I ran out the door to her yells, knowing she'd draw a mob. Never mind that I had done nothing, that it was pure spite on her part for reasons I have never been able to understand. I just knew I did not have long before people would start to arrive, knowing that my only hope was to survive long enough to get things sorted out later, from much father away.

Just a little bit into the yard was a huge oak, ancient, and I suddenly realized that I could easily make it there. I ran towards the tree, stopping just before it, and placed both my hands, palms flat, onto the bark of the tree, about chest height. Before I could even comprehend it, I was suddenly one with the tree, and no longer visible to the converging mob, and yet I was still quite separate, and still felt like myself, although with a faint sense of being the tree.

As I walked away from the tree, knowing I was completely safe, the only person to see me was a young child, and I know not whether she saw a tall, thin man with pale skin and raven hair, or a short, slender brown-skinned dryad with long, curling tresses the color of bark.