Behind the cranberry bush

Playing in the spielplatz, young Oliver tried to catch the eye of the blonde girl on the swings. He was improvising a sandcastle, like the one on the front of his blue sweatshirt, but she didn’t seem to notice him in any way.

Tall for a ten-year-old, his long, skinny frame felt a tad out of place in a sandbox, although the He-man on his red shorts betrayed his real age. Oliver was the new kid in town, freshly arrived from London, and he felt completely out of place in Müritz, hated everything about it, and dreaded the beginning of school.

Well, maybe he didn't hate everything about the place... he started looking at girls differently in recent times, and the pretty blonde made him feel weird, but in a good way.

The girl jumped off the swing and landed in a cloud of sand. She looked very proud of her jump and unaware of how her white dress had flown up as she flew through the air. Fortunately, she also looked unaware of how embarrassed Oliver looked.

She ran to him with an open smile. ‘Hallo,’ she said, extending her hand in a very formal fashion, ‘Ich heisse Angela. Wie heisst du?’

Oliver took her hand but turned a fiercer shade of red as he mumbled his lack of understanding. She spoke too fast for his poor German.

‘Great.’, he thought to himself, ‘ now she thinks I'm an idiot.’

‘No Deutsch.’ he told her, apologetic.

After a couple of moments of silence, the girl pointed at herself and stated firmly ‘Angela.’

Her small finger was now pointed at his chest. He smiled and answered, ‘Oliver.’ Angela smiled back, took his hand and dragged him to the slides.

They played together for a while, first on the slides, then playing catch. He was having a lot of fun, showing off his speed and acrobatics to his new friend. His father had taught him all about rolling and jumping, and he wasn't at all shy about it.

At some point, Angela walked to the bikes and waved at him to get closer.

‘Lass uns in den Wald fahren’, she told him as she straddled her fire truck red bike.

He got 'wald', or 'forest', and had a moment of hesitation. He looked back at the empty playground, and then at his new friend, impatiently riding in circles.

‘Mother is going to kill me...’ he mumbled as he jumped on his bike and followed the flowing blonde hair.

They didn't ride very far before they turned off the road into a trail and were immersed in green. Oliver didn't know how to recognise the trees, although his father had repeatedly tried to teach him. In contrast, Angela seemed to know the forest and navigated the trails without hesitation.

At some point, she dropped her bike on the side of the trail and walked into the brush. He dropped his bike by hers, following her into the dark green. Oliver marvelled at the thick forest, and the way the sunlight filtered through the canopies, illuminating everything in bright blots of light. It reminded him of the posters his mother insisted on spreading throughout the walls.

Angela was cheerfully talking to him, apparently telling him all about the different kinds of trees and bushes. He smiled and nodded. Annoying as it was to not understand her, the ringing of her voice made him all warm inside. He tried to put his arm around her as he saw in the movies.

She smiled but wiggled free, and he grabbed her bum. She slapped his hand away and reprimanded him. He didn't understand the words, but the tone was unmistakable.

They walked silently for some time, his feelings bubbling inside him. He couldn't understand them, but he couldn't avoid feeling them.

Suddenly he found something that he knew about. Hidden away in the distance was a large, familiar bush, and he ran to it.

‘I know this one! I know this one!’, he shouted as Angela caught up with him by the bush.

‘It's a cranberry bush. My nana had one in her garden.’, he said as he circled the leafy branches, ‘But that one was much smaller than this.’

Now Angela's looked at him inquisitively as he explored and babbled at her incomprehensibly.

There was a small elevation beyond the bush, but he couldn't look down from the edge.

‘I think there's a cave!’, he said excitedly as he ran back to her, ‘I guess the bush is hiding the entrance.’

Angela looked at him with no understanding in her eyes and shrugged at him.

‘Eine Höhle.’, he said tentatively, ‘Ich denke es gibt einen Eingang.’

She smiled at his attempt and moved to reach behind the cranberry bush. She parted the branches to make room and stepped in.

There was a screeching sound, a blinding light, and Oliver's life changed forever.

Oliver startled when the train started moving. He had landed in Berlin airport a couple of hours ago, and after some time getting his bearings, he finally managed to get on his way to Neustrelitz.

For twenty years he hadn't been to Germany, and he could have stayed away for twenty more, but for the nightmares.

He liked train rides. German trains were clean, on time and not expensive, and that allowed him to enjoy the scenery in a way that he just couldn't manage in the UK.

