I heaved back with all the strength I could bring to bear from my awkward position. I couldn’t readily tell if I were pulling her free, but it seemed like she might be coming out a little. As I tugged Jen’s cheek was intimately pressed into mine. She panted in shallow ragged breaths.
Between breaths, she wheezed, “Can’t breathe. Help me Finn!”
The tree squeezed her like an anaconda, its wood creaking as it tightened around her.
Fear motivated me to pull harder; I couldn’t let Jen die this way. I heaved on her shoulders and cried, “Spring, stop! Don’t do this! Let her go!”
The bark in front of my face swirled and drew back, revealing a distorted version of my dryad’s face. Though she resembled a caricature of a human carved in driftwood, her pain and fear were obvious.
“This One!” Spring cried. “Help me! I cannot stop them. They are destroying me!”
“Let Jennifer go! I’ll help you!”
Spring’s face twisted into a thing only partly human. “This One, she attacked us!” she roared, her voice an echo of tornado force winds. “This One must defend us!”
I heaved hard on Jennifer, and this time, I drew her out a little bit more. Before any sense of relief came over me, a hand reached out of the tree and around my head. It forced me forward and yanked my face into contact with Spring’s. Her rough wooden lips locked onto mine, and numbness spread from her touch. Light-headedness overcame me, followed by crippling cold. I struggled for my own life as she drew it out through my mouth. I tried to fight back, but I couldn’t free myself. She was going to kill me.
At that point, strong arms grabbed me from behind. With a rib-creaking effort, my dad pulled me from that terrible embrace. He kept yelling my name, but the sound barely added to the din of the saw, the thrashing, and groaning of the branches, and Jen’s wailing.
Without warning, Spring released me, and I fell back on top of my dad. The two of us slammed to the ground. I struggled against a growing darkness and a ringing in my ears. My fear and anger became muted as I fought my way through the encroaching darkness. From the bottom of a tunnel of growing apathy, I watched Spring step from the tree, clutching Jen in her hands. She threw Jen away like a child tossing a rag doll.
I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t surrender to the numbness and fatigue. I fought to stay conscious, but I was losing. My hands found my dad’s arms still around me, and I clutched at them as if he were an anchor. Warm strength filled me. It flowed from my dad and into me. In an instant, that strength pushed the darkness back, and the weakness left my limbs. The arms holding me released me. I shouted and jumped after Spring.
Spring's nude form glistened with blood as she rushed in and attacked a similarly bloody Gregg standing next to the trunk in a fog of flying wood-chips and blue smoke. He pulled out the saw and brought it up to protect himself. He didn't stand a chance. Spring backhanded him, smacking the chainsaw away simultaneously smashing Gregg across his chest. He flew back like a stuntman on a wire and rolled to a broken heap on the ground. The chainsaw fell beside him.
Spring went after him. I sprinted after her and screamed, “Stop!”
She swung her wooden cabled arms up over Gregg's prone form. I caught up with her and grabbed them in what I knew was a futile effort to stop them from smashing down on my friend.
At my first touch, she whirled on me to strike. The humanity had drained from her craggy face. Rage replaced it. Her features were wooden and wild. She'd become a monstrous tree creature, a caricature of a woman.
Her raised tree-branch imitation of a human arm vibrated as if against some internal tug of war. Our eyes locked and I cringed with fear. When she saw my reaction, her arm began to drop, and the smooth soft skin I loved to stroke so much returned to her face. “This One! Why?”
Spring’s eyes were huge and brimmed with tears. Her mouth was drawn down with agony. She held out now human arms palms up as if carrying the heavy burden of my betrayal. The hurt and loss on her face stabbed through me as nothing ever had. I would do anything to fix this. I would die to ease her pain.
Behind me, the chainsaw revved up, and its teeth bit into wood again. Spring's mouth opened wide as she loosed an inarticulate scream. Her face hardened one more time; her eyes became knots of wood; bark erupted from her skin, and her mouth became a ragged, splintering tear. She threw me aside as she rushed to defend her tree. I caught my balance, spun around and saw Jennifer wielding the chainsaw this time. She drove the full length of the blade into the tree.
