‘Right then, off we go,’ Grandfather says.

Estata grips the handlebars with a force that whitens her knuckles. She would close her eyes, but the voice of reason suggests that would be the quickest route to disaster.

‘Please hold tight!’ she exclaims anxiously. ‘Don’t let go, or I’ll fall over.’

‘You won’t fall,’ Grandfather replies. To Estata, his tone is distressingly phlegmatic, but there is no retreat. To beg for home now would be cowardice, and Estata refuses to be a coward. Besides, Mother would only start nagging Grandfather: teaching the child nonsense when she ought to be doing arithmetic.

No, Estata will master this stupid bicycle – this newfangled contraption that old August, a connoisseur of eccentricities, imported specifically for his granddaughter. ‘Let her ride,’ he said. ‘Let her imagine she is flying.’

Estata does want to fly. She does not, however, want to plummet from this precarious two-wheeled skeleton. It looks terrifyingly unstable, yet it holds a seductive promise: one of endless horizons, unknown roads and wind in her face. How wonderful would it be to set on an adventure with Grandfather! Although… Estata imagines August’s portly figure atop such a machine, and it feels completely unreal. He won’t even mount a horse because he pities the animal.

‘Balance! Keep your balance. You are wobbling,’ Grandfather instructs, sounding for all the world like a man who has spent his life coaching daredevils. He hurries alongside, trying to stabilise the shaky device.

‘I am not wobbling, the Thing is!’ Estata protests, yet keeps pedaling.

Suddenly, the machine bites into the gravel. Speed builds. Grandfather puffs and wheezes, falling behind. Estata is flying. The wind slaps her cheeks and the meandering park path unravels before her. She has left August far in the dust.

The realisation that she is alone jabs with terror. The treacherous bicycle faints to the left.

‘Grandpaaaa!’

She hits the grass with a heavy thud.

August arrives at a speed his belly should logically prohibit. The flapping tails of his coat are supposed to be elegant, but somehow they are not.

‘Good grief,’ he grumbles, looming over the whimpering heap of the girl. ‘Well? Alive?’

‘No! I fell! It hurts!’ She points accusingly at her skinned knees.

‘And I think you’ll live.’ Having confirmed no limb has been broken, August reverts to his usual demeanor of amused detachment.

‘Come on. Let’s walk home. You’re soaked in sweat,’ Estata mutters, accepting that sympathy is off the table.

‘Let’s,’ he agrees. ‘Or rather, I shall walk, and you shall ride.’

Grumpy but dedicated, Estata is hoisted onto the unstable frame yet again.

She follows the wind and doesn’t fall.

***

Mother is furious, naturally. Knees dirty, dress hopelessly stained, and there’s a newly arrived cousin in the living room, waiting to be entertained. He has arrived from nowhere but Crossroads, the great metropolis where people know how to behave and do not appear for dinner looking like chimney sweeps.

Estata examines the stranger with curiosity. She isn’t entirely sure whose cousin he is, but his face is remarkable. Large blue eyes harbouring hidden laughter, a nose of aristocratic architecture and a golden tan. His hair is fair and unruly, as if begging to be ruffled.

‘Lindell,’ the cousin introduces himself, offering a hand.

‘Estata,’ she replies with dignity, shaking it as if no other greeting were legally missible.

Lindell is tall and slender. Conversing with him requires an uncomfortable amount of neck-craning. He, in turn, has to shorten his long, sweeping stride to match her small steps, but they enter the dining room with solemnity. A dishevelled little lady and an elegant urban gentleman.

‘So, are you staying long, Cousin Lindell?’ Estata enquires in her best society tone.

‘That, Cousin Estata, is entirely as you please.’

‘Good.’ She nods. She enjoys being in charge. Besides, Grandfather always says the best guest is an unobtrusive one.

***

‘You will be bored to tears here, dear Cousin,’ Mother says with feigned regret.

It is a lie. They might not live in a big city like Crossroads, but in summer the house is alive with guests. And what could be better than life in this coastal haven? Falling asleep to the surf, waking to birdsong, tea on the veranda buried in wild roses.