Miles passed by the window before his mind started to drift.

‘I'm afraid you'll need to go see for yourself.’, his therapist said, bringing him back to the present. The green landscape was still speeding through the window, and he finally placed the voice where it belonged, three weeks prior in an old London building filled with the expensive offices of very expensive doctors.

‘We've tried everything, Oliver.’ Dr Kent had said, defeated, ‘You've been in a very long journey, and I think the only way for you to find the closure you need is to visit the place of your fantasies.’ Oliver wanted to throttle the quack then. He still wanted it now. Overpaid charlatan, spouting platitudes and handing out pills like candy. Half of his problems were due to Kent and his ilk.

But quack or not he was right about one thing, for the past two decades Oliver had been in and out of mental institutions, unable to hold a job or a relationship. It had been a long journey.

All because of the fairies.

Of course, no one believed him. Hell, he didn't believe it himself half of the time. He remembered very little of everything. He remembered running. Running like the devil was at his heels, running past the bikes and back to his mother's dream cottage. Angela, the huge cranberry bush, and the fairies singing in screeching voices and taking Angela with them. Very little else.

‘Lie to me if you must, but be honest with yourself.’ Dr Kent admonished sternly.

There were other memories, dark memories. In those, he was looking down on Angela, a heavy tree branch in his hand. Her white dress was spotted red, and so were his clothes.

Psycho-sexual pathology, one doctor had told his parents, when he confided to him his dream. A little boy not able to deal with becoming a man, and the urges it entails. A little boy, unable to cope with the rejection of a girl he desired. A little boy with long, strong limbs and a heavy tree branch in his hands.

He had denied it when his father confronted him. He shouted, he cried, he cried until the tears ran dry and the sobs robbed him of his voice. He knew he would never hurt Angela. Not the Angela in the white flowing dress.

Besides, nobody ever found her.

Another doctor suggested a different trauma, an abductor that took the little blonde girl and left Oliver to process what had happened by himself.

He had committed himself to Bethlem as soon as he was of age, and the therapy there helped. He still kept his story general, like his parents always did, just a dream inside a dream inside a dream.

But he had checked the newspapers of the time. Little Angela Schroeder had gone missing near the Müritz Lake, together with an unknown child. Her bike had been found together with another child's bicycle, but no other sign of them remained.

The unknown child finally told his story to Dr Kent. The very expensive quack tried to convince him that it was all a fantasy, a way to deal with the sexual urges he had felt, and the trauma of his father being relocated to London, cutting him off from the object of his desire. He followed that brilliant analysis with anti-depressant drugs, anti-anxiety drugs, hypnotherapy, cognitive therapy, all as expensive as ineffective.

Then came his own medication. Pot first, then mushrooms and acid. If there was any indication that it would help with his delusions, he tried it.

But still, the fairies showed up in his dreams. No matter how normal he felt, at night the cranberry bush would fill up his mind, and the fairies would sing as Angela faded into nothing.

The station appeared suddenly in his field of view. Shaking his head, he tried to get back to reality, whatever that meant. He left the station and walked down the street. Despite two decades of changes, he recognized where he was, and where he needed to be. He walked for a couple of kilometres, past the old market square and zigzagging his way towards the lake. There was a hotel there, the same he had stayed in with his parents when they first came to this place.

The attractive woman at the reception greeted him with a singing voice and an open smile, and he smiled back, a bit embarrassed.

‘Do you speak English, please?’ he asked.

The young woman replied without hesitation, ‘Certainly sir, do you have a reservation?’

‘Yes, I believe so,’ he said as he handed her a printed sheet. She took it and typed the data into the computer, ‘Your first time with us, no?’

‘Not really, but I think a one-night stay thirty years ago doesn't count.’ he joked.

The woman looked at him, puzzled, ‘There must be some confusion. We opened doors in 2014.’

‘Oh, I see...’ Oliver said, off guard, ‘I meant with the old owners, before the renovations.’

‘The building wasn't a hotel before we took over, sir,’ she said, almost apologetic.

Oliver felt very weak suddenly, hesitated and finally smiled, ‘Is my room ready...’ he looked down to her large breasts before focusing on her nameplate, ‘... Frau Boehne?’

She extended a key to him, ‘Yes, of course. Room 207, second floor. The elevator is just behind you.’ she held onto the key when he grabbed it, and asked ‘Are you alright, sir? You look pale.’

