Can people really change? I've been trying to change myself but, maybe at their core, people always stay the same. After today I'm not sure what I believe anymore, not just about people, but about the world itself…
Remorse Of An Adventurer II
Tangled Paths
By Daring D.D. Danger
IV: The Windmill
***Frida***
The sounds of the woods that were clear when exploring the woods had become dominated by a new sound recently: Construction equipment. Many familiar trees were now felled and on the ground.
"Why are they knocking down all these trees?" Hilda asked.
"Probably for a new housing development." David suggested. A tree fell to our left, scaring a few birds into the air as it crashed.
"Look! A Scarlet Warbler!" Hilda ran forward, grabbing my camera from my hands as she went. We were trying to catch photographs of birds to get our bird-watching badge. Hilda had returned to the Sparrow Scouts only about a month before Ahlberg had entered our lives.
David and I looked at each other before sprinting to catch up. We rounded a few dense sections of the woods and found Hilda standing in a clearing, looking directly at an old windmill. The blades of the mill were still spinning, but it seemed in disarray, faded colors and cracks in the walls. The Warbler Hilda was chasing disappeared into a window on the building.
"Are we going to go after it?" I asked.
"It looks safe… enough." Hilda added.
"What is your definition of safe again?" David muttered. As we approached I began to notice a lot of birds and squirrels that seemed to be living in the area. They were more open in their activities, and seemed unconcerned by our presence.
"Is that a garden?" Hilda pointed to an area that definitely seemed to be sectioned off.
"Do you think someone lives here?" I asked. As I finished speaking both of the doors of the storm were thrown open. A woman with grayed hair exited and moved towards us.
"Why hello children!" Her voice sounded familiar to me. Once she was within a few meters I realized why.
"Victoria?!" I blurted out at the same time as David.
"We thought you were dead." David continued, and I immediately elbowed him in the side.
"Who's Victoria?" She asked.
"You?" I said.
"Maybe you're right. I don't actually know my name." She smiled.
"You don't know your name?" Hilda repeated.
"No. Actually, I don't really recall anything before a few months ago."
"Do you remember us?" I asked.
"Hmm." She looked lost in thought briefly. "No, I can't seem to recall."
"I'm Frida, she's Hilda, and he's David." I smiled.
"Since you're all the way out here, why don't you come in for some cookies." Victoria gestured to the windmill and began leading us inside.
I leaned into David and Hilda a bit as we followed.
"I think she has amnesia." I whispered carefully.
"I don't buy it for a second." David yelled as quietly as he could. Victoria reached the door and opened it with a squeak. The inside of the windmill was dominated by cracked walls, faded floors, and aged windows. However, it was also filled with all sorts of small animals and handmade bird houses, each filled with a small nest.
"Wow!" Hilda gasped as she began examining the wildlife.
"You put up a few bird houses and word spreads fast. I think they are coming from the construction site down the way." Victoria said. "If you like birds there are a lot nesting upstairs. Just be quiet, so you don't disturb them." Hilda took the camera and ascended the stairs.
"So, Victoria, what else do you do besides bake and build birdhouses? Do you, I don't know, use the animals for experiments!?" David said in an accusatory tone.
"I'm not sure what kind of experiments I'd do."
"How long have you lived here, Victoria?" I asked as she gestured for us to sit at a handmade wooden dinner table.
"I found this place after I woke up in a pile of rubble on the mountain. It's very foggy but I was clearly some sort of meteorologist. I know all sorts of weather patterns and cloud types. I just can't remember anything personal, if that makes sense."
"Like amnesia?" I proposed.
"I suppose so, yes."
"I think I'll have a look around." David said.
"There's a few minutes before the cookies are done, so go ahead." I decided to accompany David just as Hilda returned from upstairs.
"Frida, she's got tons of books up there. Science, black magic, even this joke book!" Hilda handed me a large hardcover book with a pair of laughing jesters on it. Inside was detailed instructions on how to be funny, as well as jokes of all lengths and styles.
"Frida, you should read that." David pressed.
"Are you saying I'm not funny?"
"Not necessarily unfunny, just… less funny." I shot him a dirty look as we walked outside for some fresh air. No sooner was David opening the doors to the storm cellar.
"Come on David. She doesn't even remember who she is, stop worrying," I plead with him as he enters the cellar anyway. I give Hilda a look before we follow him down.
Victoria's basement was dark and smelled vaguely… wet. David pulled the cord to a light on the roof, which did little more than the sunlight was to light up the dreary concrete room. There were dusty shelves full of seemingly random objects; a few books, an empty jar, and several loose boards. David approached the wood and as he reached out one of the boards slid away, kicking up dust and revealing a hole in the wall. He shoved the remaining boards away and carefully peeked into the dark room. It featured a table covered in sewing equipment.
David looked at the table, which had hand drawn instructions for making something that vaguely resembled Tontu. Or maybe any other Nisse, as they all seemed to look the same.
"That's creepy." I said, and Hilda contributed a nod in agreement.
Scratch.
I looked up as something moved. I hadn't looked very hard at the shelves and couldn't figure out what had moved, but David had begun shaking, a bug falling free of his hair from the vibrations and skittered away. He fumbled around until his hand fell on a string, which he pulled. Light flooded into the room.
