Excerpt: Uruz: Book 2 of The Mystery Runes

Chapter 1: Uruz for Untamed Potential.
Uruz, the wild ox, two vertical legs with a slanted top. That one little mark on one ancient rune stone, was to alter Jera's life in ways she'd never dreamed. Jera sat at home, concentrating on her friend's dilemma as she shoved her disheveled brown curls back from her face and gnawed her lower lip. Jera had known Damiana for two years, but they were definitely more acquaintances than friends.

The two girls sat cross legged on Jera's bed, while Damiana fished around in Jera's ancient rune pouch, picking Nordic stones for a reading. She had approached Jera in class earlier in the week, panic in her eyes, asking for a reading, but unwilling to discuss why. Jera agreed out of curiosity as much as anything.

As she laid the black stone on the bed, Jera opened her Grammy Freya's book and translated the symbol for her friend. Uruz can mean a bunch of things. So it's really more pure if I don't know what your issue is, as long as you concentrate on it while you're picking. The rune's are wise and work in strange ways sometimes. I don't want to accidentally bend or twist some meaning to try to fit your question.

Damiana nodded solemn and wide eyed as Jera continued. "Uruz became our modern letter U. It means physical strength and speed, untamed potential, a time of great energy and health, freedom, action, courage, strength, tenacity, understanding and wisdom. It's like the force and energy of the wild ox or bison.

"Cool. That sounds positive," Mia beamed. "My name, Damiana, means untamed."

"Yes, but…" Jera hesitated and hated to see Mia's face fall. "It also has some intense meanings that are a bit deeper and harder to understand."

"OK, hit me. I can handle it," Mia replied a bit defensively.

"Uruz can be sudden or unexpected changes, the shaping of power or pattern and formulation of the self."

"Wow. Freaky. I'm not sure I get what shaping of power or pattern means," Damiana answered haltingly.

"Sometimes if you just hold it as a possibility in the back of your mind, it becomes clear in the near future. I'm not sure what it might mean to you right here, right now. Before she died, my Grammy Freya used to describe it like a snake shedding it's skin. Change that comes when Uruz shows up is necessary for new growth"
"OK, I think I get it," Mia replied, vigorously nodding her head, her long, blonde hair flopping back and forth. Her intense blue eyes met Jera's sage green stare.

"Now, not to freak you out. You did pick Uruz upright, so it means what I just told you. But I usually like to tell people what the reverse means, too, to help round it all out, ya know. It's like a yin yang thing. Opposites that compliment each other. If Uruz falls upside down, or merkstave, it means something else, darker."

"But, I didn't pick it mer…mercat …merstain. Whatever. Right?" Mia bumbled.

"No, yours is upright. But it's good to know the merkstave meaning, too. Just to see if it applies. Just to round out the understanding. Everyone and most things have a light and dark side. Or an opposite element or something," Jera continued.

"Come to the dark side, Luke!" Mia answered in her best raspy Darth Vadar voice and dissolved into laughter.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. But it really is true if ya think about it," Jera replied, bringing things back to the serious again.

"OK, lay it on me sista," Mia answered, but beneath the joking, Jera sensed an underlying apprehension.

"Uruz merkstave, or reversed, means weakness, obsession, misdirected force, domination by others, sickness, inconsistency, ignorance, lust, brutality, rashness, callousness or even violence."

Damiana turned an even whiter shade of pale and sat in silence, her blue eyes huge. "Jer, please tell me I picked it right side up. It goes that way, right? With the slanty table on top? You didn't flip it around just being nice? Swear it?"

"That's the way you handed it to me," Jera honestly replied. "The runes are just tools, alternate information if you will. They can be a little spooky dead on, but really they're basically like words of advice or warning from a wise friend. It's nothing to freak out about."

Damiana sighed and relaxed a fraction. "Thanks for doing this Jer. Despite all the Damian jokes I've always gotten for my name, I really don't have any psychic powers or anything, myself. And I really admire that you do. Everybody knows what you did in November to help find that kid, Sasha.

"Do you want to pull two more stones to finish your reading? Then we can talk about your question after if you want…or not. Up to you. But you're over here, so we might as well do this thing. I know I don't really know you that well, but I am a good listener and won't blab anything around school if that's what you're worried about. This stays between us.

Damiana took a couple deep breaths and reached in the pouch again. Steeling herself for what she might pull, the girl looked as if she expected to grab a scorpion by the tail. She looked at the rune in her hand and saw one long vertical line.

