Leopold’s bar was dark, quiet and almost empty. There was nobody at the counter, only a straight row of stools. The tables were cleaned off and the chairs pushed together around the tables. The drapes were still covering the windows. Large floor clock was still, frozen at the eleventh hour. There was only enough of the faintly gray light in the bar for people to not stumble on each other or the furniture. But it was impossible to read any text smaller than an alphabet book.
But despite all the signs that the life in the bar had stopped for this time, it wasn’t completely empty. In the middle of the hall there was a large circular table. The outer segments of the table were of darker wood and the inner ones of brighter grain. Out of some secret place, Leopold had conjured one of those expandable tables with hidden mechanism that allowed to increase the diameter of the table by at least twofold. There were chairs placed around the table. Some were occupied, others were still empty. There were beer and wine glasses on the table, bottles and a large plate of home made salted French fries.
And one of the people sitting at the table was Leopold himself. To be honest, with this, Leopold had finally achieved what he desired. And now, sitting at this table, he was wondering to himself why hadn’t he done this earlier. The Fire Tail bar at Tontla had long been a thorn in his remaining good eye. How was it that his bar was home to only drunkards either starting or finishing their workdays or jobless freeloaders but anybody with the least capacity for intelligent thought traveled to Tontla instead? Was it him doing something wrong? Was there something wrong with the bar? Did he have to get a harder stick to beat the undesirable crowd out of his bar? Not even letting live music into his bar, those young musicians coming form outside, had not made the situation better.
But now suddenly he had found himself the formula for success. He only had to close his bar at night for an hour or two and then re-open it past midnight. Those that had come to drink had little other options but to head home. Constantly downing news drinks at the limit of the liver to handle ruined one’s sleep which meant that if one could no longer get a drink, sleep was soon upon him. But those that had come to the bar for the people and the company, could also enjoy that company in the park or elsewhere for a few hours. Even when the nights started growing cold.
And although nobody would have ever expected this of Leopold and his bar, and Leopold certainly would have never admitted this to anybody, he did indeed want to see less drunkards in his bar and more people discussing mysterious phenomena and visions. Whether these had taken place awake or asleep. These had been his favorite moments thus far as a barkeep and he wanted for these events to be more frequent. Today, at the Fire Tail pub in Tontla, he had seen the thing he wanted to work towards. Not a bar full of people with a comfortably warm atmosphere but full of intelligent discussion. If one of the participants had to be a witch in black, and the Boys from the North were required to quietly sit in the corner, so be it.
Suddenly, the door to the bar flew open and a group of people that everybody were waiting for, entered. The group who had at first returned to Tontla and then to the Cottage District. Siim, Tiina, Johannes, Viivika and Kadri.
“Are everybody finally present?” Leopold now asked in his best non-grumbling voice. “Can we begin?”
“All who wished to come are here.” Rops noted.
“Robert, you be...” Leopold started to tell him to shut it but then gave up.
“We have a whole lot of questions about the ritual that took place, but Mariann refused to start before you guys arrive.” Said Toomas.
“What for?” Siim asked. “We’re not that important. And it’s not my fault the girls wanted to change their clothes.”
“Because you asked.” Mariann reminded him.
“So what have you been discussing up until now?” Tiina asked.
“We described what took place at the ritual to those people that were not present at the time.” Toomas said.
Only now did Siim really pay attention that there were other people in the bar, people who had not participated in the ritual. Leopold himself, village hags no 4 and 5, and another man of average height. Thin, roughly in his 50s, with small gray eyes, gray beard growth of few days and dirty messy gray hair which looked like a rook’s nest.
“That’s Allan.” Mariann said.
“Allan?” Siim asked. “The radio voice Allan Helde who runs the Nether Lighthouse show!?”
“That’s me.” Allan said.
“Did you already go and get the samples?” Johannes asked, looking at Toomas.
“I did.” Toomas sighed. “I was right. There was nothing left to collect.”
“Hey, we’re starting.” Jaan said.
People sat down around the table. Mariann, Jaan, Toomas, Rops, Leopold, Allan, the village hags and they youths with the black factory limo. A total of 13 people.
