Mistress of the Runes

by Andrews

  “This is so strange.” Liz continued to read the article. “While we’ve been quietly wondering what all the one-one-ones mean, thousands of people are having the same experience we are.”

  I shrugged it off, laughing. “If I’m so enlightened, why am I unemployed and crawling around on haystacks?”

  “Maybe part of being enlightened is simply realizing that you are.”

  *

  I hauled the last of twenty bales of hay in the Kubota to the porch outside the horse barn. We were headed for a high of sixty-eight degrees, when only two days earlier, the high had been twenty-one. After unloading the hay bales, I dusted off my jacket, hosed the mud off my boots, and went inside for a bowl of oatmeal. It was such a glorious day, and the oatmeal was comforting—womb-y. I began thinking that oatmeal must be akin to a warm bran mash that horses are often fed, and I wondered if our horses had ever had that kind of treat. If not, oatmeal was merely oats, water, and sugar, none of which should hurt a horse.

  I wandered out to the horse-holding area by the hitching post with a shiny white Mikasa bowl filled with oatmeal and offered it to my mare. Suddenly the color white wasn’t frightening, a china bowl wasn’t nerve-wracking; my mare seemed quite at home putting her entire mouth into the pile of oats and slurping it up with her tongue like a dog. I couldn’t help but smile.

  Liz decided Hlatur was being left out, so she brought him a bowl. He put his nose in the oatmeal and snorted loudly, throwing little globs of oats onto her shirt and leaving a large piece of oats stuck to his upper lip. He was in high distress and curled his large upper lip back like a chimp, rubbing his nose back and forth on the grass to get every sticky morsel off.

  “You would think I’d rubbed his nose in Elmer’s glue!” Liz laughed.

  Rune leaned over and finished off the oats from his bowl, then I retrieved a paper towel from the barn and gently cleaned Rune’s face. She looked happy and nuzzled my chest, but when I tried to wipe Hlatur’s mouth, he acted as if I’d come at him with a pitchfork.

  “Forget it, horse!” I said, laughing, and left him to his grass rubbing. I was learning that I couldn’t conquer everything…sometimes it was okay to let it be.

  *

  At dawn Sunday morning, I crept out of bed so Liz could rest. Dimming the light in the closet so it wouldn’t hit her eyes, I dressed inside it, putting on sweats, boots, and a double layer of turtleneck and ski sweater, then slipped out of the bedroom and carefully closed the door before deactivating the burglar alarm. I put sweet feed in the horses’ food bins so they could eat while I fed the dogs and cats, who’d begun sleeping in the heated breezeway during the cold winter.

  Then I went back out to the horses and led them down to their pasture, carried four flakes of hay out to them, checked their field waterers, and dusted off my clothes on the way back to the barn. After turning on the radio I picked up a muck rake and began mucking out the stalls. The world, I had decided, was full of shit; but this was shit I could do something about, and I slung it into buckets with an efficiency brought on by morning after morning of the same activity.

  When the rising sun crested the horizon and hit my face, I felt a sudden rush of joy for this heaven we’d created and a greater rush of fear over how short life is and how little time we have to find meaning in it. I’d wasted so many years toeing the corporate line, treating the corporation like a family member, worrying about meaningless work, and before I knew it, I was standing alone in the stall staring into the sunlight, silently crying.

  I tried to form a prayer, but a prayer seemed ridiculous. If God was God, then (S)He knew full well what was going on and didn’t need me to recite it. I finally murmured, “God…help. What is it about?” My eyes remained transfixed on the glorious scenery visible through the top of the barn stall—the beautiful rolling land, white fences, and electric orange ball of fire setting it all aglow.

  I see the scene as if a camera has pulled back to reveal a wider view; it is the painting. I sit astride a different horse, a massive black war horse, with legs like tree stumps, and I am leading a string of horses out of the fire and flames, taking them up into the hills with me. My horse is afraid of nothing; I am at peace.

  Nothing had changed but the angle of the sun, but I knew my ancestors were sending me a message of hope. Something was on its way.

  Feeling better, I dried my tears. By the time Liz came out in her flannel nightshirt, smiling sweetly, I showed no signs of my small breakdown. I certainly didn’t want her to think I was losing faith.

  “Thanks so much for doing everything this morning.” She hugged me. “This is the third day in a row you’ve done it. It’s not fair.”

  “It’s fair. You get up and go to work. I don’t. But I like working in the barn, actually. I like kissing the animals before the sun comes up…all their sounds and smells. I like it.”

  “Did you dream?” Liz always asked about my dreams.

