Sometimes she felt like she needed to run away. Staring down at her hands pressed together, she could feel her palms becoming numb. They had been pressed together with extra pressure, as if the pain would be noticed by God, and he would feel her desperation. Her fingertips curled simultaneously, symmetrically pressing against one another. Her heart began to falter and fall, but before the words to describe her depression formed, the wooden door to the confessional swung open, its old hinges creaking the announcement of another cleansed soul. She lifted her gaze to watch as 13-year-old Rebecca exited to the main hall of the cathedral.
The kind gaze of the priest almost reassured her. He silently invited her into her side of the compartment with the gesture of his fingers. She averted her eyes when she stepped into the booth. The door closed behind her, and she knelt down on the diagonal floorboard. The stiff silence lasted too long.
She stared at the floorboard, following the textures of the old wood. Heat was rising in the confessional. It wasn’t well ventilated, which wasn’t pertinent to one who needed to confess the sins out of her mind and soul. Finally, she heard the priest’s voice. Despite how friendly he seemed, his voice was coldly business-like.
“State your name.”
“Anise Wormwood.” She spoke sharply like a well-trained dog.
“Anise, welcome,” spoke the priest. His voice almost seemed warmer. “You may proceed.”
Her somewhat numbed hand lifted to make the sign of the cross, then curled against her lap. “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.”
“When was the last time you confessed?” The priest asked patiently.
“Three weeks ago.” Anise replied.
“Please proceed.”
Anise felt her jaw move back and forth. Her heart ached from nervousness, and for the treachery she felt against herself and for those around her. She didn’t want to speak now that she was here, but she could sense the priest waiting.
In through her nose she took in the stale air, then exhaled and dropped her shoulders. “I do not give the proper respect a wife should to my husband. He wants a child, and perhaps more than one. A woman’s heart should be filled with love and excitement at the thought of having a child, shouldn’t she? Mine just cringes and closes up at the thought. All I can feel is indifference at best, and at worst I want to cry and run away. I hate being at home where he wants me to be. I can’t cook any meals he likes, and most of all, I just plain hate being with him. For the past two years, I have not been able to conceive. He is heartbroken, and I have felt nothing more than relief. But the dread becomes thicker each time. I fear I am falling out of love with him over all of this.”
“Don’t worry, you will love your child and be happy when it comes.” The priest said reassuringly.
A painful feeling sank deeper into Anise’s chest at his words. The urge to cry and to yell at him was forcefully repressed. She clenched her teeth together, and she further lowered her gaze. Her eyes slid shut.
“Is there nothing more to give?” the priest asked after a few passing moments of silence.
“No,” she said softly, shaking her head. She rubbed her eyes when she hollowly listened to the prayer she heard from the priest each time she was in her.
“God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to himself, and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the Church, may God grant you pardon and peace. And I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
Anise left the confessional without looking back. Her glazed eyes cast to the floor as she passed through the hallway. Around the corner she could hear the community conversing in one of the rooms. She paused when she passed an old mirror, tinted with a brassy color and tarnished with age. Divots gave the mirror its own personality, as if it had long become bored with reflecting the images of others, and chose its own face. She stared in at her frowsied face. Her once bright, bottle-green eyes had become dull like the dying grass in a drought. Her hair, she once recalled to be a rich strawberry blonde with curls like ocean waves. Frazzled it had become, tarnishing at the roots and unkempt now. Her skin was textured with lines. She felt aged like the mirror, and she wasn’t sure how she managed to look gangly and overweight at the same time. Her face and hands were skeletal, but her hips, butt, and wasteline set her among the large group of Americans who had long since given up on trying to reach the high standards set by the magazines. “Those people aren’t realistic.” She often found herself saying to others, many whom shared the sentiment. Yet somehow, it wasn’t as reassuring as it should have been. Those same others she conversed with over the topic were the same ones who still, year after year, harrowed their lives with diets, exercises, and obscure herbal remedies in the name of being beautiful.