“This isn’t quite what we thought we’d find when we arrive.” Johannes said.
“This also isn’t what I thought I would be doing tonight.” Mariann replied. “This was Leopold’s idea. And partly also Allan’s.”
“Allan’s?”
“Well, Leopold’s idea was to do this around one big table.” The radio man started. “My idea was to do it as a single night of discussion. Up until now, I’ve invited people into my studio to talk on various subjects, but it would be pretty interesting to do this discussion as a live show several hours long. But for that, the right people are needed, who have something to say and to think. Therefore, if today’s discussion is interesting, the next time maybe there will be a show.”
“But today, no show?” Leopold asked.
“No, today… let’s say this is the final dry run.” Allan said.
“I will start then.” Toomas said. “Onsite, when the car dissipated into dust, it looked to me like the dust settled onto the ground and into the ditch on the leaves and grass on the roadside. And although the Professor brought me to the hotel quite quickly, and I sped back there with my equipment as fast as I could, there was no longer anything there to be analyzed or collected. No dust, no fluids, nothing! As if nothing had ever been there!”
“That probably was the point of the matter.” Allan said. “You were never meant to find anything. Ghosts also leave nothing tangible behind of themselves.”
“A ghost is a slightly different thing, now isn’t it?” Toomas replied. “I will never believe that it could have been a ghost. We all saw it! Mariann slid her hand along the steel body! You even knocked on the glass!”
“I did slide and I did knock.” Mariann nodded. “It wasn’t a ghost. Although ghosts too can seem like people made of flesh and bone who have mass and who are capable of interacting with physical objects just like people. And you may not figure out that they are ghosts until they fade into thin air right before your eyes.”
“But this wasn’t a ghost?” Toomas asked.
“No, it wasn’t.” Said Mariann.
“What was it then?”
“A ufo.” She replied. “Masked as a car.”
“A ufo masked as a car.” Toomas repeated her words.
“It not quite the correct answer, but it is the simplest way to explain it.” Mariann continued. “We have no concept for what it may be. It is pretty interesting though that what we saw would be best described with the idea of an Evil Eye. We saw how we were released from the effects of an Evil Eye.”
“So like witchery?” Jaan asked.
“Not quite. This has some ancient Estonian wordplay to it. ‘kaema’ means ‘to see’ or ‘to watch.’ ‘kae’ or cataract is an illness of an eye, hindering vision. ‘kaetama’ is ‘to cause harm with Evil Eye’. All these similar word have something to do with vision.”
“Yes, they are.” Toomas agreed. “But I can’t see the connection here.”
“The connection is that something interfered with how our senses experience the world. Or how our brains interpret what our senses experience. Or in other words, it might have been a screen projection or a shadow projection.”
“Is that the same thing those three men in black suits sitting in the corner of the bar used to not be noticed?” Jaan asked.
“In essence, yes.” Said Mariann. “That’s why this is so hard to explain. We saw an old luxury car in perfectly restored condition, but in reality it may well have been three gray aliens sitting on a log. But to our senses, a car was projected. Or to our brain. The difference is whether we were projected some sort of force fields which caused in us sensations like painted steel or glass or even incandescent light. Or by mechanism indiscernible to us, the movement and sensations of our bodies were controlled to simulate metal or glass.”
“That is quite a science fiction of a theory.” Said Allan.
“Indeed.” Agreed Mariann.
“But then, how is it possible to look past it?” Kadri asked.
“People are different. Environment may vary. The projection may resist a million different influences but sometimes there might exist some combination of environmental fields and physical peculiarities of a person or some transient neuro-chemical or neuro-electrical states which allow one to look past the projection.” Explained Mariann.
“Does this mean that the Boys from the North guarding the border and the Men in Black we saw at the bar are the same people?”
“I don’t believe it means that or that they indeed are the same.” Mariann replied. “I also have no idea who the former or the latter are. But they do have commonalities. Both use the same mythology, and for the same reasons. But that is nothing special, Karl Taak for example is doing the same. If we loosen the list of requirements a bit, it would see we’re all doing that very same thing.”
