The Dryad's Kiss

"...particularly on the occasion of Samhain, bonfires were lit with the express intention of scaring away the demonic forces of winter, and we know that, at Bealltainn in Scotland, offerings of baked custard were made within the last hundred and seventy years to the eponymous spirits of wild animals which were particularly prone to prey upon the flocks - the eagle, the crow, and the fox, among others. Indeed, at these seasons all supernatural beings were held in peculiar dread."

- From the book 'British Fairy Origins', by Lewis Spence

Transcript

Ode to Psyche: John Keats

O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung

         By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,

And pardon that thy secrets should be sung

         Even into thine own soft-conched ear:

Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see

         The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?

I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,

         And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,

Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side

         In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof

         Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran

            A brooklet, scarce espied:

Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,

         Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,

They lay calm-breathing, on the bedded grass;

         Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;

         Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,

As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,

And ready still past kisses to outnumber

         At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:

            The winged boy I knew;

But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?

            His Psyche true!

O latest born and loveliest vision far

         Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!

Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star,

         Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;

Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,

            Nor altar heap'd with flowers;

Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan

            Upon the midnight hours;

No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet

         From chain-swung censer teeming;

No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat

         Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,

         Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,

When holy were the haunted forest boughs,

         Holy the air, the water, and the fire;

Yet even in these days so far retir'd

         From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,

         Fluttering among the faint Olympians,

I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspir'd.

So let me be thy choir, and make a moan

            Upon the midnight hours;

Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet

         From swinged censer teeming;

Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat

         Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane

         In some untrodden region of my mind,

Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,

         Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:

Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees

         Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;

And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,

         The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep;

And in the midst of this wide quietness

A rosy sanctuary will I dress

   With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain,

         With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,

With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,

         Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:

And there shall be for thee all soft delight

         That shadowy thought can win,

A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,

         To let the warm Love in!

I spent Halloween pretending to be an alien biologist. Not as a costume, I was too old to be playing dress up. But in my head, it was how I got through the strange behaviors I witnessed from my friends anytime copious amounts of booze were involved. The random crying, and the kissing, and the yelling all seemed fun but entirely foreign to me. Even the most shitfaced I’d ever been wouldn’t have me laughing that loud or hugging so freely.

It was only when people started trickling out that I crawled back into my own skin. That I relaxed enough to start getting sleepy. We had a big day tomorrow. 

The party was at Barry’s, and I’d stayed over at his place more times than I could count. And for our entire lives, barring one night in high school, it had gone exactly the same. He’d give me two blankets, one to cover myself up with and one to cover up the ratty leather couch. Back in high school, at his parents' place, it had been a scratchy, lumpy, old person couch that I’d had to cover with a blanket. We’d make our plans for the morning, and we’d bid each other goodnight. 

And I’d watch the occasional cars passing by on the street. The stripes of headlights that snuck in through the blinds and climbed across the wall always soothed me. 

Tonight the couch smelled like booze, and a party next door was still well underway, but the bass was quiet enough to lull me into a trance. 

When the last of the guests left for the night, and it was just me, Barry, and Louise, I started to feel completely at ease. She’d been our third amigo since we were kids, even if she couldn’t stay over until after we all grew up. There were no people in the entire world that I felt more comfortable with. That hadn’t changed, even though the dynamic between us has shifted recently.

 I nodded off in the middle of planning where we’d go for a proper hangover breakfast. I awoke soon enough, though, to a familiar noise. To muffled heavy breathing and to giggling. 

The words were out of my mouth before I even opened my eyes all the way, “Why don’t you two get a room?”

Barry said, “I’m just trying to make you jealous.” And though we joked around all the time, though it had been well over a decade at this point, the familiarity of being on his couch, and being a little buzzed reminded me that he wasn’t completely joking. 

Louise went to brush up, and he brought me my blankets, and it reminded me of that night so long ago. When his parents had long since gone to bed, and we’d snuck a little bit of his dad’s rum, and we were giggly from both the booze and the sneaking around. And when he’d gone to bring me my blankets, he’d acted strange, like he was nervous, and then all at once he’d kissed me. 

