Effi was growing up in a small town, where the sound of instruments and deep voices of singers contributed to the end-of-the-week celebrations. The folk orchestra used to play and sing all night in the park, right below her window. She lived in a house hanging on a shelf cut at the slope of a steep hill. She remembered all seasons being so distinctive and important to her upbringing. The spring was filled with flowers popping out through the snow, followed by those blooming by the river and by the pond, all hidden in the wild grass, as opposed to those cultivated in the garden overhung by trees. In early summer, flax and the wild flowers showed up, mixed with the cereal grains of a barley, corn, wheat, oats, and rye, all swaying together in the wind. Her frequent trips to the mountains were aimed to collect dark, red fruits of hawthorn, wild roses’ fruits, nuts, and all the variety of mushrooms. It was a secret knowledge anyone in this area would be familiar with, about the secrets of the life threatening plants and fruits, often the most beautiful ones, and those fancy, strange looking and aromatic; she used to prepare them in an oversized kitchen with a small window leading to the dining room. The kitchen had a stove, still utilized for baking bread. The cats and they consecutive litter used to take a long warm nap there. Dried but still furry rabbit’s legs were hanging down from doorknobs, just for the cats’ amusement. Effi's favorite part was being sent to the garden down the stairs made out of local stones to fetch some dill, and then to cut it neatly; the slices were never thin enough. Brown and orange striped salamanders were giving her way through the buds of purple-head thistles cultivated around the steep staircase shaped with flat carved rocks. Her least favorite memory was about the consequences of their efforts, when she and her siblings were asked to set the freshly cut firewood against the wall in the kitchen, so it would dry for the fireplace. Overfilled with goodwill, they overdid it by setting it too close to the stove and thus endangering the whole house. A giant cherry tree was sitting on the steep slope beside of the house, in a way that the sweet fruits were close to the balcony. One could pick a cherry, feel its flavor, taste the pulp of a big fruit, and then place the seed between two fingers and shoot it down the grassy slope, which was not really cultivated but it connected the house with a park at the bottom of the slope. They kept doing it every summer, and what was bothering them, was that there was no single cherry tree growing in that space. Another source of joy was carving little boats out of the bark, setting a white sail, and watching them go down the fast river. Together with a visiting cousin, they caught crawfish in a river, holding them right behind their heads. Effi walked with her sister along the river as long as the river would let them; from a distant store, they carried the whole boxes of downy, sun-colored peaches, abstaining from eating them on the way, so they would become a peach cobbler beyond compare. The fall was connected with her fast walks to the school through the long park situated below the house she lived in. A thick, knee-deep layer of oak leaves was making sound while giving way under her feet. She kept collecting leaves of all colors, ranging from yellow, through green to reddish ones. They still looked good when dried up. She collected chestnuts, nuts, and plum stones, for making wood-people by connecting their parts with toothpicks. The winter meant skiing in the nearby mountains. It was like a routine: Friday night was filled with music. Saturday was a day spent in the park, where she could go boating on a pontoon down the pond, play tenpin bowling in a bowling alley, visit a tennis court or mini-golf, and walk around the flowerbeds. Sunday was for a church with oversized floral stain glass windows, and Monday was a day for the market in a nearby village. Every Monday she was woken up by a sound of horseshoes stepping rhythmically on the road leading to the village. At the market, the sellers, dressed their best in local traditional costumes, wore traditional hats, belts, and shoes, and played their instruments. Hats were puzzling her since she could remember. They were black, made out of heavy felt and were all decorated with the seashells. Why seashells were so popular in the mountain culture stayed a mystery to her. Vendors were selling milk, eggs, all sorts of cheese, a sour cream, chicken, all crops, fruits hand picked from the gardens and nearby mountains, vegetables, herbs, and medicinal plants. All sorts of nuts and even mushrooms were sold there, all picked knowledgeably and guaranteed. Local bees’ honey was there to be found, with colors ranging from yellow amber to deep dark mahogany. All smelled rich and slightly deranging, possessing that sharp, often harsh smell that promised the sweetness and bitterness at the same time. All was fresh, aromatic, and beautiful. There were also crafted wicker baskets, clay pots, and wooden objects, such as stools and spoons, carvings and pictures painted on wood. One could buy some special regional clothing as well, such as knitted woolen socks, sweaters, and also aprons or sweatshirts, all made of local linen, cotton, hemp, or wool from local sheep. Belts, shoes, hats and purses were on display, all made out of leather. All was local, all made with pride. Jewelry was another subject, crafted from various materials, ranging from wood, coral, amber, tree roots, or even plastic. All objects and food smelled of the material they were made from. It was like a display of what Mother Earth had to offer, combined with sampling of human creative thought. There were local sweets, ranging from ice cream, sweet sugared cones, all colored and flavored. The most beautiful part was the contrast between the tones in a landscape: the black lines of the trees and houses against the pinkish, yellowish, or bluish snow. Effi once found in the school’s textbook a black-and-white woodcut of a landscape depicting a place on the planes. It was only black and white, but so different, so inviting into those flat plains. Black tree trunks and the silhouettes of houses were juxtaposed with the vast space. She’d visited many distant places with her parents, so this type of a landscape was not new to her, but the artist, whose name she did not pay attention to while being so little, or not even mentioned in the credits, was able to enclose the very essence of the state of being on that particular day. Never repeated, but so typical, she thought. The book with this plate, so important for her, got lost someplace, was returned to school, donated to someone, or recycled, but it got on her list of objects she always regretted to lose touch with. She’d liked so much to be able to look at it from time to time. Not necessarily to frame and hang it on the wall, but to be able to open that book and have a glimpse at the image that meant so much to her once. One day at the market, while waiting for her mother to get all the goods from the local growers, breeders and pickers, Effi found a stand with all sorts of folk instruments carved out of wood. One of them happened to begin her career in the science of ganology. The instrument caught her eye and caused her to ask many questions to the seller. She found out that in order to carve this instrument, a person used information from a museum and many book descriptions, to follow instructions. The instrument was called flauto doppio, double aulos, or double pipes. This was the most misinterpreted and mistranslated of all antique instruments in the clarinet family. These pipes were in high esteem in the Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman civilizations. They then became obsolete, except for folk music. The instrument had two cylindrical pipes with double reeds. The tone of each pipe alone had a low pitch and was acoustically weak, but it was possible to improve it by reworking and learning how to play it properly at the same time. That was an interesting concept to her, but it got even better: the two pipes reinforced each other. One may say the tone of a single pipe was quite weak, but together they were able to produce a rich in quality, strong sound, which created a hypnotic effect. Since then, Effi could not stop carrying on her research. She kept checking the Internet, participated in blog discussions, asked many questions, visited all ethnographic, local, or musical museums she could find, and listed her instrument among their collections and trophies. Effi wanted to bring this instrument back to life. She had one made just for her, based on a summary of the findings from her research. When she felt she got close to mastering it, she started to play it publicly, and even succeeded in getting that often mentioned hypnotic effect. Some of her listeners invited her to play in order to help them resolve some of their issues. Despite a big reward offered, she refused. She only wanted to hypnotize one person.