“You probably a bit more than the others.” Rops said.
“Even you, Rops.” Mariann replied. “With your dark Volga and stories about meeting anaks.”
“But they really are coming…!” Rops raised his voice.
“I don’t doubt it.” She replied.
“But what were they doing there?” Allan asked. “Not just at the ritual site but also at the pub?”
“Pretty much the same thing everybody else was doing who had come to Fire Tail or to the ritual site later.”
“They were curious?” Kadri asked.
“Exactly.” Mariann nodded. “They were curious. Something they could not foresee was taking place and they got interested. Didn’t you too? To be honest, I could have given Sulev just a cup with my blood, told him in so many words what to do and sent him alone to the crossroads.”
“And the ritual would have succeeded?” Toomas asked. “Would the ghostly cars have appeared all the same?”
“The ritual would have succeeded, but maybe the response to that would not have been quite what we experienced.” Mariann replied.
“But then why… why five cars in the shape of a pentagram?” Toomas continued.
“In simple terms, there are two ways to perform this ritual. There is a simple way which requires lots of items and participants. Or the complicated way which requires few items and participants but a strictly followed and multi-step ritual. With strict modes of movement, smoking ritual plants as offerings and sacrifices, psychoactive substances and lots of other stuff.”
“Can other rituals performed in the same way?” Toomas asked.
“Many of them can.” Village Hag no 5 replied. “Either many participants and items and a big formation and a short procedure or little people, items, a small formation and a long procedure. These are inversely proportional. In the end, they achieve the same result.”
“How do you know that?” Leopold asked.
“Number 6 probably told her.” Village Hag no 4 said.
“Number 6 knows a ton of these affairs.” No 5 said.
“So all of us present at the time were participating in the ritual?” Jaan asked. “Even those folks in that car that faded into thin air?”
“Yeah.” Said Mariann. “I made Sulev lead the ritual but we all participated.”
“Does this mean that we are all invited to meet the Witch?” Rops asked. “Does this mean all of us can go?”
“Because Sulev led the ritual, right?” Village Hag no5 asked. “So Sulev was the one to invoke the Witch and Sulev is invited and can go. Other can go, but they are not invited. If few of you go then that is still all good. But if all of you go, then that is the same as nobody going.”
“Why?” Asked Allan.
“Because meeting the Witch is not a night of discussion such as the one we’re having right now. Where 12 are asking and one is responding. The Witch has limited time. It may be ten minutes, it may be fifteen, it may be five. Or rather, it is not the time that is limited but her tolerance for listening to the bullshit of simple mortals understanding simple matter the wrong way. Or not understanding them at all.” Explained Mariann.
“But then, who are going to meet the Witch?” Jaan asked. “I get that Sulev is going but who else?” He directed his gaze at the five youths. “Some of you?”
“No not us.” Johannes replied. “We have been recommended to do something else at that time.”
“I can come.” Toomas said. “But as I have no real cause, there really is no point.”
“I want to go.” Rops said. “I have cause, thus I have a point.”
“You have no cause!” Leopold replied. “Your anaks are definitely not the thing to go to the Witch with!”
“But I need to!” The young man argued. “I don’t want them robbing me blind any more!”
“Rops, do you know that the Witch knows witchcraft?” Asked Mariann. “I think you have no good cause to go see the Witch. Your problem has a different solution. But I cannot stop you. Just know that should you anger the Witch, she may conjure an even greater misfortune upon you. For her this as simple as whispering into the wind.”
“Who else then?” Jaan asked.
“I think there is but one person you have not asked this, but who is for certain going.” Mariann said.
“Who? You?”
“No. Unfortunately I have other stuff to do. I can’t.”
“Who then?” Jaan looked at the people sitting around the table, then his face grew serious. “Wait, you mean me?”
“You.” Repeated Mariann. “You and Sulev. Somebody has to keep a leash on Sulev so he would not call misfortune upon himself. And as I cannot participate, you are the next logical choice.”
“I have no control over him.” Jaan argued.
