“What the fuck…!?”

Kadri woke up. It was dark. She was not sure whether the scream had bean in her dreams or had come from her lips.

“That’s the reason, I remained because I thought I would go there early-early-early-early...”

This clip of of a sentence had awakened her. Clip of a sentence which had become part of the music on the tape she had received from Allan. She had turned on the ignition, pushed the tape to play and then fallen asleep on the back seat of the factory limo. It had been so easy at that time. But now, getting up from the seat, crawling over the front seat and reaching over to stop the music was an almost insurmountable task.

Still, she did it. Mechanically linked button on the tape radio jumped out.

Only when the echo of the heavy mechanical click had dissipated from her ears did she realize that the music did not stop. It became quieter but did not stop. It grew quieter but she still heard that clip of that sentence repeating again and again. She could also faintly hear the music accompanying it. Was this a dream?

Once more did Kadri reach over the seatback and pushed another button which ejected the tape from the tape player and let it fall on the floor before the front seat. She even turned off the ignition but this too did not change anything.

“That’s the reason, I remained because I thought I would go there early-early-early-early...”

Where did this segment of a sentence originate from? Maybe she was still in deep sleep and the music reached her through her dreams, altering them? For Kadri, this was an old and familiar motif of nightmares. A situation, where she needs to switch the music off but everything she does to stop it is in vain. Right now had become the right time for waking up. When she had realized there was no means of stopping the music. When she had realized that the music originated from somewhere outside. When she had realized she was sleeping.

But nothing happened. Was this one of these waking dreams where she could control what was happening? Didn’t seem like it.

That segment of a sentence repeated again but it did not repeat alone. She was still sure she was hearing fast dance music and deep bass tones accompanying it. Was it playing in her head? In her senses? Had it become a compulsive thought she could no longer keep under control?

How was it at all possible that an utterance said right here in the Nameless Town into the telephone line signal designed to sample the range of human speech burns into the air and finally reaches electronic dance music produced in some faraway land? It wasn’t. It had to be pareidolia. But why then was it so significant? Why then this synchronicity?

Kadri pulled back over the front seat backrest. Indeed a seat back and not a dividing wall. The front seat was freely moving and therefore there was no privacy window between the front and the back seats. But there were two auxiliary seats one could raise from the floor and the front seat back. The two seats did not move with the front seat but set a limit how much back the front bench could be moved.

There was something else she was noticing only now as well. It felt cool. Cooler than on the evening she had made it back to the house after returning from town. She opened the rear side door and as soon as she had, the cool fresh of a recent rain intruded into the vehicle. It had rained during the night. A lot. And perhaps quickly. Because it was still dark. Some time between when she had reached the house with the car and now.

All of nature around here was still soaked and dripping. When she finally got out of the car, she noticed that something was wrong. The car had not been parked on the main street of the cottage district. It was on the side of a wide and overgrown cracked concrete road. By the Forbidden Forest. Opposite the last two homesteads and far from the ninety degree turn from which the road to the Base started.

Yet again did a thought arise that she was still sleeping. She could not remember how she or the car had made their way here. A moment later, another shard of memory hit her. Something that made her deeply disturbed – it was not the same car. The factory limo here was not the same car as the one she, her friends and Mariann had sheltered in when there was a sudden downpour at the old airfield. In that car there were no back-facing collapsible seats. Instead there were two opposing bench seats and out of the hump on the floor rose small table on a metal leg.

This was a problem however. Despite all her struggles to remember, she could not say what the car from the airfield had looked like on the outside. How were the side doors positioned on the inside. And having grown quite familiar with this factory limo, she was quite sure that the seating arrangement she was remembering would have made the interior of this one so cramped that it would have been a struggle to fit a table, let alone for all six people to stretch out their legs. However in the car they had first met Mariann, there were two full-size bench seats and still as much room between them as there was between the front and back rows in this one.

Therefore… was it a remembrance of a dream or something that actually took place? Was it still real if she woke up from her current dream? The car which had stood on the air field on that rainy day, was it perhaps a door to a separate spatial dimension? And of course, the question that burned brightest of all - considering that what she was experiencing right now was not a dream then... where did this car originate from? Whence had Siim and Johannes found it!? Where from had they brought it along?

Kadri suddenly noticed that although it was dark outside, it wasn’t dark enough to not let her see. With the time she had stood by the open side door, her eyes had adjusted to the pale twilight world around her. And of course, the Moon was out.

“That’s the reason, I remained, because I thought I would go there early-early-early-early...”

The fragment of an utterance repeating again brought her thoughts back to the music and everything else connected to it. She closed the rear door and opened the front door, sliding herself onto the navy leather seat.

She turned the frame around the ignition key but the car did not start. The starter didn’t even click. As if the battery was empty or not even present. But if the battery was empty, how had she stopped the tape? Had she stopped the tape at all? Perhaps the music that had awakened her did not originate from the tape off the radio? Perhaps it was but a coincidence that she had developed the notion that it had. Perhaps it originated from somewhere outside? Or maybe from her own memory and dreams? Or perhaps she was still asleep on the back seat of the limo and the music was reaching her through her dreams?

Was she really hearing music of which only her, Mariann and Allan had copies of, from somewhere outside? Or were her senses playing tricks on her and this was just another pareidolia or…

If the car’s battery was empty then this also meant that the analog clock face on the dash was useless and still.

A conversation with Mariann on that hot night popped in her head. The story about the denizens of the Cottage District sleeping such a deep sleep that a war could pass over them and for those awake, time could stop. Had she now come across such circumstances? This was certainly one way to explain how she had made it back to the house in the Cottage District in the dark, then driven to the side of the road by the Forbidden Forest and slept through a few hours of rain and it was still dark outside and not the pale twilight of the following morning.

She again got out of the car and closed the door.

It seemed like everything even slightly brighter reflected moonlight much better than daylight. For example, the concrete road leading to the Underground Base was visible surprisingly far into the darkness. The same could be said for the white silicate brick faces of houses and cottages in the Cottage District. Even through the dark yards and tree canopies on the side of the road.

