Silver Maple Maiden

A story about an average boy and the Dryad he meets in the woods near his home.

I climbed up as far as the branches of the old silver maple would allow, by the time I found the last stable branch I must've been almost three stories off the ground. I'd climbed this tree before, being the tallest tree in the woods I remembered which it was, but I'd never been this high up in it before. I could even see the roof of my house above the tree line, it was a beautiful mid spring afternoon, and everything was green and full of life.

I needed to think for a while, so I made myself comfortable on my branch and stared at the clouds passing between the leaves. It'd been another lonely weekend, my parents were at another business confrence out on the west coast and I was still here in boring old Ohio, stuck partying it up in the Dirty Dusky. Nobody was allowed over to my house, and the only way I could get out of the house was by bumming rides. I had been alone the whole 4 day weekend and was feeling pretty abandoned.

That girl crept into my mind again as I bemoaned the strangling lonelyness, Meg had shot me down again for a date. It seemed like she was never even going to give me another shot, I'd wasted my first way back in freshman year while bad rumors were still flying around about me, made up by my spiteful ex-girl friend. It was over halfway through my junior year at this point, and she'd still never given me another shot.

I felt a tear roll down my cheek before I'd realized that I'd been crying, but I wasn't shocked, I'd cried about her too many times to count. I wiped the tear off my cheek, sat up, and came face to face with a girl hanging upside down from the branch above me. I pushed myself back to trunk of the tree after almost falling off of the branch. The girl flipped right-side-up, then swung down onto the same branch as me with an almost other worldly grace. She looked up at me with a smile, she had long brown hair and green eyes, she wore a skirt of leaves and two leaves covering her breasts, and wore nothing on her feet.

"Why were you crying?" she asked, tilting her head to the right, "Its far to glorious of a day to be sad!"

I was too shocked to speak, but I also felt in explicably happy when I looked at her, like even her presence was comforting. For the moment, I couldn't even recall why I'd been crying. It was something mundane and not worth being sad about in the presence of such a mysterious and pretty girl.

"Thistle got your tounge?" she asked.

"No, sorry," I stammered, "I'm just a little... confused. Who are you, whats with your clothes (or leaves or whatever), and how'd you get up there without me noticing you?"The girl thought for a second and then began to giggle.

"You ask a whole lot of questions, do all people ask this many questions?" she asked brightly. "Well, in order, I'm a dryad, tree spirit; As for my leaves, I'd rather be naked but I thought that might freak you out; and as for how I got up there, I was there before you got up here. This tree is my home."

I stared in disbelif as she giggled again, this girl had shown up out of nowhere and was now claiming to be a tree spirit. I must've fallen out of the tree, I thought, thi is all a dream, a hallucination. I'm in a hospital right now.

Wanting to be completely sure of what I was seeing, I reached out a hand and stroked her cheek, it was soft and smooth, then I realized how awkward this was and pulled back. She giggled again and reached out her own hand and began to stroke my cheek, ther hand was soft and smooth, just like her cheek.

"You never answered me, about why you were crying," she said not removing her hand from my cheek. "I wanna' help if I can."

For a moment I was lost in her eyes, they were the same shade of green as the leaves on the tree. "Umm, it was just something about a girl I like. Its just something silly." I said trying to recover my composure. "I doesn't really matter."

"No, tell me about her," she said, settling into a cross-legged sitting position pefectly balanced on our branch, "I bet shes pretty, wait did she break your heart? I'm so sorry."

"No calm down," I said with a slight chuckle, I settled into a more comfortable and stable sitting position too then launched into the long story. We talked for hours, it felt good to finally let the floodgates open, but, at the same time, I felt guilty for using this strange girl as a human (or dryad) journal. She simply listened with rapt attention, oohing and ahhing at all the daily drama of your average teenager. Her eyes welled up with tears when I touched on matters of heartbreak, and she giggled whenever I cracked a joke, no matter how cheesy it was.

"So tell me about you, I feel pretty self centered talking about myself the whole time," I said as I finished another story about my everyday life. The sun had begun to drop in the sky and was almost touching the tree line, it'd been hours and hours.

"There isn't anything to say," she said her voice dropping a little, "Life is pretty boring when you're bound to a tree." She averted her eyes and began to stroke her fingers along the bark of the branch we were sitting on. "I don't mean to say nature isn't beautiful, but it all seems so trite next to the fantastic tales of your life."

"The grass is always greener," I said looking into her bright green eyes.

"The grass is the greenest about a mile north of my tree," she said, clearly confused.

"Sorry, its just a phrase that we use." The sun was almost halfway under the tree line, it was almost time for me to leave, I'd been in this maple for hours. I started to climb down the branches and then dropped onto the soft ground. The girl slid down the trunk and waved good bye. "I'll be back tomorrow," I called.

"Okay," she called back, "By the way, my name is Acorn!"

Author's Note

This is part one, he will be back tomorrow, Acorn, but the 2nd part might not be...

Reviews

[So Sick of Love]

i loved it :)