Finally Karri stopped. He said they couldn’t go any farther; they were at a dead end. Riku started to sob. Olli was too tired to feel anything. He patted Riku on the back to remind him that there were others here, hoping that Riku would be ashamed and know that he should keep quiet.
Then there was a glimmer ahead. Karri had started to dig away the wall with his hands. Fresh air, and then light, started to flow into the passageway. Karri made an opening and they scrabbled through it into a bright, cave-like space.
When they had sufficiently recovered, they went back to look at where they had exited from the passageway. What they had thought was a cave was in fact a cellar with stone walls. It certainly was in an odd place, out here in the woods.
They found the remains of a building. Later Aunt Anna would tell them that it used to be a youth centre, but it had burnt to the ground fifteen years before when little boys were playing with matches there.
They noticed that they couldn’t see the narrow opening any more. The stone wall had fallen over it. Maybe the whole passageway had collapsed.
They looked at each other, then walked away.
Riku tapped on his wristwatch and cursed. He’d got the watch as a birthday present and bragged that it was a “quality timepiece”. Now it had stopped.
Riku looked accusingly at Timi. “Olli, just so you know, your dog has my permission to buy me a new watch. If it hadn’t been for him we could have eaten our lunch without any problems and be lying around at Aunt Anna’s right now.”
Anne stopped brushing herself off and asked in a tight voice, “What happened in there? What do you all remember?”
They didn’t say anything.
“Well, for heaven’s sake, don’t tell me that you can’t remember anything either,” she said. “I’m trying but I can’t seem to think of a single thing that happened. Well, maybe something, but…it’s just a hint of something that I can’t explain.”
Everyone tried their hardest to remember.
But it was soon clear that none of them remembered anything that they could talk about in the light of day. Whenever they thought of something, they couldn’t find words to express it.
That was five summers ago, and now they’ve decided to find the first entrance again.
They’ve searched for it before. The first time was right after they came up out of the passageway and went to get their picnic basket. They found the basket, but never found the entrance. They couldn’t remember where it was, not even Karri. Timi didn’t even want to look for it.
That time, of course, they were tired and confused and still very young. Now they’re older and they won’t give up so easily.
For the past few summers they’ve found new passages in other places, overcome their fears and gone inside them.
They quickly realized that the secret passages affect your thoughts, and especially your memory. Inside the tunnels things are distorted; they seem different from how they are above the ground. And time progresses differently, too: sometimes it slows down, sometimes it speeds up, and sometimes it stops altogether. Afterwards they remember different things, or they remember the same things but each in a different way. Some things they can’t remember at all. Often after they come back to the surface, everything that happened inside the secret passages is cloaked in obscurity and all that’s left is the feeling of bewilderment that the passages give a person.
Making sense of it afterwards is laborious but fascinating. Not once have they all been in agreement.
Leo’s theory is that there are fumes and gases there that muddle the functioning of the brain. It’s a plausible explanation. It would explain why Karri is able to find the passages—because he has a nose for sniffing out the air that seeps from them.
Karri thinks that it’s not just gasses. He believes that he’s better at feeling the small atmospheric disturbances that the underground passages create.
As he walks behind Karri down the slope of Taulumäki, Olli believes him. He thinks he can feel alterations in the atmosphere at the same moment that Karri’s demeanour turns tense, when he “gets the scent of a passageway”, as they put it.
Karri stoops down, tosses aside some twigs and brush, and beckons Olli over.
There is definitely an opening, the same one they all crawled into after Timi five years ago. As he peers down into it, Olli can smell the peculiar scent of the passages, like a garden in autumn.
His hands turn cold, and he wants to run away. No sane person would crawl into the cold, dark ground. The hole exudes an indefinable menace.
But Olli knows that that is how the secret passages protect themselves against intruders. To get in, you have to empty your mind of thoughts.
He can hear the Blomrooses’ voices far off. They’re going in the wrong direction.
“Let’s call the others,” Olli says.
“Not yet,” Karri answers. “First I want to show you something. Follow me.”
Olli looks at Karri questioningly, but he’s hiding under his hood. Olli doesn’t know what to think. He starts to feel nervous.
Karri starts into the tunnel. Olli can hear his sweatshirt rubbing against the walls, breaking off dirt and sand. They are all bigger than they were five years ago, and the opening seems narrower. Then the passageway widens and Karri’s slim body slips smoothly into the darkness.
Olli doubts that Leo, tall and broad as he is, will be able to get in so easily.
Karri moves out of sight and Olli looks around. The day, though grey, feels pleasantly bright when he thinks of leaving it behind. He feels a need to take in the fresh air, to enjoy every breath.
Going into a passageway always feels the same. Like drowning. Going to sleep. Giving in. It’s like trading the world and his ordinary life for a captivating dream.
Leo, Anne and Riku’s voices recede. Karri is waiting for him in the dark. Olli hesitates.
It occurs to him that he shouldn’t spoil his new denim jacket. He hangs it over a branch and pushes his way into the darkness. It’s cold in the passageway at first, and it’s difficult to breathe. But his body quickly adjusts.
22
THEY CRAWL ON HANDS AND KNEES through the dark, feeling their way.
A minute passes, or an hour. Underground, time has no meaning.
Sometimes it’s hard to breathe, sometimes it’s easier. For a while he can smell flowers, as if they were in a garden of exotic plants instead of under the ground. He feels heavy and light at the same time. His skin is tingling. His hands and feet don’t feel like his own. His movements are slow, but smooth and in a strange way easy. Like diving through black water. But now and then he hits his head on the tunnel wall and then gravity reminds him of itself.
A couple of times he thinks he’s lost Karri. He panics, then he hears and feels Karri again, moving ahead of him. He has to keep going forward. The passageway is too cramped to turn around. Stopping would mean death. But dying doesn’t worry Olli; he just has to keep moving.
The surface of the earth, and the sun, are farther and farther away. Olli remembers that the original exit collapsed five years ago. So they’ll have to find a place to turn around and go back the way they came, or find another way out. Assuming there is one.
Olli smiles in the dark. Not because he’s happy, but because it feels soothing on his cheeks. The soothing feeling spreads from his face to his whole head as his thoughts follow the motions of his face. Things will happen the way they are meant to happen. There’s no point in worrying. Karri must know where he’s going. He’s at Karri’s mercy, so he might as well trust him as long as he has no reason to distrust him.