After supper Hedi begged Mother,

"Ma, please, let me show Jorma just one thing, then we'll go to bed at once."

"What thing is it?"

"A very beautiful thing," Hedi answered.

"All right," Mother agreed. "But don't stay long."

Hedi beckoned to Jorma and slipped into the hall. Jorma followed her trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible—Father might call them back.

Jorma didn't see Hedi in the hall, he could only hear her voice coming from above,

"Come along upstairs!"

In one corner of the hall there was a staircase. It was on those stairs that Hedi was standing. What stairs? Where did they lead? Why hadn't Jorma noticed the staircase before? Hadn't he passed it several times in the course of the day? Very strange indeed!

The dimly lit stairs took them to a creaking door. Hedi did her best to open and shut the door as noiselessly as possible, as if she feared to wake up someone. Jorma looked about himself and found that it was the most curious room he had ever been to: it was full of nooks and corners and still spacious. In the two opposite ends of the room there were windows, one of them barely visible against a bluish glow, the other still let in rich pinkish light which flooded the room with comfortable twilight. The room was stuffy and full of strange smells.

"What place is this?" asked Jorma.

"This is the attic," said Hedi. She took her brother by the hand and led him to a thick square pillar. "This is the chimney-stack." And, pointing to the sandcovered floor, she went on, "There's the kitchen below here."

Jorma tried to picture their parents sitting below at the large table finishing their tea quite unaware that their children were standing over their heads in the strange pinkish room. Only a while ago Jorma had been sitting by their side, also unaware that there was that mysterious attic overhead. He thought that somewhere perhaps quite near, there were other attics of which he didn't know.

Hedi led Jorma on. There were various peculiar things lying about everywhere, even more than in the corners of the barn. Hedi stopped before a large trunk.

"This is the trunk of Uncle August," she said.

"Do I know Uncle August?" Jorma asked.

"No, we weren't born yet when Uncle August got lost. Went to war and never came back."

"What's there in the trunk?"

"Nobody knows, the key's lost too."

Jorma didn't want to stand before the trunk whose owner was lost as well as the key. He was fond of mysterious things only if he could solve the mystery. Unresolved mysteries didn't appeal to him. They used to come back in his dreams and tease him.

"Is this what you called the beautiful thing?" he asked with disappointment.

"No," Hedi shook her head. "The beautiful thing is this." She pointed at the glowing window. On the window-sill there was a tall blue glass vase lying on its side. The vase was held in a blue glass hand. On one finger of the glass hand there was a glass ring. Hedi put the vase on the window-sill.

"Isn't it a beautiful vase?" she asked.

"Whose vase is it?" Jorma wanted to know.

"It's Granny's old vase. She would give it to me, but Mummy doesn't allow me to take it to town. She says we have so many vases at home."

"Let's put it under my bed."

Hedi shook her head sadly.

"A vase must stand on a table."

Hedi passed her fingers over the vase lovingly. Near the vase Jorma noticed a large bright butterfly. It was lying with its wings spread, motionless, as though basking in the evening glow. Jorma's hand rose to touch the butterfly, but Hedi said,

"Don't touch it. It's dead."

"How do you know?"

Hedi knew it since the previous night when on arrival she had inspected all her special places. But even when she was on her first visit to Vainu she had discovered dead butterflies on the window-sills of the attic. Some were hanging on the window-frame with their wings closed, just like dry leaves, of others there remained only odd wings. When Hedi found her first dead butterfly, she cried bitterly. Father comforted her, saying that it was quite normal, it was even very good, because, come to think of it, if the butterflies never died, they would soon fill the world so that no other beings could find room to live in it. That was the way things were, he said, the old had to give room to the young. Of course, Hedi understood it because she was a clever girl.

The children admired the variegated wings of the dead butterfly in silence. The dark patches looked like holes in the sparkling red velvet.

Somebody opened the door below. The children raised their heads. It had grown so dim in the attic that they couldn't see very well. Outdoors everything was still clearly visible: the long grey cattle-shed just in front of them, behind it the pasture, the birches with drooping branches, the round nut-trees, the dark clump of fir-trees, a few cottages, the glowing clouds and a light colourless strip at the horizon.

"That's the sea," Hedi hastened to explain. "Grandpa usually comes here to look at the sea in the evening, and then he knows what the weather will be like... Tomorrow the weather will be fine... "

"Did Grandpa tell you?"

"No. But I know: when the fog rises in the evening and falls in the morning, it brings fine weather."

The pasture was really covered by a sheet of fog as Jorma, too, noticed now.

The fog didn't lie motionless but shifted restlessly as if preparing to move to some other place, but couldn't decide where exactly to go.

"Hedi, is the fog alive?"

Hedi looked at him with round eyes.

"I don't know what you mean," she said.

"Does the fog know that we're watching?"

"You silly thing, fog's... just fog."

The fog had grown denser and floated now. The bushes were bathing in it like stones in the sea. Jorma felt an irresistible desire to bathe in the fog. It must be wonderful!

"Hedi! Jorma!" Mother was heard to call in the yard.

"They're looking for us," said Hedi.

"Now we'll be sent to bed!" said Jorma and he was seized by despair. To bed again! It was always like this! He has only just started to like it, and there you are, he's sent off to bed! How short, how very short can a long day be!

The front door was open. The children stepped out onto the porch. They were received by the sweetsmelling cool of the yard. The lawn shone as if it were a freshly polished floor. The brook babbled invitingly. Unfamiliar voices of birds came from the garden. Vudi got on his feet in front of his kennel, clinked his chain and produced a yearning whine.

"Children," he seemed to be saying, "set me free, and I'll take you to such wonderful places—they will take your breath away!"

If only Hedi and Jorma could go to these places! If only they could do something! Something very important that was left undone.

Mother appeared from behind the house.

"Oh, there you are, and I've been looking for you high and low. Now, time to go to bed, and be quick about it!"

No, no, not to bed! Not yet!

And suddenly Jorma made a dash out to the lawn.

"Jorma! Come back at once!" Mother called sternly.

"Jorma!" Hedi called appealingly.

But Jorma kept running. When he heard steps behind his back he gave a cry.

Neither Mother nor Hedi understood if it was a cry of joy or distress.

Jason Ladock

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