Kadri walked back to the crossing where the main street of the Cottage District started, bordering the fields to the North. Here on there was a sight much more spectacular to see. The fields of grasslands stood illuminated in the moonlight like pale white reflector strips. As if she had suddenly acquired the ability to see near infra-red light in grayscale.

This was something she wanted to photograph. Even if it had no value for Mariann. This had value for Kadri herself. And on their first meeting, Mariann has provided her with something that made possible for her to take pictures of it. Some 34 degree film.

She headed back to the car and sat into the back seat. Why had she not made use of the film on that misty night with that ghostly car? She knew the answer, the answer was right here before her, as she was about to open up the camera, to switch a half-filled less sensitive roll of film for a fresh one that was more sensitive. If she had to bother with film cameras, she needed more of them. At least three or four, each set up for film of different sensitivity and using lenses of differing F-stop ranges. There was no other option for doing full day/night photography, from direct sunlight to cloudy skies to nights with and without moon.

The last thing she needed was stored in the trunk of the car. Mariann had moved that one too when she emptied her military vehicle of all the stuff Kadri had put in there. A tripod for the camera.

A few minutes later Kadri was again walking back towards the line where the gravel road between the forest and the fields ended and a wide concrete road to the base and the Cottage District started. She mounted the camera onto the tripod and pointed it towards the fields and forests running up to the Northerly horizon. She set the aperture and exposure and took a few photos with different settings.

She then walked back with the camera and also photographed the factory limo from the front and also behind, with both the Cottage District and the Base road on the background.

“That’s the reason, I remained because I thought I would go there early-early-early-early...”

The sentence she had forgotten in the mean time again rang in her ears. Or was it in her head?

She looked at the black forest not too far away and then noticed a footpath jutting towards the forest in otherwise undisturbed tall grass. How had she not noticed it sooner? She was also sure she saw somebody standing right by the first trees of the forest. Somebody who could not have been there. But maybe they could?

“Mariann?” Kadri asked.

It was somewhat unexpected to see Mariann standing on the border between the forest and the grass as if waiting for her. Mariann suddenly appearing in her blind spot and startling her would have been much less unexpected of an event. Kadri still remembered what people said about the Forbidden Forest. What Toomas had said had happened to him. That was why she hadn’t even entertained the thought of entering it, neither day or night. However, if it was really Mariann asking her to go to the forest, it was a slightly different matter.

She locked the car and then headed along the footpath towards the dark forest looming not too far away. The footpath continued into the forest. A footpath which was surprisingly wide, smooth and clean of broken branches. It was pure joy to walk here, not at all like the thin forest by the airfield. It also was not nearly as dark as she had thought initially. Moonlight easily penetrated the tree canopies and even between the tall conifers and it only took a few more minutes for her eyes to completely adjust to the light levels of a nighttime forest.

When her eyes finally adjusted, she could not see Mariann anywhere around her. Which, honestly, was exactly the behavior she had expected of her. In all likelihood she was waiting for her deeper inside the forest, having advanced down the footpath as Kadri had approached. Despite being alone in a nighttime forest after a rain, she had no fear. Instead something more akin to peacefulness had come over her. There was no way for her to explain it, but she felt that in this forest tonight, there was nothing that could endanger her.

She continued down the footpath deeper into the forest, feeling the ground bounce back a little with every step. Under the layer of dried fir and pine needles, the ground was thick with intertwined roots of various sizes and mycelia.

Even though the stories said that nobody dared to step into the Forbidden Forest neither day or night, from the path she was on it seemed that there was a lot of human traffic going on here. There was no other way trails like this could develop. It was highly doubtful that all of it was created by patrolling soldiers, people gathering berries and mushrooms or teens looking for adventure and adrenaline.

“Hey.”

Kadri stopped, having heard a voice. At least she thought she had heard it. The twilight forest was still all around her. The footpath still looked like it carried a lot of traffic and thus there were not too many smaller trees and bushes around it. In a radius of five meters or so, everything around her was pretty clearly visible. And she could not see anybody else. Nothing shaped like a human nor even anything shaped unlike a human. And Mariann would also probably not attempt to do something as impolite as this was.

“Hey.”

There was something wrong with this utterance but she could not say what. However this now reminded her something else that made her heart grow cold. When Johannes and Siim had looked for furniture to furnish the house they had settled into in the Cottage District, they also discovered a substantial amount of books. But either due to a some strange selection or sheer coincidence, all these books were either horror fiction or non-fiction about the myths and strange phenomena from all around the world. And now all those things she had read about were cycling in her mind.

And a certain type of such phenomena was a voice of a familiar person using short utterances to lure somebody deeper into the woods. And if a person ever head something like that in a dark forest, they were to turn around right away and escape the forest as to not give the thing mocking a familiar voice the chance to feast on them.

“Kadri.”

Her insides grew cold as soon as she had heard it. This was no longer just a voice without an audience. This was her name. And now she also realized what was wrong with the utterance. She was pretty sure it did not originate from her surroundings. It rang out in her mind, but she was no longer completely sure that she was hearing it with her ears. It was in her thoughts but she was pretty sure she had not thought it. And she had not imagined it in her “mind’s ear.” Not consciously nor unconsciously. Images like this would usually rather be faint and barely noticeable, but the volume with which these utterances were screaming in her thoughts was at least tenfold higher.

Also the music which had drawn her here initially was now silent. She could not hear it in her ears nor in her mind. And by now she could clearly make the distinction between imagining it and remembering it.

“Yes?” She responded carefully in her mind.

“Kadri.” The alien thought replied. “You can hear me?”

Now she was sure. She was not talking to herself. She was experiencing thoughts in the shape of a language, thoughts she had not actively or voluntarily contemplated. This was nor a ghost or a delusion. This was nothing like the stories Mariann told in which one can not tell a ghost from a real person until the latter does something supernatural right before the unsuspecting witness. Whether it is stepping through a solid wall or dissipating into thin air. These thoughts she was experiencing were direct and deliberate.

“Yes.” She replied again.

“Finally!” The Thought said with relief. “I have no idea how long I have attempted to communicate and there is finally somebody that can hear me!”

