The Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy by Johanna Sinisalo
‘So you were outside last night?’
The contradiction dawned on him and he said, somewhat bemused: ‘That’s funny. I was playing with them in my dream. It felt almost real.’
It had been a good time to move house. Rea would soon have been kicked out of her student flat and Tuisku was still young enough not to worry about leaving his friends behind. Their terraced house in Närvä was close to the primary school and only a few hundred metres from the pre-school. She did not need a car, as the bus into town stopped almost right in front of the door.
But now all that trouble seemed to have been for nothing. Rea had thought of taking part in next summer’s marathon once her stamina built up. She had even started going jogging in the mornings before class, once she had dropped Tuisku off at pre-school; but now her thoughts were far from the marathon. She would be glad just to see next summer.
Running was the only way of calming down for a while, even though it always felt as if she was not alone. It truly touched her to think of all the village had given her; it had accepted her, showed her its beautiful sides, both its people and the countryside. Of course Rea did not imagine for a moment that she was living in a perfect world, but she knew she would never forget the warmth she had encountered that autumn; how Laura would often bring round some of her mother’s home-made buns or how the woman next door had raked the leaves from Rea’s garden as she had been raking her own garden anyway.
Or how one foggy morning she found herself on the bear carver’s land. First she noticed the beehives in the meadow. Past them she saw a group of figures standing next to a muddy track in the field. Through the fog she expected to see people going about their morning business, but then realised that the figures were standing still. These were the bear sculptures facing out towards the road. Most of them were complete, but some were still only taking shape. They were all fresh and unvarnished. At least seven wooden bear brothers, new born or still in creation, were each awaiting the journey to a garden of their own.
Rea had never seen an exhibition quite like it, and she was not sure whether these sculptures represented true art or were simply glorified garden gnomes. Nonetheless, the bears on the meadow looked like a squadron of guards; they seemed to be saying: ‘Don’t give in! This is your village now, and our village too. We won’t let any harm come to you.’
‘I’m more childish than my first-years,’ Rea whispered to herself and for a moment she felt at peace.
Rea began seeing other things she knew she would remember for the rest of her life.
Tuisku was still sleepwalking, and this time Rea woke up. Now she realised she had not forgotten to lock the door. Tuisku had learnt how to open the lock and left the door ajar as he went outside. He even put on his wellington boots, though otherwise he was only in his pyjamas.
Rea snatched a hooded jacket from the rail. It was so chilly outside that soon she would have to wake Tuisku up, or at least guide him back indoors. The boy picked up his bucket and walked off with such determination that Rea could not help but follow him – her curiosity shutting out the cold and the fear. This she had to see. She chuckled to herself; Tuisku would probably laugh too when he heard what he had been getting up to during the night.
She was startled and instinctively stood still when she realised that there were others outside too. Children, all different ages; some toddlers like Tuisku, others she might have called youngsters. They were all walking in the same direction, and none of them seemed to notice Rea, though she was standing in full view.
There were at least several dozen children, so many that Rea could not help but wonder: was she really the only adult watching this? Was everyone else fast asleep?
The group finally gathered at the end of the path, in a garden Rea had often stopped to admire. In between the trimmed hedges and flower beds stood a wooden bear. Rea was not the least surprised to see the children congregating around the sculpture. They emptied their buckets in front of it – she could not make out the contents of the buckets, but could well guess – and sat down on the wet ground. Rea had to control her desire to shoo them all home. They would most probably all have a sore throat the next day. Some of the older children hugged the younger ones. Tuisku sat on the knee of one of the older boys; precisely the kind of big boy that would be the prime suspect when someone steals the headmaster’s wallet.
The children sat in silence. Rea did not have a watch on, but she sensed that a long time passed; an hour at least, possibly more. Then the children stood up and picked up their buckets.
The sky was clear and full of stars. Beneath the constellation of the Great Bear the little figures toddled back to their beds and Rea followed her own son home.
No one in class the next morning was coughing, but many of the children were hopelessly sleepy. This time Little Teemu fell asleep during morning assembly. The others giggled but Rea let him sleep.
Tuisku had not reacted in the slightest when Rea had walked him past his night-time meeting place that morning. Nor was there any sign of the berries, mushrooms or honey left around the bear – not even little footsteps.
It never occurred to her to discuss this matter with the headmaster. Although common sense said otherwise, Rea was convinced everything was as it should be. It was not her place to get involved and, besides, she had no desire to do so. There had been such a sense of calm and safety at the children’s nocturnal meeting that she had no need to worry about Tuisku. On the contrary, Rea herself felt much more at ease, more prepared for what was to come.
Several more incidents occurred in the village; the police were called to investigate and began interviewing people. Everything took place close to the school, so even the children were asked all kinds of questions, but Rea saw no use in kidding herself any longer. He was taunting her; it was a reminder of all that could happen. This was just the beginning, but the petty theft, the graffiti and the crow left hanged on the school door were all just a game – a cat playing with a mouse.
