Kiska and the Lechie

[mishalak]

Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived in a neat two-story house with her parents. She often wore blue and a peach because those were her favorite colors and her name was Kiska. One of the things that she liked to do was to go climb the perfect tree in an empty corner lot near her home. She called it the perfect tree because to her it was just that. The wide boughs swept close to the ground creating a dim tent on sunny summer days. The branches had been trimmed just right at some point in its long life and now they were spaced evenly so that the tree was easy to climb. Near its top the old spruce trunk divided into a fork where she could sit and see much of the city and the mountains beyond through the spaces between the upper limbs and twigs.

One spring Saturday when the snow had all but melted away and the air was no longer so sharp and cold Kiska decided she would visit her tree. She put on her robin's egg blue coat and the peach mittens her mother had knitted for her and told her mother that where she was going. Then she happily walked out the front door into the noonday sun.

The sky was a perfect blue with a few high clouds like delicate feathers. Water dripped here and there from still bare tree branches and the edges of roofs. The air was full of the wet smell of earth waking up after the long winter as she walked down the uneven sidewalk. She got to the perfect lot and found something she didn't care for at all. The lot was surrounded by an orange plastic mesh making a fence around the whole thing and there was a slightly water stained sign. She looked at it and was able to read the big bold letters at the top that read, "NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING". She didn't know exactly what that meant, but was fairly sure this could not be good.

Kiska ran home to ask her mother what it meant; not stopping to look in puddles or follow leaf boats down rivulets in gutters as she might have otherwise. Her mother got a concerned look and called the city after she was told about the sign. And then her mother talked, and waited, and talked, and waited some more for an answer. This was rather boring to Kiska and she walked around with her teddy bear friend waiting to find out what was happening to her tree.

At long last her mother called her over and explained that the empty lot was owned by the city and they had decided to sell it to a man who would build something there. They would go to the public meeting and try to do something to save the tree she liked.

The meeting was Sunday and Kiska didn't like it at all. First she had to wait a whole day, and that seems a long time when one is waiting, to tell them about her tree. Then when it finally started there were lots of grownups that talked forever without once mentioning her tree. When it was finally time for her and her mother to speak she could tell they didn't pay much attention when she told them about the nice tree that would be cut down. They told her that they would plant new trees. When they left the meeting she was very sad and a few tears leaked out of her eyes and dripped off the end of her nose as she looked down at the ground.

The next day she went to school as usual. It wasn't until lunchtime that she thought of something to do. She would go to see Baba again. They were friends since her adventure with the firebird and she would stop by every week or so to talk with her. She got off the bus at her house and instead turned up the street walking, one block, two block, three blocks to the little house on the corner where Baba the old wise woman lived.

She knocked on the back door and was let in by the little old woman. They sat down together in the little nook where the kitchen table sat and Baba asked what was the matter. Kiska told her about the tree and Baba nodded her head in sympathy. "Yes, it often seems that people don't have enough care for trees. But there might be something to be done. "There is an old character who lives to the west of here. Go ask your parents if I can take you on a trip and we'll go to see him this Friday." Kiska offered a bit of bread to the sleepy Firebird where it roosted on the back poarch on her way out and then walked the three blocks to her own home.

Kiska was nervous for the rest of the week. Would she be able to get help for her tree? It seemed to take forever but finally Friday came and Kiska arrived at Baba's house wearing warm clothes since they would be going to the mountains. She found Baba wearing a long black coat and a shawl red like holly berries with bits of blue over her head. And she introduced Kiska to Gavran, her grandson. He bowed to her and offered her a hand to help getting into his rusty old jeep. They drove the three of them west into the mountains, off the main roads onto winding trails. The snow still lay deep in many places her as the sun set. At long last they came to a place where Baba told her grandson to stop. The sun had just set and the wind was in the trees as she told him that Kiska and her would go on from here and that he should wait until he heard from her, but they might not need a ride back.

Into the woods they walked on a barely visible trail. Baba told Kiska, "We're going to visit a lychie. He being a guardian of trees might be able to help us, but it was not always easy to befriend him. If you can make him laugh that would be good." They walked and walked and soon all the trees seemed to look the same and Baba said this showed that he was somewhere nearby.

They stopped and after a minute or two they heard a noise like a mouse. Out of the forest stepped a little man dressed in jeans that were green instead of blue and a green sweater as well with green boots upon his feet. His skin was a pale, pale blue like someone who had been out in the cold far too long. He had deep sad eyes that looked out from between his mossy green scruffy beard and hair. "Hello Master Forest," said Baba and gave a little nod of her head.

"It has been a long time Baba," he replied as he grew up in size until he was a little taller than her. "Who is your young friend?"

Kiska looked at him so stern and serious and almost didn't say anything. But then she thought and said, "My aunt calls me Kitten so maybe I am. Meow."

He laughed at this. "Oh and if you are a kitten do you climb trees?"

"Yes I do, but they're going to cut down my favorite one. Would you help me if I gave you a candy bar?"

He laughed again. "Well I might for such a gift if you have somewhere to put this tree you wish to save."

Baba said, "I might have a bit of room for a tree. Would you care to come and see?"

The lechie grew even larger and took them in his hand. Still larger he grew until his head stood even with the trees and then the began to walk. Dozens of meters at a step the land past beneith them until they were back in the city. The tree stood silent in the moonlight as they approached, no one seemed to notice the passing of the giant bearded man. He set them down and whispered something to the tree. It rocked back and forth a bit, and pulled up its roots! The four of them, tree, the lechie, Baba, and Kiska walked up the quiet street to Baba's house. There she took out a walking stick and waved it at ground, which then seemed to move a bit in the uncertain light until there was enough room for a whole tree in her back yard. Then Kiska's tree settled into the new spot. The lechie gravely took the chocolate bar from Kiska, then winked and walked around the tree and disappeared. Baba went to call her grandson and then Kiska's parents on the phone in the side hall.

That summer Kiska would go to Baba's house to climb her favorite tree and it grows there still.

Comments

WOW....Thanks!

[bam2.livejournal.com]

That was a total mid-day treat !

I could totally go on about why I liked it so much or how beautiful I thought it was....But I guess I will just say . . . "Thanks for sharing that!"

Re: WOW....Thanks!

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the complement. I was thinking the story could use a bit of polish, but I couldn't keep writing on it right now. I think the end seems a little rushed. I might add a bit here and there.