And Can Do No Other.

1.


So here I am, sitting on an iron bench next to a worn bronze statue of Alexander II, clutching my coat against the cold, and as far as I know nobody speaks English in this godforsaken town. Gods, I hate coming here. It's always exactly like this.

There's a flicker as I light a cigarette and try to get my bearings. The plaza is big and lonely, devoid of people. There's this 19th century cathedral behind me, set on dozens of steps, rising above everything like a big white neoclassical birthday cake. That is my landmark, my mental rallying point. I couldn't work without one. The street signs are in two languages, neither of them English, but even if I could read them, it wouldn't help me much. All the buildings look the same in this part of town, you see. Old like the bones of the earth, with narrow windows; grey or white or hideous painted orange stone walls, all sporting nice modern plexi-glass doors.

The sky is black and purple, and the temperature is a degree or two below freezing. It dawns on me. I'm stuck in a foreign country looking to talk to some sort of magical gnome. Lucky me.

I pace across the square, cross the street and start walking down towards the seaside. There's this big wide marketplace there, a large swathe of stone and asphalt rising out of the sea, now peppered with empty stands and devoid of people. The waters are cold and black, and seem to stretch into infinity. There's this chill wind blowing over from the south, a sound of splashing against the cool rock. I glance at my watch as a small European car drives up to me, right on cue.

The driver is this old bearded guy, with a grizzled coat and a funny hat. His eyes are watery blue, and he smells faintly of menthol cigarettes. If someone put one of those yellow raincoats on him, he'd be something out of a Hemingway book. He says nothing as I sit down and close the door behind me. Instead he just turns the car and starts driving north. There's no word about the cigarette. I just roll down the window and poke the glowing end through it.

'I... well, I was told there could be a meeting with the tutelary,' I say, not being able to take the enduring silence. What is it with these people and not talking?

He glances at me, squinting, and snorts.

'Mister, we here in this country do not have some meetings with spirits. We don't go having lunch with them in any nice restaurant. Meetings are not... their hay? Not what they do. Not that way how you can catch them,' he slowly says, smirking like a benevolent grandfather to a small inexperienced child. His thick accent is hard and flat, completely flat, no tones at all.

'So what do you do with them?'

'You ask them to listen.'

There's a pause.

'How do I do that?' I ask, and he visibly hesitates, licking his lower lip and making a strange hissing sound. I recognise that. This guy's been to a few AA meetings in his time, or whatever they have here.

'By doing... how do you say? The old peoples' ways. Very small amount of peoples know how to do that any more. So it's hard. But we're going to go do that right now. I know the tricks. I know where is this elf and how you talk to it.'

'Fair enough. Will it be far?'

'No.'

'What happens when we get there?'

'Everything in its time,' he says, possibly telling me to shut up already. I shrug, lean back on my ragged seat, and listen to the engine hum as we drive out of civilisation and into the waiting darkness.

It starts to rain halfway out of the city. Since the old man has stopped talking to me, I have nothing to do except watch the drops run down across the window, one after the other. Traffic lights and headlights blur into them, but even that light show disappears once we get off the highway. Then it's just more darkness, and the blue-black sky, and a forbidding shadow wall on all sides made out of about a billion trillion tall pine and spruce trees. We stop in the middle of a dank-looking forest.

The old man says nothing; he just gets out of the car, slamming the door shut. Rain patters down on the roof, telling me to stay where it's warm and nice, but I follow him. Together we make way deep into the grey hinterlands, dodging rocks, moss, trees, and big mound-like ants' nests. The smell of trees weighs heavy on my nose. Even the rain has a light, clear smell. Wet twigs slip and crack under our boots, and I can't see where the heck I'm going. This has got to be the most depressing forest I've ever been to.

A tall young man is waiting for us on a small clearing. He's sitting on one of the big boulders that flank it - natural boulders, untouched bits of granite. Leftovers from an ice age ten thousand years ago. Some of the trees have fallen, and there's all sorts of odd stuff growing off their remains.

The old man nods, and the young man nods back, giving a small silent salute with his right hand. He's tall, gaunt and pale, with that lean hungry look in him. The black rubber boots he wears are local ware, ideal for waddling through mushroom-infested forests, but he has an Anaheim Ducks cap on, and I can see earphones that probably belong to an mp3-player hidden somewhere in the pockets of his American sports coat. He removes them as he walks up to me.

'Welcome to where trees come to die,' the unshaved kid says cheerfully.

'Is this the place?' I ask, lighting another unfiltered Camel.

'Yes. There are about ten or so spots we could've picked. But I think this is the best. The tutelary here is pretty robust, and pretty good-natured. I've asked grandpa there to help, because he knows all this stuff better than I do. It's not like this is a bourgeoning business enterprise or anything. All very hush-hush. Specialised - you know what I mean.'

His English is spot-on, built from years and years of soap operas and action flicks.

'Why would this tutelary know what I want to know?' I ask, already shivering from the rain down my neck.

'Because it's that kind of tutelary. It belongs to the Folk of the Forest. Wherever the forest reaches, these guys reach, in one way or the other. Trust me. It's going to know.'

The problem with this country, I once decided, is that there's something sitting inside absolutely everything. Few people know it anymore, but spirits still sleep out there, in secret, waiting for the right words and the right signs. The Folk of the Fire. The Folk of the Sea. The Folk of the Bus Stops and Parking Lots, maybe. Who knows?

'We should get this started, then. It's going to be morning very soon,' I say with a hint of resignation in my voice. Getting my hands dirty with this esoteric stuff always makes my skin crawl.

'Okay. Grab a dead branch and draw me a circle on the needles.'

I do as I'm told, pick up a wet piece of wood, and make a big circle on the wet, barren ground under all the shoots and needles. The two locals negotiate briefly, and then the young guy fetches a small black collapsible army shovel from a backpack he's hidden next to one of the boulders. They dig a small hole in the middle of the circle. The old guy visits the backpack too, and comes back with a faded plastic Pepsi bottle that's been filled with some sort of greyish-white powder.

'Reindeer horn, for the sacrifice,' the young man explains, nodding towards the hole. 'Not as good as some of the other stuff we could've used, but it'll have to do. A bit silly, but the tutelary won't know any better. That's a point in our favour.'

I have absolutely no idea if he's joking or not.