Even her teeth had suffered a little. They were tea and coffee-stained. The thoughts of purchasing a bleaching kit for them distracted her from the confessions she spoke earlier. It was enough for her to finally lift her head and make her way towards the community gathering. A smile and many warm greetings were given to her upon entering. She went through the motions of saying hello to her fellow Catholics. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted an array of potluck dishes on tables lining the perimeter of the wall. She had forgotten about the church’s monthly potluck. It was a kind surprise to her in the face of her troubles. Quietly she nodded her head and thanked God for his blessing that day. The line for the food felt dreary. She picked up a paper plate and began to load up. Her troubles began to crumble away with each piece of food she picked up. She reached for a roasted, crispy chicken leg, and for a few grapes. Dinner rolls, hams, and a touch of vegetable salads were added to her plate. Then she reached the dessert section. The selection was more diverse than the entrees. With little desire to resist temptation, she gathered a powdered donut, a chocolate cupcake, two chocolate chip cookies, and a piece of the homemade carrot cake. Satisfied once she filled her plate and picked up a glass of chilled tea, she took a seat with the rest of the church members. She waited patiently, giving a forced smile as the others chattered around her. When the last person sat down, everyone at the table performed a synchronized sign of the cross, and then the prayer began.
“Anise!” called a cheerful woman’s voice. Anise blinked slowly, then broke her zen. She hardly realized that the prayer was finished. She knew better than to stare in surprise at her friend. She simply let herself look a little tired, which wasn’t far from the truth, and received the response she expected.
“Were you giving God a longer prayer?” asked her friend, whose smile hadn’t once wavered.
Anise gave a half-smile and nodded to her, “Yes, Jen. That’s all.” In truth she had simply zoned out. Her mind was in such a fog that she barely remembered any of her thoughts. It was like sitting out on the road after a thick Autumn rain where the fog rising from the damp road was so thick that it blocked the view of the nearby trees.
“Well, come back down from there and join us, won’t you?” Jen invited warmly. Promptly, though prompt took about several minutes longer with Anise, she picked up the chicken leg and took the first bite. The crisp, warm flesh crunched under her teeth. The salty content was on the heavy side, but not enough for Anise to care. But these days, it took a lot to get her to care about anything.
“Oh I bet that carrot cake is tasty,” commented a woman who sat adjacent to Jen. Anise spotted that she had been staring at her plate. She looked down at the array of sweets she picked up. With a plastic fork she plucked a bit, and stuck it in her mouth. The sweet, spongy texture practically melted on her tongue. For once, Anise gave a genuine smile. “It’s delicious. Why don’t you try some?”
The polite offer seemed to offend the commenter on a level which Anise hadn’t expected, but didn’t surprise her either. The woman waved her hands while she had her elbows propped on the table. “Oh no, I just couldn’t. I need to lose twenty pounds by the end of Spring. Need to look good for my niece’s wedding!” She said happily. “I have to remind myself that those sweets will only thicken my thighs up something fierce! But more for you, right? Your husband don’t care about how thin you are, right? Oh, that reminds me, you pregnant yet?” Her vocal intonation raised high, as if the correct answer Anise gave would instantly win the woman a million dollars.
The sweetness in her mouth had become bland. She swallowed, restraining a sigh, a groan, and the desire to leave the food behind with nary another word with much-practiced skill. She glazed over the question and looked to her plate again, picking up a chocolate chip cookie to nibble on the chewy, moist treat. “I say if I die tomorrow, I’ll be happier knowing that I ate this cookie instead of starved myself.”
“Oh well at your rate that might just happen sooner than you think!” exclaimed the woman, who began laughing along with Jen. “So why’re you hiding from my question?” but before Anise could answer, the woman sucked in an overly-excited gasp. “Ohh... Yes, yes you are! That’s why you’ve got so much food on your plate! Ohhhhh! Anise is eatin’ for two!” She said in a volume that caught most of the attention of the diners.
The glare that Anise gave to the woman did not suffice in expressing the disdain she felt right then. Like before, her restraint was well practiced. Instead of slapping the woman for her impulsiveness and imposition, Anise gave a soft, impatient sigh. “I’m not pregnant.” She said for the thousandth time.
