Today, the Roanoke Academy a mixture of rain and melting snow led to flooding along College Creek in the woods north of the campus. With the help of the Ko girls, who are the daughters of a frost maiden, the entire area was frozen solid…and a skating party was announced.
The entire student body collected skates from the gym and then tromped twenty minutes up the hill, through the hemlocks, to the icey area, some of which—right atop the creek—was open enough for a game of hockey but much of which required skating among trees.
Rachel is not currently in a good place. The fallout of the disaster of her visit to her father’s office was still casting a shadow over her life. Because of this, she accidentally picked up the wrong skate size and finds herself unable to skate. Sitting glumly, feeling angry at her friend’s brother and her own sister, she comes upon the Comfort Lion, as they call her roommate’s familiar.
They have the following life-changing conversation:
“Leander,” Rachel knelt and stroked the tiny feline’s soft fur. She spoke in a soft sigh, “I am so tired of being angry. Isn’t there…something I can do? All these terrible things that happened. I think my visit to my father went awry, in part, because I was still angry at him—from the time Gaius ended up in the Halls of Healing. I know that was Peter’s fault, but, at the time, I thought otherwise. And now I can’t seem to forgive my father.”
The tiny Lion batted at a clump of snow. The impromptu snowball slid across the ice.
“It is the same thing with Ivan Romanov! I know that Laurel does not want to marry him. She has a stealth boyfriend. And yet… ” she shrugged helplessly.
The Comfort Lion spoke in his rich, deep voice. The words seemed to come from both inside and outside her head. “Forgiveness is not a simple thing, child. Some will tell you it is ignoring a slight or an injury. That is not so. You must accept in your heart that someone has harmed you. Then, you must be willing to release the pain they have caused. It will not be possible, unless you can truly release the person who has hurt you from responsibility. Remember, it is an act of kindness. It is giving a gift to someone, and a gift is not something that is deserved. It is so much harder to imagine giving a gift to someone you dislike than someone you love, is it not?”
The speech by the Lion was written by my friend Mark Whipple—the one who ran the original game (and whose name is mentioned at the beginning of each book.) I do not know where he got these ideas from, but I have found them so helpful in my own life, and I have been able to share them with others who have also found them helpful.
Lifted by these thoughts, Rachel patches things up with her sister, and Laurel in return conjures her a pair of skates that fit.
Then, Laurel gets to meet the Raven!
Rachel begs the Raven to let her do more to help those in need, and the Raven offers to change her destiny…giving her more options for what her future could entail, but he warns her that certain things that will work out nicely now may be different if she goes through this new door.
Rachel asks him to do it anyway. Then she goes off to tell Vladimir what has happened…and falls in love.
In some ways, she has loved him since she first met him, but she had not noticed it yet. Now, she knows.
She understands that it is likely nothing will come of this. He’s much older than her and loves her sister, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon. She is thus grateful that her feelings for her clever and supportive boyfriend have not changed.
It starts to snow…and someone pierces the wards of the school, allowing all manner of beasties to attack!
Rachel and her roommate Astrid are beset by pixies!
And the terrible Ogre makes it onto campus! All around, it is a most full and exciting day!
Here ends The Awful Truth About Forgetting.