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SHAYLEE DRUID’S DAUGHTER
Copyright © 2009 BRET JORDAN. All rights reserved worldwide.
ISBN 978-1-936165-11-7
Cover Art Designed By Anastasia Rabiyah
Edited By Traci Markou
Published by Purple Sword Publications, LLC
Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
Shaylee
Druid’s Daughter
By
Bret Jordan
For my daughters:
Magen, Mallorie, Natalie, and Amber.
May you keep the innocence of childhood as long as you can
because once it’s gone it can never be reclaimed.
Leaves crunched under Shaylee’s feet as she skipped through the forest. To her left, a pair of robins hopped through the limbs of an oak in a playful dance. The smaller of the two jumped and chirped then jumped again. The other followed. Shaylee assumed that the smaller and less colorful bird was the female and named her Myrtle, the male she called Tymin—names that would only last until the birds were out of her sight. Still, she felt that they needed a name if only for a short while.
Shaylee smiled and wished she could join them in their game. She couldn’t fly, but that didn’t stop her from imagining she could as she reached down and picked up a dry branch. She pulled the firewood to her chest and skipped to the next leaf-covered limb, pretending to be a butterfly dancing among the flowers. The ground around each crusty branch became a beautiful flower, the branch a stamen, the part of the flower that butterflies craved. As she drew the branches to herself she imagined her wings swishing back and forth to the beat of a slow song. She skipped from branch to branch until her butterfly stomach was full and her arms could hold no more firewood. She sighed; the game was over.
As she took her first step, a new game came to mind. She pretended she was a golden bee returning to her hive, arms laden with pollen. She clenched her teeth and buzzed. With a giggle at her own silliness she jogged toward home in wide zig-zags, buzzing and laughing with each step.
Shaylee loved the forest. Every smell, whether it was the sweet odor of honeysuckle or the acrid smell of loam, filled her with comfort and peace. Bird song was a music that no man-made instrument could equal. Squirrels scampering along the ground or racing up a tree brought her joy that only a toddler’s older sister would understand. Butterflies were as unique as snowflakes, and flowers held more beauty than gold. Creek water tasted finer than honey-milk and blackberries sweeter than sugar biscuits. The woods were Shaylee’s domain, a place filled with magic and wonder that she witnessed every day in every part of her being. She absorbed it all as naturally as a sponge absorbs water, saturating herself in its wild glory and raw beauty. It had been a part of her since birth and she, a part of it.
Zig-zagging through the woods none of these things occurred to her. She didn’t analyze her relationship to her surroundings, it just was.
Within moments, the ground began to decline toward the creek bottom. Shaylee stopped and listened for the gurgle of water as it poured over the rocks on its quest for lower ground. The sound washed over her like a lullaby. She closed her eyes and saw tiny bubbles and distorted rocks, a leaf riding the current like a tiny boat caught in a wave.
A mewling shattered the calm.
She opened her eyes, cocked her head, and listened for the strange sound. It was barely audible over the gurgle of water, but it was there. She had never heard anything like it, the buzz of a mosquito and the cry of a wild cat with a touch of wind whistling through the forest. It grasped her spirit and filled her with worry and desperation—an alien call for help in a language that could only be understood empathically.
Shaylee dropped the branches. They landed on the brittle leaves around her feet with the sound of a blacksmith’s hammer striking an anvil. She cringed and turned, hoping to pinpoint the direction of the sound.
It came from everywhere. No matter which direction she turned the noise never grew louder. She closed her eyes and concentrated, focusing on the sound, blocking out all other distractions. It washed over her in waves of sorrow and whispered to a place deep inside her, a spot she didn’t know existed. She let it in and gave it access to her spirit, taking the fear and pain into herself. Within moments it had consumed her, filling her with desperation. Something suffered nearby, afraid, alone and pleading for help. A tear collected at her lashes and rolled down her cheek. “I want to help you, but I need to know where you are first,” she whispered.
With the sound of her voice came a realization. She put her fingers in hear ears and listened. The pleas were as strong as ever. What she heard wasn’t a noise, but a voiceless calling. It bypassed her ears and cored into her mind. The realization would have been enough to terrify most little girls, but Shaylee wasn’t any little girl. Something was hurt, possibly dying, and she wouldn’t ignore that, no matter how odd its pleas for help might be.
With lips and eyes closed tight, she cleared her mind and focused on the calling. The gurgle of the stream vanished. The odor of honeysuckles faded to nothing, and the cool wind that carried the sweet smell no longer tickled her skin. Her feet moved though her eyes remained shut. She walked along the decline parallel with the creek like a sleepwalker. The world had vanished. Only the calling existed, the desperate alien cries directed her, drew her forward. With each step it grew, becoming more frantic until it thumped like a drum within her mind. The drumbeats became blasts of lightning crashing against her skull. When she couldn’t take the pain any longer, she opened her eyes.
The calling vanished like smoke in the wind until only a candle’s wisp drifted through her consciousness.
