Chapter 5: The Ring Forest

Riodhr told me we were not going far, and so I chose to walk rather than accepting his offer to carry me. He pointed out a flickering red light, which I quickly discerned was a Skogkatt with a classic red tabby coat.

“His name is Sindri,” Riodhr told me, “He’ll show you where you need to go.”

“Aren’t you coming with me?” I asked, concerned at thought of being separated from him.

“I will never be far from you if you need me,” Riodhr said, “But I cannot assist you where you are going now, and so I shall leave you in Sindri’s care.” And so I followed the cat.

Like the everything about Sessrumnir, though, the Ring Forest was larger than it appeared, and we traveled far enough that I was feeling the toll of a full morning’s walk by the time arrived at the Fairy Circle - different from the first Fairy Circle - that was apparently our destination. Now, Sindri spoke to me:

“Astrid of Skogtarn-i-Sor, I welcome you on behalf of Freya’s Guard. Your teachers will find you here; you must not leave this place until your lessons are done.”

“When will my teachers come?” I asked, suddenly alarmed as I realized I was to be left alone in the forest for an indeterminate amount of time.

“Your teachers will come when you are ready to learn, Astrid of Skogtarn-i-Sor,” the cat cryptically replied, and vanished ... leaving only his smile behind.

I didn’t understand what I was feeling at first; I had spent so long under a burden of guilt that almost all other emotion had paled by comparison. As if the guilt had been sitting on a nerve, and left me numb. Now, as I waited alone in the clearing, I became aware of a trembling in my hands, and rapidity in my breath, finally being born in an irritated exhalation of breath and a petulant stomping of my feet. I paced the ring in extreme irritation:

“Well, I’m ready!” I called out, half expecting my teacher might be hiding behind a tree and feeling highly amused at my expense. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t ready to learn.” I thought that should have been obvious, but apparently my teachers had their doubts.

I considered going back to the castle, but Sindri’s instruction had been clear: I was to wait in the Fairy circle, and when I was “ready” my teachers would come. Though how the teacher could determine my readiness was beyond me, since the teacher was nowhere to be found.

I spent along while alternating between furious pacing with mild expletives, interspersed with periods of peering through the trees to see if there was any sign of an approaching figure. At length, the light began to fall, however, and I began to wonder if I wasn’t losing my mind. “Maybe I’d better go back to the castle,” I said to no one in particular, “Perhaps my teachers don’t know I’m here already, or they aren’t sure where to find me.” The sound of my own voice reinforced my growing conviction that this was, indeed, the thing to do, and I moved to step out of the Fairy Ring.

No sooner had my foot breached the inner circle when a dome of iridescent light sprang up all around me, and the ghostly figure of a girl appeared within it, pale as the day she had died. “Unn!” I cried. “Unn, are you my teacher?!” I didn’t move, for fear I might lose her if I withdrew by so much as an inch.

“I am not your teacher,” she said, “Your lessons with me were finished long ago. But I have a message for you, and it is this: once you leave this circle, there is no returning to this place and time. That is the meaning of the Labyrinth Path. Do not forsake the opportunity given to you again; it will not be offered a third time.”

The light faded, and with it the figure of Unn; I withdrew into the fairy circle to contemplate this strange vision, and sat down upon the mossy greens. As I sat, I began to notice the path I had trampled with my furious pacings about the circle: daisies crushed underfoot. I leaped up from my seat to see what other damage I might, in my self-centered mindlessness, have done while I paced looking outward for my tardy teachers. Suddenly, a familiar voice like a rush of wind through tall grasses came to me.

She is close now, she is clear.

Can she hear us?

She is clossssse...

Unn’s message became clear to me: I had finished her lessons the night I left Skogtarn-i-Sor. “You are my teachers now,” I whispered to daisies and their fairy-ring flower companions, “Aren’t you!”