Well, we arrived at the right village, I think, hard to tell though. The village talked about in the clue was a hundred years ago, it has changed a lot since then. So, how do we find what we are looking for? It is a good thing we have Tuva with us, she comes from northern Finland, so she not only understands the language, she understands the people in this area.

Sigurbjorn and Luvia are also fluent in speaking Finnish. We split up and walked around the small town. Tuva and Luvia went together and noticed an older lady sitting at a table in a coffee shop. They went in and ordered coffee and began to talk with the lady. She was overjoyed and invited them to sit and talk, which they did, for over an hour. Then the lady had to leave so the girls did too.

We all met back at the vans which we had parked along the main street, which was rather short. We did find two log homes, which is what we are looking for, but they appeared to be quite new, and besides, people were living in them. Now what do we do? Tuva and Luvia came back all excited and told us what they had found out from the lady.

Apparently, there is an older village, now a ghost town, about 50 km north of here. After WWII they changed the direction of this highway and bypassed that town, so everyone moved over here and made this town the large town we now see. It is not large, but I guess to some it could be considered large. So, this ghost town must be quite small. We found it by driving down a dirt road about 1 km out of town.

Trees had grown up all over the townsite, which was very difficult to see since most of the buildings were gone or broken down. A couple of the log homes were still fairly intact, so we decided to check them out first. We found nothing, so we began to check out other places, but we still came up empty handed. I was starting to feel rather odd, so John suggested we go back to the hotel. “Good idea John,” I said, “I think perhaps I am hungry.” We had already reserved rooms at the only hotel in town. There was also a restaurant in town, so we went there for dinner. The hotel only serves breakfast.

Meanwhile back home… Chung comes into the chateau around midafternoon. “Good timing Chung,” said Annelie, “I just finished a fresh batch of donuts.” “Oh my,” he said, “that is very fortunate timing indeed. Is Steve around or has he gone out?” “You did not know?”, she asked, “they went to Finland chasing down another clue.” “Oh dear, that is not good,” he said, shaking his head. Rock came in just then. “What is not good Chung?”, he asked.

“Steve is a month overdue for his needle,” he explained, “the one to fight his ‘nowhere’ trouble. He might start having problems about now. Kat always took care of this, and she did not miss. I will have to instruct Jennifer or Sigurbjorn about this, so he does not miss again. I also wanted to put his new chip in now as well.” “He does not have the new chip yet?” asked Rock, “I thought we all had it implanted already.” “No, there has been much going on,” he explained, “and without Mriya to help, I have gotten behind.

Steve, Jennifer, Sigurbjorn and John do not have the new alarm chip.” “I will call Jenny right now,” said Rock, “and make sure she keeps an eye on Steve.” He did so, and Jenny told him I was not feeling good, that my head was really bothering me again. “Make sure you keep a close eye on him,” said Rock, “and if anything more happens, get home right away, even if you have to tie up Steve and drag him back! Do not leave him alone at any time.” He also told her I did not have the new chip, which would be bad if I decided to wander off by myself.

Now, back to us in Finland… Jennifer immediately told Sigurbjorn, Galyna and Kristina the news, they were all sharing a room. I had my own room, except for the cats, all 3 were with me. Jennifer came knocking on my door, so I let her in. She asked how I was feeling. I told her I was not doing well and maybe I had picked up the flu. Then she told me what Chung had said. “Oh, that is right,” I admitted, “I should have had that shot about a month ago. Kat always looked after those things.”

“Well, Sigurbjorn, Galyna and I are going to take over looking after that for you,” she said, “and if you are feeling worse in the morning, we are heading home.” “Yeah, that might be smart,” I said, “but…”

To Be Continued.

©2022 Steve McLeod.