I didn't shove him away, didn't freak out the way other boys our age might have, especially back then. But I had to tell him I wasn’t interested. And he'd gotten flustered and shaky, and he’d said “I just thought… Well, you never talk about girls.”

And from then on, I’d realized I should start. It was what normal boys our age talked about after all. 

When Louise came out of the bathroom, we planned our morning, pretending as if we weren’t all going to sleep in. And they bid me goodnight. 

The bass next door shut off just in time for me to hear more giggling, but less muffled now because there was a door between us. I went back to my little narration in my head, pretending I was studying human behavior, observing the habits of average American twenty-somethings. And how they seemingly reverted back to losing object permanence when feeling frisky enough, thinking that just because I couldn’t see them meant that now I couldn’t hear them. 

The next day, on Samhain, as Louise called it, the rest of the city felt just as hungover as we did. The sun was too bright, making me long for the overcast winter around the corner. Bleary-eyed parents picked up trash and bits of costumes from their front yards. Some started taking down their halloween decorations; spooky season was over as far as they were concerned. 

When the three of us went to brunch, our waitress had smudged eyeliner, like she’d dragged herself up out of bed and come straight to work. But anytime she came to check on us, she was appropriately chipper, and once we got something in our stomachs, we perked up too.

 Louise downed her third cup of coffee, which got her back up to her usual level of intense. She started planning the day even though we’d already done so, several times over in fact. But me and Barry let her talk, both too sleepy to direct the conversation elsewhere. Louise told us all about our pagan ancestors and which rituals had the best chance of helping us to pierce the veil into the spirit world. 

Back at Barry’s house, we put on a simmer pot, and we carved turnips, which is apparently what people back in Europe carved before they came to America and realized pumpkins were a whole lot easier. 

Before we knew it, it was afternoon and long past time to get going. Daylight savings had just taken that extra hour away from us, and on the drive there, the glare from the sun reminded us that an all too early sunset was looming. 

Our destination was on the far side of Racoon River Park, where it started turning into proper wilderness. But we parked at the side closest to the city. One, because that part didn’t close until 11, so our car would be safe even if the spirits kept us out late. And two, because the journey from the more civilized part to the wilder part of the park felt symbolic for what we were trying to summon. 

The part closest to the city was a sculpture park. And though we had places to be, we took our time. We walked our usual route, taking in the old sculptures and some new ones. I didn’t believe in spiritual things the way Louise did. Barry and I were firmly in the skeptic camp. But I’d always wanted to, so I tried to open my mind then. I focused on the sculptures, the skyscrapers behind them, and tried to ground myself in the now, in civilization. I tried to prepare for our journey further through the park, a journey symbolically back in time. 

Though I’d snapped pictures of my favorite sculptures dozens of times over, I snapped a few more. I loved the way they always looked new in different lighting. 

Two giant cartoonish heads had long been permanent residents at the park. They looked like faces a child might sculpt out of clay, one with a benign expression, staring blankly ahead with two small, perfectly round eyes and a flat mouth. The other had narrowed eyes and a grin filled with small, sharp teeth. Louise and Barry posed for a picture in front of them, and held aloft the turnips they’d carved. Without realizing it, they’d etched nearly the same faces. 

We passed a few of my favorites, a horse made of driftwood, a giant jagged spider, with a ribcage-like thorax. There was a rabbit sitting on a rock, posing like the famous statue of the thinker. There were a few new ones as well. Our seasonal additions this fall were a series of giant abstract shapes that looked insect-like. But they also looked either phallic or yonic, depending on what angle you looked at them from. 

And of course, the most iconic sculpture was the massive form of a person hugging their knees on the ground. But the sculpture was made up of letters, creating a web-like human shell. And the letters stopped where their face and knees should have been, leaving a space where people could walk in and get pictures of themselves inside the missing pieces of the person. 

Once we finished our loop around the sculptures, it was time to start heading away from the city. 

