Desta sliced open the fish’s gut with her knife. She’d caught the sleek steelhead with her father’s spear. Spearing fish took skill, a skill she took pride in mastering, not to mention the pleasure she derived from providing this necessary bit of meat to the daily table.
The knife, also her father’s, was sharp and useful, but nothing compared to the spear. Though quite ordinary, it had saved her father’s life once and served him well in battle. Most importantly to Desta, out of all his children, many of them sons, he had bestowed the spear upon her for the maturity and strong work ethic she showed at an early age. He trusted her and she would not break that trust for anything in the world.
“Bark. Bark. Bark. Now you don’t just smell like a dog, you sound like one, too!” That was Desta’s friend Dejen sniping back at a bully. No one in Desta’s life was wittier than Dejen. She wished she could tell a joke as well as him and sometimes she tried. The day before she’d watched him dip his toe into the river and yank it out shivering. By this morning she’d finally conjured up something she thought halfway decent.
“Why did the master step into the river before his students,” she asked him.
“Why?”
“He wanted to test the water first!”
It wasn’t hilarious, but Dejen kindly laughed. He never criticized her, even when her jokes were not up to his standards.
He wasn’t laughing now though. The bully, a lanky and athletic girl named Hiwot, didn’t think much of being compared to a dog, not by one of the riverside folk, who she liked to sneer down at from her family’s spacious and comfortable dwelling high in the cliff. As much as she proclaimed to hate them, she made a habit of visiting Desta’s people daily, if only to pick on the weaker children. Short, slow and ugly Dejen was a favorite target. She would taunt him until he retaliated and then she would hurt him.
“We are not poor!”
Dejen’s defensive shout finally triggered Desta’s attention and she focused on the escalating fight while still attending to her work. She’d heard it all before, almost every day. Her friend needed frequent rescuing, but a friend who lives to make you laugh is worthy of defending. She winced at his piercing wail and bridled at the sight of him writhing on the ground at Hiwot’s feet.
That Desta would be coming was not a surprise. The surprise was in the distracting fish entrails she rained down upon Hiwot’s head with a well-aimed lob just before diving into her and knocking the wind out of the other girl as they fell to the ground. While Hiwot gasped for air, she felt her arms being twisted back.
“I give in,” Hiwot growled through her teeth when she could draw breath enough to speak. Desta saw off Hiwot and her few friends before rushing to help Dejen, who was laid out unnaturally awkward with one arm displaced.
Leaning over her screaming friend, she straightened the arm and forced it down hard with all her weight until it popped back into the socket. Almost immediately his agonized cries ceased and he sat up as if nothing had happened.
“Hey, a leba.” He pointed to where Desta had been gutting the fish and his finger followed a tubular brown dog-and-otter hybrid as it trotted away upon its short legs and slipped into the water.
Desta dove right into the river and thrashed about, sinking and sputtering as she clawed frantically at the water that the leba slithered through with a silky grace. By the time she was halfway across, the animal was already on the far bank and headed for the forest. She staggered out, shaking dry her tawny, spotted body and saw no sign of the leba or the spear.
Everywhere the soft mossy ground cushioned her bare feet as she raced through the open spaces between trees green from their roots to their highest leaves. Rock rose up from the earth at random, some boulders bigger than houses.
Though not a dense forest, there were trees enough to get lost in. Her people mistrusted the hidden places. They preferred living on the dry fringes of the river basin, only admiring the lush greenery and watching in awe the fog roll through the vast valley every day. They did not enter the forest, not without great need, fearing “the magic of the unknown” as well as the wild beasts of these lands, such as the humpback boars and bloodthirsty apes. And while the playful birds dazzled the eye with beautiful plummage, even they could do a careless observer harm. A bandy-legged mlachwaf once tore open a man’s belly, spilling his insides on to the ground. In her daily toil by the river, Desta sometimes came in contact with the animals of the valley. She’d never done them harm and so far in her life none had harmed her, though admittedly she seldom ventured even as far as the opposite bank.
