Petra

The forest is never truly quiet. The breath of lizards and the drying snail trails can be heard throughout the night.  The wind never sleeps, it plays with the leaves, and swirls hair around sleeping faces.  It explores high and low, and sneaks into the tiniest of places.  It whistles, it whines, it sings.  It shushes the babe that starts to wake. To those who live here, each sound is a treasure…a comfort. 

Many inhabit this forest, and have done so for generations.  One could stroll for hours though, and never know. There will not be one leaf out of place, not one broken toadstool.  Not one stray thread of fine linen tugged from its hem by a wanting root. There may, however, be the faintest laugh or even a song carried by the breeze and tossed back and forth playfully. This is the world of the Dryad. Long have they indwelt these trees. 

Though Dryads live longer than human folk, time is still very precious to them. This is why Dryads are typically calm and patient, they like witnessing all of life’s unique little inner workings. They treasure every smile, every cloud, and every fallen acorn.  Like some humans though, a Dryad will take care of their own no matter the cost. This is where Petra’s story surfaces.

As a young child or what some would jokingly call a “sapling”, Petra loved the rain. She loved every single thing about it. Her mother would watch as Petra would follow a drop of rain from as far up as she could see it, to its destination. Some drops would splash onto leaves, some would go straight for the ground and quickly burrow into the dirt. If a drop ever found a brief stop on Petra’s face, she would close her eyes and smile so big that it made her mother long for the rain to come. The scent of the rain hitting the dry ground, petrichor, would forever remind Petra’s mother of the Aoibhneas (pronounced EEV-nass) – the time of great joy and growth. This is why she named her daughter Petrichorae; quickly shortened to Petra by her family and even the elders, who loved Petra very much. 

Petra is one of many children, but she was the only one who expressed interest in the true ways of the Dryad, therefore this made her the favorite of many, including Nuala, the oldest dryad in their forest. Petra embraced nature and vowed to be the caretaker of every plant, creature, and raindrop that she encountered. 

The Aoibhneas lasted well into Petra’s adulthood. It was a time of utopia for Petra’s forest. The biggest worries she had were keeping the forest safe from the few random humans that would walk through from time to time, and also how to keep her many siblings entertained so they wouldn’t venture off to see more interesting places.

One day, when Petra and the youngest children were planting special beans out in the clearing, a loud rumbling could be heard and even felt in the ground as well. Petra didn’t quite recognize the sound, but she knew it wasn’t thunder. She had one of the more responsible children take the others to safety, and she went off on her own to find the source. 

When she made it back to her tree, she called for her family, and the elders, but not one of them answered.  Something was wrong, she couldn’t sense anyone, so she continued to search the forest calling out in hopes of some kind of reply. Along the way, she was sickened to find bare branches, scorch marks on the ground, and foliage that was decaying for no apparent reason. What had happened? 

Further into the forest, where the tallest and oldest trees lived, Petra called out one last time and placed her hands on the trees in total despair.  Nuala the Eldest, spoke out weakly. She told Petra that the sound she had heard was a spell being cast. All who had been in the forest were bound to their trees and silenced. Nuala was fighting against the spell, so she could only manage to get a few more words out. Petra and the children were the only hope in reversing the spell, and she vowed to not stop until she freed all those in the forest. 

Over the next few sad and lonely months, Petra taught the children all she knew about cooking and taking care of one another. And to the oldest children, she taught them how to defend themselves and the forest. She knew she had to leave to find the source of the spell but she could not take the others with her. Every day, she walked through the forest and talked to her family and to the elders and reassured them that they would be taken care of and that she would fix things. She also expressed her concern in doing this on her own, and she hoped for some type of help.

As Petra was packing food and her belongings to take with her on her journey, she heard someone whistling. It couldn’t have been any of the children, for she taught them all the music that they had ever heard, and this tune was not familiar to her. Petra snuck through the forest to find the source of the whistling, and then she found it…A human in a long brown robe.  It was a man, and he abruptly came to a stop, as if he knew someone was watching him. He called out to see who was there. 

Petra couldn’t sense any air of vindictiveness or hate coming from this being. In fact, she saw that he had a small lizard on his shoulder and a squirrel in the crook of his arm that he would pet now and then.  Thinking that the gods must have sent this man to her, she called out to him and walked from behind a tree so that he could see her.

The man introduced himself as Brother Ob, which was short for “Abscondell”, a name he had earned himself while on ships out to sea. He explained that he had the hands of a pirate but a heart that followed his God. That he always tried to do good, even if it required a little bit of stealing now and then. Brother Ob said he was a friar and he had ventured out on his own because he felt like he was being called to this forest. Petra explained to him what had happened and what she had to do. They quickly decided that they would carry on together with the common goal of reversing the spell that bound her kind to their trees. 

Petra took Brother Ob to the Eldest and had him place his hands on the tree to receive a blessing. From there, Petra went back to her own tree and did something that she never thought she would have to…she removed a piece of her tree to take with her.  This is something the Dryads had to do, for if their tree was ever destroyed, they would lose the ability to morph back into it, therefore losing part of themselves forever. Petra removed a long piece of root and filled a pouch full with acorns. She hugged all of the children, made sure they had everything they needed, and then set off with her new companion, Brother Ob.

The friar soon realized that Petra was very intelligent, but she only knew of her Forest. She had never ventured outside of her home; so he started telling her stories of his travels across many lands. Petra found this quite astonishing and wanted to learn more. They did most of their travel on foot, so it seemed to Petra like they would never really get that far, but Ob then told her about something called a portal… a shimmering thing that you could just walk through and be in a whole different land, or even a whole different time. 

After months of going from town to town, searching, and asking many questions, Petra was getting discouraged. Yes, she was getting to see new things, try foods that she never knew existed, and meet new people, but it seemed kind of selfish. She wasn’t supposed to be doing this for her, she was supposed to be helping her forest… Her family. 

Days after expressing her discouragement to the friar – who was now her closest friend for whom she cared for greatly – they came across a shimmering spot. Petra couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t just a crazy story, it was real! She grabbed Ob’s hand, they gave each other a mutual look of agreement, and together they ran through the portal.

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