“It is not as much about control as it is about balancing out. Sulev may wander pretty far into the bog if he doesn’t understand matters. Somebody who is just skeptical enough and with steady thinking could keep him from running blind into the forest. Toomas is not as skeptical. Karl Taak is too skeptical, he will certainly descend into arguing witch the Witch. Village Hags don’t care the least bit about keeping Sulev in check, with them accompanying him we would only have three witches arguing with him as a result. And the Witch is not too keen on arguing with people. Rops… is Rops. And other have no real cause to go.”
“And I do?” Jaan asked.
“You do.” Mariann said. “You don’t know it yet, but you do.”
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“Okay then.” Jaan sighed. “Me and Sulev. Although I’m not too sure how much use will we get out of that.”
“I’d much rather hear more about the ritual.” Allan said. “Of these ghostly cars and ghostly roads.”
“With pleasure.” Mariann said. “Remember how in Fire Tail we discussed what a crossroads is and what an intersection is, and why we could just not do it on any nearest street corner? How even as we arrived it was still a source of argument? All who participated in the ritual got to experience for themselves what ‘intersection’ really meant. Now the 64 thousand dollar question: how should I have explained it in Fire Tail in order for you to understand it in the same way it ended up transpiring?”
Silence fell around the table for several minutes.
“I cannot put it into clear words, but there is no doubt a way to describe it in such a way.”
“Okay, I agree, there certainly exists a way to describe it as it happened.” Said Mariann. “But. How should I have explained it for all of you to understand it as it took place. Which words, which language should I have used for it to have been understandable in a simple and singular way and not as speaking in riddles or as a word salad?”
“...crossroad between two worlds...” Siim started in thought.
“More than two.” Kadri added.
“Crossroad between worlds which is not crossroad in the usual sense but intersection...”
“You don’t have to try and put it into words at this point.” Mariann said. “I have no doubt that you will succeed in it in the end and fiend the right words. But it is also clear that to understand it in a certain and common way, one must tell a whole tale to give enough context for the understanding to be born. How much time and how many words would it have required?”
“Mariann, in the pub you said that you would go and look into where the intersection might be. And then you joined their table.” Jaan nodded at the youths. “When you returned, you had a place in mind.”
“Did you notice something?” Mariann asked, giving a secretive smile. “Did you remember something?”
“Was it the very same section of the road where the ghostly car swerved to avoid you?!”
“That ghostly car swerved me about a hundred meters to the South. But yes, this would be the section it originated from.” Mariann said.
“What ghostly car?” Allan asked.
“There is a legend that five youths were driving towards the Nameless Town with a black Volga, that newer slab-sided model. But before they managed to reach here, there was an accident. They swerved to avoid hitting something, ran off the road into the ditch and died, all of them.” Mariann spoke.
“You guys came in a Volga, right?” Toomas asked, looking at the youths.
“We did.” Siim said. “We did come with a black Volga. We may have driven it off the road, but obviously we did not die.”
“Maybe this legend isn’t at all from this world?” Toomas asked. “Meaning from our world. It may originate from a parallel reality were you did die.”
“Mariann, you were saying that what they tried to avoid and what caused the accident was you?” Jaan asked.
“It was me.” The girl in black said.
“Thus in some other side-world, these people were driving their Volga on the Circle Road. They then saw a ghost, a shadow image of Mariann from another world and they swerved, lost control, drove into the ditch and perished.” Toomas spoke.
“But what did you see then? What did you swerve?” Toomas continued, now looking a the five youths.
“Honestly, I cannot remember.” Kadri said. “None of us can, really. There are two conflicting memories I have. One is us crossing the Border to Lost County on foot and somebody drove the Volga back. And the other is waking up in the ditch, next to the crushed car without a single injury.”
“Doesn’t that sound suspect?” Allan asked. “Sounds suspect to me.”
“Let’s say the accident happened, in this world or somewhere else.” Jaan said. “What’s the significance of it?”