Desta’s people only ventured into the valley forest in armed hunting parties and even then they walked with trepidation amongst strange trees that grew in odd arches and with twisting trunks corkscrewing up from the land, sometimes diving right back into it. Ahead and almost out of sight, Desta spied the leba’s brown rump scurry under one of these odd curling trees and disappear on the far side. She raced after it. At the tree she turned this way and that and caught sight of the animal’s long tail vanishing over a log. At the log, she saw nothing, even turning about and spinning in a circle to see all she could as fast as she could, she still she came up empty.
Fear of losing the spear sent sharp, almost debilitating pangs through to her core, but instead of seizing up, she climbed an arched tree and had a look about. The tree twisted under her feet to throw her and she lost her balance. Gripping the trunk with her long toes and throwing out her arms, she wavered and steadied. After giving the trunk a long, mistrusting glare, she scanned the landscape. There was little to be seen from here, but a few hill-sized boulders partially blocking her view. The sprawling, gnarled limbs of marula and quiver trees dotting the land seemed to float adrift in a sea of ferns larger than palm leaves. So covered and disguised was the ground, Desta couldn’t tell if she was looking at mounds of grassy earth or dragon blood trees with their domed, green canopies.
An involuntary, excited gasp caught in her throat and she nearly toppled from the tree at the sight of ferns waving about and moving in a line away from her not a hundred yards ahead. She jumped and only after did she realize how high she’d been. Collapsing upon the ground from the shock of the impact upon her feet, she reeled and clutched one of her ankles. She was fine, she told herself and began to get up when a rustling from the bushy base of a nearby clump of shrubs froze her in a crouch. The rustling subsided, but a swinish snort that followed shot her away like a wounded gazelle in a life or death flight.
Wanting nothing to do with a boar and its gouging tusks, she ran with a double dose of fear, for the trail of the leba had fluttered away with a new breeze in the chest-high field of ferns. Her lynx-like ears flipped forwards and back, twitching at every sound, but she heard nothing like four-footed fleeing. Nothing but her miserable heart thumped away in her ears.
Running seemed to be all she could do and so she did with despairing abandon, directionless and distraught right into a snarling creature with a feline’s gold-emerald eyes and a dusty, striped coat. It reared back hissing and leapt up into the branches of a tree, where it leered down on the girl, daring her to follow. Desta immediately knelt and averted her gaze. She did not turn her back on the cat, nor did she back away. She held her ground, waited for the tension between them to subside, and then sidestepped the cat, whose eyes relaxed as it looked away and began grooming.
Desta hoped to skirt the cat and find the leba’s trail again on the other side, so she backed away, turned and ran. A jolt to her neck and a plowing shove to her back tossed her to the ground, where she flopped about like a fish, flipping over and over with a weight attached to her back and fur and teeth upon her neck. She thrashed about, her face half buried in the earth, but twisted around and found herself staring into one of the cat’s eyes inches from her own. Struggling got her nowhere, so she fought her fear and as her heartbeat subsided, so did the malice in the cat’s eye. Its grip upon her neck eased and then released. It then backed off and sat upon its haunches as if wai
ting, occasionally licking itself, but otherwise completely detached.
What was it waiting for what, Desta wondered as she pulled herself up and rubbed her neck. It was sore, but at least there was no blood. When she stood, the cat got up and walked off a few paces, turning a lazy gaze upon her. When she didn’t move, the cat sat back down and its gaze turned quite inviting. Without fully understanding why, Desta tried a timid step forward and immediately the cat continued on its way. A few steps more and again it stopped to wait, and again Desta took more tentative steps towards it. They went on in this manner until the girl was following the cat at a steady pace.
Why she followed, she could not say, other than the connection she’d made with the cat compelled her on in a way more powerful than mere curiosity. That cat could have killed her, but it did not. Rather it seemed to want to show her something and Desta felt sure she wanted to see it. It wasn’t that she’d forgotten about the spear. In fact, quite the opposite. Somehow this game of follow the leader seemed intrinsically entwined with her search, like a voice from within urging her in a whisper to come closer. The farther she went on the louder the voice grew, right up to the moment when she saw the spear leaning against the base of a large oak.