With a suspecting gaze, Kadri still looked about her in the dark of the forest. She was standing alone on a wide and it seemed oft-traveled footpath heading deeper into the forest. Behind her she could see a bit more light which for her marked the edge of the forest.

“What are you?”

It seemed like she now saw a bit better in the darkness than before.

“I don’t know. Right now I am a discarnate soul. But I think at one point I also possessed a body. A human body.”

“Discarnate soul” was a familiar word to Kadri. But also not so familiar. Was it Toomas who had spoken of it in Allan’s show? Or was it Mariann? Or perhaps somebody else?

“Is this what you call telepathy?” Kadri asked.

“I don’t know.” The Thought replied. “You are special. You can hear me. This is not the usual state of things.”

“What is the usual state?”

“The field of consciousness of a person is too strong. Most of them cannot hear anything, however much I scream. A few rare ones can hear the thoughts I whisper but not my voice. They do not sense my existence. They become completely convinced that they are going insane. And when a person sleeps, their conscious mind sleeps as well, and everything that reaches the subconscious becomes a jumbled mess.”

“Why are you talking to me?” Kadri asked.

“I talk to everybody. And everybody answers me. But not everybody’s answers sound as deliberate as yours.”

“What is your name?”

“I don’t know. I cannot remember. I must have had a name, right? You can give me one, if you want to.”

Kadri had no idea what name to give it. She didn’t know whether she even wanted to give it a name. But there was something even more important to make clear.

“Are you reading my thoughts?”

“Only those you say out in your mind with intensity matching mine. My sight cannot penetrate the field of consciousness.”

“Are you Mariann?”

“Who is Mariann?”

“Mariann is the girl in black.”

“You are a girl in black. Are you Mariann?”

“No. I am not Mariann. I am also not the girl in black.”

“But you are wearing black. And you are a girl. A young woman.”

“I came into the forest because I saw Mariann standing on the side of it beckoning towards me.” Kadri explained.

It felt strange to finish thinking of sentence in it’s complete form before uttering it. And it felt even stranger to utter it in her mind and not doing it on her lips.

“That was not me.” The Thought replied. “I do not possess the power to conjure shapes of other people in front of your eyes. Something else is going on.”

Kadri grew tired of standing on the forest trail. She decided to turn around and head back towards the grassy field and the car. To sit somewhere or to lean against something was much more comfortable for intense thinking than just standing on a forest trail in the dark of night.

“Where are you going?” the thought in her head asked.

“I am leaving the forest. Back to the car.” Kadri replied.

“Don’t go! If you leave, I can no longer talk to you!”

Kadri stopped.

“Why?”

“Further into the direction you want to go, there exists a massive black hole. It swallows all the thoughts I am sending you. I think it would also swallow me.”

“I will only go to the edge of the forest.” Kadri replied. “There is something I want to be sure of.”

She did indeed head back towards where it seemed brighter between the trees and soon she made it to the final tall trees before the field of tall grass.

“Are you still there?” Kadri asked.

With her voice out loud, not just in her thoughts.

“I am.” The Thought replied.

“Do I see that black hole?”

“A long black object not far that swallows everything around it. Even now, it is tearing me and my energy towards it. I cannot stay here for long.”

Kadri turned around and walked back into the shadow of the trees, away from the car.

“I cannot remember things and yet I know things.” The Thought continued. “I know that my thoughts reach their target better when the Moon is out and the air is wet. Or when there is mist in the air. I know that in the case of all those things coincidentally aligning, one can easily pass through the eye of a needle. I have no idea how I know this. I know I have most certainly talked about this with somebody else, but I cannot remember with whom or when.”

“Are you trying to lead me somewhere?” Kadri asked.

“Yes.” The voice replied. “Continue walking down the trail. I will tell you when it time to turn off the main path.”

Kadri continued down the dark forest path. The ground was still dry and a bit springy. She could still see about ten meters ahead into the trees. And she still could not feel any fear or apprehension.

“So many things have changed over time.” The Thought in her head spoke. “It is so much more noticeable if things change due to human action than when they change due to the movement of the spirits of nature itself. The old Devil’s Bog, being drained to build the base, the New Devil’s Bog which grew wet as a result. Heavenmire, which is essentially what was left of the old Devil’s Bog and the missile base standing in between all of them. And then of course the Forbidden Forest bordering the two bases and the New Devil’s Bog.

“But the Forbidden Forest was not always forbidden. And it hasn’t always been a forest. Some time long ago, and yet not so long ago, because there are still people alive who remember, instead of the forest, there lay the center of Western Village. The fields of the Western Village were where now lies the New Devil’s Bog, being encircled by lower and wetter areas of the old Devil’s Bog.”

Toomas had also spoken of something like it in Allan Helde’s show. How the bogs were drained to build the base and Heavenmire came to be as well as how the Devil’s Bog moved. The name of the Western Village was also not unfamiliar to her. There existed old maps on which the name did indeed appear. But these maps had no correspondence with nature or landmarks of today. As if any and all maps had nothing to do with nature and the land as they stood today. And thus there was no way of understanding where on today’s lands stood the old villages which surrounded the Nameless Town.

“Left from here.” The Thought suddenly said.

Looking left and continuing in that direction Kadri did indeed see a disconnection in nature and a much narrower a footpath heading to an altogether older and hillier landscape.

“Where are we going?” She asked.

“To a place you have probably heard of.” The Thought replied. “To the Border.”

Kadri knew what “the Border” meant in this context. A small campsite at the external border of the base where the youths often gathered to party. And sometimes to do stupid things. Because on the other side of the barbed wire fence of the base there was a minefield, which had been a life changer for quite a number of the local youths.

“Why are we going there?” Kadri asked.

“Because I know something of that place. And I want to show you.”

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Kadri stayed silent and continued down the trail, only changing the hand with which she carried the camera and the tripod hanging off of it.

“The Border as it is generally known, is not really the Bases external limit. At least it wasn’t like it in the beginning. But during the planning stages, this one corner was also drawn within the limit of the Base. And the youths did also not choose this place as their campsite randomly.”

“Somebody guided them here?” Kadri asked.

“The old folks still remembered the times before the bases. On the one hand they did not want the youngsters to go to those areas and on the other hand they could not stop telling stories about how the whole village turned into forest almost overnight.”