The wood chips spraying from the blade turned into blood spewing from the tree, drenching Jennifer as if she had hit some sort of artery in the middle of the trunk. Between the spewing blood and the pure hatred on Jen’s face, she looked more like a demon from hell than Spring ever had.
Spring reached Jen before I could stop her.
In desperation, I yelled, “Stop! Stop!” No one listened.
Jen spotted Spring’s charge and tried to pull the saw out of the tree to defend against the rushing dryad, but Spring smashed into her headlong and threw her several feet back, leaving the chainsaw's now-idling blade in the tree.
Spring started to follow after Jen, but a tremendous crack thundered through the backyard, and the trunk split. The weight of the branches that had grown far out over our house pulled the mighty oak over with a scream of tortured wood. A shower of blood flew out of the broken trunk as the massive oak crashed into our house.
I didn't care about the house; I only had eyes for Spring. A terrible wound at her waist ripped open, nearly cutting her in half. She turned toward her tree, stretched out her shaking arms, and wailed a terrible cry of despair and loss. Blood pumped out of her wound as she turned her head toward me gaping in pain, confusion, and pleading. She crumpled to the ground. Suddenly it was quiet.
Three people dear to me were lying broken in the blood-soaked grass, and I could only go to one. I had a split second of horror and fear to pause in indecision, and then, overwhelmed with the sight of the horrible gash in Spring’s stomach, I ran and fell to her side to try and staunch the blood.
The hot red blood pooling around her soaked my clothes. The metallic smell clogged my nose as I kept calling to her. I cradled her head in my arms and drew her limp form toward me. She seemed strangely light, as if hollow. I stroked her face and through the blur of my tears, I saw her return to her more human form. Her eyes fluttered open, and the familiar green of them tore at my heart.
“Please, don’t die,” I whispered.
“When roots are sundered, no life is possible. All returns to soil,” she whispered.
My tears fell on her and a faint smile came to her face. “Beautiful This One. This One who has been my Sun is now my Rain.”
She lifted a bloody hand to her face, where my tears landed, then touched my cheek and cradled it.
I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. I couldn’t let it end like this. “Please, Spring, please live. Please do something. Find another tree, tell me what I can do to help you—just don’t die.”
She gave me a sad smile. “The life we shared... Life created. It is enough.”
“No, no, no! Take what you need from me. Take it all.” I cast about in desperation, searching for some answer, some way to save her, and I found a roaring bonfire within me, but not of me. I tapped into that power and light and fed it to her. My previous draining and subsequent restoration by my father had opened up a new dimension for me, and I sent that strength to her along that dimension.
To my amazement and delight, her fading stopped, and her smile grew wider. Her eyes filled with wonder and she whispered, “This One can be my Root, too.”
At that instant, something came back along my stream of power, something primal and wild. All the smells and feelings of life engulfed me. Spring filled my every sense. Her essence, so precious and familiar, surrounded me. Bright, clear, and immediate, all my memories of her returned to embrace me.
As this happened inside, my awareness expanded
to include every living thing around me. The grass and trees growing nearby, the mold reclaiming the fallen, the insects feeding, and the birds hiding in their bushes, all had a place in the world—all partook of an eternal dance of life and death. The beat of the sun and the rain and the slow throb of the seasons drove that dance.
I had only a moment of wonder when pain erupted within me. Every sensation I had been floating in became sharp and unyielding. Spring's essence withdrew its effortless support, contracted into a hard spear of will, and pierced me to my core. It lodged in the center of me and pushed the-me-within aside, spreading through my mind, through my existence, and expanding, pushing harder and harder. The pressure tried to squeeze me out of myself. There was no room for me, and the pressure became unbearable.
This One, hold me! urged the memory of Spring’s voice within me. Images flashed through my mind. Roots pushed through and embraced nurturing soils and cracked unyielding boulders.
