could freely move itself.
I could not pick between excitement and fear. I felt both. Fear, because I could not make sense of what I was seeing, and excited, because it was still grandpa. It mattered little that he was slightly different. Being dead did make people look different, nothing special about that. In his coffin he had also looked different than when alive. But still! He was back!
“Dear, is it really you?” Grandma asked.
“It is really me.” The figure replied in a hoarse bloodcurdling tone. “Did I not tell you that there will be nights when I can come back. Like this one. You called for me. You wanted me to return.”
“I did!” Grandma said. “What happened to you!? Why did you come back from the forest like that?”
“Why…?” Grandpa sighed. “What does it matter now?”
The room was filled with the smell of wet cigarette smoke. The end of the cigarette started to glow, but this could not illuminate the figure. It poured itself some vodka and ate the gruel with the sound of metal spoon scraping against the porcelain.
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“Why did you return?” Grandma asked, fear had suddenly appeared in her voice.
“Because you called. Because I could. Because you wanted so badly to see me again. Now I am here. Come and look at me.”
You pulled my sleeve again.
“Let’s go upstairs, I don’t want to see it!” You whispered to me.
“But it’s grandpa!” I whispered back.
Your following words were to me like witch’s words. Something that was said using simple words but the meaning was not at all simple.
“It is not grandpa.” You said. “It is wearing grandpa. Let’s leave.”
I wanted to reply something else to you but was happening in the room got my attention once again.
“You are not my dear.” Grandma said quietly. “You are not my dear!” She hissed again, loudly. “Go back to hell, you!” She screeched, throwing a bible at the rocking chair.
Suddenly, the room was again full of light. Well, as much light as the fire in the wood stove could offer. The empty rocking chair was rocking back and forth. Shot of vodka on the table had tumbled over, the bottle was still upright, the bowl with the gruel had fallen on the floor and broken.
Grandma got up from the sofa and almost immediately she found us peeking out from behind the bookshelf. I have never seen her that mad before or since that night.
“You saw it didn’t you!?” She asked sternly. “You saw it, didn’t you!? You will never speak of it to anybody if you ever want to come here again! Now go to bed! Right now!”
She grabbed my shirt and your shoulder and dragged us upstairs, and then shut the hatch and locked it. I tried the hatch, but it was secured and would not budge. My gaze moved to you, as you weakly got up and went to your bed.
“Rheya.” I wanted to say something, but could not find the right words.
“It wasn’t grandpa. It was only wearing grandpa.” You said again.
But I did see something else when grandma was dragging us upstairs. Just for a single moment. Something I did not want to tell Rheya, something she had definitely not noticed as she was twisting in grandma’s grasp. I saw somebody’s hand picking the bible up from the floor and wiping dust off it. It was grandpa’s hand.
*
“Because that was grandpa. That finally was grandpa.”
Your voice. Your voice awoke me from my memories. In this empty house. Right here, in front of the quietly burning wood stove. I opened my eyes again and looked around to see nobody. I was alone. And yet I did not feel alone. But in your grandparents’ home this feeling was nothing special. According to grandpa, he had often felt the presences of his mother, father and even uncles and aunts. Everybody who rested in the church yard in the Nameless Town.
You too were able to sense their presences, to see them in dark corners of rooms and in mysterious twitches. I never understood that. I was not that sensitive, and that was always the defining difference between me and the locals, no matter what I did. And thus I couldn’t even now be sure if I really heard your voice in my ears or only in my mind. Whether I was sleeping or awake.
“Is there a difference whether you’re sleeping or awake?” You asked again. “I am here, that is all that matters. And that you see and hear me.”
Death-like silence hanging in the air following your words. My head was completely without a thought. Finally I again heard the wind beating tree branches against the building.
“Where are you?” I finally dared to ask.
“Here, right beside you.” You replied almost immediately.
I looked about myself once again. I was most certainly dreaming. I had to be. Before remembering grandma’s nightly meeting, I had reach upstairs to your bed and the radio, but now I was sitting in the same place where grandma had sat in my memories – on the sofa near the wood stove. But the room was illuminated with incandescent light.
“You cannot see me but I am here.” You said in a serious tone. “I have always been here, but only today there is such a rare moment.”
“Why today?” I asked. “Why can I not see you but I can hear? Is it again like that dream in the forest, on our old playground?”
“No. This is not a dream. You can hear me but not see me, because there is a veil between us. I am here right next to you, look!”
Following your music-like voice, I saw how a cotton sheet on the sofa started to move, and for a moment, the contours of female fingers appeared in it. Even surprising myself, I grabbed for the fingers and felt a jolt go through me when I did not find merely fabric between my fingers but also somebody’s slim and frail fingers.
“Can you feel it?” A question was asked. It no longer mattered whether it was in my ears or in my mind.
Invisible fingers in the sheet squeezed mine.
“I am here. Only I am behind the sheet and the veil of the world. I am bending the veil of the world to touch you. For some reason light cannot penetrate the veil but from this side, I can manipulate the veil in such a way that you can hear my words and voice.”
Your fingers were still in my palm. I could not understand what you meant bu the word ‘veil’. I could not understand how you were here and yet how you weren’t. It was still like that one time back in the forest. When I felt and heard you, but I could not see. When you only touched me in the wind.
“How is this possible?” I asked. “Am I sleeping again?”
“No, you are not sleeping although it might seem like that. I am here just like grandpa was in your distant memory when she returned to grandma for a short moment. I am here for the same reason. In the same fashion. Grandpa had reached the other side of the veil when he died, that’s why he was visible. I did not traverse the veil in the same way, that is why I am not. But we could return for the same reason.”
“Why?” I asked.
