The Scriviner

The Scriviner

By Eleanor Arnason

She stayed with the dryads. By day, they wandered through the forest, sometimes gathering food and sometimes watching the life around them: green pines and yellowing ferns, birds flocking for their autumn migration. The forest shadows held numerous animals: deer, red foes, badgers, red squirrels, weasels, timy mice and voles. The dryads did not harm any of these. They were not hunters.

In the evening they made love in the meadow. Their nights were spent in an earthen cave, formed when a giant pine fell over. The dryads filled the cave half full with grass, and the four women kept each other warm.

One morning Orna woke and found the meadow was covered in frost. She was cold, in spite of the cave and the dryads. Winter was coming. She could not continue to live like this.

« What will you do? » she asked the dryads.

« We sleep through the cold months inside the trunks of trees – except for our sister here. » The dryad who was speaking gestured toward the dark maiden. « She will sleep at the bottom of the river, safe below the ice. »

« I can’t do that, » Orna said.

« Then go home to humanity, but return in the spring. »

The Scriviner. Photo by Elena

Orna kissed the dryads goodbye and went home. When she arrived, ragged and dirty, her father embraced her and said, « We thought you had died in the forest. »

« No, » Orna replied. « But I did not find the witch. The forest distracted me. I wandered a long time, not knowing where I was. »

This was misleading, but not a direct lie. She didn’t want to talk about the dryads. The city’s conservative society did not approve of magical creatures or sex between women.

Her father wisely did not ask more questions, but told his other daughters to fill a tub with hot water and find new clothes for Orna. They did gladly, happy that Orna was home.

Once she was clean and neatly dressed and eating a good dinner, the scrivener said to her, « Don’t think we failed to search for you, dear child. I went to the forest edge and talked to the farmers there. No one had seen you, though they d not go far into the forest, as they told me. They advised me to ask the hunters and charcoal burners, who went father in. We found them here in the city, selling their goods in the market. A rough lot, but not bad hearted. They hadn’t seen you, either. We offered a reward, and everyone – farmers, hunters and carcoal burners – said they would keep an eye out. It was all to no avail. You had vanished. »

Orna felt guilt, but she couldn’t think of a way to apologize or explain.

Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, edited by Rich Horton, Prime Books, 2015.