“That section of road has always been an intersection between worlds. Both the worlds of the living and the dead, but also between various side-worlds.” Mariann spoke. “But the way the intersection usually exists as, was in no way conducive to performing the ritual. So, in layman’s terms, in the course of the ritual, we temporarily replaced the worlds between which it acts as an intersection. As a result of the ritual and until we left the place, it was temporarily acting as an intersection between different lands of the living and the dead and side-worlds.”
“It that something like we saw in that underground base?” Jaan asked.
“Something similar, but without spatially defined gates and the breaks in space created by these gates. Again, in layman’s terms, we had two gates and as a temporary measure we reconnected them to different destinations that they originally were connected to. And after we left and the effects of the ritual subsided, the temporary connections ceased and the originals were returned back to.”
“Is that the reason I had nothing to analyze when I returned to the place?” Toomas asked. “Because all that happened took place in some other world which was temporarily opened, and set atop our usual one?”
“No. There was never anything to be analyzed in the first place. You sensing that there was, was nothing more than a trick of the mind or a trick of the eye I spoke of earlier. Even if you had had a sample container with you at the time and you managed to fill it with some sort of tangible matter, later you would have still discovered an empty container.”
“Oh.” Toomas said, defeated.
“Why are the worlds the intersection for which that place usually is, not conducive to invoking the Witch?” Allan asked. “The world of the Dead is supposedly a single common one, isn’t it?”
“What makes you think that?” Mariann asked. “It wasn’t conducive because the Witch we were trying to invoke did not live in any of the worlds which that place usually acts an intersection for.”
“So there are several kinds of witches?” Allan asked.
“There are many different kinds of witches!” Village Ha no5 loudly said. “Not all originate from this world, not all are creatures of flesh and bone and not all are borne from humankind.”
Silence again settled around the table.
“But what..? Who…?” Toomas tried to come up with a question, but was unsuccessful.
“You said that the night the others are going to meet the witch, we should go back to the crossroads, to the location of the ritual.” Tiina started, “Would that mean that…?”
“The worlds will replace themselves for the Witch to come here?” Mariann asked. “The answer is yes. In most other cases, there would be a chance to slip from this place into these other worlds and become lost, but now by ways of this ritual, you have been tied to this world and the ritual site for the duration, so you can experience these other worlds. With relative safety. If you want to.”
“I thought that the ritual to invoke the Witch is not some mechanical function but primarily a means to change our predisposition and interact with a witch as a witch, as if a password that starts the stage play.” Jaan spoke in a quiet voice. “I would have never thought it to be… this.”
“All rituals are ‘this.’” Mariann replied. “Just that when you have no belief or when you are alien to the culture, you are not able to make correct sense of neither the process nor the result. You interpret it as incidental, whether positive or negative.”
“So at the time of the ritual we were in connection with a world where both the Death Fields and the Irradiated Woods were bisected by an arrow straight highway?” Viivika asked.
“Yeah.” Mariann said. “And I am not too sure in that world Death Fields and the Irradiated Woods exist.”
“And that world is the Land of the Dead?” Allan asked.
“No, but it is closer to the Land of the Dead. The Irradiated Woods and the Death Fields themselves are even closer than that, but these do not allow accessing the Land of the Dead without dying. The world where these roads were, does, so to say. It allows you to simultaneously be in two different worlds, or halfway in two different ones. Just like ghosts who are halfway here and halfway somewhere else.”
“What kind of witch are we seeing then?” Rops asked. “Village Hag no 5 said before that the witch may not be from this world, or human or of flesh and bone. Do you already know who it is?”
“No, I don’t.” Mariann said, “And honestly, it is irrelevant. The witch also uses a shadow projection. The way she presents herself to us my have nothing to do with what she really looks like.”
“Do you remember what you spoke on the airfield in the limousine? About worlds set on top of one another and the 4th road?” Johannes asked.
“What exactly?”
“At the moment of the ritual taking place, when these ghostly cars appeared from either direction. Had we been driving the car at that point, would it have been possible to drive onto either of these roads?”
“Yes. But you would have had to leave something behind.” Mariann said. “It is possible that part of your consciousness or being would have made it to that ghostly highway by which these ghostly vehicles traveled, and the other part would have driven into the trees or into the ditch to your deaths.”