To get to the next part of the park, we had to cross the river on a narrow metal bridge. Then there was an area where the river had been disturbed and dug up to create a series of land bridges and tiny ponds. In the summer, we’d wade through the water and look for fish and crawdads. But in the fall, the ponds were cold, and the grass along the landbridges was dying. So we didn’t spend too much time there. 

But Louise stopped us right in the middle of a narrow strip of land, water on either side of us. And she told us to try and think of this crossing as a spiritual crossing as well, one that would take us into another realm. 

Her saying it out loud killed a little bit of the intention I’d been cultivating to take this seriously. But I tried to nonetheless. 

After the lakes and ponds, it was the forest. The woods were nebulous, some of them technically part of the city park, some part of a state forest. Pocketed throughout were tiny farms, old stone walls, and foundations. Every time we went exploring, we’d find something new.

The forest at the start of the wilderness was strange and somewhat cultivated. There were ancient trees, well as ancient as you could get for this part of the world, spaced out with soft grass with a curious lack of underbrush. It was rife with deer, songbirds, and of course, raccoons, who were all acclimated to people.  

In the warmer months, the forest reminded me of a fairytale, with the old house foundations and bits of civilization feeling ancient and magical. In the colder months, as it was turning into now, it reminded me of a folk tale. With skeletal trees and bright leaves underfoot. The abandoned cars and fences that seemingly guarded nothing took on a sinister rather than a magical air. 

“We’re going to open our minds and let the spirit world guide our way,” Louise said. And normally Barry would say something dumb then, or I would. But not today. Today, I think we were both hoping it might finally be the day Louise proved us wrong about all her spiritual nonsense. 

Barry and Louise grabbed each other’s hands and stepped into the woods.  I followed closely behind them, camera in hand, ready to catch any animals, or better yet, any ghostly apparitions. 

We paused first at an old abandoned barn. It seemed appropriately spooky, and Louise and I had ended up there not too long ago. I’d taken my pictures of the rotting rafters and the molded hay, and she’d updated me on all the latest drama at her work. On another occasion, the three of us had camped out there, reading each other ghost stories and freezing in our sleeping bags. And back then, we’d each slept in our own. We spent that night cold and miserable, but all cold and miserable together in the same way. 

But whatever the supernatural pull we were supposed to be feeling was, the barn did not produce it. So we passed by. Likewise to an active farm. But at that one, we stopped to pet a friendly dog who leaned out through a fence. One that it easily could have squeezed through, but it knew it wasn’t supposed to. 

As the sun grew lower, I worried about the dark. Not that there was really anything dangerous out here, but I didn’t want to be stumbling around and have one of my ankles roll this far out in the woods.

But before the sun could completely set, while there were precious few still golden rays of light making their way to the ground, I felt it. An undefined but very apparent presence. And I know my friends did too because they stopped walking just as suddenly. Louise was even mid-drink from her water bottle. Suddenly, I wished we hadn’t come out here at all. 

We scanned our surroundings like deer. Frozen and watching the woods. Pretending that if we stayed still enough, we could spot whatever was watching us without it spotting us in turn. Right away, I saw one of those strange things Louise had told us to watch for. There was a ring of mushrooms along the ground, and dotting the trees. All surrounding us in a perfect circle. The ones on the ground were pale, and the ones on the trees were bright orange and fleshy. 

I looked past the circle, deeper into the dark. And soon I spotted something equally still. But something that very much did not belong. 

They looked like statues; gray, naked women frozen among the trees. And I thought at first that that's what they must be. Some avant-garde extension of the sculpture park. Some hipster art show set up deep in the woods. 

They were all placed in different positions, some lounging about, some talking, some sculpted to look like they were laughing and chatting. They all had different body types, but all had what looked to be vines twining around their bodies, with leaves sprouting out all over their arms, their legs, their torsos. But the vines and leaves were all the same mottled gray. 

The shock of spotting them started to wear off. I felt my heart slow as I became more and more convinced they were just sculptures. Just some strange artwork left out here deep in the old woods. And then, all at once, as if they’d coordinated it, they moved. 