  “Crazy dreams last night. Some voice in my head said be sure and get a copy of the morning paper, there’s something in there for you. Now how odd is that?”

  *

  An hour later, Liz plopped a copy of the paper in front of me, and in it was a classified ad about a job: operating officer for a national auction company, reporting to the CEO. I applied on line.

  That accomplished, I asked Liz to follow me down to the waterers, which were once again leaking and causing our water bills to skyrocket. Smarter this time, we brought along a small hand pump to jettison the excess water above the frost line that covered the shut-off valve, a longer pipe key, and so many tools we looked like a plumbing flotilla. Over the past week we’d completely disassembled the entire mechanism four times to find the faulty part.

  “Okay,” Liz said half an hour later, sliding the hood back over the valve and tightening the gear teeth on the arm. “Fire her up and let’s see.”

  Putting the three-foot valve key down into the PVC ground pipe, I located the valve by feel and gave it a forty-five-degree turn. A hundred pounds of water pressure flew into the pipe and up into the horse waterer. The gasket held, the valve didn’t leak, the overflow holes in the tank showed no signs of water escaping.

  I stood up from the cement ledge of the waterer, ignoring the wet mud caking my sweatpants and squishing ankle high over my boot laces, and gave Liz a big muddy high five. “It’s a beautiful thing!” I shouted.

  “We did it!” She shot me a huge smile that cracked the mud glued to her cheek. “You look like you need a major hosing down.” I laughed.

  We gathered up the raft of tools, themselves caked in mud, and trudged slowly up the alleyway toward the barn, the cool air and soft sunshine feeling like nature’s soft pat on the back for a job well done. We were so pleased with ourselves that the mud we would normally despise sticking to us seemed a ritual christening.

  We washed off in the barn, cleaned the tools and put them away, then went back into the house. An e-mail was waiting. The CEO wanted to meet me.

  *

  Two days later, in a double-breasted Armani suit, I walked into the office of the tall, angular, sandy-haired CEO. I hadn’t dressed like this in so long I’d forgotten the power of an expensive wardrobe. The young CEO rose quickly from his desk and faced me, revealing his freckled face and sweet smile—I was speechless.

  Stretching across the centuries, leaping from my dreams and off the canvas, was my young aide. I heard him thanking me for saving him in battle, then my own words echoing back across the ages: “One day you may return the favor, saving me.”

  Conversation between us was easy, as if we’d merely picked up where we left off in some long-ago meeting. Three hours went by without our even noticing. Suddenly, he paused for a moment and then appeared to make a decision. “With your background, you’re a lot of horsepower.” The young CEO grinned. “So many corporate battles—you’re way ahead of me. You can teach me a lot.”

  And with that, he offered me the job, as if he’d been waiting for me to arrive. I to
ok it—grateful to be saved.

  He turned me over to a young man who gave me a tour of the office, walking me past another man who was sorting photos taken at a mansion they were about to sell at auction: beautiful antiques, furniture—and there it was, the oil painting of the red-haired warrior on horseback—the me I had come to know.

  I was dumbstruck, finally managing to ask where the painting was physically located. The young man said a lot of the items from this mansion had been sold before they got the property, so these photos didn’t reflect what was truly left.

  “Do you know who bought the painting?” I gasped.

  “No. Well, maybe. I think they said a very wealthy guy bought it at our last auction.”

  I thought of the woman at the house in San Francisco saying the items had been sent to an auction company and asked him if I could get a color copy of the photo and any other information about the painting, knowing how odd that request sounded.

  “Sure.” He shrugged and went out to scan the photo for me.

  While he was gone I fingered a tattered piece of paper and read, The battle—one of many raids by early Viking clans—depicts the siege of a large castle compound by the red-bearded warrior who killed the king and claimed the infidel queen, becoming the first barbarian ruler. His men rode on without him and were ambushed and slain in the following battle leagues away, putting an end to the clan.

  Feeling slightly dazed, I went home to the ranch and told Liz, “I got the job.”

  “Congratulations, darling, I knew you would!” She kissed me. “Aren’t you happy?”

  “Yes. The CEO was the aide in my dream,” I said breathlessly.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “They auctioned the painting. They had a photograph of it!” I pulled it out of my pocket. “Look at the arrow on his shield pointing toward the heavens, just like my dream and just like the Teiwaz runestone.”

  Liz looked stunned. We were both stunned. We couldn’t share this type of thing with anyone because no one would believe it, but it did feel as if linear history was circling around and catching its own tail.

  “You were very handsome,” she said.

  I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket. “Read this. My men died because they went on without a leader. I stayed behind to rule the city, and they went forward and died.”

