Stories

My Dear Fiona - Chapter 25 Cathedrals of Stone

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.

My Dear Fiona - Chapter 24 The Favor of Heerfather Seek We To Find

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.’

My Dear Fiona - Chapter 23 The Island Between Worlds

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. 

My Dear Fiona - Chapter 22 Birth. Again.

I was lucky to have Denise with me, otherwise my Maeshowe experience would have held me back, Fiona, because the cairn of Cuween was much smaller, much darker, much more ominous, as it is fitting for a fairy knowe inhabited by spirits from a non-human realm.
The experience of entering the earth is only romantic in theory. 
In practice it involves a lot of hyperventilation, scraped elbows and knees, controlled panic attacks and a feral drive to get out of there as quickly as possible. 
We didn’t bend over; we crawled in, against my every survival instinct, we crawled into the darkness of the earth, tightly cradled by corbelled stone slabs supporting what I can only guess was crushing weight from the dirt mound above, with barely enough space to turn around, careful not to bang our heads on the sharp stone edges.
A strange elation overcame me, not panic, rather excited trepidation, the anticipation of an unusual journey outside normal reality, a visit to the realm of the dead.
It’s not a physical journey one engages in here, I understood somehow; the constraints are intentional, the tight straightjacket made of stone is supposed to restrain all the movements we take for granted, and the dark silent space dampens the senses too. How else are you to understand the stillness of the body in death, what it’s like to exist in a state that no longer allows for the perks of the living?

My Dear Fiona - Chapter 21 I Dreamt a Dream Last Night

We are social creatures, and we don't want to stand out, so we will give up almost anything just to be accepted and partake of the huge game that is society and master its many levels.
We’re not all that different, my sister and I: while she pretends not to experience things she can’t explain, I keep mine to myself, neatly placed in their appropriate containers, lest they risk contaminating my very rational and scientific mind.
I store them in the area of my mind that has to do with spirituality, the mysterious, which we researchers like to talk about but don't really take seriously.
The same area which houses the intriguing article you read last week at the airport while waiting for the plane to board. 
It tested the limits of what a reasonable person is allowed to believe, which was a bit daring for a scientific article, and that was exciting, like a guilty pleasure, but not as consequential as the tangible laws that explain why an aircraft can fly, or the extensive studies you did for your own paper, which you’re about to present upon arrival at your destination.

My Dear Fiona - Chapter 20 And Spirit Makes Three

I didn’t want to wake Denise the next morning, between the beer and the late night I knew she’d be in a rotten mood if she didn’t get her beauty sleep, so I snuck out as quietly as I could, to get a cup of coffee.
The streets were already filled with music and dancing and the rhythms of the drums, the festival atmosphere rushed me in the middle of the street, and carried me along with it, even a recluse like me.
Life unfolded in all its joy, Fiona, and it looked so effortless, as if all its tribulations and cares were nothing but another performance at the festival. 
I had a sudden insight into the lightness of being, which my sister seems to understand so well: you just don’t think about it, you get up, go out and live, that’s it. No expectations, no reservations, no past.
I always thought of living in the now as some sort of gimmick people who have no plans like to pass for life philosophy, and I’m a little embarrassed by that now, when the collective life of Kirkwall flows through me, making me part of everything.
The rhythm of the drums induced some sort of trance, muffling the other sounds and sharpening my hearing and I got a little lightheaded from the bright light and the sounds, so I grabbed an outdoor table at the corner cafe, ordered an espresso and closed my eyes to clear my head. 

My Dear Fiona - Chapter 18 Warrior!

