Runes of Light - Awakening of the Meta Witches

Chapter Two

Chapter 2 - Uruz

Sigrun was angry and afraid that she would lose control as she noticed she had been getting shorter and shorter with her university course mates and the elderly couple she was staying with. She could feel things shifting and changing all around her and it had nothing to do with end of term but any runes cast to pierce the thick mist of unknowing had her stumped. Her usual ability to see clearly and interpret meaningful messages had all but abandoned her. What she got was garbled messages that seemed both hostile and final.

Someone was waging a war on her and her kind and she needed to gather all her strength to fight back. She had been feeling weak and drained since the last lunar eclipse. Her dreams had been filled with ominous black clouds and the noise of what sounded like weapons being readied for battle.

Every now and again she would receive a comforting message in her sleep; a ray of light would break through the clouds... but as soon as she opened her eyes the message was gone. All she knew was that she had to communicate with the other Völvas to see if the same thing was happening to them and if they could begin to make sense of the garbled messages together.

The summer holidays would be a good time for this and give her more time to focus on what was going on astrally she decided as she drifted off to sleep on the last day of the spring term.

Sigrun tossed in her sleep. She had suffered from restless most of her life and she was such a light sleeper that she often woke herself up with her tossing and turning. Which is exactly what happened next. It was unseasonably hot too for early June so she woke up drenched in sweat.

Sighing she reached for the water glass next to her bed and noticed the time. Another heavy sigh - only 4.55 AM. She was parched and quite certain she had not slept enough for what lay ahead but decided to get up and start packing anyway. She really didn't have that much to pack. On a whim, she had given away almost half her belongings to a local charity shop the week before and once she had finished packing she felt pleased to be travelling light.

A long drive back to Stockholm from Uppsala lay ahead. She was glad to see the back of the room she had rented from a retired University staff couple. It smelled of moth balls and the faint smell of urine that lingered in the rest of the flat seemed to seep into her tiny room too - especially since they wouldn't let her burn any incense due to the old lady's asthma.

Yet Sigrun knew she was lucky - a lot luckier than most. She never had to take a student loan thanks to her family's good fortune and now she had a couple of months of glorious summer holidays ahead to decide what to do next.

It didn't take her long to shower and pack all the belongings she had brought into a couple of suitcases and one large cardboard removals box. The Andersson's had already left the flat and trusted her to pop the key in the letterbox as she left. As much as she wanted a cup of strong coffee, she decided to give the quaint little kitchen a miss and head for Wayne's Coffee which was only a few blocks away. A vanilla latte to go as usual but her last ever in Uppsala.

She absent-mindedly place the cup in the cup holder of her scruffy Ford Fiesta. She had refused the offer of a brand new car for her 19th birthday, just before she set off for Uni. She didn't wish to stand out. In spite of being brought up in Stockholm's upper echelon, she was a loner and had no wish to network her way into Uppsala high society. In fact, the reason she had chosen to go to Uppsala to study was that none of the people she knew were.

The friends she did make in Uppsala were people with a genuine interest in Psychology, Ancient History, Metaphysics and Norse Mythology, the latter being Sigrun's true love and something she had inherited from her Norwegian grandmother whose name she bore.

Her parents hadn't really made a big deal about her decision to leave Uni. They half expected her to leave in the middle of her first term anyway and were therefore genuinely surprised that she completed two whole years.