Midnight Sun

/ Liz H-H

Moon over mountain

The midsummer sun meant an extra long day, and she and Horse had easily traversed the rocky field, pausing at the liminal space where diamond-sharp stream burst through dense curtain of darkest forest; they would not enter at night.                     

Her arrow spent, her queen-mother launched via ornate wooden boat carven by those tasked to return such as her to their origins and birthplace, all necessary rituals having been properly and dutifully performed, she’d slipped away, hidden within the comforting folds of her rust-colored loden cloak.

The relic lay heavy in the innermost of her many pockets.

***

This final ceremony would be for her alone, except that Horse – stubborn or loyal? – refused to leave her.

Losing that argument, she instead built a fire by the stream, in the graying light that passed for night in midsummer, eating a light meal of salted ham, grain-rich bread, and hard white cheese, and drinking deeply from the mountain’s glacial stream for its fortifying powers.

Too energized by the midnight sun, they rested, the equine’s legs folded beneath his sturdy barrel, as she leaned against him and sang her journeywoman’s songs.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2024)

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