"Number one?" Mia questioned. And Jera laughed in spite of herself.

"That's Isa."

"What, your Mom?" laughed Mia.

"Yeah, pretty muchly," Jera retorted. "My Mom was named for that rune, but in actuality, it means a freeze or a stop to all activities.

"Well duh, it's December in Chicago. Of course we're gonna freeze at least the next 3 months or more."

"It can mean the weather,but more likely it means you should delay or put your plans on hold for right now till a better time. Or it could be a break up or a relationship where one or both people's feelings are cooling off."

"So.............the runes are saying JJ's gonna break up with me?" Damiana mock wailed, though there did seem to be a flicker of doubt in her eyes.

"I told you they're just tools, and can mean a bunch of different things........" Jera trailed off.

"Well, what's the use of a reading if each rune means so many different things. Gaaahhh! It could mean anything. That's not too helpful. How do I know what thing it's talking about."

"Generally if you just concentrate on your question it'll rule out a bunch of the options. The 3 stones generally tell you past, present and future about your situation, so this middle stone should be where you're at now. Wanna round it out with a final one and see if things are any clearer?"

Damiana flipped her blond hair back over her shoulders again and picked up the rune pouch. She closed her eyes and scrunched up her eyebrows and forehead. This time she held the pouch a long time, letting all the stones run through her fingers. Jera relaxed and did some deep yoga breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. She was not a patient person by nature, but she had been reading runes since her Grammy gave her a first set at age 7, and she understood the runes worked better if the person took some time to really concentrate on the issue. At last Mia pulled her small, pale hand free and uncurled her fingers.

In her palm was Raidho reversed. It looked like a rather pointed R and was definitely upside down. Her straight hair was nearly waist length and crept forward to cover the reading. Damiana gently placed Raidho in a line next to Uruz and Isa. Then she leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and cupping her chin with her hands and stared at the stones, solemn and wide eyed.

"Oh crud. That one's upside down isn't it. That's bad, right? Oh man. I knew it. Cripes. Jera, what does it mean? I've gotta know."

Jera sighed, glad she'd taken all the yoga breaths and taken the time to center herself, and spoke from memory. "Well, this is a rune called Raidho. It symbolizes a chariot or a wagon and most often means a journey or vacation right side up. It can be literal travel or seeing the right move to make for your situation basically."

"That doesn't sound so aweful," Damiana interjected.

"Yeah, well. That wasn't merkstave," Jera stated seriously. "I just wanted you to have right side up meaning, too, to balance and get the whole picture."

Damiana's large, serious eyes peered out from behind her hair curtain. "Just say it already. I know I'm doomed. This whole situation is so bogus. I just....I can't....." Tears rolled down her cheeks and she sniffed loudly and wiped her face on her sleeve. I'm OK, go on. Tell me. I need to hear it."

Jera opened her Grammy Freya's ancient rune book that had been passed down through the generations from Freya's own Mother, Jera. She knew the words by heart, but stalled for time. Sometimes it wasn't right to give people really bad news even if the runes were negative. Especially on a first reading, the general idea was do no harm. And a really dark rune in the result position could put into play a chain of events or a bad self fulfilling prophecy. Jera was still pretty new at reading for others and tried to think what Freya would say as she leafed through the book till she saw the drawing of Raidho and read her Great Grandmother's script, so eerily similar to her own handwriting.

In a clear, strong voice, Jera read "Raidho reversed or merkstave means a crisis basically. It can be injustice, irrationality, delay or a breakdown in transit, demolition, delusion, dislocation, rigidity, stasis........." She broke off before the final spidery script on the page that said possibly a death. One look at Damiana's face told Jera it was the right move. Whatever was going on with the girl, was seriously freaking her out.

In a quiet voice she simply said, "OK." and slowly stood up and grabbed her coat and boot from Jera's bedroom floor. She shoved her feet into her black Ugg boots and opened the door.

"Mia, do you wanna talk about it?" Jera asked, concerned for her friend.

Damiana blinked back tears again, said "I can't" and ran from Jera's room. Jera followed her as far as the front door, but the girl had already run out into the swirling December snow.

