Prologue to my Upcoming Historical Novel Set in Southern Oregon in 1888: Rune & Verse (2026)

Prologue to The Kalevala

From the air I am incited,

From the inward thought am driven,

That for singing I prepare me,

That for speaking I make ready,

That I sing the ancient tribe song

Handed down through many ages.

Golden friend, beloved brother,

Who with me was born and nurtured,

Come with me to join in singing,

Come with me to join in speaking,

We who now have met together

Coming here by paths divergent:

Seldom may we come together,

Each the other haply greeting

In the wilderness ungracious…*

Prologue to Rune & Verse

COOS RIVER, OREGON.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10th, 1888.

10 AM

Burnt branches and ashed, gray grass marked off the corner of a backyard within a family’s maturing apple orchard from the carved wilderness, a threshold to a world becoming independent and true, free of old gods and persistent superstitions, a fruiting of knowledge, a growing golden apple on one side of a fence, and on the other side: an invasive, vector-borne transmission—the flowing now of malum beneath ancient tree canopies in the sinkhole traps of even older root-holds, asking only everything of a soul for a few sedated, numbing moments of release. A fading proposition for a sad girl of 16 on the edge of adulthood… thinking, always thinking about a lost brother’s smile laid crosswise in the middle of her grief.

Dark sheets of clouds blew in from the ocean in waves hitting the shore as crooked, forest-filtered winds whipped across hillsides, ripping and tearing leaves and branches down the damp forest gulch of fern and duff carpeted grounds in a way that sounded like distant, steady moans and bent pleas. The sounds were out-of-place, yet familiar. Runa (Rune) Starkström counted the sticks in her arms, a third time, as the tall grass on the fringe of the forest-covered creek latched around her ankles as she strode with sturdy, high steps, leaving a shredded path through reticulated blades.

She became breathless in a reaction that felt more like a command as sharp winds slammed into her chest in a strange arithmetic and twisted her away from the entrance of the dark forest that baited her with the most enchanting materials to stray beneath the hollow spaces below its bows. Harvesting sticks, leaves, and moss for her toy boats had always come with risk. Today, was different somehow, as if the forest became aware of her final decision, and it sensed she was a threat, an evolving threat.

It was right, of course, and she would not be denied. Vengeance? Hubris? No. Love. In the end, a falling leaf can float on other leaves’ breaths. As she was shuffled away by a sharp gust of wind, she looked back and shivered in relief in her relative success (thus far) to stay unmarred during this morning’s foraging activities (no commination by fallen branches crushing her head), though she knew there would be hell to pay with her mother for being so late to pack for her solo trip to Mosher Chapel today.

In a contrary bend, fate flickered, and as if in a last, mercurial grasp by the fickle wilderness, the temperature of the forest entrance dropped in collapsing waves of clouds that engulfed her and became the smothering fog. Her breathing became shallow and it was hard see. Was it to dull and sedate her away from her plans or a more resolute and meaner hunger? The forests here (like back in Finland) were receding with man’s encroachment, and like there, she knew to never fully trust cornered trees so close to bodies of water, river or otherwise, and with certainty, where they were bent by ocean winds or stripped of their natural colors by the corrosive salts of the seas. So she snapped out of its grave promise as a vessel of consolation. STOP. Not today. It wasn’t her time. She’d have her say. She hopped up and down to get her blood flowing. Perkele. She wasn’t even wearing a coat for protection. Distraction here was gravitational. It almost had her again…

A tempest, a storm was brewing between the crouched yet canopied barriers of solitude of the forest wilderness, her will, and the good fortune she could entreat from the obscure reasons of fate. Today, fate’s brackish intentions acted with her as the wind. Had it read her mind’s cry for help? Would it stay with her? It pushed behind and supported her as it flowed like a creek through the contours of the landscape closer to where she was supposed to be, so she would let it accompany her to the backyard of the house. It would save her. It wouldn’t force her inside where Mother waited for her and there was a sanity longed for that only comes with wood stove heat or the soothing steam of a sauna bath, so she knew it could understand her, and that would have to do for now.

She didn’t like to be pushed though, even if she had important things to do before the upcoming meeting she was dreading at Mosher Chapel this afternoon, so with outstretched arms to steady herself down the decline of the path and to slow down, she grasped the strong, low-hanging, greenish-gray moss that hung over the creek like heavy, tattered curtains. She trudged upon the worn, slick path past the old goat shed to the little footbridge that crossed the creek and tripped over a seared, coal-black branch coated in fine white and orange ash from the burn pile in the corner of the backyard.

She watched as it flew low in the air and tumbled, splashed, and leeched into the torrent of creek water as it mixed with the season’s blood-scented silted sands. What was the scent of blood if not the slick of blue clay mixed with red iron from sandstone grains? “Dash,” she cussed in frustration so loud a raven fled its fortified bedding. She startled. “Dash,” she yelled again as her warm, rising breath met and blended with the raven’s parting silhouette. She couldn’t afford to brake her neck. What was she thinking? Mother and Father couldn’t afford another death.

The sight of the creek along the house steadied her even while it showered sounds like sand falling through an hourglass. Last night’s heavy rains had increased the creek’s flow, and it had only made it look more haunting as the sooted-oil slick snaked around old, shattered clay pots, splintered animal bones, and bleached, spare fish scales (that even in the shade) gleamed like sharpened hay scythe blades left out in a field for the farm work of tomorrow.

The wind picked up, and a chill ran down the back of her neck. Rune pressed her arms against her body and rubbed her shoulders to push out the cold, but felt colder. At least the sting from not wearing her jacket today would keep her coat sleeves from getting wet and dirty (nothing worse than wet, frozen clothes), even if the cut of the icy, rushing creek water over her toy boat-launching fingers could not be helped. She peered through the fog to the sky. Perpetual dusk. Cold. Always cold this time of year. It was like a Finnish winter’s day, wasn’t it? The frigid edge of the air reminded her of that last, crushing, bleak night at the family pond… Her nightmares had returned. The old gods were speaking with their ill, vengeful tongues even if people here were only half listening. She was listening.

*The Kalevala, or National Epos of the Finns. By E. T. Fletcher, Esq. (Read before the Society based on Franz Anton Scheifner, German Version), March 17th, 1869.

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