“But you sure look it to me!” The woman spoke in that annoyingly high tone again. It fell, and so did her eagerness. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry. Well don’t worry, the Lord will give you a blessing soon enough. A cute little bundle of joy all your own! Maybe if you’re real lucky, it’ll be twins. A boy and a girl. That way you can have the daughter you want, and the son that Jake wants!”
Jen frowned as the woman carried on like that. “Did you see Mrs. Bonbel’s new hat?” she asked suddenly in a hushed voice. “I think she got it at that new mall they put in uptown.”
Anise was grateful that her friend was able to deter the conversation away from her. Her dead-grass-in-a-drought green eyes watched the woman carry on about the new topic for a few minutes. When she was sure that 100% of the attention was away from her, she looked to Jen and mouthed a thank you.
She was among the first to leave the church. Luckily she didn’t have to waste time futzing with a winter coat. Spring was here now, and the weather was warming up. She opened the door and set foot into the outside world. The sun kissed her with its heated shine. She cast her eyes to the bright Tennesseean cerulean sky hugged by the Appalachian Mountains surrounding her. Her gaze wandered beyond the enormous hills, her thoughts making incoherent statements about the wonderment of the forests beyond the woods her little town was located in. Soon her eyes snapped away from the trees and to the old, cracked sidewalk. Pebbles crunched under her feet that had been flung from passing cars on the road. Electric lines hung overhead like a haphazard grid. A car honked its horn at her as she passed by, and she waved back a hello to the driver.
Her hands remained in her pockets for the rest of the walk home. The church was barely a ten-minute walk away from where she lived. Her one-story home sat on a hill along with the rest of the neighborhood’s homes. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a few teenagers climbing the steepest side of the hill. It was a shortcut to them. She paused to watch as the three teenagers laughed. One of them fell forward onto all fours and climbed her way up the hill until the ground evened out enough to stand on two legs again. Anise was hardly envious as she watched. She had little doubt that maybe she could do the same if she felt like putting forth that kind of effort. She was only barely into her thirties, but felt much older than that. Shortcuts were of no interest to her anymore. She preferred to take the long way home.
The sidewalk disappeared entirely when she stepped into the residential area. She walked along the road, certain that the teenagers had beaten her to their homes long before she was halfway towards hers. Her gaze lifted from the ground again to look at her pale home. His car wasn’t on the street. Letting out a breath of relief, she picked up her pace and went inside. After hanging her bag on the hall tree, she slumped into her rocking chair lazily. A sliver of blue caught her attention on the shelf next to the television. Rising, she moved to pick up The Last Unicorn DVD. Today she would borrow God’s advice and let Sunday be her day of rest. The DVD was set into the player, and she returned to the chair to watch the movie.
Soft rays of sunlight were displaced by the dust floating in the air. The golden light spotted the floor. It soon passed between Anise and the television, distorting the color of the movie and making it more difficult to see the animation. But before she could feel her annoyance with the intrusive light, a knock came to her door.
Reaching for the remote, she pressed the pause button. Another knock came to her door before the remote could be set back down. “I’m coming, hold your horses!” She called to the front of the house. Just as she reached the door, a third knock sounded. Rolling her eyes, she opened the door. “You know, you could wait longer than two seconds before you knock again.” She said, then widened her eyes at what stood before her door.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” replied her visitor. Shining black eyes with white pupils gazed down to her from seven feet high. Tresses of rustling willow leaves grew down from the person’s head, resting unevenly across its highly textured shoulders and body, which appeared to be made of bark. She was unable to tell whether this person, creature, or plant had a gender or not. Over its shoulders and around its leafy torso was a tunic made of some combination of leaves and linen. A kind, diplomatic, and somewhat nervous smile crossed its lips. “Uhm, hello!” spoke the creature, waving a hand. A leaf stuck out of the side of the ring finger. The hand lowered, clutching a clipboard. The creature gazed at Anise, as if giving room to let her respond. The black and white eyes shifted nervously when the human only stared. “Ahem…” it cleared its throat, “I’m here on behalf of the Fae World. We are in search of a potential human diplomat who… could…” it trailed off, rocking back and forth on its heels a little nervously. Anise glanced down at the massive bare feet, then back up at the creature.