The room became a horror show once alight. Science experiments in jars, machines with sharp non-euclidean angles, and other things I really couldn't fully place. The memories of the weather station were still fresh in my mind, the beginning of my adventures with David alone. David turned, and his eyes met with a yellow ball of fur, sitting on a stool. He jumped, but calmed as it was clear the things was fake, a body made of wood, limbs of sticks, and a nose made of some root vegetable.
"I really don't like that thing." Hilda grabbed one of the arms with two of her fingers. David's shoulders lowered out of a fighting stance, and the thing leapt forward.
We sprinted out of the storm doors, David's screams making my ears ring. As the three of us dove forward I heard a door open, and Victoria stood over us, the abomination resting in her arms.
"What is that thing!?" David demanded as he stood up.
"It's my Nisse." She smiled.
"Why'd you make a Nisse in your creepy basement?" I cried.
"Truthfully, I needed the help around the windmill, and sadly it doesn't seem to have it's own Nisse. This chap is my assistant."
"It tried to eat me." David complained, voice laced with distrust and anger.
"He's a bit grabby I'll admit."
"How does one make a Nisse?" I pressed.
"Science from my old books of course." As she spoke a bit of the wall broke free of the windmill and thumped to the ground. "See what I mean about needing help?" Victoria smiled.
"Well you know, we're trying to gather Sparrow Scout badges, and we could help." Hilda suggested as she stood.
"That's true, animal care, interior design-"
"Frida, why would we help her?" David protested.
"She's just an old lady with amnesia now, she's harmless." I whispered back to him.
"She has her science experiment for that."
"His arms are actually twigs." Hilda jabbed.
"I would be grateful." Victoria added.
By the time I returned home the sun had set, and my arms were sore. The windmill was a dated building, repairs needed spanning from filling cracks in the wall to replacing the blades of the mill itself. But there was something rewarding in it. The building was now a wild animal sanctuary more or less.
As I lay down, I just can't seem to shake the memories of the old Victoria, mad scientist, spirit kidnapper. She had the look down to even her frayed hair at the time. She almost buried the city in snow.
Several days of work passed before Victoria insisted we all take a gift and go home. I found myself looking through her books for hours. How was I to pick just one to keep?
Admittedly I knew I had a while. A storm had kicked up not long after Hilda and David left with their gifts. Perhaps I should take David's advice and take the joke book home? I finally grabbed one with a nice old book smell and descended the stairs.
"I think I found the perfect book." I held out the joke book. "It even has a section on how to know when to use the same joke a second time!" Suddenly I realized the center pillar of the windmill now had a large machine in it's place. The mood soured, and the room visibly darkened. Victoria and her sopping wet Nisse gave me an angry look.
I took a step backwards as the Nisse lunged. The floor came fast and the back of my head slammed down. As my ears rang Victoria began to tighten ropes around me, and she dragged me off to the side.
"David was right about you!" I exclaimed in anger.
"Frida, I'm honestly not sure what happened between us, but I just need to assure you I'm not doing anything wrong. You just looked like you were going to try and stop me."
"You have a strange machine hidden in your house like a crazed researcher."
"It's a machine to open a portal to nowhere space!"
"You shouldn't go there. I nearly died there, Hilda nearly died there!"
"You mean to say you've been to nowhere space?" Her attention now diverted.
"It was empty, dark… who knows how long Hilda and I drifted in there before we were ejected."
"It sounds like you were in an outdoor nowhere space. The one this will open will not be as large. Now sit there and be quiet, tonight I will make beautiful history!" She strapped her Nisse to the seat of the contraption, giving it a small kiss, and retreated to a lever in the wall, slamming it downward. Sparks filled the room from above and a shockwave slapped me in the face.
"The construction site gave me the idea, there's not enough space for everyone in Trolberg, but what about the empty nowhere space? What if people could move into there as well?"
"You want to populate nowhere space?" If I hadn't been there, it might have sounded reasonable. A pink beam shot from the writhing nisse, and brilliant light spilled from a crack we'd left in the wall.
"The nisse don't need all the space." Victoria said as she vanished into the portal.
"Frida, what's going on? Why are you still here?" David asked as he and Hilda pushed through the door, a strange nisse joining their ranks.
"She had a lot of books." I admit I was embarrassed about that.
"Is she in there?" Hilda pointed at the portal, and I nodded back.
"It's not supposed to stay open like that, it'll suck the city into it if we don't close it." The nisse said.
"Frida this is my Nisse by the way." David explained.
"I'm Tontu." It said as Hilda released me.
"Let's go Tontu." I grabbed it's hand and pulled it into the portal.
I landed on a bouncy material, the space filled with light coming from various holes.
"Shut the machine down Victoria!"
"But Frida, I'm doing something good here!"
"You'll destroy Trolberg!" No sooner did debris start whizzing past our heads.
"But my calculations were perfect!" She exclaimed. Another portal was now opening, it appeared to be where everything was being pulled. Not again.
"Victoria, let's go!" I yelled. She refused to look at me. I couldn't stay, I was not ending up in the outdoor nowhere space again. Trying to get out was like trying not to get pulled in by a tornado. As I moved I was nearly horizontal, climbing over the flat ground. At last I grabbed the edge of the portal, and my friends were able to pull me and the nisse out. As I turned back to look at it, the portal shut.
"Victoria?" Hilda asked.
"I think she's gone for real this time." I said quietly. "The nisse?"
"Gone too." David said. The three of us began leaving, the animals claiming what remained of the windmill as we went.
"I just… I wanted to believe she could change." I said.
To Be Continued in: The Witch