Stories

Have you ever drifted into an experience so foreign you lack the means to communicate it and all the rules you relied upon to guide your life become useless?

My sister and I ventured into the boreal night again, only this time it wasn’t dark. In the absence of light pollution, the sky burst open to reveal a profusion of stars, clustered tight along the bright path of the Milky Way.

The night was a lot colder than we had gotten used to. 

The ocean air carries a lot of moisture to the islands, which traps warm air under its cloud cover, but tonight there were no clouds, and the sky was full of stars, which felt close enough to touch, and looked so brilliant.

We can no longer imagine a sky so bright with stars that even on a dark moon it illuminates the earth enough to see its every detail, cast in cool hues.

I looked at Denise and almost didn’t recognize her: she had a light blue halo in her hair, and her demeanor was so serious it made her look wise beyond her years.

📖  Found yourself in the middle of a story? Visit STORIES by Francis Rosenfeld.

I always thought my life would be like the novels I liked to read when I was a teenager, where the heroine’s life was a constantly unfolding drama, replete with emotionally charged moments and anchored in the importance of her actions, where every meaningful event was anticipated well in advance and everything turned out more or less as planned.

Finding you was supposed to be a glorious professional moment, and I daydreamed of basking in the glory of compliments and approval, and savoring the pith of a prestigious career which would be undeniably earned.

And then I found you.

There is nothing more disorienting than a dream come true: all your struggles, your planning, your entire focus, is thus brought to its end. 

Nobody thinks through what they want to do with that fulfilled dream, because unconsciously we don’t believe it would happen.

It never looks like you planned. It feels so alien from your cherished vision you can barely recognize it and it changes you, in ways opposite from what you’d expect. It opens you to the sudden revelation you do not know what you’re doing, and you didn’t when you were sure of your goals either, and the terrifying clarity that life is not what you thought. 

📖  Found yourself in the middle of a story? Visit STORIES by Francis Rosenfeld.

There is an entire obscure half to life, one we avoid, forget, overlook. 

You can’t overlook it in the northern realms, not during winter, when the nights are long, and where people sought refuge underground to escape the harshness of the weather for centuries.

The dark half of the year, finding refuge in the earth, embracing stillness, these customs have been abandoned a long time ago, and because they became unfamiliar, they make us apprehensive.

There is power in this dark half we avoid; it has its own laws, its creations, its wealth of stories told by the fire during the months when there is nothing to do other than cozy up and wait for the sun to return.

The dark is the keeper of stories, songs, and magic. It is the place and time for contemplation and refining thought. It affords freedom from distraction and a cocoon inside which one can turn one’s gaze inwards.

Magic and mystery thrive in the dark half of life, because the latter is endlessly patient, focused and unswayed. 

Refined thought requires silence and solitude, while wisdom is gained away from distractions.

📖  Found yourself in the middle of a story? Visit STORIES by Francis Rosenfeld.

Night falls quickly in Orkney at the end of October, and we drove quietly past the lochs and the stones to reach the Storytelling Centre, braving a bone chilling rain that promised to turn into ice soon.

We advanced through the darkness in silence, lulled by the rhythmic motion of the windshield wipers, like the last two people on earth, who reached the limits of their familiar realm and dared to venture into uncharted territory.

After a while we lost track of time and distance, immersed in an inky darkness whose substance was uniform, unmeasurable, and thicker than molasses, and which closed behind us as we passed through it, like the depths of the sea.

The passing of time is a measure of change, and it does not apply to a medium that stays the same, which shows no sign of differentiation or movement. 

In the blackness of that night we were outside of time itself, traveling to another dimension maybe, I couldn’t tell.

📖  Found yourself in the middle of a story? Visit STORIES by Francis Rosenfeld.

The sunshine was warm and hazy at the equinox, brushing the grassy knolls and the tops of the stones and sparkling on the lochs.

I know you’ve been here so many times, Fiona, that’s probably why I can’t keep away from this place, and here I am again, at the Stones of Stenness, waiting for the equinox like I’m expecting something to happen.

Spend enough time at sacred sites and you start believing in their magic. 

There is a still power in the stones, subtle, like tides, which quietly overtakes you before you take notice, and you find yourself immersed in it, dazzled and bowing to its authority.

You came here at sunrise, with Jorunn, carrying baskets of honey cakes and root vegetables, hoping to entreat the spirit of Orkney and appease the wrath of Gore Vellye, whose fury strips the land bare and disappears whole islands.

It’s cold already, and you are walking against the wind, wrapping the warm furs tight around your body to keep out the chill.

Jorunn walks behind you, respectful, and it takes a moment for me to understand when did this role reversal happened, and then I see the signet ring on your finger, your symbol of authority. You are no longer a person, Fiona; you are the seat of power, a keeper of the royal blood your mentor took an oath to honor and defend with her life.

📖  Found yourself in the middle of a story? Visit STORIES by Francis Rosenfeld.

