Beech - Legend of the Dryads, Book 2

Chapter 7

Through the gnarled, old trees wandered the lonely spirit. She had to admit, she had no idea what to do now. She'd found Jayne, the other half of her memories; her soul. She imagined that was all she'd have to do, and yet pure memories still eluded her. Perhaps she was greedy for wishing her memories back so badly, for a spirit was not supposed to recall emotions.

But then a soul was supposed to remember nothing at all about their past lives. Jayne had already broken that rule, so why couldn't Beech break another?

Beech. That was a name that insinuated a lot. Showed that she was too insignificant to be given a proper name. So she had dubbed herself after the tree that had held her spirit captive for 200 years. Not a new name to mark a new life, but a chain that kept her tethered to her old existence. She wished for that chain to be cut. But how? She was bound to this earth by the wrongdoers who had destroyed her life in the first place. She thought regaining her memories would help her to free herself, but so far, not a single glimpse shed light on the shadows that clouded her mind.

She'd kind of assumed that, once she'd introduced herself to Jayne, everything would come flooding back to her. But seemingly things weren't quite as simple as she had hoped.

Beech wove mindlessly between the thick oak branches as dusk began to descend. When the Dryads still roamed these woods, they could not see her in her ghostly form, but every time she was near them, she felt a sense of foreboding. She was glad they were gone now. Gone for good. She could now drift through these woods of her own accord.

But she couldn't stay. Not as half a being. Her useful memories had been taken and used for the greater good, and here she was – a discarded carcass unable to move on.

But one day, one day, she would.

~~~

It was awkward around the lunch table the next day, despite Tiffany's attempts at making it otherwise. Tara would join in with Tiff's often one-sided conversation from time to time, and even tried to involve Jayne once or twice, but she was having none of it. Keeping to herself, Jayne kept her eyes downcast and focussed on the homemade pasta salad in front of her. Talking was not on the list of things she most wanted to be doing right then.

Todd was uncharacteristically silent. Usually one to rival Tara in regards to table chatter, his abrupt change in demeanour made for a completely different atmosphere around the group of friends. Michelle had asked Todd once how he was feeling, but aside from that, nothing had been mentioned about Todd's earlier dramatics – it was like everyone could sense how sensitive the subject was to touch, causing them all to shy away from the mere mention of his accident.

Every so often, Jayne would raise her head from her food, to find Todd glancing over at her with an unreadable expression on his face, before going straight back to prodding his canteen lasagne with his plastic fork.

"Awesome!" exclaimed Tiffany loudly in response to something Tara had just said, capturing everyone's attention. "So who's up for it?"