Once upon a time, not so very long ago, and not so far away, a little bear was playing snowballs with some children when he lost his way home. The cub, whose name was Arcas, hopped and tumbled for a while, waiting for the children to come and find him. No one came. He began to shiver. Even though he was a bear cub, with the thickest warmest coat you ever saw and shining eyes as dark and sweet as treacle, he was frightened to be out alone at dusk. He was happy when he was playing close to his friends. Arcas’s best friends were the children. He loved their piping voices and their laughter, he loved how the tiny ones spun and floated like dandelion flowers when they played on the swing and the wooden see-saw. He crinkled his bear eyes and smiled when the older ones wrapped loving arms around his neck and breathed warmly into his fur. The children were always there. Whenever Arcas sauntered out of the woods and across the road to Main Street, some of them would be there ready to play. Before the people came, before houses were built and warmth gleamed in the windows, and gold wrapped chocolates sparkled on the Christmas trees at snow time, he had been a lonely bear cub, living with his mother Callista in a shadowy den on the edge of the woods where the hill drops away to the river. Arcas had listened to the rushing of the stream. He heard skylarks far above and the wind in the trees of his homeland. He heard the emptiness, the echoing silence. And he was sad.
Once, many bears had lived in these dens, which interlocked like honeycomb on the edge of the tangled wood above town somewhere not so far away. The young bears tumbled and somersaulted in the pastures. They climbed trees for berries in the woods. They dived into the river to catch a silver fish and bat it with their paws, throwing it from one to another until some smart cub—on the cusp of growing up—would duck down, open wide and swallow that fish in one gulp. Arcas knew this because Callista had told him. Every winter, he and his mother snuggled into their den as the days grew grey and cold. Callista fed him nuts and honey to fill him with goodness for his long sleep, and told him stories of his ancestors. What she didn’t tell him though, was what had happened next.
Arcas was cold and tired. He tried to call to the children, but his snuffles and his whispered roar went nowhere in the muffled silence of falling snow. He only ever whispered his roar because otherwise he knew it would frighten the children. They were so small with their pink cheeks and smiling faces. Three of them would climb up on his back for a ride, hugging themselves close to him, urging him to run and whoosh and slide through the fields and hills around town.
‘You are our dream bear, we wished you here and you came, just like it said in our books,’ they cried. ‘We love you Arcas.’ He loved them too, and now he had lost them, and he hadn’t said goodbye before tomorrow’s sleep began.
The lights of the town disappeared. Arcas was in a silver landscape, trotting towards nothing he recognised. He howled suddenly, he couldn’t help himself, he was scared. How would he be found? His mother was out gathering berries, she had told him that morning she would not be home until late.
‘Arcas you can go and play all day, for tomorrow we start our winter sleep. I will bring the final part of our feast and tomorrow we will dig ourselves in deep until spring.’ Arcas loved waking up in spring, trees were green, the river rushed with sparkling water and the children would be waiting for him, ready to play. But where was he now? Arcas saw a dark grove of what looked like nut trees. His mother might be there. He trotted in.
He found himself in a cave, not in a grove of trees at all. He crouched and fumbled on the ground, stumbling over some stones. He remembered his mother preparing for hibernation with him, and he struck the stones together and made a spark. Then he lit a torch. He was not in a shallow cave, he was deep in a maze of chambers like his own den, but unused. Curious, though his heart thumped as loud as a hammer on a sheet of tin, he shuffled further into the cave, and through a tunnel to the next one. There, his torch lit wall paintings. He stopped and stared in horror. There were hunters with spears, dozens of them, pursuing bears as they ran to shelter. There were pictures of bears trapped in nets and being dragged away in chains. There were bears dancing in front of faceless crowds, tall on their hind legs, eyes sad, fur matted. Arcas stared at them for some time, his eyes wide and shocked. He had never understood where all the ancestor bears his mother told him about had gone, and now he could see it for himself. The final painting was of a bigger bear, up on his hind legs, roaring and swiping the air with his claws. Swirling up from his paws were stars. Above him on the ceiling of the cave the stars had formed into bears in the sky. Arcas was relieved to see these bears: they looked happy.
Soon the torch guttered and the flame was swallowed by darkness. Arcas gave a little grunt of fear and made his way back towards the entrance. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he stumbled, but to keep himself steady he fixed his mind on the star bears on the ceiling. Outside the cave, night had fallen. Snow glistened and the moon was up and brightly shining. Arcas’s breath made a cloud when he howled again for his mother. She didn’t come. He thought he heard a rustling ahead of him in the forest and he scampered in, calling ‘Mother, mother where are you?’ His voice echoed around him. His mother should be home by now, but which way was home? Pine trees stretched in all directions around him, every one looked familiar but wasn’t. Arcas was lost.
Arcas may have been a small bear, but he was resourceful and brave. The tallest tree you ever saw stood at the centre of a clearing in front of him. It was a redwood tree, and its trunk was as wide and huge as a cathedral spire rising before him. Arcas reached his paws to the lowest branches and hoisted himself up. He began to climb. It was a joyful feeling, skimming up the redwood tree. Soon he was high above the other trees in the forest, hugging the trunk, inching his way up and up to the top. The air was cold at the top of the tree, and the night sky floated above the forest like an inky scarf scattered with diamonds. Arcas felt weightless and free. He could see the happy star bears from the cave paintings gambolling and playing on the horizon, and the star path which his mother had told him was called the Milky Way shimmered ahead of him. It was then he saw Callista, twinkling at him from the top of the world. Suddenly he knew what to do. He stretched out his tiny tail to balance himself, and he shut his eyes. Taking a deep breath, Arcas stepped out onto the Milky Way and he walked into the night sky towards his mother.