LOST

Stew’s room was flooded with red, orange and yellow as the rising sun set the eastern horizon outside his window ablaze. He turned over and was awakened, for the second morning in a row, by a dog drool bath.

“Seriously, Goose,” Stew said, his eyes still closed, trying to avoid being blinded by slobber. “Could you find another way to wake me up? Paw me on the shoulder… learn to talk… something.” He threw his blanket from his legs and swung them off the bed to the small rug that covered the hardwood floor. Rested and amazed at his lack of sore muscles or bruised ribs, he stood up and stretched. As he exhaled, day old memories rushed his mind and brought back the cloud of sorrow above his head. “At least the dream changed. Shall we see if anyone else is up?” He asked Goose, who was sitting at his feet, patiently waiting for a walk outside. “Yes, I know.” He bent down and grabbed his shoes and headed out the bedroom door. “Come on.”

As he walked down the stairs of Brandr and Tófa’s two story inn, he heard noise coming from the kitchen and dining room, as well as outside. “Wiz, are you awake?” he called from the front door.

“Yes, Stew,” Wiz answered from the dining room table in the room next to the foyer.

“Taking Goose out.” Stew took his jacket off the hook it was hanging on, put his arms in the sleeves and zipped it up.

“Okay. Breakfast is ready when you get back.”

He opened the door and was surprised to see dozens of people walking up and down the street, dressed in various period attire—Norse warriors, peasants and stereotypical Viking. He was having a hard time understanding his newfound knowledge of the period but was impressed by it, nonetheless. “Let’s go to that little patch of grass so you can do your business and then we can see what all the commotion’s about.” He led Goose across the street to the grass adjacent to a marina. After Goose was finished, Stew looked at the mess. “I don’t suppose you can make that disappear.” Goose sneezed and it was gone. “That’s awesome.” The two of them walked down the road and Stew saw someone handing out maps of some sort.

As they walked up to him, he turned, “God morgen.”

“Uh… yeah. God morgen. Er… do you speak English?”

“Yes.”

“What’s going on? Some sort of festival?”

“Yes. A festival. The Viðr Brenna.”

“Which means…?” Stew strained to see if it was buried in his memory somewhere.

“The Burning Wood. It’s the first annual. Twelve hundred years in the making. Are you going to the ceremony?”

“What ceremony?”

“The renaming ceremony. For the park. The other reason for this festival. They were going to have it yesterday but then there was a forecast of snow and they moved it to today.”

“Yes. I think I will be there.”

The man handed Stew a map. “I hope to see you later, then.”

The man waved as Stew’s expression betrayed the slightest amount of joy amidst all the sadness still weighing him down. “Thank you, sir.” He turned and looked down at Goose, “You want some breakfast?” Goose barked a happy reply.

Stew and Goose walked up the sidewalk to the house as more and more people filled the street. Stew looked back at them and shook his head in disbelief. He opened the door, took his jacket off, hung it back on the hook and joined the others in the dining room.

Tófa spooned scrambled eggs onto a plate in front of an empty chair. “I hope you like scrambled.”

“That’s fine,” he said, sitting down, assuming the chair and plate were waiting for him.

“We’ve got bacon, toast, crepes…” She waited for a reply as to which he wanted.

“Um… just bacon and toast, please.”

“Now, don’t insult me by not trying my famous crepes.”

“Okay. Okay. Crepes, too. And coffee?”

“Sure. I’ll bring you out a cup. Cream and sugar are right there in front of you.”

Wiz walked over to him and handed him a piece of paper. “Could you stick this in the journal I gave you? One last entry for me.”

“Sure,” Stew replied, smiling earnestly at him. Once Stew took the paper, Wiz quietly sat back down.

“How’s your shoulder?” Stew asked Marie, making conversation while he contemplated how to navigate through what he really wanted to talk about.

“It’s…” She shook her head and huffed, amused by the question. “It’s much better. Amazingly enough.”

“Good. I was worried.”

“It’s fine. I don’t think there will be much of a scar.”

Stew turned to their new satyr friend, who sat quietly at the other end of the table. “Samal… right?” The satyr nodded. Stew stared at him, looking at the dark, brown color of his skin, his long goatee and sideburns and his hairy, beastlike hands. “It was you… outside the diner… with the newspaper. You asked me for the time.”

