“We keep this protected so that humans don’t stumble onto it,” she said. “But I’ve programmed it for Kalevala, so go in good peace. You’ll be able to return without a problem from the other side. I’ve contacted the portal keeper there and she’ll program the portal so you arrive directly back in Seattle without having to go through this direction. I’ve contacted Orla and given her the coordinates for the Kalevala portal so that you won’t need to make an intermediary jump again.”
“You’re efficient,” I said, realizing that I had been on the verge of categorizing her as a “bunny-blonde,” as I called them. But she was anything but that.
“Thank you,” she said, beaming. “I do my job the best I can.”
We waved to her. Then, with Kipa holding my hand, we walked through the portal into Kalevala.
I don’t know what I expected, but when we stepped through into Kalevala, it took my breath away. I looked up to see the night sky scintillating with lights—green and blue and shades of plum rippling across the horizon.
“The Northern Lights? But I thought they were products of the solar flares, and—we’re in another realm,” I said.
“The Northern Lights are much more than that. Yes, that’s part of the explanation, but here you see the spiritual side of them. What you see is the Ancestral Road and the Bridge of the Gods. The gods—myself included—have used the aurora for thousands of years as a way to cross the sky, and the ancestors walk this road when they die, returning home to the realms whence they originally came.” Kipa gazed up at them, a reverent look on his face.
Phasmoria was watching, too, her face lit up by the glimmering show overhead. “It’s so beautiful. I’ve seldom seen such raw beauty and power.”
“What do you think?” Kipa asked me.
“I’d love to walk that road, to see what it’s like.” I found myself breathless, the sheer energy of the land and sky hammering at me. Kalevala was magical, a force so powerful that I wanted to run into the energy and lose myself.
“Maybe we will, one day,” he murmured. “I will bring you back when we have time to vacation. But for now, we must move. I’ve done some snooping, and Väinämöinen has been spotted deep within the Forest of Honey.”
“The Forest of Honey? Is that its name?” Phasmoria asked.
“If I told you the Finnish name, you wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. It’s close enough. The forest belongs to Mielikki and Tapio, and runs through their land of Tapiola. We must cross through a portal to get there—you cannot get to it from a portal outside of Kalevala. But the vortex is near, and we’ll be in Tapiola within less than half an hour.”
Kipa motioned for us to follow him and so we began the climb up the snow-laden slope, slogging through knee-deep snow. Halfway up, he noticed I was having problems.
“Here, let me shift into my Wolf and you can ride on my back. Phasmoria, are you having any problems?”
She blew on her hands. “Not terribly, but I’m not going very fast.”
“I’m big enough to carry both of you,” he said. Within seconds, he had transformed into his massive wolf-self. I climbed on his back, then my mother behind me, and with her holding my waist and me holding onto Kipa’s ruff, he loped up the slope. Having two women riding his back didn’t seem to slow him down. We reached the top of the slope a lot faster than we would have if Phasmoria and I had attempted to trudge through the snow on our own.
At the top of the slope the ground leveled out into a field that seemed to have no end. The snow shimmered under the aurora, picking up colors from the flickering lights and reflecting them back. Vast silhouettes dotted the horizon, and when I squinted, I realized the shapes were massive thickets dappling the land. It was a frozen wonderland, so postcard-perfect that it was almost too beautiful to look at.
Nearby, there was a small copse of fir and to one side of the path, stood two massive cedar trees. I could see the energy popping and sizzling between them. The portal was waiting for us. I slid off Kipa’s back after Phasmoria dismounted, and stood watching the trees as Kipa transformed back into himself. The energy between the trees sparked, arcing like miniature lightning bolts, and somehow, the portal made me nervous in a way the other portals never had.
“There,” Kipa said, pointing to it. “That’s the portal that leads to the Forest of Honey.”
“It looks different from other portals,” I said.
“It is. I warn you, it’s a bit more jarring than the others. The energy feeds directly in from the storm gates of Ukko—don’t ask. Trust me, you don’t want to know right now. But yeah, it can be a bit more prickly. It won’t hurt you, but I sure wouldn’t go through there if I was wearing a pacemaker.” Kipa pointed to my pack. “You didn’t bring your phone, did you?”
“I left it in the car at Orla’s. I’ve learned the hard way to avoid taking electronics into Annwn, and I assumed that Kalevala wouldn’t be any different,” I said.
My mother nodded. “I left mine behind, too.”
“Then we should be good. Come on, then, let’s get to it. Väinämöinen never stays in one place for long and I’d hate to have to track him down again. He’s not all that easy to find.”
Kipa led us over toward the two cedars. The snow was so thick I worried we’d sink to our thighs once we started walking, but as I took a step forward, I realized that it was crusty, frozen over like a layer of ice. I sank, all right, but only an inch or so before it compacted into a hardened path.
“Whoa, I expected to end up hip-deep in snow,” I said, testing my footing.
“That’s because this area of land is always cold. During the winter, the snow falls and freezes, then it falls and freezes again. There are layers of ice beneath our feet that won’t melt off until…well…what you would consider mid-May.”
“So what’s it like here during the summer? Is there even a summer?” I had visited realms that were perpetually autumn and summer.
“Even during the late spring and summer—which goes fast—the temperatures barely hit the seventy-degree mark. It’s warm enough to grow a few quick-growing crops, but the people of Kalevala mostly grow root vegetables, and they hunt and fish and forage during the summer months to fill the larders. There’s a lot of game in the woodlands here, and in the summer, the open meadows are laden with herbs and berries.” Kipa glanced around and sighed, a wistful note in his voice.
“You miss it, don’t you?”
By the look on his face, I knew he did. “I admit, I do. I miss the northlands, and running over the frozen snow at night with my SuVahta at my heels. I miss the high mountains, which you can’t see from here, but far in the distance, they rise like jagged teeth into the sky.”
“It’s beautiful,” Phasmoria said. “I’ve mostly been in Annwn, and while that’s wild and overgrown, it seems almost tame compared to this land.”
“This is the land of fire and ice,” Kipa said. “There are volcanoes in this realm that rival the description of Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings. And then there are the frozen wilds that never thaw—that forever live beneath the Northern Lights.”