Kadri walked past the last bend and a few taller bushes and found herself on a slightly clearer area of the forest. On the ground there were much less trees in her immediate vicinity, but high above the canopies of the trees reached above her head so there was no chance of noticing this clearing from above.

Kadri could immediately see a low rim not far in the left, disappearing into the darkness in either direction. At the center of the rim at the same line with the fire pit there was a small depression in the mound. Along the top of the rim there was a row of concrete pillars which still probably carried the rusty barbed wire which she could not discern in the pale moonlit twilight.

The fire pit itself looked like it had seen a lot of use. It surrounded by an external circle of huge concrete blocks, a rusty metal pipe about a meter in diameter and a length of six meters and benches of roughly hewn logs all of which could have been used for seating. As she got closer to the campsite there was one other thing she could notice. The ground here was not springy forest floor. It wasn’t even hard-packed dirt with no flora. Under her feet was pavement of strangely familiar stone. She used her foot to scrape away some of the dirt and then, under a thin layer of dirt, she discovered cobblestone. The fire pit too was built right on top of the cobblestone pavement.

Kadri turned her eyes back towards the rim. Was it here to conceal the cobblestone pavement, or was it easier to set the concrete posts into the dirt of the rim rather than setting them into the paved ground? As she had not uttered the question into her mind space, the thought in her head did not respond her.

“Originally, this place here was not the exterior border of the base.” The Thought spoke. “But when the Russians discovered what lies here, this corner of was also drawn into the area of the base and the inner side of the fence was also mined.”

“Over there lies the heart of the Western Village?”

“Yes. About a dozen of the oldest buildings of the village and the main street which connected them. According to the stories, the local farm owners got tired of the mud pit that was the main street and they pooled their resources to cover the whole center of the village in cobblestone. It took a few weeks of hard work, but in the end, it was worth it. But now, the whole center of the village lies on the other side of the Border and the mine field.

“So that’s why the kids partying here have stepped onto the mines.” Kadri mused. “Sneaking across the minefields to seek adventure in the old village center.”

“And not only children. The adults as well have tried to excavate the old village center in secret. That’s the reason for this gap in the rim.”

“Do you know what happened to the Western Village?”

“I cannot see that. I can see events on either side of our current meeting. But there are things I cannot see. There are events which themselves act like black holes.”

“Are you the only one?” Kadri realized to ask.

“I don’t know.” the Thought replied. “I haven’t met anybody else like me. It is possible I am not capable of seeing them. Let’s be on our way.”

“Wait.” Kadri said.

This place here was exactly something to take photos of in the Forbidden Forest at night. The campsite, the seating, some really long exposure to also capture the cobblestone paving. And the border rim with the concrete posts and the gap in the rim.

She walked into the gap in the rim which was full of overturned concrete posts, some had the barbed wire torn off them, others were still held half suspended by the tension if the wire. She directed the lens of the camera also towards the side beyond the fence, despite not seeing much and having nothing to set the focus on.

“Where are we headed next?” She asked.

“Into the childhood playground.” The Thought replied. “The most direct way into that place is not to follow the trail but rather to head across the wild forest terrain while keeping the border fence of the base to our left.”

“Was this again something the older people told their children in between their bans of forbiddings?”

“No. This is something children discovered on their own. The parents never came to learn of it. The only adults to ever know about had discovered it as children. And many children, after becoming adults, could no longer find it in the forest.”

“And you can?”

“I’m not an adult.” The Thought replied. “I am not sure though I was a child when I attained this form.”

“Do you know how you came to attain this form?”

“No. I don’t know how I became a discarnate soul. I am not capable of finding and viewing that moment.”

“Do you not want to get your physical body back?” Kadri continued.

“I don’t know.” The Thought replied after a long pause. “I do not feel myself capable desiring anything carnal. I am no longer able to relate to anything like it. Now I only relate with various consciousnesses and energies.”

Kadri continued down the wide trail running along the Border. As she paid some attention to the nature, she realized that this was not a lone footpath but two parallel trails. At a distance of about two meters from each other. Essentially a vehicle track. And here too the ground was not normal, here too under a thin layer of turf there was something solid.

“Cobblestone?” She asked in her head.

“Concrete.” The Thought replied. “The soldiers needed a smooth ground for rapid patrols along the Border.”

“And this leads directly to the next location?”

“Yes.”

Kadri did not ask anything else. But she did stop to take photos of the vehicle track and the border fence it ran along. Somewhere this trail had to make its way out of the forest. She suspected that one such place was the main gate of the Underground Base. This meant that anybody who had the least bit of courage could drive their vehicle into the Forbidden Forest. And perhaps visit all the notable locations within with ease.

She suddenly came upon a realization. The campsite by the Border was built right on top of the vehicle track by the fence. An also right on top of the cobblestone street leading into the center of the Western Village. Therefore a question – were there any maps for the village or the base which outlined all paved roads in the forest? A map would have helped her a lot more than simply wandering the dark forest in the night.

She stopped, noticing a footpath disappearing between low shrubs to the right.

“Here?” She asked.

“Yes. The Childhood Playground is right near hear.”

“What is it?” Kadri asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what could have been here in the beginning. Root cellars. Foundations of a burnt down building or buildings. Or maybe something completely different. I don’t know if it were the children who built wooden walls and fiber cement roofs atop the limestone walls or youths or some adults. But I do know that this turned into a playground for children. A village of play hidden from both the adults as well as the soldiers.”

Soon Kadri understood what the Thought in her head had meant. She found herself standing in the middle of a field of low wooden huts. Some had fiber cement roofing, others has sheet metal, still others had shingles and even some wide wide wooden boards partially overlaying from one side. None of them taller than maybe a meter. Most of them even lower than that, perhaps half a meter. The first twenty or so centimeters being limestone and wood all the way up from that. The huts were also of different lengths. There were small square-shaped huts with enough room for maybe one child but also other longer one where several children could discuss secrets together.

Kadri again set up the camera and took a photo onto which she tried to get as many of the low huts as she could. All of which rose to about the height of her hips approximately. Thus she took photos of several different angles.

