Vlad"s small green car stopped by a house with a garden. As it was first seen by Maija, it was covered with fallen leaves and looked rather gloomy and sad, but at spring it was probably lovely. Under a big tree, there stood a wide wooden bench.
"The house looks rather big, papa", - said Maija, - "how many rooms are in it?"
"Indeed, it"s too big for me to live in alone", - replied Vlad, - "apart from the living room, my bedroom and my working room there are three spare bedrooms. One of them is already prepared for you. I bought all the furniture yesterday. I was a bit in a hurry when I prepared it, so tell me if I forgot something."
"I"m sure I"m going to love it, papa" - she said, smiling. - "Who takes care of the house and the garden? Do you do it on your own?"
"Once a week, a woman comes to clean it up. It takes lots of work indeed, too much for me to do all by myself. In fact I only bought this house because it"s so close to my work. I don"t even need the car to get there, only use it when I"m lazy or when I wake up late. When I"m not in a hurry, I like getting there with the help of my two feet. There"s nothing better for the health than a morning walk. It doesn"t mean that I"m going to let you get to school by foot," - he added, raising one finger as a sign of warning.
The living room was clean and neat, but the house had a sad expression - it was easy to see that someone is living here all alone, with no laughter of children, with nobody to talk to. Since Alexandra, Maija"s mother, died when Maija was only one year old, Vlad never got married again and never even was seen close to a woman. After recovering from the tragedy of the loss of his beloved wife, he concentrated all of his love and attention on the little creature that Maija was. The little girls" sicklyness only made him love her more, he would carry her in his arms and say - "that is my little Maija, and we don’t need anyone else in this world, do we, Mai?". His passion for his daughter could only be compared to the energy he put into his work.
For Maija as a child, her father was a hero, a giant, almost a god. She didn"t remember her mother. She was little and weak, and when playing with the other children she was always left behind. Eventually she learned it and preferred to sit aside. Her father was her whole world - everything connected to Papa was magical. The big tomes, full of strange words she didn"t understand even when she learned to read, the mysterious work he would do in the office for hours - it all made her father look like a mystical hero. And Papa was strong - he could move furniture, he could ride a horse, could chop trees, he could swim and run and he was the tallest, the smartest and the most powerful and he would always be there to help little Maija. When he went to the North, she used to spend the nights sheding tears into her pillow. She could spend a whole day writing letters that were dozens of pages long. Tears would appear in the big man"s eyes when he read them, far to the North. And finally, they were together again! What could be better than being Papa"s little Maija?
The room that Vlad prepared for her was at least twice larger than the one she had back at home, and was made to be full of light in the rare sunny days of the North. The wide bed was neatly covered and looked comfortable. The curtains, the chair and the desk, the bookshelves that were empty for now - everything looked brand new as it was. A simple-patterned carpet covered the floor. As she started unpacking, Maija happily thought about the work that was expecting her - turning this empty, lonely room into a habited space. She thought about how much cosier it would look when she"d hang her clothes in the cupboard, put her shoes into the drawer. She decided that as soon as possible, she would ask aunt Johanna to send her the books and pictures that she left at home, to give life to the empty shelves and bare walls. Soon, soon that room was going to fill with little things that belong to her, this room was going to become her home.
After unpacking, Maija took of her clothes and put on her warm, loose pyjamas. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and closed her eyes again. The loneliness was over, the journey was over, and soon everything was going to be exactly the way it was before. Soon she was going to go to school and meet many new faces. But those would be only decorations. The only real things in this world were she, her father and the images of friendly ghosts gazing at her from outside the window.