The green meadow was quiet. There was a large crowd present, but no one made a sound, standing on the grass in a circle, in the light of the torches, waiting.
You are standing in the middle, wearing the white dress with green ribbons, and you have fragrant white flowers and green ribbons in your hair, very thin ribbons which make it look like that of a non-human creature, like an undine or a selkie. 
Your mentor waits for you by the tallest stone, standing poised for the ceremony, and all your council is in attendance, dressed in festive attire and donning wild flower garlands.
Is this your wedding, Fiona? I can’t see the groom, they’re all women. Some rite of passage, maybe?
You walk across the circle of grass with slow ceremonial steps, as if in a trance, your eyes affixed on the top of the tallest stone, perfectly aligned with the moonrise of the solstice, and only then I realize it must be night, but it’s still daylight, and although the giant moon already rose above the stone, casting its long shadow towards you, the sun is shining too, casting your shadow towards it.
The two shadows met, and you walked inside their joint corridor of darkness, while young girls in white dresses threw flowers at your feet.
I always see your hair braided, Fiona, and I didn’t realize how long it was. It is let down now, and trails behind you like a train.
You walk alone, barefoot on the path of grass and flowers, while the moon rises quickly in the sky, and the sun finally goes to rest, and daylight dims to twilight, but not really darkness, because the moon is so huge and so close it bathes everything in its silver light.

My Dear Fiona - Chapter 19 Elverhoj

I had promised Denise I’d come to all the rehearsals, not knowing how many they were going to have. Three hours in, watching the same performance fragments over and over, I was on the verge of losing my mind, and my bum was numb from sitting on stone.
“How much practice could you possibly need for an improv performance?”
“That shows how much you know about theater,” Denise commented, annoyed by the interruption, and turned around to face the cast. “Let’s take it from the beginning of the dance again.”
Oh, God, I don’t think I can take another repetition of this dance.
“I know what you’re thinking, Ethel.” My sister hissed at me through her labored breath. “If you have no appreciation for the arts, why don’t you prop up that boulder? It’s about to fall.”
‘Fall where?’ I thought, bewildered. We were in the middle of the street, and everything rested securely on its stone pavers.
My sister ignored me and started her dance again, a very agitated choreography set on absolute silence, which was supposed to engender the emotional waves of a Wagnerian opera, but with no sound at all. 

My Dear Fiona - Chapter 17 In the Beginning Was The Wave

I couldn’t sleep, and neither could Denise. The sun woke us up when I had barely slept three hours. As for Denise, she had made up her sleep deficit during the day and now was sharp as a tack.
We drove to the stones of Stenness with the rosy glow of dawn behind us. The midnight sun bathed our shoulders and put haloes around our hair, and when we got out of the car in the middle of the wilderness, it compelled our silence.
We walked in silence for a while through this fantastic landscape, where the stones felt like a natural land feature, like they’ve been there forever, carved by the storms and the winds.
“Come on, Ethel! Not fun being old, eh?”
I was born two years before Denise, a detail she never forgets to highlight when she deems it relevant.
“See you in two years, Denise. I’ll remember to ask you then.”
“This is awesome!” My sister started running up the gentle slope, twirling and dancing like an ancient priestess entranced by her deity, charged by the monoliths. “I am the goddess of Stenness! I bid glad tidings to all the little people.”
She looked it too, a young goddess, one with the land, dancing with the grace of a willow branch.
“Dance, Betty Lou! Don’t be a stick in the mud! Dance with me!”

My Dear Fiona - Chapter 16 Marwick’s Hole

I wondered if there was any sort of protocol when talking to ghosts. Is one allowed to call on them? Or is that considered too forward and one should wait to be acknowledged first?
It seems rather rude to disturb the peace of an entity without the consent of the latter, especially when their home base is always overrun with people.
Denise adamantly disagreed, saying Mr. Sinclair obviously enjoyed the company of the living and he’d be really disappointed to find out we came to the cathedral and didn’t bother to call.
Unfortunately for my sister, our friendly guide seemed to be otherwise engaged; besides, the church was filled with the living, anyway.
I’d stopped keeping track of the calendar in Kirkwall, my independent research schedule didn’t seem to find any usefulness for it and didn’t realize we had come to the cathedral on a Sunday. 
The service was almost over when we arrived, and we slid into one of the pews as quietly as possible, careful not to disturb the ceremony.
The familiar chants lulled me into a soft reverie as my eyes wondered, taking in the austere details of the Romanesque architecture, and I was startled when the soft voice behind me, a voice rather recognizable now, whispered from very close by, “I told you, young lady: second pillar on the right.”