“Inside they are a lot bigger than on the outside.” The Thought said. “You should crawl into one.”

This was indeed something Kadri had had in mind and the Thought in her head had given her even more confidence to do it. She stepped closer to a taller hut nearby and knelt down by the side of it. At first she thought climbing in feet first but thinking about her skirt she soon perished the thought and decided to enter back first. First grabbing the walls with her hands and then pulling her lower body in. The doorway to enter the hut was low even for a child, but luckily wide enough for both her shoulders and hips.

The voice had been right. As much as she could see in the darkness of a summer night and feel under her feet, it was much taller on the inside than on the outside. At least a quarter of the huts height had been dug into the ground. As Kadri had picked one of the bigger and taller ones, she could almost stand up inside it.

“To the right, on top of the foundation, there is a box of matches, To your left, there is a storm lamp.” The Thought spoke.

Kadri found both the matchbox on top of the limestone foundation as well as the lamp hanging under the ceiling. She easily lit a match which to her darkness-adjusted eyes gave off an astounding amount of light. During these short moments she glanced around in the glow of the burning match, she could see yellowed limestone walls half a meter in height and muddy limestone floors. But also wooden pieces which made up the walls and the structure holding the roof up, having grown gray and black with age and decay.

She ignited the oil lamp and only then realized that it only had enough oil for maybe few minutes of light. But that was enough to take a few photos of inside of the hut. On the floor she also found notebooks full of children’s drawings but also large print children’s books and even old Soviet era children’s magazines. She took photos of these as well.

“This is a place I too would have wanted to escape to as a child.” Kadri mused in her mind.

“Without my guidance you may never find this place again.” the Thought replied.

“We’ll see.” Said Kadri and killed the light. “Where next?”

Exiting the hut with her back first, she found herself thinking that the darkness inside the hut did not frighten her. Quite the opposite actually. Her eyes grew even more accustomed to the darkness and now she saw far more in the moonlight diffused by the tree than before. Strangely, the flame of the match and the lantern had had no effect on her ability to see in the dark. And now she could see how big the area of this Childhood Playground really was.

She could also see lower and seemingly older and more primitive structures made up of plywood boards covered in moss and lichen, ridged fiber cement boards and even sheet metal simply placed over stones creating low shelters fit to lay down under at best. Kadri saw no point in taking photos of these. Even now they were hardly noticeable and she was afraid that on the photos, without the third dimension there would be nothing visible at all.

“Are these what I think these are?” She asked.

“The Playground had to start from somewhere.” The alien voice in her mind said. “The first huts were just like that, offering little protection from wind and rain.”

What rain? What wind? They were in the middle of the forest. It was hard for Kadri to be content with that reply.

“And the forest creatures?” She asked. “Shelters like this would be just about the best places for their hideouts.”

“The smell of human keeps them away.” The Thought replied. “At least that’s what I think.”

Kadri had spent enough time with Mariann to know what that reply really stood for. The Thought having this idea did not exclude any other explanations. And the smell of man could not linger that long. Maybe it was indeed true that all larger forest creatures had been scared away from the Forbidden Forest forever and that’s why there were no burrows or caves for them here. At the same time it was possible that Kadri happened to come across this place at a time when it wasn’t somebody’s place of sleep.

She stopped and listened, even ceased breathing. The forest was silent. Almost dead silent. But there was something she could hear. That very same music which had waken her up in the car. That same clip of a sentence and those same words. Somewhere in this forest, something was playing back this music. This was much more likely than it originating from her imagination.

“Kadri.” The Thought said to her.

“I thought I heard something.” She replied. “Where are we going next?”

“To the church.” The Thought replied. “If you can see it.. ahead is a bush with moonlight reflecting off it leaves. If you head towards it, you’ll find the trail again.”

“There was a church in the Western Village?” Kadri asked.

This statement too had something wrong with it. That a town would have several churches was somewhat believable, but a single parish having several churches of equal standing definitely was not. If the Nameless Town had the main church then the Western Village could only have an assisting church. Unless it was the other way around and the Western Village had the main church. It felt like Mariann had told them something about this exact thing once. Which also meant that the villages surrounding the town could have been older than the town itself. Or the Western village belonged to some other parish and manor than the Nameless Town and the von Schwann family.

This also lead to another question Kadri was sure nobody had posited yet. Everybody knew the surname of von Schwann, but what was the name of the local parish or subdistrict? The parish as an area was larger of the two, so it could have well carried the name of the largest settlement in the area, meaning Valgepalõ. But the subdistrict? The manor?

“Western Village once had a church grander than anything. They say much bigger and grander than the one in Nameless Town. The spire reached high above the woods and it was visible from several miles away. The church at the Western Village was the largest church in this area, so that the East, North and South villages had small chapels or assisting churches.”

Kadri was almost sure she heard the Thought give a sad sigh.

“However, the church of the Western Village could not escape the fate of the rest of the village. As the village became a forest, so did the church. There is one thing about this though, which I must warn you about.”

“What?” Kadri asked.

“For me, the church is also a black hole. But it does not attract anything, it just sits there. And the borders on it are also much clearer. But I cannot see what’s inside it. Not through the doorways nor the windows. Not even through the collapsed ceiling. Something happened there. Not too far into the past from now. I remember that once the ruins of the church were merely ruins. But now this is no longer the case.

“You want me to take a look and try and see what you are not able to?” Kadri asked.

“Maybe you can see it.” The Thought replied.

This was not a plan Kadri liked. Calling the car a black hole was one thing, even though she was pretty sure that she would now look at the factory limo in a whole different light, but abandoned and overgrown church ruins into which a discarnate soul could not see? That sounded suspicious. Never mind that she could not make up her mind whether the inability of the voice in her head to see inside the church was due to the ruins still retaining some sanctity or, quite the opposite, due to some evil abject to the world having taken the place over.

And then there was the music. That same music she had heard in the car. Now it seemed to be slightly louder. And it also seemed like the discarnate soul which had attached itself to her could not hear it. Kadri had not mentioned it to the Thought in her head and it also had not made any reference to the music. It was possible the voice had never heard it to begin with, even at the start when Kadri first stepped into the forest. It was also possible it had not seen Mariann. Which created questions about both the nature and intent of the discarnate soul as well as the nature and intentions of the shadow figure of Mariann.

