After graduating from college, I took a job teaching English in a rural village in eastern Estonia, a few miles from the Russian border. There wasn’t much to do in the town, so I spent most of my free time painting. My favorite subject was a small Russian-style church that overlooked a duck pond. I loved capturing the reflection of the church’s bright blue onion domes, topped with golden crosses, on the pond’s still waters. I must have painted that scene dozens of times, at different times of the day, exploring the effects of light.
There was an old man who was always sitting on a bench by the pond. He would occasionally throw some stale bread to the ducks, but most of his attention seemed to be on me. I did my best to ignore him, but one day, in late September, he approached me.
“I love your painting,” he said to me in English. “You capture the reflection so wonderfully. May I ask your name, mademoiselle?”
“Georgina,” I said. Even though I had only started my latest painting, I began to pack up my supplies.
“That is such a pretty name. I am Yuri. Are you from America, little girl?”
I nodded.
“I am also not a native, I am originally from Moscow. May I ask, have you ever painted the castle?”
“The castle in Tallinn?”
“No, the castle in the trees.”
“A castle in the trees?”
“In the forest I mean, forgive me, English is my fifth language. It is only a few kilometers away. I would love to see your painting of it. You are a beautiful painter.”
I hurriedly finished packing up my supplies, eager to get away from the creepy old man. But I was curious about the castle. I had never heard of it before, and a Google search turned up nothing. The next day, I asked some of my students. They told me that it was a few miles outside of town. One of them even warned me that it was haunted, that on some nights you could see specter knights gallop by its ruins.
The next Saturday, I set off for the castle, carrying a small sketchbook. It was a beautiful autumn morning and the forest floor was carpeted in golden leaves. There wasn’t really any trail, but the terrain was flat and the walking easy.
About a mile into my journey, I heard heavy footsteps behind me. I turned, expecting to see Yuri. But instead there was a man with a long red beard, dressed in a roughspun white shirt, a brown vest, and tan pants. He started waving wildly at me, talking hysterically. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I only knew a bit of Estonian, but I could tell that he wasn’t speaking it, nor was he speaking Russian, the country’s second most common language. I tried talking to him in English, but he didn’t seem to understand me. That wasn’t surprising—only a few adults in the town could speak passable English.
I slowly backed away from him. He kept shouting madly but didn’t follow me. I picked up my pace, checking behind me every few seconds, making sure that the man wasn’t following me. He wasn’t.
A few minutes later I came to a clearing in the woods. There, I saw the remains of the castle. There wasn’t much left of it, just a crumbling stone tower and part of a wall. I sat down on a mossy boulder and began sketching the ruins. My idea was to do a two-part painting. The first would show the castle in its heyday—there would be a jousting tournament out front, attended by lords and ladies dressed in their finery. The second would show the castle in its present condition, crumbling and overgrown with weeds.
As I was sketching, I heard footsteps behind me. “That is a most beautiful drawing, mademoiselle.” I got up and started running away, but the earth began to shake. I fell to the ground and blacked out.
***
I awoke in a cold dungeon, the only light coming from a narrow barred window. In the opposite corner of the cell, I saw Yuri. I stood up and scanned the floor, trying to find something to defend myself with. There was nothing. Yuri was probably in his 70, but looked to be nearly a foot taller and a seventy pounds heavier than me. I was a petite girl; I doubted I could fight him off.
“Do not fear me, mademoiselle,” he said. “We are, what is the expression, in the same boat.”
“What did you do to me?” I yelled. “Where am I?”
“We are in the castle you were drawing. But not in the present. We somehow, I do not know how, got transported to the past. There have long been reports of anomalies at this site. I was a physicist, sent over here many years ago to study them, but found nothing. Until now. I was not following you, it just seemed like a nice morning for a ramble.”
“I don’t believe you.” I felt my pockets, searching for my phone, but they were empty. “What did you do with my phone?”
“I think it is still in the present,” he said. “Your sketchpad did come back with us. Unfortunately.”
“I’m not an idiot. Tell me the truth.”
“Look out the window and you will see the truth.”
I did. There was the tower and the wall I was sketching earlier, but they were not crumbling, not overgrown with weeds. It was impossible. I pinched myself but did not wake.