Rea would always pop home during the lunch breaks, even when she had nothing in particular to do there. She would check the post, have a cup of coffee or put on a clean T-shirt if she had had a PE lesson that morning. Often she would wash up the morning dishes or make the beds.
This time something warned her before she even opened the front door. Something was different. As she opened the door she could see and smell the cigarette smoke. She wanted to run back to the school, hide behind the headmaster and call the police.
Arttu was sitting at the kitchen table. He had been using Tuisku’s porridge bowl as an ashtray.
If Rea had bumped into Arttu anywhere else she would hardly have recognised him. He had put on at least twenty kilos and and had cut his long hair.
‘Hello,’ said Arttu in contrived friendship.
‘When did you get out?’
‘A while ago. Why didn’t you come and meet me?’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Of course you knew. I told you in all my letters. You did read them, didn’t you?’
Rea nodded.
Arttu had taken some milk out of the fridge and drank straight from the carton.
‘Never mind. I’m here now. Nice place you’ve got.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to see my son. And then we can carry on where we left off, eh?’
Again Rea felt the impulse to run away and hide behind someone.
‘I can bring my stuff round this evening,’ Arttu continued. ‘And don’t look so frightened. I’m a changed man.’
The last sentence was presumably one he felt he had to say. Coming from Arttu’s mouth it didn’t sound very convincing; this didn’t even seem to be the point.
‘You can’t move in,’ she said flatly.
‘I can, and you know that very well. Don’t you remember all the good times we used to have?’
Rea could not really remember, she did not want to remember. It had taken a lot of effort to get over the blur of the past, an
‘Listen, I’m in a bit of a tight spot right now. I need some support, surely you understand that?’
Rea had half expected him to explain that a boy needs his father, that their love wasn’t dead and so on.
‘I’ve got to get back to school. Don’t be here when we get back.’
Arttu shrugged his shoulders and lit another cigarette.
‘Have you got anything to eat? The fridge is almost empty.’
‘I’m going now.’
‘Haven’t you got time to pop into the bedroom? I’ve missed you, you know.’
Rea turned and almost ran out of the door.
‘Didn’t you get my message?’ Arttu shouted after her and gave a throaty laugh.
The morning paper remained untouched on the floor, but everyone at school was talking in shock. They had probably all been talking about it that morning, but Rea had been so busy she had gone straight to her classroom and had not spoken to anyone.
‘How is this going to affect the children?’ sighed one of the teachers. ‘I hope they catch him soon, otherwise we’ll have to organise transport for the children.’
‘What we need is a Neighbourhood Watch, I’ve said it before,’ said another.
‘Nothing like this has ever happened here before. Never.’
‘Well, until now. I suppose you’ve got to expect it, we’re so close to the town …’
‘What’s happened?’ asked Rea.
The other teachers could not believe that she had not heard.
‘Old Mrs. Koistinen … you know, the lady in the yellow house with the apple trees and a wooden bear in the garden.’
‘Everyone round here has apple trees and a bear in their garden.’ Rea was trying to sound calm but her jaws were trembling.
‘The house is just where the saw track starts – not even hidden away. With the paint peeling. Why are you shaking?’
Rea remembered. She had seen a very old lady with a walking stick in the garden trying to pick berries on one of the bushes.
‘No one knows how long she’d been there. The neighbours started worrying because no one had seen her and she wasn’t collecting her post.’
‘He was certainly barking up the wrong tree if he thought she had any money stashed away.’
‘And the way he … who’d have thought? And to mutilate the cat like that as well.’
‘There was a letter,’ someone said.
‘What kind of letter? Who to?’
‘Hulmala didn’t say, but he’ll let us know soon enough. All he said was that the message was left to crown it all off …’
The headmaster raised his finger.
‘Remember, we cannot talk about the details. We’re not supposed to know anything, but please don’t say anything to the press. Hulmala should learn to keep his mouth shut. And we mustn’t let any of this slip in front of the pupils. Otherwise before we know it we’ll have a swarm of terrified, restless kids on our hands, then we’ll really be in trouble.’
‘No, of course we mustn’t talk, but still we have to warn the families. You never know with people like that.’
‘Parents will take precautions once they’ve read the papers and watched the news. They’ll have quite enough information. But they don’t need to know everything.’
‘Ignorance is bliss, I suppose,’ somebody tried to be witty and the headmaster agreed:
‘In this case it most certainly is.’
Rea did not want to know any more either. This was the day everything started to collapse. The perfect timing was probably unintentional on Arttu’s part, but he had succeeded more than he could imagine. The full horror hit Rea at once, casting everything else in its shadow.
In the yard a slaughter van was waiting for a calf which had spent all summer happily hopping about the meadow, fooling itself into believing that the sun would shine forever.
By the afternoon the house was empty. Tuisku could smell the cigarette smoke, though the butts had been cleared away.
‘Let’s have a little rest,’ Rea suggested. ‘Come and sit on my knee and I’ll read to you.’
Tuisku did not want to sit down.