Oliver yanked the key with a bit more force than he intended, ‘Yes, of course, I'm just a bit tired from the trip.’

He turned without another word and walked to the lift.

He wasn't alright, far from it.

Little Angela was disappearing before Oliver's gaze. The blinding light hurt his eyes time and time again, and each time a bit of Angela vanished. A wet warmth had sprayed him the first couple of flashes, but he couldn't feel it anymore.

He could only see the fairy.

It was small, maybe twenty centimetres from head to toe. It looked like a real-life GI Joe, moving as fluidly as he had wished his toys to move.

The fairy's skin was silver, or gold, or the two at the same time. The colour shifted with the movement, like those strange beetles he had seen in the museum. Iridescent... that was the word his mother had used to describe it. Funny that he remembered it just now.

He was sure it was a fairy because of the wings. They were shorter than he would expect, based on the drawings he had seen as a baby when his father read to him. But how accurate are baby books, really?

The wings hummed softly as the fairy flew erratically, growing louder when it went faster or higher. The small winged creature was fluttering about, its attention focused on the beautiful blonde girl. It was singing, it seemed to him, the high-pitched voice fluctuating in a mismatched performance with its flight. Its song was punctuated by the flashes of light as if it was casting some magic spell.

Oliver was strangely calm, considering that everything he was ever told about the supernatural was obviously wrong. He found himself wondering about werewolves and vampires, particularly what would be the best place to find them.

The last of Angela disappeared, taken by fairy magic to who knows what fantasy realm, and a wave of terror started creeping over him. He didn't want to go with Angela. He would miss his parents, and his toys. Besides, this was a German fairy, how was he supposed to communicate wherever he was taken?

He didn't know what to do. The fairy hadn't noticed him yet, but he was sure he couldn't outrun a magical being.

His eyes fell upon a branch on the ground, curiously splattered red. He instinctively picked it up, and at the same time, another fairy emerged from the bush. It was singing louder, drowning the song of the first one. It pointed at where Angela had been, and pushed the first one, in an aggressive and very un-fairy-like manner.

Whatever they were arguing about, Oliver needed to take his chance before he was noticed. Roaring louder than he knew he could, he swung the branch like a cricket bat, hoping to swat the creatures away. He thought he saw the two turning their heads toward him, just before the stick connected with both of them. The fairies were flung back to the cranberry bush, and he took off in a panicked sprint.

All leftovers of calm were gone, and he ran through the woods as fast as his long legs could take him. He thought he could hear the humming of the fairy's wings just behind him, but he didn't dare look back.

He had run for five minutes when he realised, he was still carrying the stick. He threw it behind him, hoping to hit any pursuing foe.

He found the trail, but not the bicycles. Not that he stopped to look, honestly. His chest felt like it was about to burst, but his legs didn't slow down the pace until he was finally out of those woods.

The sun felt stronger now, after so much time in the shade, and he finally dared to look back. The forest was there, just like it had been before, but it now looked darker, more menacing. He didn't rest for long.

He alternated between running and walking until he reached the cottage. He was considering not telling anything of the afternoon's events to his parents, but then he realised that his bike was gone.

He opened the door and tried to look as casual as possible as he walked past his mother. She was already giving him the annoyed look for being late, but it suddenly changed into wide-eyed shock.

‘What happened?’ she shouted, probably louder than she wanted, ‘Did you fall off your bike? Are you ok?’

There was fear in her voice, and she was tossing him around in her hands as she checked him for injuries.

‘What happened, Oliver? You tell mommy right now, dear, what happened? ‘

She was crying now, and Oliver started crying with her. He had tried to be a man, but right now he just wanted his mommy to hug him tight and make him safe.

His father came home a few minutes after the call. He looked more worried than he had ever been and kept asking his wife what happened. She told him what little she had gotten from Oliver, breaking down into tears again.

Father kneeled in front of freshly bathed Oliver and held him firmly by the shoulders, ‘Son, please tell me what happened. What is all this talk of fairies, and who is Angela?’

Oliver told his story again, very proud that he didn't cry one single time.

His father looked uncomfortable when he told him of the red stick, and he mumbled, ‘Oh, Oliver... what have you done...’

He jumped to his feet and told something to Mother. Then he grabbed Oliver's dirty clothes and burned them in the fireplace. Father spent the rest of the afternoon on the phone. By the evening they were driving to Berlin.

Oliver was happy, he would be in London the next morning.