“Yes.”

Stew nodded as his understanding of the whole situation seemed to widen by the minute. “So…” Stew said to Tófa. “how long have you two had this inn?”

Tófa chuckled and then replied, “For a while.”

“Did you know there was a festival going on today?”

“Yes.”

“Festival?” Wiz said with a mouth full of bacon and eggs. He swallowed, aware of his bad manners, and took a drink of coffee to wash it down. “What kind of festival?”

“The Viðr Brenna,” Stew replied, proud that he could pronounce it correctly.

“The Burning Wood Festival?”

“Yes. It’s the first annual celebration of something that happened twelve hundred years ago.” Stew tilted his head, knowing it would only take a moment for Wiz to figure out what he was getting at.

Tófa looked at Brandr and smiled.

“Twelve hundred…” Wiz looked at Brandr with utter bewilderment. “You mean our…” He made a gesture, encircling all of them with his hand. Brandr and Tófa nodded.

It took Marie a little longer but once she understood, her eyes became as wide as her plate. “You guys are famous!”

“They’re also renaming the park,” Stew added. “There’s a ceremony later.”

“We were going to surprise you with it after breakfast,” Tófa told Wiz.

“I… I just don’t know what to say.” Wiz stared at Brandr in astonishment.

“It’s nine o’clock now,” Tófa noted, looking at her watch as she sat down to eat. “The ceremony’s at three. We have about five hours to enjoy the festival. So…eat up.” She scooped up a bite of eggs and put it in her mouth and then remembered something. “By the way,” she said, covering her mouth as she spoke, “Brandr’s name here in Bergen is Eirik and mine is Sofia. Got it?” Stew, Marie and Wiz nodded. Goose stood up from his plate full of bacon and eggs and barked his approval.

The group of seven friends walked down the street, browsing the wares of the merchants who had booths set up along the road. Samal moved to where he could speak to Stew with some privacy. “I sense your grief… and I can’t help but feel a little responsible.”

“Please…,” Stew said, holding up his hand to halt anymore apologies.

“Let me finish,” Samal insisted and Stew dropped his hand. “I have lived for many years. Not as long as Wiz, but I have had my fair share of loss. During the last two centuries, I became friends with the Cherokee. There was a time when my family and I need not bother hiding ourselves from humans. The Cherokee respected all creatures so we were not afraid of them. Everything changed when a trapper killed my mate. Took her horns and hooves. My Cherokee friends hunted him down and shot him with arrows. Though the person who killed the one I love was dead, it did not assist my healing. I went to speak with the village medicine man. And he told me, ‘Death is not an end… but a beginning. The wings of life will only let you fly but so high. However, on deaths fiery wings can the soul be free to fly as high as it can dream.’ When he said that, that is when my heart began to heal itself.”

“It seems, Samal…” Stew said, “that you and I have something in common.”

“Indeed, we do.”

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome.”

“Uh… Sofia, what time is it?” Stew asked.

“Two twenty,” Tófa replied.

“The map says that the ceremony is going to be held in the clearing. Shall we head there now?”

“Sure. But we don’t really need a front row seat, do we? I mean, haven’t we had that pleasure once or twice already?”

“Yeah,” Stew agreed. “I guess we have.”

“Let’s find a drink first,” Wiz suggested.

“Øl Hus is on the way,” Brandr said.

“Sounds good to me,” Wiz replied.

With plastic cups filled with amber lager, they entered the park and followed the crowd down the paved path toward the clearing.

“How many people do you think are here?” Stew asked.

“I don’t know. It will be interesting to see,” Wiz said. “I hate that no one sells dark beer here anymore.” Wiz raised his cup and looked at it with disappointment.

As they got closer to the grove, they noticed people starting to veer off the path and into the woods, filling up the areas between the trees.

Wiz tilted his head toward his shoulder and whispered to Regan, “Why don’t you fly up ahead and get a bird’s eye view.” Regan, anxious to find out herself, did as he asked. When she returned, she told Wiz what she saw.

“There must be two-thousand people or more here. There’s no room to sit down anywhere. Not on the ground, anyway. There are a few kids who climbed up trees to straddle the branches. You guys didn’t see the plaque they have mounted on a pedestal where the path opens up to the clearing.”