Chapter 2: Uruz Merkstave For Weakness

Jera watched Damiana rush through the snow, until she rounded the corner and was out of sight. She sighed and shut the door. It was 4:19 according to the living room clock, and it would be a while before her parents would be back from work to make dinner. She trudged into the kitchen thinking about a snack. Her 8 year old brother, Logan, was already sitting on the swivel stool at the kitchen island, having a frozen round PB & J. He glanced up at Jera and opened his mouth wide, showing off a disgusting mash of grape jelly and gloppy peanut bread.

"See food!" he laughed as Jera blanched and looked away.

"Yeah, never heard that one before, dork boy." she retorted. Jera passed him without another look and got a bag of baby carrots and a tub of hummus out of the fridge. She made a plate up for herself and Logan reached across the counter to snag a hand full of carrots.

"Wow, growth spurt, 'eh?"

"Hey, what did you call me? I'm not a gross purt! Your not supposed to call me names. You would be so busted if Mom was home."

"Geez, peanut brain. I said growth spurt, not gross purt, though that might be more appropriate. You are pretty gross. It means you're eating a lot because your body's growing." Logan turned bright red and hopped off the stool, carrots in one hand and half eaten sandwich in the other.

"Stop it, Jera. You're embarrassing me. I HATE it when you talk about my body growing big. I can't help it if my growth spurt is growing."

"Well, soooooorrrrryyyyyyyyyyyy," she drawled out. "Beats shrinking. I wasn't trying to embarrass you. There's nobody here but us. Who are you embarrassed about? Doesn't there have to be at least somebody else to be embarrassed in front of?" Logan turned his back on her.

Jera was just starting to feel bad about hassling her brother, when he wheeled around and snarled at her. His mouth was overflowing again with half chewed PBJ and he had two baby carrots dangling from his nose.

"Cute, Logan. So you're humiliated when I say you're growing, and comfortable doing something thoroughly disgusting like that." Jera looked away and focused on her own hummus and carrots. "I think I am gonna call you Gross Purt from now on, ya little freak."

Logan yoinked the carrots out of his nostrils and quietly chewed his food then went to throw his plate in the dishwasher, pouting. Jera swiveled her stool around to tap him on the back and when her little brother looked over his shoulder, Jera grinned at him with a giant mouth full of hummus oozing out the sides of her mouth and two baby carrots shoved up her own nose. It was worth it to hear Logan's belly laugh. He couldn't stop laughing and it was contageous. Jera tried hard not to crack up and the carrots ended up flying out of her nose causing them both to laugh even harder. She gave up on even trying to swallow and ended up spitting the rest of the hummus out in a napkin.

"Yeah, whose a Gross Purt now, Scare Jer?" Logan taunted her and ran from the kitchen. Sometimes the boy drove her nuts, but at 14, she was still more kid than adult and usually found him more amusing than annoying.

Jera and Logan both did their homework and Logan squeezed a few video games in on his Nintendo DS, before dinner. He was going through a Pokemon phase and couldn't get enough of the pocket monsters in electronic or card form. A little after 6pm their Mother, Isa, came back from Ukranian Village Children's Center. She was a part time art and theatre instructor there and for the Chicago Park District. Usually Jera and Logan had gymnastics, soccer and swim lessons after school, but Park District classes all ended the first week of December and didn't start up again till January.

Their Dad, Richard, was a cameraman who freelanced in the TV and film industry and held erratic hours to say the least. He traveled a lot, and as the kids got older, he was able to take them along on out of town shoots sometimes, if it meshed with their school breaks. They never knew quite when he'd be around, but tonight was one of those rare family dinners when all four of them were actually home.

Isa plunked down a reusable cloth bag Logan had silkscreened the year before at The Hideout Block Party and began to pull out goodies from Trader Joes. "Chicken taquito night, guys," Isa called out. "Jera, can you throw those in while I make a big salad and veggies?" They got to work and had everything on the table in no time. Isa was usually too tired to cook much on nights she taught class late. Isa exhaled with a puff and strands of her hair blew forward on both sides. Her shoulder length, honey blond hair was beginning to show a few silver strands that glittered in the halogen lights on the cobalt kitchen ceiling fan. She usually wore her hair pulled back into a pony tail and looked younger than her 41 years. Her light, ice blue eyes reminded Jera of Sweden and glaciers and chilly winter mornings when tiny icicles formed off the eves of their ancient garage.