All together they snapped their necks to look at us. I wanted to run then, but I didn’t. I couldn't. It was like I was in a dream, my body dulled, blunted to the point of inaction. 

The women, the creatures, all took steps towards us. Each one moving in perfect sync, and all we could do was wait. Louise dropped her backpack, the candles and incense, and spells printed off from Wiccan blogs, all falling to the ground. We didn't need those after all. 

The spirits from the other side, the creatures from the veil, whatever they were, well, they’d gone and found us instead. 

As they stepped closer, oh so slowly, I noticed something strange in the trees. The birds had gone silent around us. But a few squirrels in the branches were chittering and crying out. On the ground, all in a circle around us, three chipmunks climbed onto logs and rocks and joined them, chirping like it was spring. Like they were trying to be seen. 

As the creatures got closer, I saw that what I’d mistaken for rock or cement looked organic. Their skin looked more like some kind of gray, fleshy fungus. Like a tree that had gone soft. They were close enough to study their faces, too, but there didn’t seem to be actual eyes moving around, and their nostrils looked shallow. Like they were just bluntly imitating the human form. But that didn’t stop them from smiling and showing off gummy teeth and shallow mouths. 

I found my wits to run then. I yelled for Louise and Barry to come with me, but they were stuck in place. And worse, they were smiling back. 

I thought about leaving them. But I remembered my camera. And I remembered just how much I’d wanted to see something otherworldly. And I decided to stay and witness whatever was about to happen, to document it. 

But when I pulled out my camera, something was wrong. It kept turning on and off, the screen lighting up all the way white, like I was pointing it at something impossibly bright. And so I put it away and leaned against a tree, and I prepared to watch whatever was going to happen on this night where we’d successfully pierced the vale into the spirit world. 

The creatures were upon my friends, and one of them was changing. Her body shifted, her curves shrank, her torso widened out, until it took on a decidedly masculine form. Then the thing pretending to be a human man leaned over and kissed Louise. And one of the feminine creatures puckered up her lips and kissed Barry. For the first time in what felt like forever, Louise and Barry moved. They lifted their arms to pull the creatures closer. And they kissed them back, so aggressively that I had to avert my eyes. 

The creatures broke away from the kiss, and to each of my friends, they whispered something in their ears. Then the creatures left their embrace and started walking away. 

Without thinking, I went after them. My curiosity overrode my fear completely. We’d seen past this world, and I wanted to see just a little further. 

Louise and Barry were still in their trance, so I left them be, and I followed the gray creatures to a clearing. There, more squirrels, more chipmunks chattered. And two deer loomed at the edge of the near dark woods, watching the beasts silently, intently, just as I did. 

The creatures formed a circle of their own, and though the sun was nearly gone and the moon hadn’t yet come out, I could still make out something about the size of a basketball in the center. 

It was red, with black lines running down from the top. And as the beasts all held hands around it, it opened up like a flower. A cloud of spores leaked out, and the creatures fought each other to get closest, to breathe them in. Then the two who'd kissed my friends leaned into the strange fungus, and they started licking the fleshy petals of the strange organic thing. 

I watched just long enough to feel voyeristic. And then I decided I’d had enough of peering behind the veil. I jogged back to my friends, and by then, they were out of their trance. But they still remembered what had happened. They said the creatures had shared a secret with them. 

Barry said, “If we come back on May 1st, on Beltane, they said we’ll witness a miracle.”

We walked back in silence then, each trying to commit the strange incident to memory. And against all of our better judgment, we all agreed to do this again in exactly six months. 

And despite our strange encounter, that I thought would have brought us all closer, I saw them only twice in those six months. Barry was having a slew of health problems, and the doctors just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. And though I wondered if it might be connected to that night in the woods, Louise was doing just fine. I was, too, and hell, I’d been closest to the corpse flower fungus that those things communed with.

Whatever was going on, caring for Barry had stressed Louise out to the point of being downright mean the few times I was able to get ahold of them. For the first time since we were kids, I felt us drifting away from each other. 