The creature bit its bottom lip. “We… are… looking for a human diplomat for our world. You see, the human world is, um… rather far behind on its information about…” it sighed, trailing off again. “I’m sorry, just about every human home I’ve visited has met me with nothing but screams and rather rude name-calling. I didn’t think the situation was this dire. I told my superiors that they were wrong about humans not believing in us anymore, and that they certainly wouldn’t mind seeing one of us again. I mean, you guys have produced so many amazing novels about wizards and werewolves and vampires. You know about dragons, you know about so many things. You write so many beautiful stories and songs… yet… coming here, every single one has screamed and fled from me as if I’m a monster.” Suddenly the creature frowned and lowered its head shamefully. “I’m not a monster.” The tone of the words sounded hurt. “I’m harmless. I swear.” “I’m dreaming.” Anise proclaimed, and was about to shut the door when the massive hand caught it.
“No, please, don’t do this.” The visitor pleaded. “If you won’t become our diplomat, at least don’t tell me I’m not real to my face. It’s rather hurtful that I hear such things. Don’t go. You’re the first one who hasn’t screamed in my face. You’re the first one who has stood here and listened to me this long.”
Anise gazed back at the visitor, staring agape. Despite the shock she felt, the desperation she heard in its voice brought guilt into her chest. She ran her hand through her frazzled hair. “I don’t know how to feel or what to do. I don’t even know what you are.”
“I’m a dryad.” It answered with a slightly relieved tone, but she could hear the echoes of disappointment that it had to tell someone what it was. “I’m a dryad of the willow trees. There are many more of us. If… if you don’t know what to do, why don’t we just take a seat out here? Talk to me for a while. If you’re just dreaming, then there’s no harm, right?” The dryad gave a nervous smile. Then the smile turned into a frown. “I’m not doing this very well at all.”
Anise was surprised at herself that she hadn’t gone into shock by then. She hadn’t expected her day to come to this. She went from sorrowful, to apathetic, to still mostly apathetic while standing in front of a mythological creature who was claiming to be upset and insulted that nobody believed it existed. Yet here it was, standing in front of her. Perhaps it didn’t make sense after all to yell in its face that it didn’t exist. She recalled in her lessons from Sunday school that such beings like this were evil and satanic. She frowned, looking even more uneasy now.
She shuddered, shaking her head. “N-no… No, no, I can’t talk to you. You… you’re an abomination against God!” She said, throwing her fist at her side. She suddenly felt tears welling in her eyes. “Sent here by Satan… That’s all this is. Just a messenger of Satan. I don’t need you right now. I have enough things making my life miserable! Just go. Just get out of here.” She said, then promptly turned away and shut the door.
“Oh, don’t be like that!” the dryad called after her, sounding hurt by her response. Another frown came to its lips when the sound of the lock clicked into place. It side-stepped towards the window and touched its hand against the wall. “Things have changed since the age of demons! That’s what I’m here about! The spirit world only wants to get back into contact with the humans.”
“I have PLENTY of contact, thank you!” Anise shouted back. “I have God with me, and Jesus will love me far more than your Satan will!”
“Well I won’t deny that the consciousness of the universe loves you. You’re part of it, why would it hate you? We only wish to understand one another. Are humans this intolerant towards anything they don’t like or understand? You barely knew what I was, and you say that I’m a subject of Satan? I barely know the guy!”
“What do you know about tolerance? Catholicism teaches tolerance. Don’t you dare call me intolerant. I tolerate a lot more than you know.”
“This is hypocrisy!” the dryad snapped angrily. It muttered a small growl. “You claim to be tolerant, and yet your whole sect is completely intolerant! You don’t tolerate your fellow humans’ differences very well. You don’t tolerate the ones who love beyond the normal roles of your genders very well. You don’t even tolerate other sections of Christianity! If you’re about tolerance, then tolerate me for a few minutes. I promise you won’t regret it.”
“If you have this attitude about Catholics, why did you bother seeking me out in the first place?” Anise grumbled through the doorway.
“Because I know there are exceptions to the normal standard. I believe you are one of them. Please come back out here.”
The dryad was met with tense silence. It thought it heard a sniffle behind the door. It exhaled a sigh of relief when the door slid open again.