Oliver was worried, more than usual. He had spent most of the night trying to order his memories of this place. He had called his mother in the middle of the night, probably worrying her sick for the rest of the week.

She had confirmed that they didn't stay in any hotel thirty years ago. His father had been invited as a consultant for a possible mining venture, and they had spent the first night at the house of the company's president. All felt familiar as she told him about it, the two sons, the morbidly obese wife, the small yapping dog. Apparently, the man had gifted him the bike, but he couldn't remember it.

The hotel had been a historical building of sorts, and he had been taken on a tour of the place. He thought that it might account for his memories of staying there. In his mind, he must have conflated the two events. Throughout the years, many doctors had told him that his memory was faulty and easily corrupted.

After breakfast, he left the hotel on foot. He thought of renting a bicycle, but the idea made him uneasy.

There was an apartment building where the spielplatz had been, but he could still recognize the neighbourhood. At least he thought he could. He took the road where he had followed Angela, and he remembered the sight of her behind as the dress flapped in the wind. He remembered how it had made him feel and was ashamed that the memory still flustered him.

The forest was still there, as dark and menacing as the last time he set eyes on it. He entered it by a small trail, that might have been the one Angela used, or maybe not. He was walking aimlessly and feared that he would never find whatever it was he was searching for.

Darker thoughts came to him as he followed the trail. Advances and rejections, desire and frustration.

The question popped into his mind out of nowhere, ‘Why had Father burnt your clothes?’

The branch was in his hand, heavy, red warm, red wet.

‘Why did we leave that very same day?’

Angela screaming, Angela silent, Angela's dress not white anymore.

Two decades later his arm hurt where she slapped him, and he echoed his father's words, ‘Oh, Oliver... what have you done...’

He didn't remember doing anything to her, and he remembered clearly the iridescent fairies.

‘You remember clearly staying in that hotel, you nutcase, clearer than the place you actually stayed in.’

He was still following his memories. From time to time a tree felt familiar, or a rock. But he had no way of knowing for sure, did he?

As suddenly as that first time, he saw the cranberry bush. He felt a ray of hope as he ran to it, marvelling at how close it was to the image in his mind. He stood where he had been a lifetime ago and froze.

He knew he had to look inside, but he couldn't get himself to do it. He was terrified of finding a small skeleton with a bludgeoned skull, hidden there by a mentally unstable young man.

It had been a long journey, and this was the end of it.

A shaking hand entered the thick bushes, almost in a panic, fearing that a fairy would jump out from the leaves and take him to join little Angela. Tears were streaming down his face as he entered the bush, slowly conquering the intertwined branches.

Something glistened in the corner of his eye, and he recoiled in terror, screaming like a child.

The iridescent form was stuck in the branches, immobile. Oliver caught his breath and reached out to poke it with his finger. The form didn't move. He poked it harder. The form fell through the branches and landed next to a second, similar form.

Oliver's mind was unwinding. He realised now that, deep down, he never believed his own story, but there they were.

He stretched himself through the branches and carefully picked up one of the fairies. Its silver-gold skin felt metallic to his touch. Hard too, like a suit of armour. There were two small wings in the back, stationary like a plane's, and what looked like small thrusters at the tips.

He was struggling to keep sane at this point, but he managed to force himself to turn the form in his hands. What he thought was the head was a helmet, with a wide transparent visor on it. He looked inside, and saw a diminutive figure inside, like a mummified skull. He had feared these were just toys discarded by children, but no toy would have such a horror hiding within it.

He forced through the thickets, to the small cave he had spotted from above, and saw what was hidden in there for decades.

A small craft, a couple of meters long, was connected by cables to a tiny console outside. The craft has shiny as if it had been freshly washed, and apparently made of the same iridescent cover they used in the suits.

Yes, the spacesuits... these were aliens, he was sure of it. He wasn't mad after all, and he would show all his doctors. He didn't really know what to do, or even what he was seeing. There was a whirlwind inside his head, and no matter how much he felt vindicated a part of him feared that this was just another phase of his insanity.

Either way, all was decided. He picked up one of the aliens. The metal was thin as a hair, but the blow that had killed the creatures inside was unnoticeable on the surface.

‘It's going to change everything.’ he thought as he put the alien in his pocket, ‘Nothing will ever be the same.’

He clawed his way out of the bush and ran like he only ran once before in his life. Peering outside his pocket, a small branch sported a couple of green leaves and a blood-red cranberry.