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forest nymphs.
    She’d seen a wood-wife once while collecting roots and herbs with her mother. She appeared before a tree as lovely and lush as a bride. From the front. At her reverse, she was hollow and without form. It was only the love and attention of a woodsman ensnared in her sexual charms that kept her, and her tree, from being hacked to bits and run through a carpenter’s lathe.
    It was as she mulled over the thoughts of the lovely wood-wife, that she spied the very tree that grew the succulent, magical roots her mother had taught her how to harvest. Such roots were potent, valuable and worth stopping for. These roots lasted for years and could be cooked and eaten, used as medicine or bartered for goods in the marketplace.
    Sigyn felt unwary of going off-task and off the beaten pathway to dig a few tuberous roots from the soil. Even with her shield of invisibility, if she took her mind away from her mission for too long, she might slip up and be recognized as something foreign to the forest.
    Keeping the proverbial eyes-on-the-back-of-her-head wide open, Sigyn dashed to the great tree whose bare roots attracted her so dearly and began to scrape away the dirt and debris to expose and cut them. She stuck the tree trunk with her small lady-knife so that it would be ready for her to trim off a root.
    She then realized she was not alone. Far from alone. She had not yet been perceived, but she was now interloping at the base of a sacred tree of a wood-wife.
    It must have been my memories of her forest sister that triggered her appearance, for the gathering of exposed roots is not enough to warrant…oh…perhaps it was the assault on the tree trunk . Sigyn said a silent prayer. Mea culpa, mea culpa. My bad!
    Remaining motionless she glanced up at the wood-wife who stood comfortably against her tree, scanning the area. The tree nymph removed the knife from the trunk and dropped it to the ground. She knelt and kissed the very slight cut in the bark. “Heal,” she whispered.
    Her hair was black as coal and her skin the color of autumn leaves. Her eyes burned with an emerald green fire and she was clothed in a dress of moss and twigs.
    Sigyn held her breath as a Daddy Long Legs spider crept in ticklish motions up her arm. It reached her shoulder, then her throat. When at last it crawled over her chin and to her lips, she let loose with an outward breath that blew the poor creature back onto the forest floor.
    The wood-wife glanced down. “I hear you, human. I cannot see you, for your disguise is clever, but I smell you, and I hear you. Show yourself.”
    Sigyn rose to her feet and brushed the dried mud from her face and arms. “I am here, lady.”
    The wood-wife smiled sweetly—as was the nature of such fairies. “Your disguise is intelligent. Using the rich earth from under an old oak. Clever girl. Now, tell me, why are you alone in the forest?”
    “I’m on a quest,” Sigyn replied.
    “Ah! A quest! Help you I can. What is it you seek?” the wood-wife asked.
    “What service must I perform to have a truthful answer from you?” Sigyn said.
    “I am a lover, not a creature of evil. It has been a very long time since my special talents were well-used. You make love to me—and allow me to make love to you in return—and I shall tell you where you shall find your treasure,” the wood-wife replied.
    Sigyn wiped her hands on her skirt. “I said nothing of treasure.”
    “For a young woman to trek this forest alone it must be for love or treasure. Since you do not have the addled look of a girl in love about you, I can only assume it is treasure you seek,” the wood-wife replied.
    “Do I have your word that you will be truthful to me in reply to my question and that I shall not be harmed or bewitched in any way? My mother is a skilled white witch and it would not bode well for you or your tree if I return to my home in a less than pristine state.”
    “You may feel confident that I wish only to share myself with a