CHAPTER 20

Bianca

I have no idea what is happening. I feel like I have floated up from my body and now I'm looking down on myself.

I see Edmund rushing over to me. He wraps his arms around me, embracing me, but it helps little. I seem to have fallen into a trance-like state, where my entire body is twitching and jerking. There is also some weird light and fog forming around me, as if it is oozing from the ground itself.

Suddenly, roots of nearby trees start tearing themselves out of the ground and aim straight for me, grabbing my arms and feet. I feel that falling sensation, and once again, I am back inside my body, with someone keeping my eyes firmly shut.

"Edmund!?" I manage to muster, but I feel like my mouth has gone numb as well, and I can barely form words properly.

"Bianca, hold on!" I hear him shout back.

The grip on my right wrist loosens, and instead of a hard, wooden grip, I feel skin on skin. I don't see anything, but I know it's Edmund. He is trying to free me from the roots, which I fear might try to pull me apart. The thought frightens me beyond belief, even more than this inability to open my eyes.

Edmund lets go, and instead of his hand, a root grips at me once more, keeping my arms and my legs in a widespread position. I expect to start feeling pain any moment, but still, nothing. I am merely kept in place by the roots, nothing else. They aren't inflicting any pain onto me. At least, not for the time being.

"Ed… mund!?" I manage to call out to him again, but I barely hear myself. I doubt he can hear me as well.

The fact that I can't see him, I can't call out to him, I can't feel him, makes me feel completely lost. I have no idea what is going on and I feel alone, although I'm sure that he didn't leave me.

I hear heavy breathing, and I can only assume that it's him, trying to free me from the roots, without any success.

Slowly, I start to feel warmer and warmer, as if the very rays of the sun are entering my body through the tips of my fingers, heating me up gently from the inside, then this warmth spreads throughout my entire body. Slowly, I stop fighting it, because I see that whatever this strange energy is, it doesn't want to harm me. It is doing something to me, and I still have to find out exactly what, but it won't harm me. Something inside of me is assuring me of this. I just need to let go, and everything will be alright.

I inhale deeply, then exhale, opening my mind and heart to whatever this energy is. The moment I do that, heat unfurls inside of me, as if the sun exploded right inside my chest. This is when I am once again allowed to open my eyes, and the first thing I see are the tree branches above me, with the sky spreading around me as far as the eye can see.

I turn to the left, and Edmund is tied to the cherry tree by a million thin roots which are squeezing him. I can see him gasping for air.

"No!" I scream as loudly as I can, the scream being torn out of my very heart.

The moment my voice explodes all around us, the roots instantly loosen around him, and he drops down to his knees, coughing and breathing heavily. I don't know how this happened, but I don't question it.

I want to ask him a million questions, if he's alright being the most important of them, but once again, I am rendered unable to speak. At least I can keep my eyes open.

Unexpectedly, sharp pain cuts through the tips of my fingers, as if someone is sticking needles underneath my nails. The pain is sharp, but bearable. It was just unanticipated. This is followed by hard pressure, which feels as if someone is pulling my fingers, making them stretch as long as they can, which isn't much.

Then, I feel like all the bones inside of my body crack at the same time. It is a huge amount of pain, all at once, then relief follows, unlike anything else I've ever felt.

Slowly, I feel the grip of the roots loosening. When I turn to Edmund again, he is back on his feet, rushing over to me. I am still lying on the ground, liberated now.

He cups my face with his hands. They feel cold and clammy.

"Bianca?" he mumbles my name, making me look at him. "Are you alright?"

It takes me a moment or two for my mind to find the right words. It is as if suddenly, I've learned a new language, something that feels much more native to me than English, and now, I have to remember English words and how to use them.

"I think so," I nod, slowly lifting my head off the ground. "My hands…"

I lift my right hand to my eyes and gasp in horror. The ends of my fingers are green, as green as the grass.

"What's this?" I exclaim, quickly trying to wipe this color from my fingers, rubbing them against the fabric of my t-shirt, but none of it is coming off. "Shit!" I shout seeing that there is no point.

"You can't wipe that off," I hear Edmund say.

I sit up, looking at him, all puzzled. "How do you know? Do you know what this is?"

"I do," he nods, looking at my fingers, then back up at me.

"Well… what is it!?" I exclaim apprehensively, feeling like I'm about to lose my mind. "I'm turning green!"

I can't look away from my fingers, which have taken on a greenish hue at the top and around the nails. Nothing hurts, though. At least there's that. But I look sick. I look like someone with bruised fingers.

"You're not," he says, and I want to slap him for sounding so calm, when I'm going crazy with worry. "I mean, not any more than you already are, just your fingers."

"If you don't tell me right now what the hell is going on, I swear, Edmund– "

"You're a dryad," he says, interrupting me.

"A what?" I ask, not sure if I've even heard this term.

"A dryad," he repeats. "A wood nymph."

