The Dryad
Dancing to Escape Despair
Once the Maliae raised the king of the gods, now Silene was alone. The forest that had once been her and her sisters’ domain was down to a single tree between two fields. Her sisters were gone. The trees were gone. Only she remained.
She struggled not to fall into despair, forcing herself to dance every night as though everything was as great as it had ever been. The movement gave her life and renewed the life of the single tree left. Eventually she was resigned to her fate and grew comfortable in her loneliness.
Silene danced at night to avoid humans but one time, she was earlier than normal, doing her dance at dusk rather than midnight. She did not see the tractor coming her way, didn’t even notice when it stopped and a man stepped out.
The man in a plaid shirt popped out of the tractor, skipping the last step to hop down to the ground. This sound, though insignificant compared to the sound of the engine, was what finally made Silene aware of the other presence. She thought of disappearing, but he’d already spotted her, and it would just lead to more questions. “Hey,” the man called out. “What are you doing here?”
She had no answer, but she remembered the olden days. It had been so long, but she remembered how to play with humans, and men in particular. She played shy, letting her hair cover part of her face and hiding herself partly behind the tree, not letting him see that she was actually reintegrating herself within the tree.
The man stood before her now, his boots were becoming caked in mud, but he didn’t seem to notice. Silene remembered when humans wore different shoes, open and susceptible to the earth. But humans had become more closed off from natural things. He asked again, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
She looked up at him. The man was handsome by human standards, square jaw, broad shoulders and bright blue eyes. She answered with her lilting voice, “I am of the earth and the tree. I cannot leave my place.”
“I don’t know what that means,” the man appeared annoyed. “Look, lady, I don’t know what you’re doing out here or why you’re dressed that way.” Silene took in her appearance, her moss dress had never seemed unusual. “But I’d like to get these last few acres done before the light is gone because of the rain tomorrow. So, move along.”
Silene’s head tilted and her eyes narrowed. “I raised a god. I do not obey the commands of men. I am Maliae, my sisters and I were birthed from Gaea and Uranus. I am as old and wise as the trees and do not appease the follies of men.”
The man rubbed his temple, “Okay, let’s try this again.” He smiled, reaching out his hand. “Hello, I’m Aaron, what’s your name?”
Silene looked at his hand suspiciously, unaware of the human custom of shaking hands. She moved back into her tree and Aaron put his hand down. “I am Silene.”
“Silene, that’s a pretty name.” He sounded condescending, which made Silene curl her lip in a snarl at him. “What are you doing here, Silene?”
She spoke slowly, as if talking to a dim-witted child, “I am of the earth.”
Aaron’s frustration had clearly returned. “Listen, you said Gaea earlier, are you some pagan weirdo trying to return to nature or perform some ritual or something? Because this is private property. You can’t do whatever it is you’re doing here.”
Silene didn’t understand what he was saying or what he meant, but she refused to say such a thing to a mere mortal. She instead studied the bark of her ash tree, letting her fingertips dance over it as she’d been interrupted from her earlier dancing.
“Okay, Silene,” the man said. “I’m going to get back in my tractor and finish up. And I’m not going to catch you out here any more.” With that, he turned and walked back to his tractor, though Silene could hear him mumbling, “I gotta get more sleep. I’m losing my mind. I don't have the energy to deal with this weirdness.”
As soon as the tractor turned and drove away, Silene returned to the safety of her tree. But her curiosity had been aroused, as for the first time in at least a millennia she’d seen a human and the old ways called to her.
She remembered how fun it could be to torment them.
It was weeks before she saw the human again. He was spreading fertilizer on the field, and when he came near, Silene stepped out, making herself visible. She saw the panic on his face when he saw her and felt pleased. He got out of the tractor, “Are you crazy? What in the hell are you doing? Wait, you’re that same lady, aren’t you?”
She said nothing, letting him climb down from his cab once more. He walked towards her, yelling now, “You know it can be dangerous out here, right? I could call the cops on you since you’re trespassing."
“You have no authority over me, nor do your cops,” Silene was unfamiliar with the word, but she understood well enough how humans enforced their wills.
“Silene, what are you doing here?”