  Liz read the entire paragraph, then folded it up and put it on the dresser and looked at the picture again. “So you think that was your fault? If indeed this is you?”

  “I think it explains some things. Maybe I’m back because I owe them a debt.”

  “Or maybe you’re back to help them evolve. After all, they didn’t listen to you last time and got themselves killed. You, on the other hand, stayed behind to rebuild the city and take care of its people,” she said, and I listened in silence, thinking about a decision of that magnitude.

  Liz screwed up her face at the blond-headed queen in the photo, the facial features too small to be recognizable as anyone’s, much less Liz’s. “Who was doing my hair?”

  I placed the photo on the dresser and pulled Liz into bed.

  “I’m going to make love to you until dawn,” I promised, then wrapped my arm around her and felt strong again, pulling her under me, then balancing my weight on the palms of my hands, and lowering myself gently to her lips before letting my entire weight rest on her body.

  She had managed to position one hand between my thighs, and I found myself inside her mouth as she was inside me, creating a bonding heat that welded us to one another, like cast iron forged across the centuries. Our bodies pounded against one another, wet and wanton, every opening of mine fitting into or over hers, and we came together, like the wind and the rain, swirling in each other like the elements of time.

  “My God, it gets better every time,” she whispered as my mouth left hers to glide down her belly and rest between her legs, and I entered her with a suddenness that made her moan. The earth began to move around us and the images were of us, but we were suddenly the red-bearded warrior and the golden-haired queen, and I knew his love for her transcended all time.

  *

  Happily dizzy after our prolonged lovemaking, I kissed Liz’s breast and got up to go to the dresser to look at the photo one more time before going to sleep. “It’s gone…it’s faded!” I said in desperation, and Liz bounded out of bed to see for herself. “This runestone was sitting on top of the picture, and it wasn’t there when we went to bed.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t bring the runestone in here?”

  “No, I didn’t! Besides, it’s a different stone altogether.”

  I took the rune with me into the living room and located the book of runes. The book calls it the Horse Rune—Movement/New Life/Progress. Did the woman in San Francisco send it?”

  “This never came in the mail. It just appeared.”

  “But how?” I asked and we stood looking at one another not knowing what to say.

  “This runic symbol is shaped like the letter ‘M.’ This is the rune the warrior ripped from his neck and gave to his queen. It must have had deep meaning for him.”

  “We’re in the middle of something very powerful,” Liz said quietly but with certainty, and we were both silent.

  I clutched the rune, taking it back to my bedside, not knowing why but believing one day it would lead me to understand who I was and why I was back at this time in history, in this form, with this woman. Then I fell asleep without angst for the first time in over a year. I had a job and a purpose, and I dreamed the Rune Mistress was speaking to me.

  You have three runes. Your past is bound in the Warrior Rune, reminding you that the biggest battle takes place within. The Blank Rune is your present state of beginnings and endings, and the circle of both. The Horse Rune is before you, teaching you that as we develop who we truly are, all else follows and all else is revealed.

  I don’t know what woke me, but I rolled over and looked at the clock. The backlit LCD clearly illuminated the large red numbers reading 1:11 a.m. One eleven again!

  Liz was sitting straight up in bed.

  “What?” I asked softly, surprised to find her awake.

  “You’re the owner, the female master of your horse, right?” she asked, still and listening to something unseen.

  I nodded in the affirmative, thinking she must have had a dream.

  “Then you’re the mistress of Rune—your horse.”

  I sat quietly absorbing that thought.

  “Could it be that you are the Mistress of the Runes? Maybe, you’re she and she’s you.”

  “No, she was there. You saw her.”

  “She was there, but what if she’s your Higher Self, your Knowing?”

  “No. I don’t want her merely to be a piece of myself. I need for her to be real. She is real. I saw her. She said she’d be there as long as I have questions and that she’d help me find out who we are and why we’re back.”

  I sank back into the pillows and Liz curled up in the crook of my arm, resting her head on my chest, and I could feel my heartbeat against her cheek.

  “She will,” Liz said, looking up at me, and in the light from the bedside lamp, her gorgeous eyes, almost surreal, were bright and deep…and exquisitely blue.

  Outside the horses nickered softly in the moonlight.

  About the Authors

  Andrews & Austin live on their horse ranch in the Central Plains. Their strong lesbian characters, great storytelling, and distinctive style derive from years of writing for television and film. Andrews & Austin operate several large business ventures and still find time for one of their biggest passions?writing lesbian fiction that entertains and enlightens.

  For more information visit www.andrewsaustin.com.

 

 

 
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