‘Why does it smell of smoke?’
‘It’s probably the ventilation. Don’t worry about it. Come and sit next to me.’
‘No. Let’s play with the lego.’
‘Or we could go to the shop. I could get you some ice cream.’
‘Yes! We can go on your bike.’ Tuisku was getting too big to sit in the child seat.
‘Next summer we’ll get you a bike of your own. One with two wheels,’ said Rea and immediately realised that this may be a difficult promise to keep. Thankfully Tuisku could not see her face.
‘Look, Mum, Laura’s got two bears now. Cool!’
Next to the dark bear sculpture on Laura’s garden there had appeared another, light-golden coloured bear.
The golden apple, she recalled, that’s what people used to call bears long ago. ‘The forest’s Golden Apple’ people would say, because the word ‘bear’ was too frightening and sacred.
‘Why can’t we have one of our own?’
‘Because we can’t afford it right now. I’ve got to buy us some clothes for the winter first; then there’s skis and ice skates and everything.’
‘Don’t you know?’ snorted Tuisku.
‘Don’t I know what?’
‘They don’t cost anything.’
‘What, the bears? Of course they do.’
‘No they don’t. You just have to go and ask that old man, then we’d have one of our own. Laura got them for free.’
‘And Laura’s father helped him …’
‘Then you can help him too. A bear would be so nice. I could give it a hat and a scarf for the winter.’
‘We’ll see.’
Old Mrs. Koistinen’s house was cordoned off with yellow tape, but Tuisku seemed not to notice. He was too busy debating whether to have strawberry or pear ice cream.
That night Tuisku went out wandering with the other children again and Rea followed him. Everything happened precisely as it had the night before, the only difference was Rea’s disquiet. What if Arttu appeared out of the darkness? What if he harmed the children, wandering around as happy and innocent as lambs? Just waking them up would be terrifying enough.
But no one appeared. The next day Rea decided to spend the lunch break at school and even offered to do extra playground duty.
Upon coming home that afternoon she was greeted with another cloud of tobacco smoke and cigarettes stubbed out in the sink. She quickly cleared them away. For weeks she had fretted about how to warn Tuisku How could she warn him so he wouldn’t start living in fear, but would still be on his guard? Many times she had started to tell him but never quite finished. Now it could be put off no longer.
Tuisku had never asked about his father. Whenever the subject had come up, Rea had lied and said that his father was dead. After all, to Rea he was dead. In no way had he been any kind of father to Tuisku.
She gave Tuisku a sandwich and a pot of yoghurt.
‘Listen. Has anyone told you that something very bad has happened in the village?’
‘No,’ he said, stuffing the sandwich into his mouth.
‘An old lady had some money stolen and … something terrible happened to her.’
‘Who did it?’ Tuisku’s usual curiosity began to awaken as his hunger abated.
‘No one knows, but …’
‘They should hire a detective.’
‘Yes. Still, I don’t want you to go into the garden by yourself any more, only with me. And stay close to the teachers when you’re out at school.’
Tuisku promised he would. But what could the ladies at the pre-school do if Arttu decided to get serious?
That night Rea lay awake once Tuisku had gone to bed. She was sure he would soon get up and pick up his little bucket, which this time had some honey in it. She had had to buy a
Before Tuisku awoke, Rea heard someone fumbling at the door. She confronted Arttu as he stepped inside. The telephone was on the hall table, but Rea did not have time to try and call for help.
‘Hi. I would have come earlier, but I had some business to attend to.’
‘Be quiet. Tuisku’s asleep.’
‘I’m bloody hungry. I hope you’ve got some grub this time.’ Arttu’s eyes gleamed in the dark. His speech was slurring just enough for Rea to notice. ‘But first things first.’
‘Let’s talk.’
‘No talking. I know you’ve probably been shagging around all these years, but I’ve been missing out. Bed!’
‘No! Don’t go in there!’
‘Same difference, get your clothes off.’
When Rea did not start undressing Arttu tore off her nightdress. She lay perfectly still as he panted on top of her. It was over quickly.
‘You’re like a fish. You used to be a lot friskier. Got any beer?’
From the kitchen Rea could hear Tuisku getting up. She tried to divert Arttu’s attention by rattling a pot, but he had already noticed Tuisku in the hallway.
‘Well well!’ he bellowed.
‘Be quiet, he’s sleep-walking.’
‘He’s going outside, the little devil!’ laughed Arttu.
‘Let him go, he does this every night. He walks about a bit, then he comes home.’
Arttu gave Rea a sceptical look. ‘What are you on about? What is this? You’re up to something!’ He stood up quickly. Rea grabbed hold of him.
‘Let him go! You’ll see, he’ll be back soon.’
Arttu shook himself loose and knocked Rea to the floor. Then he went off after Tuisku.
‘Wait!’ Rea shouted, but he had already shoved open the door.
Tuisku was already at the end of the path and the other children were walking beside him.
‘Leave them alone,’ Rea pleaded with him, but Arttu continued striding towards them.