‘Bored with you? Impossible.’ Lindell laughs, and it seems he already understands the essence of this place. Lindell himself remains an oddity to Estata, yet he fits.

‘This place isn’t called Misty Reach for nothing,’ Grandfather interjects. ‘It is a long reach to get here, and in late August the fog claims the streets. But for now, we shan’t let you get bored. Shall we, Estata?’

Estata looks up from a bee grooming its antennae on a rose hip. She senses an obliging social cue. ‘Cousin Lindell, will you accompany me for a walk to the sea, the park and so forth?’

‘What do you mean, and so forth?’ Mother furrows her brow. ‘Speak clearly, young lady.’

‘My dear, do not display your ignorance,’ Grandfather counters. ‘So Forth is the ancient site of belief and the only attraction we can offer in our little town.’

Mockery at its best. August snorts, Estata giggles and Lindell smiles so widely that even Mother’s pursed lips soften.

‘Of course, Cousin Estata,’ the guest says peacefully. ‘I’d be delighted to tour So Forth with you.’

***

‘Tell me, what is it that you love most?’ Lindell asks.

He is admiring the whitecaps on the blue waves. The sea breeze tangles his hair and he looks utterly content, as if standing on the edge of this salty, watery kingdom is the highest joy available to mankind.

Estata crinkles her nose. ‘Well… I love summer. I love when the sea is blue instead of grey. I love riding my bicycle along the shore. And the wind. I love the wind.’

‘The wind?’ The cousin looks delighted. ‘How perfectly splendid!’

Lindell is the strangest adult she knows. Mother compains the wind ruins her coiffure, treating a bad hair day like a terminal illness. Lindell treats the wind like a conspirator.

‘Only the wind knows true freedom,’ Lindell says, ‘and it tries to share it with us. In its own way. Why not love it for that?’

‘True freedom?’ the words feel unusual on the tongue. ‘Doesn’t the wind get lonely, having all that freedom and no one who understands it?’

Lindell looks genuinely startled. ‘I wish I knew how to answer, dear Cousin, but the wind and I… we aren’t that good with words.’

***

One evening, searching for entertainment while the adults play bridge, Estata navigates the dark woods of the family library. Mother wanted a library because noble people have libraries. Father filled it with books simply because the shelves were there.

It is a swamp of boredom. Biological treatises, memoirs of bankers. Dullness devoid of imagination.

Then, she spots it. A battered, modest spine.

The Tales of Lindell Veis, Wind Rider and Master of Crossroads, Written by Himself.

Estata’s eyes widen. Tales of a Wind Rider! Of Lindell Veis! Is this her cousin?

She snatches the book and flees to her room to conduct revolutionary research. Let the adults play their cards, she is going to learn the nature of the wind.

***

‘Cousin Lindell, chase away the clouds?’

Lindell puts down his teacup, glares at the overcast sky and says, ‘Bugger off.’

The clouds, predictably, remain.

‘I’m serious,’ Estata pouts, dumping a second spoon of honey into her tea.

‘Too sweet! You’ll rot your teeth,’ Mother scolds. ‘And stop pestering the Cousin with silly requests.’

‘It isn’t silly,’ Lindell defends her. ‘It is entirely legitimate. It’s summer, but the sky is grey. Is it often like this?’

‘Well, it is Misty Reach, isn’t it?’ Mother says. Her cup contains exactly the correct amount of honey, and she stirs it with an air of royal dignity. ‘It should clear in a week or two.’

‘A week or two,’ sighs Estata. What on earth is she to do? She isn’t allowed outside for long – Mother is terrified her trouble of a daughter will get caught in the rain and catch a chill; arithmetic and geography (which Mother encourages with great zeal) are cursed with sleeping spell; and the book about Lindell has been read from cover to cover.

Now Estata knows the Wind Rider can banish storms and fly faster than sight. She knows that in ancient times he founded a city in a place swept by every wind, and named it Crossroads. She knows that Mr. Veis appears to anyone capable of recognising him and never refuses to partake in a merry adventure. Now Estata wants to see this Crossroads for herself – where the winds meet, where people create amazing things, where there are all sorts of miracles and it’s never boring. Perhaps she ought to ask Lindell for a return visit?