“Maybe this has already happened once...” Kadri said in a pensive voice.
“Maybe.” Mariann replied.
“Come on!” Siim replied. “You mean to say that this is the land of the dead!? That we are dead?!”
“Something happened at that night.” Kadri said. “It would not have to be the land of the dead for us not to be dead. Ghosts still capable of conversing with the living or interacting with physical objects. Maybe we don’t know we are dead and that why we cannot dissipate into thin air. Maybe outside this county we can no longer exist on the same world fabric or the same layers as the living. But here we can.”
“You’ve been dressing like Mariann for far too long. The black color has gone into your head!” Johannes said.
“It is an interesting theory though.” Toomas said. “Maybe you should look into this on your own?”
“Didn’t Mariann already say something like this?” Tiina asked. “That it is quite possible for all of us to be on different layers of the world fabric. And we’re just shining through for one another. But we will not become aware of it before we get further away from here. To a place where there is no mass or anchor pushing the world fabrics against one another. Or at least nearer to one another.”
“When did she say that?” Siim asked.
“I think when meeting in the limo.”
“I cannot remember.” Siim said. “Mariann, do you?”
“I think it matters little if or what I remember.” She replied. “The are a multitude of mechanisms. Taking that story of the 4th Road as an example, one way to travel to other world fabrics is a mechanical system, just like at Mir-8 facility. There are physical gates in place and they open to worlds either nearer or farther away. The other way is to do it with a ritual like we did tonight. We suppressed a natural intersection between worlds for another one to surface. Or, we temporarily switched the intersection over. If you want to see it this way. It it is also possible to manage without a ritual, using natural window areas where such transference is possible either permanently or periodically. And then there is one other possibility.”
“What possibility?” Allan asked.
“Altered brain chemistry or electrical activity. Psychoactive substances allow one to perceive the world differently. We often call these perspectives hallucinations. Some of them definitely are that. But what if some are not? It is also possible to affect brain chemistry and electrical activity with meditation. Project Stargate. The Gateway project. Both used these means to travel as an astral body. But that is only the beginning. It is possible that our physical bodies themselves are anchors, pressing together an uncountable number of world fabrics at locations where we physically reside, but our consciousness only resides on a certain number of these. However with certain mental practices it is possible to turn our consciousness towards certain world fabrics or to widen its grasp.”
“And if it also possible that the grasp of our consciousness differs by physical location. In a metropolis it is narrower, in nature it is wider. In light it is narrower, in darkness, wider. And then there are special areas like the Lost County.” Toomas spoke.
“That too is possible.” Mariann said.
“Allan, I wanted to ask, when exactly did you record a show with Mariann?” Jaan asked.
“I don’t remember having thus far invited Mariann to my show.” Allan replied. “But I have thought about it for a long time.”
“So you did not have a live show today?”
“Nope.”
“And you have never recorded a show with Mariann so you also did not have a recording to put on air?”
“No. Why all these questions?” Allan asked.
“Because the whole bar crowd in Fire Tail had a chance of hearing your live show with Mariann, which by your own account you are yet to record.” Toomas said.
“That is not possible!” Exclaimed Allan. “I have not made a show with Mariann! I have no recollection of having! I don’t even have any such recording!”
Allan looked at the faces sitting around the table, but instead of understanding, all he saw was doubt.
“Mariann?” he asked.
“I think it doesn’t matter what I do or do not remember.” Mariann said. “Especially since I heard the show as well.”
“And it was a live show? Off the radio? Are you sure?”
“If we take into account everything we have talked about today both here and also in Fire Tail then there are two options.” Toomas said. “Either this interview has not yet taken place and the successful completion of the ritual is causing paradoxes in both our sense of time but also in the wider world. Or...”
“Or…?” Asked Allan in a somewhat apprehensive voice.
“The interview did indeed take place, but none of the people involved remember it. During the interviews something was revealed that was not supposed to be revealed and some kind of higher power deleted it off the magnetic tapes but also from the memories of the participants. Maybe even had it cut out of time itself.”