Besides all that, the voice had been correct yet again. As soon as she made it to the leafy bush glistening brightly in the moonlight, she could immediately see a well-traveled footpath, bending left in the distance. When she thought back to when and where she had first stepped into the forest and where the Borderside was located, then it seemed that the footpath was heading North-East. Away from the Underground Base and towards the Death Fields. Or perhaps in the direction of that place which had attracted the whole town to come and see a dried-up forest lake.

“What do you know about the Death Fields?” Kadri asked.

“Why are you asking about them?” The Thought replied. “We aren’t even near them. You need not worry about them now.”

That was a strange response. Kadri had expected an answer like that though, a rejection, as the question had little to do with the place they were currently at or headed towards. Again a thing she has already experienced during her past meetings with Mariann. Although she had not expected such a forced denial. As if the Thought had something to hide.

“You said you did not know your name. That you had forgotten it.” Kadri said. “You also said I could give you a name. I don’t want to give you a name. But I have two names with which I want to know whether they mean anything to you.”

“Which names?” The Thought asked.

“Reia.” Kadri said.

“No.” the Thought said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Wilhelmina.”

“Neither does that one.”

“That is all.”

She continued down the twisted footpath. The nature was quiet, there weren’t even any droplets falling off leaves. As if there had been no rain here. The voice in her head also stayed silent, which was kind of strange, especially compared to just a few hours ago when it had incessantly talked to her in her mind about the Forbidden Forest and the places which could be found within, and which she could be guided to. But there was something which was not silent. Kadri could swear that slowly but steadily that one track of dance music which had invoked that utterance burnt into the air or the pareidolia stemming from it, was becoming louder and more discernible. But only to her, and not the Thought. And still she too had not told the Thought about it.

“No, no, no, no.” The Thought suddenly said.

“What is it?” Kadri asked.

“No, no, no.” The Thought repeated. “Everything’s wrong. We’re moving in the wrong direction. We should be heading in a different direction.”

“Which direction.” Kadri asked.

The Thought fell silent for quite a long time.

“I don’t know. I know where we have to get to, but I cannot tell in which direction we must continue. I don’t know where we are. I have no sense of direction. The forest has become wrong all of a sudden.”

“Don’t you hear the music?” Kadri asked in her mind.

“The music?” The voice asked.

“That same music which led me into the forest.”

“I think only you can hear it. From which direction it is coming?”

“I think the music is leading me down this footpath.” Kadri said.

“This music may have attached itself to you the same way I have. That may be the reason I cannot hear it.” The Voice said.

“What should I do?” Kadri asked.

“Follow it. You have no other option for getting out of the forest.”

Kadri took a big breath of air to calm herself and then continued walking down the twisted footpath. The voice in her head no longer said anything. With every turn in the path, she was more and more sure that the music was getting louder. But as sound supposedly moved in a direct path, and not like a ladybird following the twisty path of a pen, it brought about a question why would she need to walk down the twisting paths instead of breaking right through the wild forest. Even a bicycle would have been of great help.

Only a few more minutes and a few more turns in the path after she had complained in her thought, did she find the source of the music. And much more. The path ended with a small campsite and a lit fire pit. The fire was strong and surround it was a circle of granite stones which seemed like she could lift with both hands if needed. The fire pit was surrounded from two side by two large concrete pillars, lying on the ground. About half a meter in height and a meter in width each. Along the top side of the pillar ran a depression about 70 centimeters in width. On top of one there was portable stereo set which was playing the music.

Suddenly Kadri realized what she was looking at. These were not concrete pillars, these were stairs. About a floor’s height worth of broken and overturned sections of staircases. Some unimaginable force had ripped these sections from their original place, brought them here and overturned them so that the stairs were now facing the ground like teeth.

“Can you here the music now?” Kadri asked.

“No.”

“Can you see the fire?”

“No.”

Kadri suddenly froze.

It was moonlit night. And something had lured her into the forest. Was tonight the night others had gone to meet the witch? She could not recall. She had no sense of time to orient herself. All this seemed so dreamlike. But she did know she had no business to meet the witch with. Thus there was no reason for her to meet the witch or to be in the forest in the first place. And despite all that she was here. At the campsite. And the stereo was still playing the music.

She bent down to take a closer look. The music was not coming from a cassette. It was coming from the CD. And the stereo was repeating a single track off the CD. According to the little green screen on the device, it would seem the disc held another thirteen tracks. She stopped the playback and then bent down to see where the stereo got it’s power. At first she had thought it was battery-powered, but as she lifted the stereo, she saw the black power cord hanging down. The power cord was plugged into an extension cord which ran under the bottom of the overturned staircase.

“I told you in the beginning that I was not the one to lure you into the forest with the music or to take the shape of Mariann.” The Thought in her head spoke. “I was also not the one to lead you here, instead of leading you to the placed I wanted to lead you. But there is somebody capable of all that.”

“Who?” Kadri asked.

“The witch.”

“But I have no business with the witch. I did not invoke the witch.”

“There is more than one witch.”

More than one witch? Understanding this struck her as a lightning bolt. Somebody else than the one the Mayor had invoked had lured her in here. This changed things. Although she did not know in which direction.

“In olden times, each place had it’s own witch. Every forest and bog, river, lake and sea. Every mountain. I’m sure you have heard of the witch of the Tontla bog.”

“I have.” Kadri said.

“Same with this place here. Whether tonight they are a witch of the Devil’s Bog or the Forbidden Forest, I however cannot tell.”

“But why lure me into the forest?” Kadri asked.

“To meet with me. Maybe the witch knew you would be receptive to me. Maybe she knew I could help you. And maybe you are not yet ready to go see the church of the Western Village.”

“There is one thing you have not yet told me.” Kadri said. “You are in my head. You hear my thoughts which I think out loud. But you do not share my senses. You probably don’t even have your own senses to experience what’s around you. You cannot hear that which my ears hear, you cannot see that which my eyes see.”