She stood on the bank of Miller’s Creek. A few hundred feet away sat the pile of sticks she had dropped. She frowned. It seemed she had walked miles, but she hadn’t gone far at all.
She looked around, and her imagination ran wild. With such a strange plea for help she expected to see a fairy with a broken wing or struggling in the grip of a spider web. Maybe even a unicorn with its foot wedged in the fork of a low-lying limb. Her mind raced with magical possibilities.
Nothing so obvious stood out. The stream gurgled over smooth stones. A vine covered tree rose into the canopy of branches overhead next to a stump covered in toadstools. The web of a spider stretched between two saplings, but no fairies struggled to escape. On the other side of Miller’s Creek more trees rose to the canopy, a few stones stood like gray monoliths among the dead leaves of the forest floor, and a fallen limb bowed a sapling to the ground.
She closed her eyes and concentrated again. She didn’t let the call in all the way, fearing the pain that came along with it. Shaylee needed to hear it again for just a second to pinpoint where the calling came from. The wisp of smoke grew until it filled her mind and threatened to choke her. She opened her eyes and gasped.
The sapling?
She walked to the edge of the creek and stared. The tree was a pine with a trunk no bigger around than her wrist. A huge oak limb bowed the pine to the ground. Its scrawny branches splayed against the leaves and dirt as though prostrating itself to mother earth. She twisted a lock of hair around her finger and questioned herself. Surely it can’t be the sapling. Trees can’t think, can’t feel pain and fear—desperation.
She looked around again, but still saw no fairies, unicorns, trolls, dwarves, or elves. Not so much as a squirrel showed itself.
Maybe the fairy has taken the form of a tree and can’t change back for fear that the branch will squash it before it can fly away? Maybe, if I remove the branch, the fairy will show itself and be my friend?
Shaylee’s heart raced with excitement. Without another thought, she splashed across Miller’s Creek and ran to the sapling. She stood before the tree. Water dripped off the hem of her dress and ran down her bare feet, making puddles in the leaves below.
Up close the fallen limb looked twice as big as it had from the other side of the creek, at least as big around as her waist. She stuck her lower lip out and leaned her hands against the limb. With a grunt, she pushed. The limb warbled, but remained in place. The calling screamed with panic. She wiped her hands on the front of her dress and pushed again. She pushed with everything she had. Her face turned red, and her toes dug grooves into the loam. The branch tilted forward and then back. As its momentum carried it forward again, she gave another mighty push. The limb tilted farther, propelled by its own momentum then it rolled toward her again. She let it, giving another mighty shove as it started to rock away from her again, its weight adding force to her push.
A crack sounded like two rocks slammed together or the breaking of bone. The calling became a red screech of pain and panic. She ignored it. One more push and the limb would topple over. It rocked back to her. Again she waited until its momentum carried it away and pushed. She dug new grooves into the ground with her toes, inches in front of the first ones. Her legs tightened, and her arms became as stiff as the limb she pushed. Her strength, weight, and will, everything she had, was pulled together to shove the limb. It moved forward, past the point of no return, and rolled off the sapling. With a thud, it landed in the leaves at the base of the bent tree.
Shaylee gasped for breath and stared. She expected it to spring back up or turn into a fairy and twitter around her head in joy, but it lay on its side calling out its suffering, mumbling its distress. She knelt beside it and understood the problem. The crack she had heard before the final push was the breaking of the thin trunk. Splinters of wood stood out like teeth and drooled sap. She put her hand to the break and felt the tree’s pain.
The calling grew frantic, a gibbering of fear and loss. Although she didn’t want to feel the pain any longer, Shaylee closed her eyes and opened herself to the sapling. She hoped to comfort it, ease its pain, and let it know that it wasn’t alone.
Fire burned through her skull. She cried out, but didn’t pull away. Instead, she hummed a melody to the little tree to ease its suffering. A song without words, a tune she had never heard before, music pulled from the core of her being. The song didn’t touch her ears, but resonated throughout her soul, bursting from her heart and up through her shoulders, down her arms and out of her hands into the break. The song tingled with warmth wherever it touched her. It tickled like a foot that has fallen asleep, the buzz of a thousand bees. She absently rubbed the break, squeezing it back together and holding it in place until the song became more than she could bear. She gasped and fell backward, releasing the sapling.
Sitting up, she looked at the tree. It stood straight and tall with branches reaching out to every point of the compass like arms held up in praise. The break was gone, replaced by a lump of bark that reminded Shaylee of a snake after eating a frog.
She clapped her hands together and smiled. Though it had only been a young tree she wouldn’t have felt any better about herself if it had been the queen of the fairies that she had saved. She stood and reached out to grasp one of the trees needles, another contact to let it know that she understood and was happy for it. Her stomach cramped, a fist of pain grabbed her insides and yanked. She bent over with a groan and hugged her belly. The pain seized her as strongly as the calling. Another wave of cramps came, and then the pain vanished. She stood and looked down. Blood reddened the front of her dress. She felt it tickling her leg as it dripped down her thigh.