She skipped for joy and ran ahead, passing the cat, who sat down to watch as a vine curled out of the tree, coiled about the shaft of the spear and lifted it out of reach, growing thicker and sprouting leaves all the while. Desta hopped and made running jumps at it before sizing up the tree, wondering if she could climb it and completely missing the sprouting and expanding of another vine. The oak grew a new root that pulled itself from the ground, followed by another. The tree’s bark bulged in numerous places a few feet up from the base and then grew a second trunk that pulled away from the first and ended in a melon-shaped knot. The vines and new roots began paling, turning slightly more rigid and angular, while the second trunk connected to them like a torso.
Desta stepped back when she realized what was happening. She couldn’t take it all in at once and before she knew it, she was looking at a fully formed person with hair hanging like soft Spanish moss around a body naked but for a covering of wrapped ivy. Its fingers and toes dangled like slender daikon roots and its skin held hues of green dabbed brown. That didn’t phase Desta since her own skin was spotted a faded brown like subtle cheetah markings. The whole of the creature, appearing as if from the tree, was what dumbfounded her. She might’ve run, but she held the spear. How her hand came to lie upon the shaft just below this tree being’s, she could not say, but now that it was there she wouldn’t let go even if she could.
“A dryad,” she muttered as she was pulled towards the oak and her resisting knuckles pressed into the bark. She found no fear in her heart, not while staring into the body-warming smile of the dryad. An unseen and utterly inviting pressure to follow drew her hand forward into the tree and the crushing impact and the grinding of skin ceased. Resistance dissolved and she witnessed the slow assimilation of her own skin into the bark of the tree. The bones of her hand evolved, becoming fibrous and entwining within the oak’s cork. Her arm sank in up to the shoulder and just before her head disappeared into the tree, Desta thought there was no place else she’d rather be than with this dryad. A lightness of body and spirit overcame her and everything went bright white just before it all darkened to nothing. She floated in a limbo, moving ever on, but slowing, almost timeless in her diminishing speed. The smell and then taste of sap hit her senses distastefully bitter at first, but she soon grew used to it, craved it even.
Life back home already seemed a distant memory. Her cares morphed, though her former values did not leave her altogether. Her concern for the spear was never entirely extinguished. In fact, that was the one thing that kept her grounded in the old world. However, her daily care for mundane matters such as food changed. She thirsted for water and sunlight, and could perceive both more keenly than ever before. Earth smelled sweet to her now and she wished to bury her toes in it. Days flittered by. Whether they were rainy or sunny was all that mattered.
So began a happy life with the dryad. In the beginning Desta did not understand a word said to her. Gradually pieces of the dryad’s strange language unveiled itself to the girl and they spoke together like children for days into weeks. It was a time of kindness and fun with simple pleasures and entertainments in a world Desta imagined to be much like the cliff dwellings, such as where Hiwot’s family lived. The round room they shared felt spacious and whatever Desta could need appeared as if it had always been there, though she’d never noticed it before.
Her love of nature bloomed in a way it never could have in her old life. She loved the birds and squirrels that nested in the old oak’s boughs, but it was the tree itself that was of paramount importance. If it died, she was quite sure it would be the end of the dryad and quite probably herself, so they took active measures in its care. During the winter hibernation, they spent their scant time awake helping the tree heal over wounds, like snapped limbs or assisting in coagulation of the little holes left in bark after the rare woodpecker visit.
The tree was under a constant barrage from countless fungi and leaf gall. Early summer one year Desta played squire to the dryad in what she came to think of as the Battle of the Boring Beetles. The tree had known too many skirmishes such as this to be bothered with naming them, only knowing a cold time of no bugs and a warm time of nothing but bugs. Spring meant starting it all over again.