"A wood nymph?" I echo again and feel like this conversation is getting ridiculous. "

"It's a supernatural creature, just like shifters, vampires and all the rest," he explains, his voice calm and patient. "There used to be a lot of them, living in forests and mountains. But just like the rest of us, you are growing extinct. To tell you honestly, it's been decades since the last time I've seen one."

"A wood nymph?" I just can't stop repeating what he is telling me.

The realization still refuses to enter my mind and stay there. So, I have to keep saying it over and over again, until I make it true.

Suddenly, my ears start to itch. I lift my fingers to scratch them, and I notice that they've become pointy at the top.

"And my ears?" I demand, desperate for more answers.

"Yeah," he nods, taking a closer look. "You've got elf ears now."

"Elf ears!?" I shake my head at myself. "No, no. This can't be happening. This is a dream, right? I'm still dreaming. We aren't really here, in the woods. We're back at the factory. Yes, this is a dream." I keep babbling, and he lets me. He knows I need to get it out of my system somehow. This seems to be the best way, to just keep repeating that this is a dream.

"No," he says after a few moments have passed. "You're not dreaming."

He takes me by the hand, and his touch calms me down. At least a little.

"I know this might be difficult to accept, but you're not a human," he says.

"But…" I look at him, disbelieving. "That is what I believed my entire life."

"I don't know if the shifters know," he suddenly wonders. "It would be better that they didn't."

"Why?" I ask.

"Because dryads are very powerful beings," he explains.

He takes my hand and spreads my fingers wide apart.

"Don't," I pull my hand away from him. "My fingers are gross."

He pauses, then reaches for my hand again. He touches my fingers gently with his, intertwining them. This time, the touch of his hand is warm, pleasant.

"Your fingers are beautiful," he says. "And so is the rest of you… pointy ears or not."

I chuckle. I can't resist him. I doubt I'll ever be able to.

"You see your fingers as ugly, but they can do amazing things," he continues. "Try it."

He lets go of my hand, and it remains floating in the air between us, as if it doesn't belong to either of us. That is certainly how I feel about it right now, as if it's not my hand at all.

"I don't know how," I admit.

"You do," he corrects me. "You're just fighting it."

"I'm not," I pout.

"You are," he says. "And it's OK. I understand. I would fight it also, if I thought I was something… ordinary all my life, and now, it turns out I'm not. I'm extraordinary. I'm supernatural. I'm beyond belief."

Once again, he makes me smile with his words.

"So… what do I do?" I ask again, moving my fingers forward and backward, flickering them.

"Try to close your eyes," he says again, just like that time when he helped me remember Milena. I immediately do as he says. "Your body knows what to do, even if your mind may not know yet. Let these two parts of you meet. Let your body tell your mind what to do."

I inhale deeply. Once again, that warmth rises out of some hidden depths of my body. This time, I don't fight it. I welcome it. It surges through me. I feel it in the back of my neck, like goosebumps, then down both my shoulders and out of my fingers.

"There!" I hear him exclaim. "You're doing it!"

"Doing what?" I ask, opening my eyes. "Aaaah!" I gasp, looking at my fingers.

They've began to sprout branches, extending several inches. I can't even see where my skin ends and where the branches begin, because they're somehow merged together.

"What on earth…" I say more silently this time, mesmerized. One of the branches pops open with a leaf and another, a small, white cherry blossom.

"You're blooming, Bianca," Edmund says in awe.

"I… am?" I ask, equally amazed at what I just did.

I try to focus again, this time with my eyes open. A moment later, the branches withdraw back into me, and I am left with my usual, albeit green fingers.

"There," he says, grinning. "Piece of cake, no?"

I smile, unable to say anything.

"And that's not all," he adds.

"You mean, it's not enough that I can blossom into a tree, but there's more?" I gasp. "What is it?"

"You can move things with your mind," he says.

"Telekinesis?"

"Yes," he nods.

"Impossible," I say.

"You are the one who makes things possible and impossible. Humans still have to learn that part of nature and existence," he says, with a dismissive wave of the hand. "But you aren't a human. You are so much more. Nothing is impossible for you."

"Should I try it?" I wonder.

"It takes a lot of mental effort," he warns. "I doubt you can do it as easily as having your fingers sprout."

I try to lift a nearby pebble. He's right. I can't do it. Not yet, at least. He realizes immediately that I tried to do it and comforts me.

"Don't beat yourself up over it," he smiles. "When the time comes, you'll be able to do it."

I look in the direction of the well. "It's there, isn't it?"

"Mhm," he turns to the same direction. "But I need my men with me to open it completely. You reacted to it, so I'm sure it is there."

"How come it transformed me?" I wonder, still in awe of everything that just happened. I can't stop looking at my green fingers, feeling that raw power of nature blooming inside of me.

"The well has that power on dryads," he explains. "It is your main nourishment. Just like us, without it, you lose your power."

"So… I need it as much as you do?" I wonder.

"Even more," he nods.

"Then, let's head back and get everyone to come," I smile. "I feel thirsty."

He chuckles. "That's a grand idea."