Study

‹ Back

    Ethen stumbled through the forest, tears still streaming down his face. He slipped on a wet patch of leaves and fell, smearing his hands and knees with mud. But he couldn’t get dirtier than he already was, covered in the ashes from the bonfire.

    He picked himself up and kept running. Maybe something in the woods would kidnap him, and he would never have to go back to Coventown. None of the children there were his friends. None of the adults cared about an orphan with no magical talent. He was alone in this world.

    But not alone in the forest. Something was running alongside him. He couldn’t see anything besides the violent rustling of the foliage. He pumped his legs faster, almost not caring if a wolf or a bear caught him. And then he tripped again, this time over a thick root he must have missed in the darkness. He staggered for a moment then fell through a bush into a clearing. 

    Ethen didn’t rise immediately this time. Instead he sat and cried looking at the blood paving tracks across his filthy hands. There was no one in this world for him. He might as well die here in the woods.

    “Would you like to die?” a deep, scratchy voice asked him from somewhere in the darkness.

    Ethen yelped in fear and scrabbled to put him back against a tree. “Who’s there?” he asked the darkness.

    “Someone else who is alone,” the voice answered back. This time Ethen heard the direction it was coming from and saw a pair of yellow eyes buried in darkness.

    “How did you know I wanted to die?” 

    “Your thoughts were so loud, one young, I’m sure the moon could hear you.”

    Ethen looked up at the full moon through the jagged gap in the leaves. That had been the reason for the bonfire: to celebrate the time of the month when all magic was renewed. He knew the older members of the coven spoke as if the moon was a real being, but it was hard to believe that a rock a million miles away was the source of their power.

    The voice interrupted his wondering. “You did not answer my question. Do you want to die?”

    Tears continued streaming down his cheeks. Ethen found it hard to speak. “No. Maybe not. But anything must be better than my life right now.”

    “Then perhaps instead of dying, you should make your life better.”

    “How am I supposed to do that? I’m just a kid with no magic and no family. Nobody likes me anyway.”

    “True, you are a child. But I can give you both magic and a family, if you so desire.” 

    The voice had Ethen’s full attention now. He may not have magic himself, but he still learned about all the magical things. Anything that offered you power was a dangerous being. He pulled out an amulet from beneath his shirt that all the coven children wore. It was supposed to protect him from evil spirits.

    The voice rumbled out a laugh. “I am no demon, child. I am a spirit of this forest. Look to the center of the clearing.”

    Ethen did so and noticed a tight ring of stumps protruding from the earth. They were blacked and cracked, as if a fire had burned them down. In fact the whole clearing looked as if a small fire had swept through leaving the rest of the forest untouched.

    “I was once one of the spirits that lived in those trees,” the voice continued. “A dryad that granted knowledge and power to those who knew how to ask. One day a witch came to me with a dark pursuit. I refused him answers and in retaliation, he summoned fire from the depths of hell and burned the whole grove. My siblings died, but not before channeling all of their magic into me, the youngest, to give me a chance to live on.”

    And then the eyes rose slowly straight up. Ethen stared, dumbstruck, as they lifted to twice the height of any man. With a great creaking and cracking, a figure emerged from the woods. It was skeletal and made of wood, as if a tree trunk had sprouted arms and legs. The head was a patch of leaves. Eyes glowed from within but no other features were discernible.

It would have been a sight to behold if it wasn’t so clear that the creature was dying. The bark on its body was patchy and black just like the stumps. Ash drifted off of it as it moved and somehow, Ethen could tell the dryad was in pain.

    “This is all that is left of the power in the forest,” the dryad groaned. “And I fear that without help, I will soon pass into the void as well.”

    Ethen rose slowly to his feet, as if trying not to startle an animal. “What kind of help do you need?”

    The dryad moved further into the clearing toward the stumps. It knelt on wobbly knees and touched each of the five stumps in turn. From the last one, it pulled a seed that seemed to reflect the light of the moon. “First I need a human to plant my seed in the earth. Then I need someone to protect and care for me while I grow. In exchange, I could grant that human a life as long as a tree and power from both the earth and sky.” The eyes turned to face Ethen. “You would never be alone again. You would have me and the whole forest as your family.”

    Dryads were supposed to be good spirits. They were ancient and rare. A witch who had the favor of the trees was always revered as wise and powerful. Even so, Ethen was cautious. “But I have no magic to begin with,” he said, sure that this would mean he could do nothing to aid the spirit.

    The leaves shook back and forth. “You humans have many kinds of magic. Your nearby coven draws power from the moon. It is true that I do not feel her touch on you. But there are other sources, many of them more powerful than our distant mother. There is one type of magic that all humans possess however.”

    The dryad approached Ethen for the first time. It moved agonizingly slowly and small chunks of bark fell off as it did so. This creature truly was close to death, Ethen thought.

    With its long arms and sticklike hands it reached down for Ethen’s hand. He laid it flat, still covered in ash, mud, and blood. They dryad placed it’s hand on Ethen’s and, somehow, took a deep breath. The filth disappeared from his hand and a small green leaf popped from the dryad’s finger. 

    “You have life,” the tree explained. “And that is the magic one needs.”

    “Do you mean my blood?” Ethen asked, shocked. “You’d need my blood to grow?”

    “Only a small amount,” the dryad explained. “And not forever. But your sacrifice will grant you kinship and knowledge from the whole forest and everything that lives in it. You could live here if you wanted. You would want for nothing.” And then it held out the gently glowing seed to Ethen. He reached out with his now clean hand and held it. The light seemed to pulse at his touch.

    Anything had to be better than his life now. Right?