Once upon a time there was a girl who came from Scar people. Scar people had layers upon layers of scars all over their bodies, inside and outside. Litha, still a child, had some scars on her face and her hands. She was born with them, and saw new scars grow fast on top of the hardened old ones.
Scars were everywhere, so no one really noticed them. People with most scars were the richest and the most powerful in her society. They had very comfortable lives. They never worked, but received the highest salaries in their country. It was really difficult to look for a medicine to cure the scars because far from the disease, scars were something that made most people feel proud and accomplished. Only Litha, in her darkest thoughts sometimes wondered.
Secretly and in fear, she spent time in tall grasses at a far edge of her village, digging a hole under a barbed wire fence that kept Scar people safe. And one day, she slipped under it.
She knew that her family went to work every day, and that work was outside the barbed wire, but she never knew what the work was all about. She was told that soon she too would have to go to work.
She ran as fast as her legs would carry her through a rolling field of tall grasses, and hid inside some berry bushes she found on her way. Her heart was drumming hard, almost suggesting that she should turn back, yet the noise of the machines coming from a nearby forest stoked her curiosity. She lay down on her stomach and like a snake moved slowly on through the grassy field until she reached a tree. Its trunk was the size of a house, and its bark overgrown with thick moist moss. On her knees, she crawled around it, and peeked inside the forest. She saw some Scar people at work. They had huge chainsaws in their scarred hands, and laughed hard as they massacred the old growth forest. With every fallen tree, a new scar grew on her skin. She knew it because these fresh ones became painful. The thick moist moss on the tree bark was soothing, but her time was up.
Litha crawled and ran back. She was very hungry when she arrived home, but the food on the table in her kitchen, she could not eat. The food was paid for with the money that came from her parents' work which destroyed forests. Pain was everywhere, in her stomach, the scars that now stretched all over her body, and inside her head. She wished she could come out of her skin. Silently, she ached through the night. Nobody, not even her own family, could help her. No one would ever understand because no one ever felt the pain.
Early the following morning, before the town woke up to a fresh new day of work, she slipped out of her bed of tears and in skimpy clothes that she could tolerate on, she ran back to the forest where frosty whirlwinds came to aid her by cooling her burnt and oozing skin.
Inside the forest, there was a huge field of stumps, some steaming from the previous day of work, while many others burnt to the ground. She ran and ran and ran across the huge graveyard of trees, and then up a soft mossy mountain where firs and their cedar friends rose proudly to the sky.
Higher up the mountain and deeper into the forest, she came across a village. People of the village were appalled to see her. Just the sight of her inflamed scars made these people sick to their stomachs that they couldn't but throw up. Scared that she would infect them with her horrible disease, they turned her away.
"Didn't you know that the trees are more than inanimate objects?" they fumed at her. "The pain of every cut tree shows as scars on your own skin, and still, your people don't get it. Trees are connected to rivers, animals and birds. Together they tell stories. This is where our stories come from. And our stories mean life to us."
Litha ran through the forest crying for the skies to open up and take her because no one else would. Neither Scar people nor people who lived high up in the mountain would have anything to do with her.
She spent her time in between human communities, somewhere in the forest. The thick moss padded ancient trees. Like arms extended in welcome, their huge boughs fanned horizontally across the forest air. Litha climbed in their embrace. Her back sank deep in the soft bottom of the tree cradle, and her plexus received everything that looked from the green heights down at her. Animals taught her about the joy of high-spirited play. Rivers, creeks and waterfalls sang arias of no compare. She talked to the sparkly waters about the plight of her scars, and the green depths responded with the icy touch of their glacial powers.
One day, while threading softly along Magic river, Litha ran into a family of eagles. Eaglets glided over the rapids, while their parents fished in a quiet, shallow pool of eelgrass water.
Curious to see what the eagles were up to, she disturbed their peace with her uninvited presence, so the mighty birds flew away. When she passed by their fishing grounds, a salmon caught her eye. There was blood on the salmon's head and the surrounding rock.
Litha felt sorry for the salmon. The fish appeared to be stuck in the shallow water. First time in her life, she picked up the fish with her two hands, and swiftly released it into a deeper pool. Salmon powerfully swished its tail, but then did not swim on. Litha looked at the salmon's face, and into its eyes. Salmon did not look back at her, and appeared content to remain in one spot. Litha ignored what salmon was telling her, and decided that she should help the salmon reach the fast flowing rapids. She would have to carry the fish over the slippery boulders to the other arm of the river. The fish would probably slip from her hands onto the rocks so wrapping it in her jacket and then carrying it like a baby to the other side was an option Litha seriously considered.
Mother eagle and its baby were laughing at Litha from a nearby fir tree, but when they saw how far she could pursue her misguided ideas, they swooped down in frustration. She felt the heat of anger when a warning squawk of the mother eagle shot over her head.
Feeling like a thief, Litha quickly withdrew. She had no clue about salmon or eagle or how nature put the two together. In the land of Scar people, rivers, where left flowing, had no fish, and some leftover forests were without wild animals. Without fish or animals, Scar people had no stories to tell to their children.
Salmon had pity on the ignorant girl.
In surprise, Litha noticed that some rocks turned pink in front of her, and then as she looked on, she saw a pink trail leading up to the top of a steeply rising precipice. Challenged to go to these new heights, Litha pulled herself up by holding onto the red currant branches that in a shape of large fish emerged from the rock. Followed by the curious eyes of mountain goats and lynx, she climbed up in the moonlight and daylight, in shine, rain and snow. It took her that long to get to the top of the mountain where she finally found her refuge in a cave.
Her "hello" echoed inside the cave, but no one came out to see her. Exhausted, she dropped on the floor and slept for what felt to be a long, long time. When she woke up, her eyes, adjusted to darkness, could see Bear sleeping next to her. The cave entrance was barricaded with a heavy pack of snow. Litha was freezing. She neither knew how to make a fire, nor was she courageous enough to seek her warmth in Bear's fur.
What else could she do but tiptoe deeper into the darkness of the cave. Quite unexpectedly inside the Bear's kitchen, she came across a pile of dried salmon and berries that replenished itself every time she took a bite. And then, turning around, her eyes grew large to see many glass bottles of fish oil. Day after day, Litha quite liberally applied the oil all over her skin. This kept her warm, but also helped her heal the last remains of the scar tissue on her face and hands.
The powerful smell of fish oil quickly filled the air and winding its way to the Bear's sleeping chamber, woke him up.
In the heart of the mountain, Litha and Bear, in a state of shock, stared at each other for some time. He couldn't see her scars, but he could smell them for the smell of the destruction of his forest was stronger than the smell of fish oil. The Scar people kept destroying the Bear's country. There was so much destruction that scars could pop out on Litha's skin at any time. No mossy forest, and no fish oil could totally heal her.
Bear lit the fire and invited her to sit down with him. Then he looked deep inside her soul. He pondered in silence for a long time. Looking at her, he sometimes appeared angry, from time to time quizzical, occasionally charmed, but most of all Bear felt stupefied to observe the joy she derived from sitting around his fires. They kept sitting around the fires until the end of winter.
In the spring and summer, Bear took Litha fishing and berry picking. Litha loved Bear's teachings.
In the fall, their bear-human children were born. Through rigorous training and natural talents, their children grew up with special powers that helped Scar people turn their ways around. Rivers started to flow. Salmon returned, and with bears and eagles, they made it to the
land high up in the mountains. Red cedars grew huge again. The forests became red and green, green and red, extreme.
Everyone lived in the silence of the ancient misty rains happily ever after!
