Fireflies and their whimsical blushes of orange and green lit up the woods. Nighttime was the male firefly’s theater and he put on a grand show, darting and dancing in one of nature’s mystical dramas. Pale red, green and orange flashed solely for the little beetle’s attempt to enchant his female audience. Presenting his “magical dance of pheromones,” he twinkles and blushes while hiding behind darkened tree trunks, then instantly reappearing.

  The fireflies’ palette of colors radiating in the dark woods reminded Odin of the crystals embedded in the walls of his cave. He thought of home and ached to see Mt. Grieg again. As the relentless fog began to roll in, the magical fireflies disappeared, taking with them their happy glow.

  Odin was sorry to see the enchanting flickers replaced with darkness. Cold winds stirred the leaves, rekindling his fears. He nervously searched the immediate area, making sure there was no tree-dwelling snake. He wanted nothing to do with another anaconda. Never missing the drama of nighttime, the moon sashayed out from behind the curtain of fog. Her gleaming round body exposed the surrounding woods, reassuring Odin that there was not a snake in sight.

  Here, in a splendid grove of trees, Odin had an overwhelming desire to play his flute. His haunting notes of whirling winds swept over a crabapple tree; her pink blossoms quivered with the melody, perfuming the night air. The treetop’s lofty branches swayed with the music and wind, creating the sound of waves rushing to the shore. Odin imagined a sea far away. With each rhythmic wave and the flute’s lilting music, the trees began to sing.

  Odin, Manti and Punga, spellbound by the trees’ song, were unaware that the trees had been watching them all along. Odin, craning his neck to the point of pain, looked up to see towering straight trees, their branches wrapped in velvety green moss. In the moonlight, one of the ancient trees, covered with crusty, silver-green fungi, appeared to be wearing a coat of lichen.

  Nearby, Manti noticed that the trunk of another tree was overgrown with gnarled and decayed gray bark. She felt certain the tree suffered from leprosy, a dreaded bacterial disease. In her kindly manner, she placed her hand against his trunk; she was not surprised when she felt a pulse. They had stumbled upon a grove of trees with beating hearts.

  Shining her light down on the splendid trees, the moon revealed distorted mask- like faces carved into their trunks. Manti recognized this as the cruel ritual of the oil trolls. The trolls cut the images of their elders into the trunks of these living trees. To wear the carved faces on their trunks saddened the spirits that lived within the injured trees.

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  Recently a tribe of oil trolls had chiseled out a face on the trunk of a grand old tree, leaving him bleeding blood-red sap. Manti felt pity for the violated tree. She stood under its crown of gray leaves and with her strong hands stroked its rough old trunk. In the hodge-podge of plants in her pouch, she pulled out witch-weed clustered with thousands of seeds. Ground and mixed with grease, she spread the healing salve on the tree’s wounds. When she finished her kind act, the regal tree, in his humble way, bowed low before the albino witch.

  The forest’s patriarch tree, standing tall and straight in spite of its age, also bowed before Manti, grateful for her kindness. In a tormented and deep voice, the noble tree began to tell their grief-filled story. There was a time when he knew Odin’s father and remembered him as a brave troll who fought battles to defend the great trees. He explained to Odin how the ancient trees had lost their dignity due to the greed of the oil trolls. He lamented that tall, straight trees were no longer treasured. Like the horse, the abusive nature of oil trolls was driving the trees to extinction. For billions of years, the trees had survived the violent extremes and contrasts of climate that had blown throughout planet Ode. Now, in a short time, the oil trolls had cut down and burned too many sacred groves, with no thought about the future of these magnificent trees.

  The elder spoke of the tortured spirits that emerged from the carved trees and sought out the oil trolls. During the day, these spirits would encircle the trolls while they slept, speaking to their subconscious minds. Whispering into their twisted and dirty ears, the spirits told them that planet Ode would surely die without the trees. Alas, the slow- witted oil trolls only listened to their greedy minds and kept felling tree after tree.

  Punga, shaken by the ugly faces cut into the trees, had earlier crawled into Odin’s beard. Overhearing the tree’s sad tale and now feeling useless, he climbed out of his friend’s safe beard. He had to help in some way—he decided to do some night crawling. As Punga explored the surrounding woods, he felt an odd energy passing through the bog’s soil. His round body and the tips of his tarsi picked up thumping vibrations emitting from the ground. Curious, he followed the vibrations’ steady rhythms that led him into a hidden hollow deep in the swampy bog. Just ahead was a lake, its surface bubbling with methane gas that lit the dark hollow. The marsh lights frightened Punga, but he continued forward. Drumbeats echoed in the distance. He decided to follow their passionate beat. Persistent and slow, he kept in the shadows of the woods to avoid the owls that sweep down with silent wings. In a clearing of stunted spruce, he spotted a blazing fire. Punga moved close enough to feel heat from the flames. His eyes smarted from the heavy smoke, but he caught sight of a tribe of oil trolls performing the most disturbing dance he had ever seen in the dark of night.

  Punga knew he must reach Odin with news of this strange ceremony. Hoping that he was close enough for Odin to hear his “calling-song,” he lowered himself and drummed the ground with his abdomen, causing vibrations that carried through the bog’s dense soil. Only Odin could pick up the coded drumming and understand its message.