Yuri laughed. “This may be a nightmare, but this is not a dream. We are in the past.”
“How? How is that possible?” I cried.
He shook his head. “I do not know. In fact, I do not even have the slightest clue.”
An hour later, two guards came and unlocked the cell door. I tried to run out, but one of them grabbed me and held my arms tight behind my back. Yuri and I were led up a spiral staircase to a large banquet hall, tapestries depicting knights and hunters covering its cold stone walls. Seated on an ornately-carved wooden chair was a man dressed in blue robes.
He said something to us that I didn’t understand. Yuri responded, and the two went back and forth for a bit, clearly having difficulties communicating with one another. After a few minutes, Yuri switched to what sounded like French.
“Thank God he speaks French,” Yuri whispered to me. “Turns out Middle French is closer to modern French than Old Slavic is to modern Russian. I was afraid I was going to have to dust off my Latin.”
I didn’t respond and the two conversed some more.
“He wanted to know why you are wearing trousers like a man.” Yuri said. “I told him that your clothes got stolen when you were bathing and had to borrow some from a woodcutter, but he doesn’t seem to believe us. You can’t blame him, our garments are odd.”
I listened to the two talk some more. The lord or whoever he was seemed to be getting angrier and angrier. He held up my sketchpad and pointed at my drawing.
“He accuses us of being spies,” Yuri said. “He did compliment the quality of the paper, said it is the finest he has ever seen though. I told him we acquired it from a Flemish merchant.”
“That’s absurd,” I said. “Why would any spies be dressed so strangely? Why would an old man and a girl be sent to spy? Tell him that we are pilgrims. Just come up with something.”
Yuri shrugged. “I am trying, but he is not believing.”
The two talked for about five more minutes before the lord motioned for the guards to take us away.
Yuri smiled as we were being led down the spiral staircase. “We are going to be free tomorrow morning.”
“Are you serious?”
He laughed. “Yes, mademoiselle. We are going to be free of our heads at sunrise.”
“How are you laughing right now?” I yelled, as tears began streaming down my face.
“Do not look glum. Life is meaningless, the quicker you can accept that the faster you will find peace.”
***
Back in the cell, I tried to come up with an escape plan, but I couldn’t concentrate. “You don’t have any ideas?” I asked Yuri.
“You could try praying. Not that I am a believer, but it will have the same success rate as any other course of action. So infinitesimally small, that it is equivalent to zero. It will be best to accept your fate.”
***
Sometime during the night, I heard footsteps approaching our cell window. I looked up, and, in the moonlight, saw the man with the red beard that I had encountered in the forest earlier. He started whispering to me. I woke up Yuri, hoping he could interpret, but he seemed unable to do so. The Russian tried several different languages but the bearded man appeared unable to understand any of them. Another set of footsteps approached the window and the bearded man scurried off.
“What was he saying,” I asked Yuri.
He shrugged. “Seemed to be speaking some Finnish dialect, but I couldn’t understand most of it. I think he said something about a unicorn with a golden horn, but I’m not sure.”
“I saw him when I was walking to the castle. He knows how to get back.”
“Well, if you know something but do not know how to communicate it, it is useless. I am going back to sleep. I was having such a pleasant dream. Goodnight.”
I stood by the window all night, hoping that the strange man would return but he never did. The next day, the two guards returned at dawn and led us outside. A small crowd had gathered, amongst them the bearded man. I looked at him, hoping that he would intervene, but he just stood there.
The guards pushed a smiling Yuri down on a wooden block. A hooded man, wielding a large axe, walked over. It took three swings for the old man’s head to tumble to the ground. Then the guard pushed me down, the block wet with Yuri’s warm blood. As the executioner raised his axe, I felt the earth start to shake. Then everything went black.
I woke up on the mossy rock, the castle in its ruined state. It was just a nightmare, I told myself, nothing real. I stood up, nearly tripping on something. I looked down. Yuri’s body was somehow in the past, but his head was lying on the grass, grinning up at me. I looked around, making sure that nothing else from the past had come back with me. By the edge of the forest, I saw the bearded man, staring at me. I sprinted off in the opposite direction. As before, he did not follow.