Dance of the Trees

Dance of the Trees

By E. M. Areson

The trees crowded around weighting for the storm. They could feel it coming. Birds nestled in their branches huddled together. They could feel it too. The rabbits, gophers, foxes, and mice hid in their holes. They could feel it almost at hand.  Every insect, every rodent, every lizard, and frog were safely tucked away. No living thing in that belonged in the Wild was about. They knew better. They knew what was coming.

The old tree near the center of the forest had a good view of anything going on. Not that the tree had eyes, mind you, but a small sparrow lived in its branches near the heart of the tree. Not an actual heart, of course, but the place where the sleeping dryad lay unwilling to be moved. The sparrow would whisper, in its native voice, humans call its song, to the sleeping dryad the things of the forest. So when the sparrow saw the human girl wandering in the Wild when any creature with sense would be hidden he whispered of it to the dryad.

“There's a human in the Wild. Not good. One shouldn’t be out now.” He whispered. “A girl I believe. No good will come of this. None. So loud, oh! How the twigs snap under her feet. Some of those were once your branches, and the branches of your brothers and sisters.”

The sparrow shook his little head, “If the humans were not so deaf I would warn the poor thing. Too bad, for she seems to like the Wild. You cannot see but she caresses your sister tree with her fingertips. Oh, if you could see how she takes care not to crush the saplings with her oafish foot. She was born wrong if I’ve ever seen one. She should have been part of the Wild. Not a blundering human.”

The wind picked up and began to howl as only it can in its home the Wild. The sparrow held onto the branch tighter. The human girl below just laughed, the strange noise nothing of the Wild truly understands. She held out her arms letting her clothes billow around her in the wind. Her hair flew nearly straight out from behind her and dead leaves whipped around her feet.

“It’s coming now.” The sparrow whispered and then he dared not relate to his sleeping friend anymore.

The clouds darkened and then crashed, spilling out captured light in a blinding flash. Rain started softly and within a heartbeat was nearly impenetrable. The trees awoke to their friend the wind and danced. Hundreds of branches swaying, deep in the ground even they shook their great roots to the howl of the wind. The earth had quickly drunk her fill and water began to pool around the roots of the dancing trees. The human girl wasn’t laughing anymore. She held herself and looked for shelter, but poor thing! The sparrow could see no that no place was safe for her. Humans didn't belong in the Wild, especially when it was like this.

The clouds kept crashing, the water kept rising and the trees kept dancing. The trees shook loss leaves, knocked out nests and snapped branches as they smacked into each other. The Wild was in a frenzy. Only a creature of the Wild could survive such a thing. The sparrow held on even tighter hoping that his friend, so calm when asleep, wouldn’t crash. The dryad herself would be fine, but he wouldn’t be that fortunate.

The human girl looked around in what looked to the sparrow-like wonder and fear. She held herself so tightly, eyes so wide, he thought she would burst. She was up to her calves in water and mud. Her clothes were stuck to her skin and her hair plastered to her head. She looked around for a way out. She seemed to panic as the rain got harder. Some of the trees were nearly bent to the ground now. The sparrow closed his eyes. Then he heard the scream.

A scream was the thing that both the creatures of the Wild and the creature of the Tame could understand. Even a human could scream, not only that they could usually recognize the screams of other things too. The sparrow didn’t look but he knew it was the human girl screaming. Oh! How she screamed. For a second he thought she would never stop. It was so loud, so piercing. It seemed to break through the dance of the trees, the crash of the clouds and the churning of the water for a moment.

The sparrow was getting ready to open his eyes again, but then the moment ended. The scream continued, at least the sparrow thought it did, but the dancing, crashing, pounding and churning overwhelmed it. The scream died and the Wild resumed its reckless revelry. It lasted all night and only as the sun was beginning to wake did the Wild slow its jamboree. In fact, it was almost at the very time when the sun managed to push through the leaves did the sparrow think to look around for the human's fate.

He didn’t have to look far. She was laying, still sopping wet and covered in mud, in a bare patch of ground. Blood, another universally understood thing, adorned her head and necks like a grouse crown and necklace. The sparrow shook his head. It was the same every time, it was never any good when a human came into the Wild.

Then he noticed something else that made him think. A sapling, which had not been there last night peeked out from underneath her neck, where her blood rested against the earth. The sparrow flew down to look and landed next to the human girl’s body. He listened very carefully. The sapling was home to a dryad. Not awake, of course, for dryads are rarely awake when in a tree, but it was home to a dryad. The sparrow blinked. The odds were astronomical and yet…

“Welcome to the Wild. Are you she-who-was-human.” He asked the sapling.

From her sleep, the dryad woke long enough to reply, “Yes.”

Photo by: Jonas Kaiser