“How could we have heard it if it was cut out of time itself?” Rops asked.
“Because cutting it out of the airwaves post fact is much more difficult, perhaps. Thus at that time it existed as a one-time sourceless anomalous radio emission. For example, I cannot recall hearing the whole interview, only a segment maybe a couple of sentences long.” Toomas explained.
“Or maybe the radio signal originated from some side-world from which it leaked into our world by some coincidence or due to the ritual.” Siim added.
“Or that.” Agreed Toomas.
“I still prefer to think that such an interview has never been recorded and you are mistaking it for some other interview. Whether it is something Mariann has participated in but not me, or there has been somebody whose voice is very similar to Mariann.”
“You are free to believe whatever you want to believe.” The girl in black replied.
“But still.” Jaan refused to give up. “Were you or were you not in Allan’s show?”
“It doesn’t matter, Jaan.” She said. “If you recall our conversation in Valgepalõ after Mir-8, then you’ll understand why it doesn’t matter and ho both options can be true at the same time.”
“Ow.” Jaan said, in thought. “I do.”
“What did you notice?” Toomas asked, interested.
“It doesn’t matter.” Jaan replied. “At least not now.”
“It is not polite to have secrets you keep from the rest of the group.”
“It may not be.” Mariann agreed. “But some things must remain secret. Some things can be understood in their proper context only by experiencing them on your own. They cannot be revealed to others in mere words. What I can say is that in this matter, the contents of the secret are secondary and the mechanism how it is possible for me to have given the radio interview I have not given is much more complex.”
“I have to go.” Allan said, getting up. “I have to look through all my tapes. If this interview took place, there must be some sort of record of it. If it made it into the airwaves then of that there must also be a recording!”
“I understand.” Mariann said. “Good night and have fun digging!”
“I think it is time for a small break.” Jaan said. “We’ll discuss after that whether we continue or break up.”
“I agree.”
Mariann too got up from the table and stretching her legs, walked towards the bar counter. She leaned her back against the edge of it and rested her elbows on top of it. She kept observing people. Some kept walking around in the bar, some went outside for a smoke and there were other bodily needs to deal with as well.
“Mariann.”
Kadri leaned against the bar counter right next to her.
“Those strange men in black… You said before that people would not notice them even if they stared right at them. Because they do not allow themselves to be noticed.” Kadri said. “Could you elaborate on that?”
“You didn’t want to ask about that at the table, did you?” Mariann gave a smile. “You noticed them, didn’t you? Without anybody directing your attention towards them. You experienced their gaze, didn’t you?”
Kadri gave a small nod.
“You are in luck. You are conscious, you can stand. That is a rare exception. Maybe your luck was not just a one time thing? Maybe you have some sort of disposition or adaption you yourself are not even aware of. The ability to see past the shadow projection may be a part of this. What did you experience?”
“My breath got stuck in my chest. I could not look away.”
“You coughed blood, right? All ten of your bodily openings bled a little, did they not?” Continued Mariann. “You made it pretty far. This is the experience that would kill three out of ten people. Six out of ten would fall into coma. You are the tenth. Now there are two possibilities for how to continue. Unless...”
“Unless what?” Kadri asked.
“Unless it happens again.” Mariann said.
Kadri said nothing more. She pushed herself away from the counter and then opened the bar door to disappear into the cool night. Mariann pushed herself away from the counter as well and walked back to the table, sitting back down on her wooden chair. It took several more minutes for people to start returning to the bar and surrounding the table. Kadri was among them.
“Did you manage to gather some thoughts?” Mariann asked.
“We did...” Johannes sighed.
“Shall we continue?” Jaan asked.
“What’s Mir-8?” Toomas started.
“Mir-8?” Mariann smiled for a moment. “Mir-8 is a military facility of indeterminate location. It was originally created to research into creating wormholes. Later it’s scope widened to research time travel, traveling between worlds and opportunities for creating artificial pocket dimensions. It is located in a pocket dimension that borders the whole facility. One way to access this facility is located right under the post office in the Cottage District.”
“That would be the easiest way to describe it.” She added after silence fell around the table again.
