When he said the dryads he knew were gone, she looked away from his gaze that looked so much sadder. She understood. Dryads lived forever unless their trees died. However, what he said next made her eyes widen with shock, and her head jerked up to look at him. He was walking away, a man who claimed to have been alive for centuries.
Even though she was a dryad, she had never met any other dryads who had lived so long. The oldest person she’d ever met was her great-grandmother on her mother’s side, and she was probably a little over one hundred years of age though she only looked to be about eighty. However, the woman didn’t even pretend to want anything to do with Jia because she didn’t approve of the young-woman’s mother’s choice in a Caucasian, American husband.
As she watched him walk away, her feet seemed to move of their own volition away from the tree, toward him. She had so many questions. What was he? When had he been born? What had he experienced? The awkward phrase he had used earlier came back to her: old school. That must have been what he had meant.
Jia realized she didn’t even know the man’s name, and her lips parted to speak. Suddenly, she came back to herself, and she closed the distance she had made between the tree and herself. What was she thinking? He was a stranger, and it was late. No one was around to see them, so she didn’t have the public eye to keep her safe.
Besides, as fog began to creep in the distance, she realized she was quite tired. She needed to go to bed.
Even so, as she disappeared into the tree to which she had previously clung, she hoped she could see him again when it wasn’t so late, when there were more people around to see them. He interested her, and she knew she needed to stop being so mistrustful of people even if it was easier said than done.