Desta and the dryad adored spring. Newly sprouting leaves brought joy and the birth of each acorn was cause for celebration. Upon the return of the sun, when the mood struck the dryad, they would walk the forest at night in a silent sort of hazy existence. It was on these nights, whether there was cloud or bright moon, that the dryad’s eyes flashed like fireflies and Desta found herself once again entranced in her companion’s embracing, soul-fulfilling love.
However, all was not absolute contentment. Desta never fully forgot home or the spear. The dryad finally came to understand that the girl, who had not and would likely never give herself over completely to her new life, would not do as a life-long companion. And so, one day the dryad left Desta. An immediate cold, constriction attacked the girl. She felt suffocated. It was as if she was completely alone in a world she did not belong. The timing of the dryad’s departure could not have been worse, as the separation of the loved ones came during autumn when the dying leaves all around already caused an innate sadness.
But soon the dryad returned bearing a gift, a gift that awaited Desta outside of the oak. The dryad led her out of the tree and the girl went through all the sensations she’d felt upon first entering through the bark and deeper rings. In the glaring light of day, her body dragged her down with its unaccustomed weight. The ground pricked the bottom of her feet and her legs buckled under her. She would have fallen but for the tip of one finger still touching the tree. And then it was gone, all of it, the tree and her beloved. Gone and forever, this she knew immediately and fell to the ground like a jettisoned leaf.
A day and a night of tears washed over her and dried into sour pity for herself, her very existence and its meaninglessness. In the beginning she could not comprehend who she was, where she was or what she should do next, but when she could once again truly see her surroundings, she found the spear leaning against the oak. The blade had been sharpened and a new shaft affixed with an inlay of runes running down it.
Desta leaned upon the spear like a crutch and toddled from the tree a few steps, looking about her and wondering where she was. The more steps she took, the more she remembered. The time and distance of the past came back in stages and soon thoughts of home and family trickled back to her. By the time she found the river once more, recollections of the tree and dryad were already drifting away.
On the far side of the river she saw her people, some playing and some working. Crouched in the shallows, an aging washerwoman named Azmara caught sight of Desta and dropped her basin. Its value to her was great and yet it fl
oated away unnoticed by the stunned woman, who suddenly scurried up the bank, tripped over a basket and ran away screeching some garbled nonsense Desta didn’t understand.
“Always the crazy old lady,” she said inwardly and dropped down on her belly by the river. Long she drank to quench a thirst she did not realize she had until seeing the water. After a time of scooping mouthful after mouthful, she noticed that her hands, all the way up her arms and even the skin of her whole body was a pallid green, akin to the dryad’s, but ghastly drained. When she looked up again, all of her people had vanished from the riverside.
“I don’t look well,” she thought and made for the rope bridge. Running the fingers of one hand over the frayed guideline, she was surprised she’d never noticed its age. The houses too looked more worn at this end of the village than she remembered. “Where is everyone?” All doors were closed and every window was shuttered. Here and there in the distance darted a fleeing figure. “Strange.”
Arriving home she found it likewise unwelcoming. The door was locked. She banged on it, calling out to her father and family repeatedly until it swung open. In the frame stood a man with the resemblance of her father, but this man had lines in his face and streaks of gray in his hair her father never had. No, it was him, she decided.
“Father, what’s happened to you? What’s wrong? Why is everyone hiding,” she asked, but the words came out in a jumble of mixed languages that only made her horrified father’s face cringe deeper into terror. Some young people of a vague familiarity cowering in the shadows gathered around him for strength. Her father shouted at her as he’d never done before and even though the words came out in a nonsensical mess, the force of it shocked Desta. He is sick, she thought, or perhaps mad at my foolhardiness for going over the river into the valley forest after the spear.
“I am sorry, father, but I have it! I found the spear and brought it back. See?” Her smile broadened with the hope of appeasing him as she handed over the spear. Whether he understood, she could not tell by his confused expression, but he took the spear after initial hesitation and drove its razor-sharp blade into her gut, again and again, screaming like one frightened by some unholy nightmare. Blood poured down Desta’s ghoulishly yellow-green legs and she collapsed in the doorway, unaided and untouched until long after exhaling her final breath.
MR. JOHN M. PAULSON