Richard shared brown hair and bright green eyes with his two children, who both greatly resembled him. Logan especially looked like a smaller, younger clone of his father. They both wore their hair long and messy and tended to wear bandannas whenever they could get away with it. Dinner was on the table and Rich scooped up his son, DS in hand, and threw him in the air, laughing. "C'mon Buddy, Let's eat."

For a while everyone was too busy chewing to talk much, then the inevitable "how was your day" pleasantries circulated around the table. They all made small talk and caught up on each others' lives. Richard had a rough day filming a family of two abducted children, one of whom was found dead. The girl was still missing and the family was understandably distraught and didn't want the media there. He hated gigs like that with a passion, but didn't have much choice in the matter. A job was a job and it wasn't his call when to walk away. Isa was working on handbuilding pottery projects with her art class kids and making solstice symbols from around the world. Jera shrugged her shoulders and slouched down in typical teen angst mode when asked to share about her day. Logan had no such reticence.

"Jera had a friend over and she got a rune reading and freaked out and cried and ran out into the snow without even zipping her coat or anything. What was her deal anyway? What was that girl's problem anyway? What's her name? How come she's never come over before? Jera, what did you tell her anyway. She looked so scared!" Logan gushed.

Jera was mortified. She had expected some questions from Logan when Damiana dropped by or when she left in such a rush. He hadn't said a word to her earlier. She wasn't going to even mention Damiana to her parents. They weren't crazy about kids they didn't know coming by for the first time when neither of them were home. But, it wasn't like they were doing anything wrong or getting in trouble or anything. It was so unfair. After school was the only time Mia could make it and Jera thought she'd open up more if her parents weren't hoovering around making her nervous. Not that she ended up opening up much as things went. Jera knew virtually nothing about what was going on with the girl.

"Honey.............?" Richard held Jera's gaze with his own and let the question in his eyes hang. Isa just looked concerned.

"It was nothing," Jera mumbled. "Just a school friend, Mia, who wanted some advice. No biggie."

Her parents glanced at each other and Isa visably closed her lips and said nothing. A short month before, Jera's Mom would have lectured her about house rules, and kids they don't know and even about rune readings. But a lot had changed since early November. Jera had grown up a lot in a short period of time. First, her Grammy Freya, her Mom's Mom whom she loved and spent a lot of time with, died at the age of 91. She had promised her runes to Jera from the time her granddaughter began learning the runes from her at age 8. Her own daughter had never taken to the runes and disliked them, to put it mildly. After Jera's dreams, premonitions and rune readings had helped to return a kidnapped neighbor child and break up a dog fighting ring, her Mother had reconsidered. Jera had a gift, like artistic talent, or an aptitude for sports. And she had to practice to keep her skills and increase her abilities. Still, Isa had spent a lifetime denying and disliking psychic abilities in her own Mother and later in her daughter. So it was still a struggle for her to stay accepting.

Finally Richard spoke and broke the silence. "I don't want to pry, but is everything OK with your friend? Are you getting involved in something again so soon? I mean, your Mother and I do know you were an invaluable help with the Sasha situation, but you're just an eighth grader. Your work is school right now and you have a lot of growing up to do before you can play psychiatrist or cop or whatever. We just want to keep you safe and give you time to be a kid. It's a heavy responsibility if you're trying to help a seriously troubled classmate."

"Don't be condescending, Dad," Jera fumed. "I wasn't playing psychiatrist or cop. I did one reading for someone I've had class with a couple years. That's it. OK?"

Isa couldn't resist any longer and interjected, "Jera, hon. If this girl is having problems maybe she needs to talk to her family or the school councelor or at least another adult. What if she's depressed or into some kind of illegal situation? What then? She could really put you into a tough situation. What did she confide in you?"

"None of your business, Mom." Jera declared, shoving back from her half finished meal. "But, for your information, she didn't tell me anything. Don't ask, don't tell. I threw some runes like I told you. Uruz, Isa and Raidho merkstave, if that means anything to you. Friends confide in each other all the time ya know. Stuff they don't necessarily tell their parents. Doesn't have to be to an adult if somebody needs to vent. But I told her I'd be happy to listen if she felt like talking, but she didn't. So, that's it. I'm not hungry anymore." She stood and cleared her place before fleeing to the refuge of her room.