“You’ve been there?” Toomas asked.
“I have.” The girl in black answered. “It is accessible between certain periods just like the lower levels of the Subterranean Base. Without this information it is impossible to access and even harder to escape from.”
“Those men in black in Fire Tail bar, are they here was well, right now?” Toomas continued.
“No, they are not.” Mariann said, then glanced at Kadri. “Or do you have a different opinion, Kadri?”
“No, they are not here.” Kadri said, looking around.
True, she did not see any of them in the bar. But she also was not to pleased with everybody’s attention suddenly focusing on her.
“Do you have a club for girls in black?” Johannes asked. “Where you learn such things?”
“Or does wearing black clothing have some sort of pronounced effect on the sensitivity of the sensory organs?” Toomas asked.
“Or is it a sign of some kind of predisposition?” Mariann added in turn. “I don’t know. I haven’t experimented with it in such a way. Would be interesting to find out, though.”
“What the catch then?” Siim asked.
“Kadri saw them sitting in the bar among people all on her own.” Mariann said. “Whether one can draw any conclusions from is or not, is a separate matter.”
Toomas and the rest seemed to be satisfied with this answer.
“Then why aren’t they here right now? These men in black?” Rops asked.
“Because they don’t know to be here. Nobody told them.” Mariann said. “They usually manage to notice when a big group of people suddenly start moving in one direction. Just like with that false Forest Lake. Or us gathering in Tontla. But now there is nothing like it. On one hand, our group is not that big and on the other hand were are exactly where we are supposed to be – here.”
“And they also don’t know what’s going on?” Toomas asked.
“They may know a little more than we do, but certainly not as much as we think they know. If they knew as much as we think they did, then we would not see their activities as overtly.”
“Does that not mean that radio host Allan Helde’s idea on turning this kind of round table discussion into a radio show is destined to fail?” Jaan asked.
“It may well mean that.” Mariann smiled. “Maybe we can have one show, but the rest are in danger of not being recorded or not reaching the airwaves.”
“Or nobody will ever remember them.” Toomas said.
“Yeah. Although I do have a gnawing feeling that there might be some other model behind that.”
Silence again fell around the table.
“Shall we break?” Mariann asked.
“Yeah.” Toomas said almost immediately. “We’ve had quite a long night. And although I have many questions, I am not sure I can posit them clearly at this point in time or understand the answers to a sufficient degree.”
“Other are in agreement?” Jaan asked.
“Yeah. I think that’s it for today.” Siim said.
“I’ve been sleepy for a long time now.” Leopold said. “And the Village Hags have fallen asleep.”
“Let them.” Mariann said.
She got up and walked into the cold night outside.
Dark and cool, yet cloudless black sky. There was no Moon. But also no stars. And cars on the street had a layer of white frost on them. By all signs one could surmise that winter was approaching. That even if it was impossible to tell which day, week or month it was, the nighttime cold and the black clear sky still allowed one to assume that it was either October or March.
But that was correct only for that very night. Tomorrow could have been yet another scorching summer day, without a single sign that tonight had ever taken place. Except of course the subjective memories that people had.
She observed people exiting the bar. How the red tail lights on various huge passenger cars ignited and how they finally drove off, puffing out massive amounts of white smoke.
“You’re not going?” Jaan asked.
“Soon.” Mariann replied. “I was just thinking about the weather. We should try and access the Weather Station. I’m slowly getting fed up with summer. Fall and Winter should come already.”
“You think it is possible?” Jaan asked. “Up until now, we have simply been going and looking into stuff. You have never wanted to interfere. I wouldn’t even know how to interfere.”
“I don’t know yet. But we should try. And to interfere with the function of the Weather Station, I don’t consider it too major an interference. But first we should find out if it is at all possible to interfere with it. And whether or not there are any other mechanisms dependent on it. At the moment it seems there is too much of that which we do not know.”
“Well, let me know if you manage to figure something out.” Jaan said. “Both what we need to do as well as what needs to be learned.”
“Very well. ‘Night.”
“’Night.” Jaan replied and then walked down the street, disappearing into darkness.