The Watchtower

Laughter! The witch—or whatever she was—was laughing at him.
    The nerve!
    Will leaped up and drew himself up to a rather flamboyant full height. He was angry, but under sufficient control that he took a few precautionary, further steps back once standing. He was surprised to see the creature, branch-arms, twig-fingers, and all, drooping, as if she was disappointed in his retreat. Will saw a new glistening in her eyes, as if resin had dripped there all of a sudden.
    Tears?
    “Why can’t you confide in me, Sad Boy?” the creature asked in a softer tone. “I live in a world of silent trees, rocks, and dirt. Am I cursed to never hear meaningful speech again?” She extended her right arm toward him, slowly, as if she shyly sought an embrace.
    Despite his wounded pride over falling, Will felt sympathy for her. He stepped forward and took one of the leaved twigs on her right hand between his thumb and forefinger, gently. “What’s your name? I can’t confide in someone without knowing”—he hesitated over gender again, but, after glancing up at the lengthy branches that were her hair, went on—“her name!”
    “I am Sylvianne the Dryad.” After a moment’s hesitation she added, shocking Will, “And the truth is, I love you.”
    “You what?!” Will was tempted to respond sarcastically, but he caught himself and instead replied, “Why how very magnificent of you to say that, my dear.” Given her treesomeness, he didn’t see much risk of this entanglement going further. Isolated and despondent as he was, was he supposed to turn away an unexpected admirer completely?
    Her lips—faint pink lines in bark—barely fluttered, but Will guessed this was a smile. “Does ‘magnificent’ mean hope?” she asked in a plaintive tone.
    Will let go of her twig finger and grasped her entire right hand firmly in his. “It might under nearly all circumstances, my dear, but common decency now makes me warn you that there is another.”
    “Another?! Is that whom you’re looking through your Galileo cylinder for? But you don’t even seem to know where she is!”
    Will wondered if her sharpness was jealousy. Sylvianne appeared mercurial in her moods.
    “You queried me on my sadness, madame. Do you want illumination on this point or not?”
    “Unburden yourself in a wordspill, Sad Boy!”
    Despite wondering at her peculiar language—perhaps English was not her native tongue—Will unburdened himself. Sylvianne listened impassively for the most part, though at one point crossing her leafy arms and shrugging in a way that seemed to make the entire forest tremble. When Will finally got to Marguerite’s immortality, his burning need to attain it, and his current frustration, Sylvianne bristled.
    “ Stop! You insolent human!” she shrieked at Will, who felt her voice as if he were wood and it a saw. He retreated a half dozen steps from her.
    “How dare you speak of immortality to me as something inaccessible, impossible, that only this lady of the night”—Will bristled in turn at this reference—“Marguerite or whatever her name is, can grant you. I am one of the grandest immortal creatures in the the universe. And I can grant immortality to whomever I choose. Insulting me, Sad Boy, is not the way to gain my favor. By imputing my powers to another, no less. Believe me, it just isn’t.”
    An angry tear dripped down gleaming from Sylvianne’s almond eye.
    “I am so sorry, madame,” Will said humbly. “I did not mean to give offense.”
    Something like a sly look settled then over Sylvianne’s features. “And why should I grant you immortality anyway, Sad Boy? So that—that—slut”—she coughed in disgust, and spit a clump of resin on the ground—“can perpetually enjoy your charms?”
    Two contradictory emotions boiled up in Will, one blinding him with rage, the other exalting him with hope. Even as he recoiled from this monstrous mischaracterization of his beloved, it crossed his consciousness that Sylvianne could make him and Marguerite whole through eternity if he engaged in just the right bit of flattery, if he massaged her delusion, if he seduced her into thinking …
    “Can you really grant immortality?”
    She looked at him shrewdly. “Not to just anyone. It could only be given to a … loved one. And I don’t exactly grant it. But I can take you there, Sad Boy. Let’s put it that way. I can take you there.”
    “You can?” Will looked Sylvianne up and down as lasciviously as anyone