Truthfully, Damiana had shaken her a bit too. Was it Jera's own weakness that she didn't pry or prod more. She could have insisted on knowing what was going on, could have lied and said she had to know for the runes to work. Obviously the girl was dealing with something intense and one reason Jera agreed to do a reading in the first place was pure curiousity. Still, Jera was more mature than that and when it came right down to it, she couldn't lie to the girl and wasn't a close enough friend to drag it out of her.

Maybe Damiana was the one with the weakness. Jera knew more than a few lovesick 14 year olds prone to melodrama. It was probably some crush or unrequited love or something equally stupid and non threatening. She couldn't blame her parents for their concern, though. Not really. It was less than a month since she and her best friend, Kai, accidentally got an adult friend abducted by some thugs involved in a dog fighting ring and endangered themselves and her Mom, Isa, while trying to get Kai's younger brother out of a seriously dangerous situation. That his problems were a result of a series of bad choices on Sasha's part didn't lessen the danger to Jera and her family. She was lucky her Mom didn't lock her in her room till she turned 18 and throw her runes away after what Isa had gone through.

Emotionally and physically exhausted, Jera flopped on her bed and fell asleep in her school clothes, even though it was barely 7:30.

Jera fell into a deep sleep. She hardly stirred on top of her blue feather comforter. But her brain was running a triathlon, cycling along, swimming with thoughts and sprinting toward fragments of information. Bits and pieces of her actual day floated around and mixed with surreal images. School assignments swirled and notebook papers fell with falling snow. Then the scene changed. Jera was looking into the round mirror at her dressing table from Grammy Freya. She was brushing out her long, brown tangles, but they were falling out in clumps in the brush. The more she gently brushed, the more her hair fell away until she was crying big gulping tears and most of her hair lay on the table in front of her and stuck to the brush in long strands. Jera was almost bald and badly nauseous.

As she stared into the mirror, Jera noticed Damiana staring silently in the window. She pounded her fists on the round mirror until the glass broke and she cut her fingers in a pattern of tiny blood lines from the shards. None were deep or serious, but small splatters of blood drops fell on the hair strands and stood out in bright red contrast on the dark wood of the dressing table. She stared at the sparse clumps of hair still on her scalp, reflected back in long, jagged shards still stubbornly clinging to the wooden mirror frame.

Jera was shocked into stunned silence by the loud crashing of glass and the sharp, little pains. She took a few stunned breaths and began to pick the tiny bits of shattered glass from her fists. She pulled a tissue from a box on the table, blew her nose and wiped her eyes. Then she took a wad of them to protect her lacerated hands and began to scoop up the hair and glass. There was a small, metal wastebasket near by and she pulled it closer and scooted the mess methodically over the edge as if in shock. The repetitive scooping motion seemed to calm her further, till the surface was clear of the worst of it. She'd have to get something to wipe off the blood smears.

She looked down at the bunch of white tissues in her hand, turning steadily red and threw them in the basket as well. A little shocky, she held her bloodied hands in front of her and noticed they were shaking. Only a few punctures were still bleeding, but the thin red lines snaked out and ran through the lines in her palms. She watched in fascinated silence as the blood webbing spread over her heart line, her health line, her life line. Again she broke down in tears.

I have to tell her. I have to get in touch with him. What if? What if?

Jera jerked awake to see her room light on. As she sat up in bed her reflection stared back at her from Grammy Freya's round mirror's vanity table. It was intact. She shivered involuntarily and hoped the prem-mare wasn't a glimpse of things to come. She was used to vivid nightmares as they had been a constant companion as long as she could remember. Usually they were pretty benign and just showed her brief flashes of events to come. Her friend, Kai, was the one who coined the term prem-mares for the dark ones. She had seen some premonition nightmares, violent and scary things that soon came to pass. Usually they were just flashes or shards of the whole story, not enough to prevent the events. But the mirror dream................She didn't know what to think.

She took a few deep breaths--in through the nose, out through the mouth. Sometimes the worst thing about prem-mares was the jolt of adrenalin she got that propelled her up and out of the dream state. It usually made it impossible for her to sleep for a while as it coursed through her veins. Jera padded across the hall to the bathroom and got a cold drink of water. Then she changed into comfy sweats and a t-shirt and burrowed down under her comforter.

She had plenty of time lying there awake to think about her dream, but it didn't become any clearer to her. She stared at the blue glow of her alarm as each minute morphed slowly into the next. Some time shortly after midnight she eased into bleary eyed sleep. Her alarm rang too soon, but she had slept peacefully and remembered no further dreams.