“Understandable,” Zef said.
As he fell into step with Willow, following her deeper into the nursery, Bryce risked a question, “You said sisters, but I thought all Dryads grew alone.”
“Technically, we do,” Willow said as she came to a stop near a plot of freshly tilled earth where several green sprouts were just starting to peek out of the dirt. “Every Dryad sprouts from the life seed of another. Our bodies are returned to the ground when our spirits pass on, and from our death, new life grows. In that sense, yes, we grow alone.
“But we are never truly alone.” She crouched down, palm resting atop the ground beside a fresh sprout. “Beneath what your eyes can see, is a vast network of roots, connecting all of us to each other, to nature,to Mother Dynu. It spans forever, no true beginning or end. A sisterhood, even if we have never met face-to-face.
“We know each other, grow together, learn from one another. And when I am old and pass on from this life, I will return to the root system and be reunited with my sisters. From my body, a new life will be born, and I will know her too, as she will know me.”
Crouching down beside her, Bryce stared at her in awe. “You speak of death like it ain’t something to fear.”
Her responding smile was soft. “Why would I fear going home? Death is simply the next step in the journey. It is a returning, a reuniting. It is not an end, not really. My memories, my experiences, my legacy, they will live on in the hearts and souls of my sisters, of my daughter. Life is not a line, starting at birth and ending with death. It is a circle.”
She took his hand and pressed it into the dirt, covering his fingers with damp earth, then she laid her rough palm over top. “Do you feel the life stirring beneath your fingertips?”
Closing his eyes, he tried to feel what Willow seemed to, but he wasn’t connected to the earth the way she was. He sighed in disappointment and opened his eyes with a shake of his head.
“I just feel dirt.”
“That’s okay. Some things take practice.” She directed his hand to the tiny sprout pushing up through the dirt, and he gently, so gently, brushed a finger over the leaves. “There are bodies here, generations of bones and bark, but it is only because of death that there can be new life. This sproutling will grow with the memories of her mother written in her heart, and when she is ready, she will uproot from the network and go out into the world to make her own memories and create her own legacy which she will bring back and pass on when her time comes. A circle, not a line.”
“It’s—” He cleared his throat when his voice cracked. “It’s beautiful.”
A tear glistened at the corner of Willow’s eye as she drew Bryce’s hand away from the sproutling and squeezed his wrist. “It is, isn’t it?”
Willow stood, and Bryce followed her. Zef had been hanging back, but he was sure they’d been listening, absorbing everything the way he was. As he straightened his coat, they stepped forward, milky gaze heavy on Bryce’s face. He offered them a reassuring smile before he turned back to Willow.
“Why do you uproot? If you’re all connected in the root system, why would you ever leave?”
She didn’t respond right away, instead leading them to another section where the sproutlings were taller, leafy greenery giving way to toughened bark of browns and reds and whites. They were unconscious, facial features still forming as the beginnings of arms jutted from their torsos. Like a baby in utero.
“Like baby Groot,”his brain added, but he banished that thought before he accidentally said it aloud.
“Not all Dryads uproot,” Willow said at last. “I have heard the Sacred Grove is home to generations who have never once detached from the root system. It is a difficult, painful process, and not all feel the calling.”
“Calling?” Bryce echoed.
Willow cupped her hands over her elbows, a self-soothing embrace, like his line of questioning was heading to more personal territory. “The calling, yes. I don’t know how else to describe it. To be part of the root system, to be one with my sisters and those who came before, it is not something easily sacrificed.
“However, not all of us can remain there. We want—no, weneedto experience the world. To depart, to make a way for ourselves separate from the network. To see all that life has to offer and to give back of ourselves.”She shrugged, tucking a chunk of ivy behind her ear. “It is a calling, and not all hear it. Those of us who do may fight it at first, until the choice of remaining is more painful than the process of uprooting. It is a very personal decision, one every Dryad must make for herself.
“But once the choice is made, then the uprooting begins. It hurts, like birth, I imagine. We struggle, and we break, and we tear away at ourselves and our sisters as we strive for freedom. And there’s a moment, when we rip away from the roots and stumble on legs that have never walked before, where we feel all alone for the first time, and we wonder if we’ve made a terrible mistake.” Willow sniffled, wiping at a tear as she smiled sadly. “But then we are welcomed by the sisters waiting on the other side. We are embraced into a new network, one not born from the roots but from the struggle, from the loss, from the grief, and yes, from the relief and triumph of finally,finally, stepping into ourselves.
“Freedom born from pain.” She sighed, smiling through the light tears tracking down her cheeks. “But pain can be beautiful too. We bring painful memories back with us when we return to the root system, not just the happy ones. Because every experience enriches the whole. Even pain.”
“My nan says that we only know the extent of good because we experience the bad too,” Bryce said quietly, and Willow nodded.
“Your nan is very wise.”
“She also wallops the devil,” Zef added in a hushed tone, and Willow cocked her head at them in confusion. They gave Bryce a significant look, then a not-so-subtle wink, and he snorted.
“Oh, uh, yeah, she does that too,” he said around his amusement.
Willow’s mossy green gaze ping-ponged between them a moment. “How… interesting.”
The tour continued as Willow showed where some of the more mature Dyrads were… planted? Instead of sprouts or featureless Groot babies, there were fully-formed Dryads rooted in the earth. Some were clearly still children, speaking and giggling with their neighbors as they spoke in a whistling, breezy language that sounded like the wind.
Then there were teenage Dryads with their noses stuck in books or eyes glued to their phones. Uprooted Dryads mingled with them as well, chatting or even teaching them school lessons, if the portable blackboards were any indication.
