Beneath the Trees

I should have known better than to go running in the woods after dark like that. Maybe that's why the storm came-why I found the wood nymph huddled in the wreckage of our barn the next morning. My wife had been fading fast; I could hardly recognize whatever was looking out of her eyes these days, and it was just the wrong time for painful old memories to come knocking at our door. I let the darkness into the house-into my thoughts-and before I knew it, I was losing not just Molly but the spark that made us come alive. And there she was: the spirit of the trees, summoning me to recover what she'd lost-and what I'd lost? She wasn't quite so clear about that part. But just her touch sent me plummeting down into a world I'd never dared to really believe in: the world of the dryads, a world under siege by a dark, foreign power that cares nothing for the trees. And was I supposed to drive it out, to take back what it had stolen? All I really wanted was just to get Molly through these last fews days with dignity, without pain-or that's what I told myself. What she wanted-I just couldn't figure out how to give her that.