‘Alright,’ says Veis standing up. ‘Finish your tea, Cousin. We are going for a walk.’

‘A walk!’ Estata perks up.

‘A walk?!’ Mother gasps and  nearly spills her tea. ‘In this weather?’

‘It’s fine, we’ll chase the clouds away,’ Lindell winks, and – miracle of miracles – Mother does not object.

Estata empties her cup in one gulp and quickly jumps up from the table.

‘I’m done! Where are we going?’

‘To the sea,’ Lindell decides. ‘We need to repaint it from grey to blue.’

And here is the magic: by the time they find themselves on the beach, not a single cloud remains in the sky – only the wind, dancing self-forgetfully among the salty waves.

***

The weather holds. It’s the definition of summer now: hot and sunny, yet thanks to the breeze, not at all stifling. Even Grandfather, an admirer of cool air and August fogs, comes down to the beach to greet seagulls and read his newspaper – away from Mother’s numerous guests. Meanwhile, the entire cream of Crossroads’ society seems to have migrated to Misty Reach. In the city, Mother’s acquaintances complain, the heat is unimaginable. Estata knows: the heat is because Lindell Vais is on holiday himself.

Days pass. The girl basks in the sun, rides the whitecaps and races along the shore on her bicycle. Lindell is delighted by this acquisition of Grandfather’s. He considers getting a second one for himself, but changes his mind. Instead, he presents a solitary wheel equipped with pedals and a saddle.

‘A unicycle!’ The cousin gloriously reveals the ridiculous mechanism.

‘Can one actually ride it?’ Estata asks skeptically.

‘Why, of course, dear Cousin! The latest innovation from the inventors of Crossroads. And note: it does not take up much space.’

‘That is good,’ Estata sighs. ‘At least we can hide it from Mother.’

‘You will see. Someday they will be in fashion, and your mother will join us with pleasure.’

Beaming, Lindell mounts the unicycle and immediately – triumphantly – crashes to the ground.

‘How fashionable,’ Estata snorts, but the cousin only laughs.

‘It just requires a bit of practice.’

Soon enough, Lindell actually finds a mutual understanding with his peculiar wheel. Estata marvels at first, but then remembers who her cousin is and accepts it as a matter of course. After all, riding a unicycle cannot be much harder than saddling the wind.

***

August arrives, and the fog shrouds the streets of the coastal town. It creeps in from the sea, whitish and mysterious. It climbs the stairs leading to the park and drifts onto the veranda where Estata loves to drink her tea. The fog muffles every sound and chases Mother’s guests away.

The girl understands that the summer is over. Autumn is still a month away, but August is a special time. Neither summer nor autumn, it is Grandfather’s favourite season – when he smokes his pipe on a park bench, savours the silence and boils rosehips in honey. Estata would be glad to summon the wind into town, to chase the fog after Mother’s guests, but she couldn’t deprive the old August of his favourite joys. Everyone has their own season, and that is only fair.

‘Shall I call the wind back?’ Lindell throws out casually during their next ride along the shore. Estata on her bicycle, the cousin on his unicycle – they make for a strange spectacle. But there is no one left to be surprised, the town has emptied, and they are barely visible in the fog.

‘No,’ Estata says. ‘It wouldn’t be right.’

‘Not right?’ Veis marvels. ‘The wind is the rightest thing in the world.’

‘In some other part of the world. Not in Misty Reach. Not in August.’

Lindell looks sad, but he doesn’t protest. That, too, would be wrong, for here in Misty Reach, she is the one in charge. It must be their last ride, but deep down, the girl knows: the wind comes to anyone willing to speak with it, and someday, she’ll call upon.

The next day, the cousin leaves. He says goodbye to Estata kindly and ceremoniously, shakes her hand, and wishes her happiness. And so the last guest has left their house – just another important gentleman, long awaited in Crossroads.