How come in the same fashion? Were you lost or dead? Grandpa was dead and he returned. You also returned and now you say that in the same way. Are you dead as well? I did not want to believe it. I could not believe it.
“Do you remember why grandma started making preparations two weeks before? Why she waited for grandpa every night for 2 weeks? Why grandpa only came on Friday night? You should remember, the doctor and the pastor also talked about it when grandma died. What did they tell us on that winter day?”
Desperately I tried to remember what you were talking about. It was evidently a conclusion I myself had to reach. Something you could not or did not want to tell me yourself. Yes, grandma was buried in the winter. On a sunny day which was beautiful yet freezing cold. Snow was on the ground. The earth was hard. The pastor said something in his eulogy. Something at that moment I could not understand. Which you too could not understand. You could not tell me what he meant by those words.
“The witch house!” I shouted. “The pastor said something to the tone of if we want to see grandma again, then after the burial we have to go build a fire for the witch!”
“Exactly.” Your voice said, laughing. “The witch is the one who keeps all the keys. Back in that time, grandpa could only return because the witch opened the doors for him. However this also allowed through the one who was wearing grandpa. And I am here too because the witch has opened the door for me. However since I did not die, then luckily nobody can wear me.”
“The witch opened the door?” I asked.
“Yes. When somebody calls out the witch, it can only happen on Thursday night. And on that night a week or two weeks later, the witch will come. But to come here, the witch must traverse several veils. For each veil she has a key. When the witch opens a veil to pass through, then in addition to her, many other forces may pass through, some good, some evil which have either born behind the veils or made it there as an accident. When the witch returns, she locks the veils once again and only the usual ways to traverse the veils remain.”
“But if the witch is here, why is there a veil between you and me?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I can freely traverse all the veils but I cannot cross this last one. But I cane here to tell you something regarding this. I am always here, in this house, in this village in this town. But nobody sees me. I have seen other towns, other places, other things everywhere around here. I have seen grandpa and grandma. I see you every day but it hurts me so that I cannot touch you or talk to you. Only today.”
Tears rolled down my face as I listened to you. Tears flowed, because I could also hear tears in your voice.
“But today I have to tell you something else before there is no more chance to.” You said. “On the night I disappeared, it too was a witch’s night. Somebody had called out the witch for that night. That is the only reason the moon fairies managed to lure me away.”
“The moon fairies?” I asked.
“The moon fairies are like the sisters of the witch. The witch knows...”
You started to say something else, but your voice dissipated into deathly silence. Your fingers in the sheet and in my palm also faded and only the crumpled corner of the sheet remained in my palm.
“Rheya?” I asked. “Rheya? Rheya?!”
*
I cannot recall how many times I shouted your name before I fell to my knees, crying. You were here and then gone again. Like a waking dream.
But then I remembered something. I ran out of the house. Across the yard, across the road and the grass. I ran into the forest without a flashlight or other source of illumination. The night was cold and damp. There was no moon, there were no stars. You had come because the witch had come. You told me that. And I also knew that. Today was the day the Mayor and some other people had gone to meet the witch. Today a week ago was the day they had called for the witch. If the maidens bathing in moonlight were moon fairies as you called them and they were the sisters of the witch then only the witch could help me find you. The witch held the keys. Every key opened a veil. I did not understand what it meant, but there was an idea. There was a veil between you and me. But could this also mean that there was more than one veil between us? Could it be the place the witch was from and where I was, were separated from each other by tens or hundred of veils?
I rushed forward. I needed no light. Grandpa had often warned us not to go to the Forbidden Forest. Not during the day, not during the night. This no longer applied to me. Since you disappeared, I had been to the forest day and night so many times, I had seen so many things that nothing remained that could frighten or endanger me.
I ran by the trailhead leading to the Forest Lake. In the corner of my eye I soon noticed the forgotten church. One moment I was making hooks between the concrete posts carrying barbed wire, the other moment I ran past the old earth cellar with the collapsed floor which had been our playground. I cut across the corner of the overgrown missile base, leaving the Devil’s Bog to my right and ran onward, towards the forest where meeting the witch was supposed to take place.
This here was finally a forest that was unknown to me. Full of tall black trees, lifeless forest floor full of dried needles and thick roots, one could twist their leg on. Still I continued running, across the buffer strip ditches, trails, rocks and stumps. I even climbed over fallen trees. I ran until I was out of breath and I fell down tired to such a degree that I could not even move my body.
There I laid. Under the black forest canopy. In a dark cold night. I cried. I watched my breath dissipate. But there was something else. Something that took me tens of minutes to notice and confirm. The smell of a fire.
I got up and noticed that not far from me a small fire had been built in the forest. But it had gone out. There weren’t even any glowing embers, only smoking remains of logs and old moss-covered concrete blocks surrounding the fire ring. I was late. Meeting with the witch had happened here, but the witch was already gone. And you were gone. Those that had met with the witch had brought their secrets along with them, as they left.
I fell to my knees again. You were gone.
But then suddenly something glittered at me. Bare metal. I looked around. It was pitch black. There was no moon, no stars. I was so deep in the forest that there was no chance I would find my way back home before the light dawned. I was surrounded bu tall black trees. And thick brush surrounded the campsite. The ones who had been sitting by the fire had to feel how the branches poked them in their faces. And still I saw bare metal. Something that could not glitter, did nevertheless.
I headed towards it and found myself before a concrete block by the fire. Rusty steel loops jutted out of the block. And by one of the loops, there was a brass key with a rectangular profile, made by the Vasar lock factory.
Could this have been a key to a veil? I did not know. But at that moment, this key was the most important thing I could ever hope to find.
Rheya! I will find you again!