“No, we didn’t. I suppose we had other things on our minds,” Wiz said, marveling at the size of the crowd, which had come to a slow halt, running out of space to move. “Are we going to be able to hear anything?”

“I think I saw speakers set up at regular intervals around,” Regan replied.

A few minutes later, they heard feedback as someone tapped on a microphone. “H-hello? This is on, right?” the voice said. “Welcome to the first annual Viðr Brenna Festival…” The crowd whooped, hollered and whistled. “…As well as…” he persisted but was drowned out by the cheering. “As well as,” he went on to say, speaking louder, “the renaming ceremony for Mørkfuglsparken.” More cheering and shouting. “All right. All right,” he said, holding out his arms and waved them downward, trying to calm the crowd of people.

“Let’s get to it. Shall we?” he continued. “For those who don’t know me, my name is ¬¬¬¬Rasmus, mayor of Bergen. Twelve hundred and fifty years ago yesterday, when this park was simply the forest just outside a small village called Torshol, something horrible took place. My assistants have spent the past eight months researching and went to painstaking effort to make sure we have things accurate, no thanks to the person who stole all the town records more than a hundred years ago.

“Behind me is a cold, stone reminder of what went on that day. Flames burning the flesh of Hringr Ljóss. Their executioner remains, to this day, unnamed. But… he was unsuccessful. All but one of them survived—Xamn…”

Stew’s ears perked up and his face turned red as he heard shouts of ‘Xamn’ echo throughout the throng. “They’re calling my name,” he said, nudging Wiz.

“…whose entire body was consumed by the fire and never found. His brother Modeos, and friends, Brandr and Tófa all, somehow, came out unscathed. No one knows what became of the three afterwards but all four of them are revered as heroes.” Whistles, clapping and shouts of honor rose from the multitude of people. “Now… we dedicate this monument to them. It has stood, tall and proud, since then, but now we are able to honor their names and not just the legend we hear told by our grandfathers. And I hereby, as the mayor of Bergen, do rename this park, Minnenaturparken på Torshol—Torshol Memorial Park. Let it not be forgotten ever again.”

A thundering applause roared throughout the park as tears rolled down the faces of Stew, Wiz, Brandr and Tófa. Samal looked at them and applauded, too. Regan clapped so fast, it looked like her hands were going to fly off her wrists.

“All the bars on Sjogaten,” the mayor shouted over the loudspeaker, “the drinks are on me!” Not surprisingly, that got the biggest applause. As the mass of people dissipated, Stew, Brandr, Tófa, Samal and Goose made their way back to the entrance.

Marie held Wiz back and turned him around to face her. She looked into his eyes and laid her lips on his. Perhaps it was just the cold of the winter air, but time seemed to stand still as they kissed. When she pulled away, Wiz was filled with a warmth that would have enabled him to stand there in his underwear. She grabbed his hand and they ran to catch up with the others. When they fell in behind their friends, they all looked back at them and grinned. Even Regan couldn’t help but be happy for them. She had a family again, and nothing would ever take that away.

Goose walked faithfully beside Stew, who had sensed frustration from him since before the crowd dispersed and thought, maybe, he felt left out. “It’s okay, Goose. We all know that you’re a hero, too.” Goose looked up at him, the corners of his mouth curling into something similar to a smile. “I don’t think Wiz would have lasted twelve hundred years if he didn’t have you.” Goose nudged his leg lovingly, as Stew reached down and rubbed his ears.

Just a month prior, most of them were either strangers or estranged. That was no longer the case and would never be again.

Eight friends sat around the table in Brandr and Tófa’s dining room. Seven of them held up a glass stein full of dark amber liquid. One of them held a thimble full of honey. It didn’t seem to faze Marie at all that a thimble was floating in the air above the table.

“Today,” Wiz said as he stood up, “is a brand new day. May we live in the present, remember the past… and prepare for the future. Twelve hundred years ago, Hringr Ljóss was a félag… a fellowship. Friends that became family. Let it be again. To the new Circle of Light.” He raised his glass and seven others joined him.

“To the new Circle of Light,” they all said in unison. Goose barked.

“To Alex,” Stew added.

“To Alex.”