Beech - Legend of the Dryads, Book 2

Chapter 5

What is déjà vu? Jayne could find no answer.

The sense that you had been in the same situation before, even though you probably hadn't? It made no sense. Yet it was something that Jayne had experienced on multiple occasions. It was a weird feeling that left her brain confused, unable to find the answer attached to the memory which her mind insisted was there. Yes, she knew the feeling well, and was sure that she would be able to identify the phenomenon the next time it presented itself.

This was not déjà vu. She felt that she had been in exactly the same situation before, yes, but there was a difference. And that difference was that she knew she had been in exactly the same situation before. The fear. The danger. That familiar sense of foreboding. It was all the same.

It was only the reasons behind her trepidation that had changed. Whereas one before she had looked upon the woods dreading what may have been lurking within the boughs, now she stood, with her heart in her mouth, with fear of what could be hiding within herself.

For so long, she had locked the memories away and pushed them to the back of her mind like a box of discarded old clothes. Was she really ready to reopen that capsule and allow the emotions she thought she had rid herself of back into her life?

Yes. She was.

For the first time since the Dryads' demise, Jayne took one step into the field of ferns, the sea of emerald leaves immediately swallowing her foot. A strong, icy wind picked up, causing Jayne to run a hand up and down her arm; reminding her that is was still early hours. The winter sun had yet to rise in the 6:00am sky, and a dewy dampness clung to the air, sending her body temperature plummeting even further.

Jayne retraced her steps, placing one faltering foot in front of the other. The forest looked much like how she remembered it — the tall trunks all joining together as one body, looking down on the island like a guardian watching over its citizens. Only now, from those trees exuded a sense only of calm. It was to feel inviting, not daunting.

Jayne snatched in a sharp breath the second she stepped between the first two trees, her eyes widening in wonder at the beauteous scene before her, for with the dissipation of the evil that once lived there had thrived new life. The trees were alive with the morning cacophony of the birds and a myriad of colour flourished from all around her, like the palette of an enthusiastic artist, even in the depth of winter while the sun had yet to break the horizon.

She knew where she was heading even before she was aware of herself moving forward. The pattern that she wove between the trees, following an un-worn track, felt familiar to her body, and when she finally came to a stop, she was not in the least surprised to find that her own subconscious had led her to the beech stump. Her beech stump.

This was the reason why she didn't want to re-visit the woods. This was where she had seen it all happen; where she'd personally witnesses the horrific tragedy that had been her own father's murder. Though she had not known he was her father at the time.

Back when all the drama of being a Willow was still unfolding, Jayne had had a dream which had transformed her entire outlook on her life. In her mind's eye, she had re-lived that fateful moment her father had been slain by the Dryads. An image; a glimpse. But it was enough to tell her that she had once lived here. Not as a person as such, but as the soul of a beech tree.