I didn’t understand. The pain increased as I fought against the intrusion into my soul. The unstoppable force split me open. My resistance shattered. As my consciousness retreated from the assault, the memory of Spring rose up again, and her warmth cradled me. The warmth’s offer became my need. Everything inverted.
Like the candle becoming the faces, I could see everything from the other side, and I knew what to do. I stopped struggling and welcomed Spring into my soul. What had been a weapon became a gift, what had been forced upon me became an offering of life, primal and burning. I dropped my defenses, my boundaries, and the pressure disappeared as she poured into me with the rush of a river, the roar of the wind, the smell of spring. I became… more.
After an extended moment in time, the flow subsided, settled in, and became quiescent. I opened my eyes to find my hands empty. It did not surprise me, but the bright red blood covering the ground, my hands, and my clothes shocked me back to the current now that I had left moments or eons ago.
I looked up, and the sight of Jennifer lying face down, broken and still on the ground, assaulted my eyes. To make it worse, a short distance away, the shattered and blood-soaked stump of my oak thrust obscenely from the earth. The last golden light of the dying day had faded, leaving everything cold and gray.
I stood and slipped on the wet lawn, went back down on one knee. The blood-soaked grass made a squidging sound, like a wet sponge when squeezed. I gathered myself up again and hurried to Jennifer’s side. I fell beside her, begging her not to be dead, and turned her over. She flopped onto her back like a discarded puppet.
The sight of her horrified me. Bright scarlet blood covered her and a large red welt swelled over her left eye. I hesitated to touch her again, but the lack of movement of her chest overcame my fear of hurting her. I put my hand on her throat to check for a pulse. I couldn’t feel a thing, just the sticky wet blood that covered her.
I panicked, trying to remember anything I knew about first aid. Only then, I recalled that I shouldn’t move anyone who might have a neck injury. Oh, shit! Maybe I had just killed her or paralyzed her by turning her over.
Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! I screamed in my head.
Listen.
The thought came out of nowhere and seemed to hang in my mind. Listen to what?
Listen.
The knowledge of what to do came to me like a memory. I Listened. It wasn’t listening per se. This version of hearing resembled listening like a picture of Mount Everest resembled standing on the summit. For the first time, I opened myself up, and I Listened; the world came rushing in. The strong beat of Jennifer’s heart in her chest thumped alongside mine. The blood rushed through her veins, and whipped by before my eyes, as though I were there within her. I knew immediately that none of the blood on the ground came from her, and her eye was whole. Her body was still alive and strong.
At that moment, I looked up to send my thanks to God, and instead of God, I found Erik Parmely. He stood by the corner of my house. Our vision locked over the shattered stump of my oak tree. His eyes were wide and filled with emotion that I later recognized as fear. I must have looked rather demonic holding Jen, the two of us covered with blood. For my part, he scared the shit out of me. I didn’t know what to do. What would I do if he attacked me again?
“Finn?” The weak and panicked call from my mom drove Erik from my mind.
I turned to see her watching me with bleak eyes. She sat with the body of my dad pulled onto her lap. Tears ran down her cheeks. I gently, but quickly, lay Jen down, got up, and ran to my mom.
“Dad!”
I threw myself down on my knees beside him.
“What happened?” I didn’t remember seeing him get hurt.
“I don’t know!” Mom cried. “He just fell over. He must have hit his head. I think he’s dying.”
“No!” I couldn't let that happen.
Listen, came the thought again.
This time I immediately followed my thought; I Listened to him. When I did, I heard my dad’s failing heartbeat and saw the darkness shrouding him. The life within him flickered and faded like a candle going out.
“Mom, what happened to him?”
“He… he…,” she started. “He pulled you away from the… the… thing in the tree, and the two of you fell to the ground. He never got up.”
My mind raced back to that moment, and I considered the sudden burst of strength from the touch of his arms. Did I do this to him? I wasn’t sure. What kind of a person would do something like this to his father—to my father?