***

August ends and autumn arrives, followed by winter, spring and summer again. Unicycles never come into fashion, but bicycles become mundane. Even Mother, grudgingly, accepts one as a gift. Soon, she develops such a taste for the thing that she no longer gives a thought to her hairstyle, nor to the distant relatives and high-handed snobs she used to entertain. Or perhaps the bicycle isn’t entirely to blame – much changes that year.

Father and Grandfather begin locking themselves in the study for hours. From behind the door, one hears ‘real estate,’ ‘deed of sale’ and ‘tax debt.’ Half the paintings vanish from the walls. The silverware mysteriously disappears. Bridge games and forest rides are abandoned entirely.

On the other hand, Mother now torments Estata with academic pursuits with redoubled vigour. There is no place to hide, no escape and no talking one’s way out of it. She is forced to learn to add fractions, extract roots, memorise dates of historic massacres and speak a foreign tongue. And, naturally, read almost the entire family library in the process.

One day, the girl becomes so sick of the academic grind that she throws down her notebooks and runs to the cherished shelf where she once found the book about Cousin Lindell. If only she could read it again – to remember how to properly saddle the wind and chase away the clouds.

The book is gone. Moved, perhaps, or lost.

Instead of The Tales of Lindell Veis, Fundamentals of Mechanics sits on the shelf.

Estata leafs through the find without curiosity. The text is speckled with formulas, the pictures show gears and levers. She pauses. Could it be that the dreadful opus explains how the bicycle works? The girl freezes for a second. Inspired by the sudden thought, she begins to examine the book with much greater zeal. A little… is better than none.

***

‘Grandpa, do you remember Cousin Lindell?’

Summer is at its height, and for the first time in ages, Estata has made it down to the sea. She had forgotten what it feels like to inhale salt air and look out at the blue water. That blue recalls the eyes of a certain acquaintance from her childhood. It seems to her he rode a unicycle and always indulged her whims.

How long ago that was! Before Father’s ruin, before Fundamentals of Mechanics, before she started inventing her own mechanisms and left Misty Reach for university. And she succeeded! The only woman on the course, top of her class and, ultimately, the inventor of the Estatamobile – a machine powered by the energy of sun and wind. For now, it is merely a small model, but she’s eager to find funding. Very soon she will go to Crossroads, search out a patron passionate about science, build her creation and… and, presumably, be very happy. After all, mechanics is her dream and her life’s work.

‘Cousin Lindell?’ August asks, puzzled. He walks along the beach beside his granddaughter, secretly admiring who she has become. Adult, business-like, entirely independent. You’d never think she once refused to sleep without a bedtime story and drove her mother to hysterics with her – very lose – interpretation of proper manners.

‘You probably mean Cousin Lennart?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Estata waves a hand. ‘Lennart is a bore, I’ve never liked him. There was Lindell. He stayed with us one summer. The year you gave me the bicycle.’

August honestly tries to remember, but no Lindells come to mind. Except, perhaps, Lindell Veis, but what sort of cousin is he? Lindell Veis is a mythological creature. The Wind Rider, spirit of Crossroads, beloved hero of folklore and other tales. How nice would it be to have such kin; their actual relatives are so frighteningly real one never knows where to hide from them.

‘Have mercy, my dear, this is not for my senile memory. We have so many cousins and distant connections! And Mother received so many guests in those days, one can hardly remember them all.’

Estata decides not to torture Grandfather with questions, but the thought of the cousin will not leave her head. Is he, in fact, a cousin? Perhaps she has confused something. Memories are fragile, unreliable things. Besides, who in their right mind names a son Lindell? You would never hear the end of the teasing in childhood, and it isn’t much better in adulthood. Who would take you seriously with such a name?

‘Grandpa, do you remember a book in the library? The Tales of Lindell Veis, Written by Himself? A shabby thing, brown cover.’

‘Oh, there are plenty of books about Lindell Veis out there,’ August snorts. ‘Maybe we have one lying around. Though I am not certain about the authorship. Or do you mean Lennart again? He once left his Who’s Who in Crossroads here. Also brown.’

