Dead Wood

“I’ve missed you.” 

The man’s whisper was so low that she wasn’t sure she had even heard the words aloud.  His lips had moved and somehow she had understood.  Little more than a sigh in the wind, it was reasonable to assume that he was speaking to the woods, or even to Mother Nature herself. 

Adra decided to believe, however, that his words were meant for her; that he had missed her specifically.

A bird chirped, as it settled in a tree nearby, the laughing sound chiding her for her foolishness.  And she knew it was foolishness.  The man wasn’t facing her, hadn’t really looked at her since he arrived.  In truth, he seemed most taken with the water, having already spent a good bit of time frolicking and splashing with his dogs.  Now he sat on a rock, feet dangling in the cool lake.

No, he wouldn’t have been speaking to her, but she would pretend for now.  He would be gone soon. 

 “How long was I gone this time?” 

The time humans kept had little meaning here in the wood, but it had been a full moon since he had last visited.  She knew that with a certainty.  The man nodded as if in agreement.  “But it felt like forever.”

It had indeed.  The first time he had come had been a summer day much like this one, and he had been back several times since.  And though the space between visits had become shorter and shorter, the wait between seemed more difficult each time.

 “My name is Ben, by the way.”  His voice brought her back to the present.  The small laugh that followed traveled over the water and reached her like a gentle touch.  “I don’t think I’ve ever told you.”

This was something new.  He always talked to the woods when he visited, but he never actually spoke about himself.  Sometimes he would read from a book.  Other times, like the weekend after his nephew was born, he just seemed to need to talk.  It would bubble out of him, one unrelated anecdote after another, the sound of his voice, of his words filling her with pieces of himself. 

She had never thought it odd that she hadn’t known his name until that moment.

“I -- well, I thought it was time I told you what I do.”

The sound of his voice was low, dancing with the breeze, the barest caress over the leaves, and she found herself leaning, straining for more.  Please, she thought.  Tell me.  On the rock, his eyes closed with a soft, shuddering sigh, and he nodded.

“When I came here the first time, I was looking for something.  Half-way here, I knew it was a lost cause.”  He lifted one of his hands to gesture in a sweeping arc.  “This whole place was so alive, so vibrant.  It was…unreal.”  His dogs interrupted, barking playfully and bounding after a water skipper, and the man -- Ben-- laughed.  “It’s absolutely spectacular, of course, but not what I was looking for.” 

 “I work with wood -- I find pieces and I make things.  Even though it isn’t alive, I can feel an energy in it, a resonance.  It’s almost like it talks to me.”  He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s kind of hard to explain -- most people don’t want to hear that sort of thing anyway.”  His lips twitched, the smile barely there.  “I figured you wouldn’t mind.” 

It would be so easy to believe that he was talking to her in that moment, that his secret smile was intended for her -- but she couldn’t allow herself to be that foolish.

He had paused again, and the sounds of the woods around seemed hollow without his voice.  She marveled at the intensity of her hunger for him, for any bit of himself that he would give.  By giving her his name, he had changed something -- some delicate balance, and she couldn’t deny her need of him now. 

Please, she thought.  But this time, she didn’t know what she was asking for.

The sun reflected off of the smooth stones in the water to bathe him in a warm, shimmering light.  She had always thought him a beautiful man -- skin browned from the sun, hair that curled and begged to be touched, the sleek, well-muscled body -- but in that moment, he looked magnificent.  He looked, she thought, as magical as anything in her woods.       

“Most of the wood I talk to is dead.” A slight crease appearing on his forehead, and he swallowed. “You took me by surprise.” 

Distracted by the sight he presented, by her relief that he was talking again, it took her a moment to register what he had said. 

“I didn’t understand what you were, at first.”  His scowl deepened and he shook his head.  “No, I think maybe I did, but just couldn’t believe it.” 

He was staring down at the water but she began to think that maybe.... 

“How ridiculous is that?  I’ve been talking to dead wood all my life, but I get freaked out at the thought that you’re actually…” his voice trailed off.

She didn’t understand this, not really.  Humans didn’t have magic. Not anymore.  But he was talking to her, he heard her -- she was sure of it now.  This had to be more than mere fancy.  There had to be  some magic in him after all.  A magic that had brought him here -- to her.

Before she had completely thought it through, she was pushing out of her familiar form.  It had been so long since she had -- it was far too dangerous these days -- that she was surprised at the ease of the shift.  Her body had remembered. 

And then she was standing, but her other form felt fragile and odd.  Her skin was too thin and delicate, her legs too slight, and she felt unsteady without the earth’s help to ground her.  It felt wrong.   

The man turned his head slowly, his eyes taking her in, not seeming a bit surprised to see her out of her tree.  And then he smiled, and she knew that everything was as it should be. 

end

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