The voice in her head was silent.

Kadri sat down on the overturned concrete stairs and pressed play on the stereo. The fire was warm but strangely pale. It wasn’t yellow or even orange by any shade, instead it was pale white with a greenish hue. As if the moon light had cast it’s color on that too as it had cast it on everything else.

The voice being silent told Kadri everything she needed to hear. It meant she was right. And at the same time, the voice knew the Forbidden Forest this well to be able to guide her to places it could not experience directly or… it experienced some places as black holes. Considering that for the entire Forbidden Forest there was a least a couple of such black holes… What kind of coordinate system and sensitivity did it require to navigate between them? To know the location of everything in this forest without directly sensing it?

“You are correct.” The Thought said. “As long as I converse with you, I cannot interact with what lies external to you. When I am no longer attached to you, I will again be free to roam the Forbidden Forest.”

“What next?” Kadri asked.

“There is one other place I wanted to show you. The real Forest Lake. But I can no longer do that. The witch of the Forbidden Forest has interfered with how you experience the forest and move in it. Trails and landmarks that I know of no longer lay in the same locations relative to each other. The distances and directions are no longer the same. That which I remember, is no longer useful, you are going to have to follow the witch’s signs from now on.”

Kadri took a sigh and directed her gaze back at the fire.

She had no idea how long she had been looking at the flame in contemplation when she noticed that somebody was using a fire poker to adjust the logs on the other side of the pale fire. She raised her eyes and almost jumped backwards from her sitting position. It was not Mariann she saw poking the fire. It was her. Somebody who looked exactly like herself. Same clothing, same hair dyed black, same makeup. Everything was exactly the same.

“Me…, of me...” Kadri quietly said.

The other Kadri noticed her but did not say anything. But she did smile. She pulled the poker from the fire and carefully placed it beside her onto the overturned staircase. She then raised her left hand to place a finger on her lips indicating her to remain quiet. With her other hand, she pointed somewhere behind Kadri, towards the depths of the forest.

She was sure that this was the place the other Kadri, or rather the witch wanted her to go.

She got up and grabbed the tripod with the camera. For a moment, her eyes froze on the stereo, still playing the music beside her. She stopped the music and ejected the CD, placing it into the satchel on her hip. If she managed to not fall over then there was a chance for the disc to remain in one piece until she made her way back to the car. At the very least it would be a physical proof that her wandering the Forbidden Forest was something that indeed took place.

There was one other thing for her to do. She walked a few steps away from the concrete segment, then placed the camera on the ground and made the viewfinder frame cover both the broken staircase bits as well as the other Kadri. The fire overexposed everything, which forced her to turn the aperture way down and the exposure as well to photograph anything at all. Keeping that in mind, she took four or five images with different settings.

During all this time, the other Kadri kept standing still on the other side of the fire, being lit by it. The index finger of one hand raised to her lips and the other hand pointed to somewhere behind Kadri and to the left,

She grabbed the camera and finally started heading towards the indicated direction. Having taken less than tens steps, she suddenly turned around. It was dark. Dark all around her. She could not see the flame any more. Nor the campsite. Not even a footpath. Behind her, there was a uniform forest of conifers. A small amount of moonlight was still reaching the ground highlighting some lower shrubs and young trees with scarcely any leaves. But before her was a trail. And she decided to continue walking on it.

“I don’t believe it.” The Voice in her thoughts suddenly said. “I know where we are. Right by the Forest Lake. The real forest like is right behind the next turn in the trail. But be careful. When the witch met you she almost certainly told you something.”

Kadri stopped. The other Kadri had pointed at this direction and indicated to her to keep quiet. Maybe it meant instead that she should keep quiet and not make any noise when she made it to the Forest Lake?

She started walking again, but now much slower while also being careful where she placed her feet. Straining her eyes she looked in front of her and tried to avoid stepping on dried branches as much as possible. Soon, a wide clearing opened up before her. It took a few moments for her to realize that it was not a clearing but a lake. A lake full of black water. And despite the moon and the bare sky, the surface of the water reflected no moonlight. Quite the opposite, it looked as if it absorbed any and all light.

It was very hard to grasp in the dark how big the lake was. But to her, in this darkness, it seemed to have an oblong shape. About 30 to 40 meters wide at the narrowest side and maybe twice that in longitude. Rather than a full-fledged lake, by it’s size it was more of a large bog pond.

The actions of that other Kadri were still in her mind. Therefore she took the utmost care when she slowly crouched closer and took cover in the bushes by the water. But doing that, she noticed something. When she stood up, the lake was just one enormous black mirror which reflected nothing. But when she got lower, she started to see. First the sky, the stars and the barely visible Bird’s Path. That already was a completely unearthly sight to see, considering that the whole forest around her was still lit by the moonlight, which has now become as bright as daylight for her, only in pale blue tones. Still she felt that with the correct amount of exposure she could capture that strange reflection on film.

When she got even lower, the lake also reflected the moonlight and the Moon. And that was not all, Even lower, there appeared two maidens and the interior features of a sauna, all made of moonlight.

Kadri was so surprised by this that momentarily she rose a few dozen centimeters and the sight immediately disappeared like shadowed moonlight. Getting back down the spectacle appeared in front of her once more. It looked like moon- or sunlight reflecting off fine dust or water droplets in the air. But there could never have been that much water vapor above the lake and the Moon was not nearly luminous enough. Never mind the clarity and definition with which she saw the action. As if the surface of the water was amplifying the light and everything else.

With careful movements, she set up the camera and found the correct angle and height, so that which was transpiring on the other side of the lake was also visible through the viewfinder and the prism. Through the lens she could tell that there were sauna benches at three different heights and at the end of the benches there was an old style sauna stove with boiling water in a large copper cauldron sunken into the stonework. There was also a staircase leading down to the surface of the lake or even below that.

Truthfully, Kadri could not even tell whether what she was seeing took place on the other side of the lake and above the water’s surface or much closer and below the surface. Both options were inconceivable. Either something real with no reflection or reflection without the real.