‘No!’ Estata rolls her eyes heavenward. What use is the decrepit directory? There hasn’t been a word of truth in it for years.

And yet, upon arriving home, led by a subconscious feeling that the solution is near, Estata opens Lennart’s little book to the letter V and finds that very name:

VEIS, Lindell – the Legendary Wind Rider and, presumably, founder of Crossroads. Popular character in tales and songs, considered the guardian spirit of the city. Original historical prototype unknown. According to legend, Lindell Veis can only be recognised by one led by the wind. For details, we recommend the New Mythological Companion, Rose of the Winds Press.

Estata closes the book and sinks into thought. They have gone completely mad in their Crossroads – listing a non-existent person in such a publication. Or rather, the person does exist. Should exist. But his name is by no means Lindell Veis, and he can’t make his living on wind riding. Simply a cheerful eccentric. Someone’s memorable friend. She must have mixed fantasy with reality as a child. She is still prone to things like that, deep down; and there’s still a part of her that wants to know: what is it like, to be led by the wind?

***

In childhood, Estata imagined Crossroads as a strict, tedious and self-important city – much like Mother’s friends. Later, after The Tales of Lindell Veis, the image shifted, becoming more mysterious, vibrant, even alluring. A city by the sea, swept by every wind and full of miracles – it is pleasant to believe in such a place.

What Estata is entirely unprepared for is the reality: noisy streets, awash with peddlers and every kind of junk; crowds of hurried, anxious people; and the absolute indifference of everyone around you – unless you are trying to sell, buy, haggle or beg for a discount. Who would have thought that the essence of Crossroads is neither snobbery, nor magic, but banal calculation and soul-crushing parochialism?

Upon arriving in the city, Estata does nothing but batter the doorsteps of scientific societies, charitable foundations, the patent office and the city magistrate. Discouraged and despondent, she thrusts the blueprints of the Estatamobile at bureaucrats of every stripe, but they only click their tongues and refuse to think big. A mechanism driven by muscle power – that goes without saying. But a mechanism moving at the behest of the sun and wind? Invented by some girl of distant origin? What is this hybrid of science and magic? No, only a madman would take upon such liability.

Estata is close to signing off on her own insanity, for she stubbornly believes in her machine. Then again, she believed in Lindell Veis too, and there has been neither hide nor hair of him for many years. Only pseudo-memories remain.

One morning, Estata steps out of the humble rooms she rents in the city and walks wherever the wind blows. She no longer wants meetings with the powers that be; she has no desire to compose beautiful – and, most importantly, short – sentences to prove the genius of her invention. She is done hearing ‘you are undoubtedly very knowledgeable, we enjoyed meeting you very much’, followed by silence and no contract. She might as well listen to the wind; it would speak far more sense. Once, that was all she did. It was a good time.

Town Hall Square is cool. No wonder, for it is blown through by winds from all sides and in all directions. A strange place, existing outside the laws of nature, but Estata likes it. She chooses a salty wind, reminiscent of the summer breeze in Misty Reach, and follows it into a small alley filled with clockmakers’ shops. She turns onto Great Trade Street, where crowds eternally swarm and hawkers call out to buyers. She passes a square with fountains and sculptures of dolphins, gets caught in a downpour on Rainy Square, and, soaked to the bone, ducks into the first café she sees.

Inside, it is dry, cosy and almost empty – save for a negligently elegant gentleman reading a newspaper by the window. He lifts his gaze to Estata, and her heart stops.

‘Lindell?!’

‘Hello, Estata!’ A mischievous smile plays on the lips of the Master of Crossroads, and laughter glimmers in the depths of his blue eyes. He hasn’t aged a day.

‘Lindell, do you exist?’ Estata furrows her brow.

‘Does the wind exist?’ Veis replies, matching her tone.

‘It does. I invented a special machine to catch it.’

‘How presumptuous.’ He grins. ‘Will you tell me?’

‘We’ll see.’

Outside, the rain lashes the glass while Estata reworks her portfolio and gathers the scattered words.

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