The dogs are all sleeping, sunk in a honey mire of happy dreams, so they don't hear it unlatch the door and enter the house. The heavy tick of the grandfather clock reverberates in the air down the long corridors and masks it's careful footsteps along the polished wood floor. A memory runs down their grains. The smell of it, ancient and loamy, tickles a sensation long thought abandoned in the process of their transformation from living things to comforts for human feet. But past the hewing and sanding and application of veneer, the wood recalls the once-common odour of their guardian. In the next moment, it is gone from the corridor and into the bedroom, and the planks embedded in the floor return to unthinking compliance.
The child, like the dogs, has her senses muffled by the flickering images projects across her unconcious mind. But something, perhaps the presence of a second set of breathing, agitates an instinct. Part of her wakes and runs the tip of her nose and broad of her cheek across the bedsheet. She sighs and looks out into the dark. Then, seeing a shape that was not there when her father knocked the light off, her brain is shocked into wakefulness and she stifles a scream.
'You scared me,' she hissed at the figure stood in the centre of the moonlit room. It doesn't move, its head precariously close to touching the ceiling despite its stooping posture. It creaks a little, its barky flesh crackling, as some process unfolds in its core.
'What are you doing here?' says the girl, sitting up in bed and rubbing an eye.
The creature shuffles into the light, its movements stuttering and ungainly. This close, she can smell the tangy amber that runs through its form.
It extends an arm, holding out a familiar, brown paper package.
'Brought you happy meal,' croaks the dryad.
Paddy Dobson
7th August 2020