“I am of the earth and the tree.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t know what that means.”
She decided to show him, letting her arm fold into her tree. Aaron merely looked confused. Silene sighed, thinking that humans must have gotten slower and dumber in the intervening years. “I am of the tree and the earth. This is my home.”
That seemed to spark some sort of recognition in the man. “Are you living here then? You can’t do that. This is my land.”
“I do as I will,” Silene answered.
“There are laws, you can’t…” he cut himself off. “You’re clearly crazy. Shouldn’t you be in some institution with a doctor? I can call someone,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone.
“What is that?” Silene asked.
“What? My phone? You don’t know what a phone is?”
Silene approached, studying it. It was of the earth, made of metals and elements she knew, but also not. It glowed with unnatural light and responded to the man’s touch in a way that didn’t make sense to Silene. She put her hands on his arm, pulling the phone closer to her. “Explain this to me,” she commanded.
“You’re not familiar with personal space, are you?”
“Explain this,” she commanded again, her hand came close to the phone but she didn’t touch it.
So the farmer did. He explained what a phone was and how it worked, showing Silene the internet and doing his best to tell her how it worked. By the time he was finished, he was sitting down in his field with Silene sitting next to him, tucked into his side.
He noticed the time on his phone and got up, “My mom’s coming over to the house soon. I can’t very well tell her that I’ve been talking to the crazy woman who lives in my field.”
Silene looked up at him, “Will you return?”
Aaron paused, his brow furrowed as he thought it over. “Yeah,” he said with a tone of finality. His eyes met her green ones. “Yeah, I can do that.”
He visited her every day, to the point where Silene began to depend on the visits and even looked forward to them, though she would never admit such a thing. Mortals were beneath her, humans most of all. She told him stories of her sisters, of Zeus and the gods, and times past. He didn’t seem to believe her, but he said little about her “craziness” now. He told her of his own family, how his father had died and left his farm to his son, and how he enjoyed the work but felt the same loneliness she did.
He invited her to the house but she refused, telling him she could not leave her tree. He still didn’t seem to understand how a tree could be her home. He brought lunch a few times but she refused the food as well, telling him that she could not be sustained by human food. He didn’t seem to understand that either, but as time passed his confusion grew into amusement.
One day, Silene was refreshing her tree, helping the leaves to grow and bloom, and Aaron asked, “How do you do that trick? Make your arm disappear into the tree like that.”
“I am a dryad,” she replied.
“I don’t know what that is.”
She smiled, having grown fond of the farmer, “I am a tree spirit. We are one, connected together.”
The farmer looked at the tree. “It’s getting pretty old. It may need to come down soon.”
Silene’s smile disappeared and she removed her arm. “What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s an old tree. It’s half collapsed on the fence right now. It may need to come down soon, so that a strong wind or storm doesn’t knock it down later. I don’t want to have to repair the fence and lose some of my crop in the process.”
His words worried Silene. She looked to her tree, it was growing old and she had felt its lifeforce drifting away over the years. It wouldn’t be long before it would be gone, regardless of the farmer’s actions. She gripped her chest, understanding her mortality for the first time. For Silene would not outlast the tree.
“Silene?” Aaron asked, noticing her distress.
“I am dying,” she said, realizing it for the first time. Even as her sisters had gone with their trees, even as the world turned and the forest had been removed, she had never known until now that she would be gone someday too.
“What do you mean?”
Silene turned, studying this mortal man. For once, she understood them. It was no wonder mortals saw the world the way they did, lived their lives in such a reckless manner. They were always dying. Aaron was dying just as she was and would not exist in this world forever. He was talking again, but she did not hear the words. Instead, she felt the wind blow through her hair and the earth beneath her feet. She began to dance, not to stave off loneliness and despair, as she had for so long, but to celebrate the life she had left.
She danced long into the night, as the farmer watched, finally understanding that this woman he’d been growing to love was not human. When she stopped, her eyes met his and they both knew each other, understanding the full truth for the first time. That life was a temporary thing, for both a dryad and a man. That his plans of her marrying her someday were only dreams. That her desire to have him forever was not to be. He stood. When she began to dance again, he joined her.