She decided to do the same thing she had done by the fire – to take several shots with several settings, focusing on the quality of the image. She could however take far fewer pictures than she wanted to, before discovering that she could not turn the roll forwards any more. She had spent all 24 frames of the super-sensitive 34 degree film. Four or five frames were clearly too little. Too few images, too few settings.

Kadri started rummaging in her satchel, trying to find more rolls. Maybe she did have something else that could be used for photographing this rarity. While doing that she bumped the camera stand and it tumbled over into the bushes. Kadri did not think it made that much noise, but she was wrong.

Everything changed at once. Moonlit maidens and the sauna disappeared at once and the surface of the lake changed as well. It was no longer a mirror of deep black color, reflecting only certain things at certain angles. It was a perfectly normal surface of a forest lake, reflecting the moon and the moonlight. Imperfection also appeared on the surface of the water, caused by various water bugs and critters living above and below the surface. Kadri could now also feel the fresh moisture that the lake put into the air.

Before she managed to put her hand out to upright the fallen camera, a bright beam of blinding electric incandescent light found her. She also heard something that made her insides grow cold. A solid metal sliding and something being cocked. It took a few moments for her to finally be able to see two muzzle ends coming out of that bright light. Metal and wooden parts behind the muzzles left no doubt. These were two Kalashnikov assault rifles.

“Hands up, you imperialist lackey!” She head a man speaking Estonian with a Russian accent.

“Base, this is patrol 35. Patrol 35.” The other voice spoke. “We caught a spy. With a camera and everything.”

Kadri could hear the radio airwaves filled with noise but no reply followed.

“Base, this is patrol 35! Can you hear me?”

The shortwave radio somewhere behind Kadri continued to buzz with no reply.

“This god damn ass end of hell! Nothing propagates here!” One of the men cursed. “We’ll take her with us then. The gate is not that far to walk.”

Kadri felt somebody grip her upper arm tightly and she was violently pulled up. So violently that arm and shoulder hurt like hell. She was handcuffed and, dragged by her upper arm she was led deeper into the forest. She also saw the other man taking her camera and the stand still attached to it.

She said nothing. She had nothing to say. The situation was just too absurd. Was the Underground Base still in use by the Russians for them to patrol in the forests? Or were these the phantom soldiers people reported seeing? Going by how hard one of them was grabbing her arm, these were no phantoms.

There was a variant of the last explanation which she liked the least. That she had again found some sort of a gate and slid either into a parallel world or even worse, a past of some kind. The last time, near the air field, she had had to find the place where the gate between the two worlds was. But here she had no idea where it could be. It was event possible for the gate to be moving around which would have made finding it again a hopeless endeavor. It was possible that she was trapped here, not only in this base but also in this time, in this world.

The pain of being dragged through the forest did not allow her to continue further with her thought. Although for her, the forest was one big maze, the soldiers escorting her seemed to be possess an almost supernatural sense of direction and knowledge where to go. Soon, Kadri could see a familiar row of concrete posts carrying rusty barbed wire and a wide overgrown paved road running along side it. The soldiers followed it.

A few dozen minutes later, she could see a turn towards the right. Blacktop which had thus far followed along the row of pillars, now turned right and headed between the posts towards the Base. But the soldiers did not go that way, instead they continued to drag he forwards, onto a small footpath.

It did not take long for the trail to exit the forest. Right by the tall gates of the Underground Base clad in sheet metal. Between the gate and the forest there was a strip of tall grass maybe twenty meters wide.

Kadri was instantly surprised as she was dragged through the grass. The grass was dry.

“Gate! This is patrol 35. We’ve captured a spy.” The soldier carrying the camera barked towards the gate. “Look, she even had a camera! Call the base. Let them send a car.”

Kadri looked at the halves of the tall gate bathed in the light of mercury vapor discharge slowly opening up. She was then dragged through the open gate doors. Right as she had cleared the path of the gate’s movement, she was stopped by tightened grasp.

“Can you let go of me?” Kadri asked.

“So you could give us the slip, right?” The soldier asked.

Kadri could still not turn around to see his face or even the uniform.

“Spies caught this close to the base are taken to Moscow with a special flight first thing tomorrow. They will be working on you from then on.”

“Gate?” The other soldier repeated. “Gate! This is patrol 35!”

“What’s going on?” The soldier still hanging on to Kadri asked.

“The gate team is gone!” The other one said. “Maybe this girl is a diversion!”

In the distance, Kadri saw two sources of light move about, in a few moments they started moving towards her.

“Hey Tolya! Look into forest on the other side! Something has happened to the gate!”

“But the spy...”

“She’s not going anywhere! She’s cuffed!”

The soldier answering to the name Tolya let go of Kadri and then took a few steps away. He then sensed that something was wrong. He turned around. The girl in black they had captured along with the camera was gone. Only a pair of handcuffs was laying on the ground. A moment later, a Russian Willy’s with a camper top stopped behind him.

“Where’s the spy!?”

*

Kadri also sensed that something was wrong. Something was weird. One moment she was bathed in bright white electric light and the next, she was in complete darkness. This was not a hyperbole. She had blinked her eyes for just a moment. The hand cuffs around her wrists were gone but her right shoulder and upper arms still hurt.

It also was not a complete darkness. The Moon was still bright in the sky. And in the moonlight, her eyes slowly started to again discern her surroundings. She was standing between the wide open gates of the Underground Base. The sentry post next to the gate had no roof. It’s windows had been bashed in and the wooden frames from the window holes were gone. The same for any interior furnishings and the wiring.

Next to the gate, leaning against the exterior wall of the post, she discovered the camera with the tripod attached. Although her eyes were not completely adjusted to the moonlight, it seemed the camera had not suffered any damage and the film, still stopped at the last frame, was still inside.

With careful steps, she stepped through the gates of the base once again, but now in the other direction away from the base.

“Hey?” She asked in her mind.

Nothing. Silence. She received no reply, not in her mind, not in her ears. This calmed her.

Her calm was even further increased by a big black object on the side of the road in the distance. Right before the silhouettes of the gabled roofs blackened in the light of the Moon in the sky. It was quite clear that right now, she would not be able to figure out what happened to her during the night. She didn’t even want to think about it. The only thing she wanted was to sleep and to push everything else into the morning.