Life spent. Time is done.
“No!” I shouted back, answering my own thoughts.
My emotional reaction seemed to steady my mom or helped her tap some inner strength of her own. “Finn, go call an ambulance.”
“Mom, there isn’t time! He’s dying!”
“Finn, look at me.” When I did, she said, “Go get the phone and dial nine-one-one.”
“No, I did this. I can fix it!”
I didn’t see her reaction to my pronouncement; I just put my head on my dad’s chest and Listened—deeply. The rest of the world dropped away. Knowledge of his body flowed through me. I heard its processes shutting down. As cells died, their deaths made little implosions against my mind: pop; pop; pop—like microscopic bombs.
“No, you can’t die!” I pleaded. I had to find a way to fix this. I had caused it somehow, and I would fix him or die trying. The memory of how his strength flowed into me bubbled to mind. I tried to reverse it, imagined blowing life back into his failing cells. I tried imaging a river flowing from me to him. Nothing happened.
Life fails. It ends.
“No! Help me! Help me fix him. Help me understand what’s wrong with him!”
Then Listen to the dying light.
My thoughts were guided deeper. I sank down into my dad’s being, his essence. I reached into his core, and I Listened and Looked. There, the fire flickered, the fire that created him, that sustained him and all the cells in his body. He was dying. The sustaining force of his life had failed. The part of him that fueled the flames was broken. I couldn’t tell what was wrong, but I could sense the wrongness.
I changed my focus to myself and Listened. In my own body, I saw the difference. Where my dad’s fires were dying, mine raged crackling and pulsing around me. The contrast was clear and stunning, but didn’t show me what I needed to know.
You are the Sun, the Source, the Root.
On instinct, I followed the voice back to where it originated. Within mine, another fire burned—a flame distinct from me, one that drew its power from me. I dove through the flames to their core, and I recognized Spring within me, now a part of me. I dove deeper still, and she surrounded me, soothed me, and calmed me. Within her, within me, I found the key. I discovered how I fed her flames. I forced my awareness back into my dad, and I tried to duplicate what I had seen within his fading being. I was clumsy, ignorant, and stupid. I did through brute force that, which I know now, needs finesse and gentle persuasion. The only thing I can say is tha
t sometimes I’m a lucky bastard. It worked—sort of.
My joy over the power flowing from me into my dad outweighed every other sense or desire I had. I pushed harder, and the fire passing through to him raged and burned, but I would not let him die. I gave him everything and then more. I pushed until the world around me started to fade. Darkness flooded within me, flowing up and over me as I continued my frantic push. The darkness closed in and, I only had time to think, Uh-oh, before it took me.
Once More, Out Of The Darkness …
This time, when I awoke in the hospital, no giant coffee pots greeted me. I only woke to the sound of Eric Cartman’s whiny nasal voice singing, “Kyle’s Mom is a great big bitch, a big, big bitch. She’s a mean old bitch…”
Over that, I heard Dave laughing with Jim. They sat next to each other in the corner of the darkened hospital room, watching the animation on Dave’s laptop, which sat on the hospital’s version of a TV dinner table.
Yep, looked just like last time: institutional chic. The curtains were closed, although some sunlight peeped in through the folds of the curtains. I really wanted to go back to sleep. I was tired and felt like crap, but my hunger wouldn’t let me. Besides, who would watch South Park in their friend’s hospital room?
“You’re kidding me, right?” I croaked out. Dave’s face broke into an even bigger smile when he noted I was awake. “Mighty Finn! You’re back!” He slapped the laptop closed, cutting off the song, before coming over to my bed.
Jim rose slower and made his way to the bed as well. He questioned, “How you feeling, Finn?”
I ignored them both. “Really? You’re sitting in a hospital room next to your sick and dying friend watching Southpark? Have you no shame?”
Dave grinned. “Hey, it gets boring sitting around watching you piss into a bag and get skinny.”
The Dryad's Kiss Page 29