The clashing of swords was overwhelming, the sky filled with dirt and thunderheads. There I saw them in the lightning, riding their winged horses with their hair in the wind.

In the middle of the battle I saw you too, Fiona, and couldn’t recognize you, as you rode across the field looking very much their equal, cutting a wide path through the enemy troops like a scythe through high grass, with far-reaching, terrifying sway, looking ageless like an idol, and just like it unable to feel sorrow, anger, or hurt.

Your face still lingers in my memory: although it looked young, your eyes were wise and hard, just like Jorunn's. Even in death, she was with you, her courage, strength and fearlessness watching over you.

We have been blest to live in peaceful times, and never experience such a scene, not to mention take part in it, and it was so shocking and terrifying to me I can’t draw breath, Fiona, to see a child like you bear down on the battlefield swinging that giant sword of yours that looked too heavy to lift, like a vengeful angel riding a horse of fire.

📖  Found yourself in the middle of a story? Visit STORIES by Francis Rosenfeld.

I spent some time on the pier after our parents left, watching the cruise ship get smaller and smaller into the horizon until I could barely make out its contours.

Denise sat by my side with uncharacteristic patience and said nothing.

I didn’t realize how different I was here until my old life visited, and brought all of its patterns and details with it, but I am two people, Fiona. Two people, with two different families, lives and interests, hundreds of years apart.

They coexist in perfect harmony, barely touching each other, my lives, and neither one can relate to the other, and I’m content with that. I have been since I can remember.

These visions of you that scream loud from my blood have an existence of their own, coherent and continuous, a true story, or history, that could have happened, and that makes sense.

There is an extraordinary emotional purity in the stories you unfold before my eyes, even in the face of unspeakable cruelty and such little worth assigned to human life: there is pure untarnished joy, and lightness of being, and the willingness to offer oneself, to give all of oneself, to an ideal.

📖  Found yourself in the middle of a story? Visit STORIES by Francis Rosenfeld.

Orkney takes great care to protect her ancient treasures and history: they are revealed, not discovered, and usually only when she allows it.

Violent storms have uncovered many of the old sites, stripping away the topsoil and vegetation to expose millennium-old constructions that had been sleeping beneath the ground.

I wanted to show mom and dad the enchanting beauty of the islands and figured going to Sanday together to explore its wild nature would be the perfect way to do it. 

Protests emerged immediately and subsided just as quickly when I explained the island was part of my research, since it is the site of an important Viking burial site.

In truth, it was the incredible beauty of nature, rather than the workings of man, that called me there.

Concealed by the rocky hills near the ferry dock, Doun Helzie is a place that time seems to have forgotten, with its lengthy stretches of beach hugged by pristine waters, a mesmerizingly blue color, almost glowing against the snow-white sands.

📖  Found yourself in the middle of a story? Visit STORIES by Francis Rosenfeld.

As the ferry approached Kirkwall, I saw them from afar, waiting on the dock with bright smiles on their faces.

“Guess who’s here?” I nudged Denise.

“No!”

“Oh, yes.”

“They don’t trust either of us, I take it. At least we’re dining in style tonight.”

“Do you ever think of anything other than food?”

“Not right now, no.”

“My beautiful daughters,” dad embraced us effusively. “This is how much effort a parent needs to do to get any news from his children.”

“Leave some for me too,” mom interjected, waiting her turn for a hug. “Are you eating well? You look thin.”

“Which one of us?” I asked, hopeful.

“Never you mind! Let me look at you! Oh, my God! You’re so tan!”

“We spend a lot of time outdoors,” I explained.

“And flourishing! Orkney suits you. This place is beautiful, you must take us everywhere! I want to see the cairns.”

“Rose, you know we’re not staying long. We’re on a cruise. If you can believe it, your mother convinced me.”

‘I’m sure she did,’ I thought. ‘And one that stops in Scotland, no less.’

📖  Found yourself in the middle of a story? Visit STORIES by Francis Rosenfeld.

We celebrated the white nights in the streets of Kirkwall, so filled with music and laughter, and I played my ballad, as promised, encouraged by an accommodating and enthusiastic audience. 

Denise was bursting with pride and kept urging me to put on another show in Eau Claire when we arrived back home, and wouldn't let up until I said yes.

I felt guilty in the morning for having so much fun and neglecting my studies, and thought I should take the papers I had begun to see in my dreams back to the Heritage Society and see if I could find more.

The council members were busy organizing the yearly trip to Eynhallow.

Every time I think I learned the ways of Orkney it surprises me again. Listen, kindred, listen and learn, for I’ll tell you the story of the Holy Isle.

Eynhallow is the tiny heart of the archipelago, tantalizingly close to the mainland, always in sight but rarely accessible, even though it lies a mere five hundred feet from the shore. 

📖  Found yourself in the middle of a story? Visit STORIES by Francis Rosenfeld.