I ended up going back to that strange spot in the woods several more times as winter passed. But despite my best efforts, I never caught the creatures skulking around in the forest. I never saw gray dryads scrurrying in the corner of my vision. I’d even gone back the next morning to look for that strange fungus, but all I’d found was a rotting red pile of goo. 

And that lack of evidence, that lack of confirmation about the strange thing we’d all seen, made me all the more determined to come back on the night they’d promised us a miracle. 

As May approached, I made my own plans. I didn’t expect Barry and Louise to actually make it out. But I told them I’d be there a few hours before sunset, and to my surprise, they were waiting at the sculpture park for me.

We did our customary loop around the park, and I tried to force small talk. They responded with minimal answers. Not as if they were mad, though, just as if they were deeply tired.

The only new sculpture in the park was that of a hydra. A big silver metal creature with a sleek industrial look that clashed with its mythical origins. 

As we crossed the river, then the landbridges, I slowed our pace down. This time, I was the one to remind them, “We need to cross over with intention.” 

They were in a hurry, but I paused to wade in the cool spring water. I paused to point out the blossoming trees. There were so many planted along the banks of the dissected river. Pink and white and purple nearly outweighed the gold-green of the budding leaves.

Barry and Louise humored me. They looked, and they slowed with me, but both of them moved with a singular purpose. Both were impatient. 

I tried to get a good look at Barry. They’d stopped updating me on whatever was going on with his health. And now it felt like we’d been so distant that I didn’t want to ask. I’d expected him to be gaunt, tired. But instead, his face looked bloated, and he twitched with a nervous energy. 

Louise looked the same as she always did. But she’d let her short, choppy hair start growing out. And though she had toned down the snappiness I’d been greeted with in the few times we’d spoken since Samhain, she still talked with a barely restrained patience. Even in response to the most mundane things.

But that was so unlike her that it wasn’t hard to greet her bristling with my own patience. She’d always been there for me when I needed to complain, to vent, hell even to cry. And it was long past time I returned the favor. I knew that caring for someone could test even the kindest hearts.

I didn’t want to spend tonight prying. But given whatever was wrong with Barry, it had me starting to worry that we might not have many nights like this left.

As we walked through the woods, I forced them to slow down even more. To take in the sights, to be in the moment. And I did the same, I hadn’t even brought my camera. 

We let instinct guide us, and we made it back to the spot in the forest where the Dryads had entranced us half a year before. 

This time the circle surrounding us was made up of spring flowers, in blue, and pink, and yellow. And this time, we were early enough to see the creatures emerge from their homes.

The first detached only feet away from us. She sloughed off the tree, and her bark-like camouflage shifted like clay. It smoothed into an imitation of human skin. Further out, dozens of others peeled off from the trees. 

I had my wits about me this time, and I stayed firmly in the circle. They’d promised a miracle, and I was here to cash in. 

In the woods around us, squirrels and chipmunks started chittering, and a fat old raccoon even waddled over and added to the chorus. Overheard birds silently fled the scene, and the insects around us stopped their buzzing and warbling.

The Dryads had different coloration this time. The vines around them were muted greens and browns. And rather than gray leaves sprouting out of them, they had flowers. It was Mayday, and they were in all their full spring glory. 

As the dryads approached, some took on male forms. And when they got into the circle, one approached Louise, while one of the feminine ones walked up to Barry. Another approached me. Barry and Louise embraced their dryads, this time being the aggressors for the kiss. 

I waited for the one who’d come up to me to bestow whatever miracle I’d missed out on by leaving the circle last time. Though her gray flesh was off-putting up close, I braced myself to receive her kiss. She leaned over, planted a quick peck on my lips, then pulled away. Her spongy gray skin didn’t emote quite as effectively as a human, but she looked confused. One of the male ones approached me, and did the same; right down to the confusion. And I realized with a sinking feeling that the miracle I’d been waiting for was not here.

They hadn’t ignored me last time because I’d left the circle. They’d ignored me because their spell simply didn’t work on something like me. 

I felt my heart deflate. I was on edge to see whatever miracle they’d promised my friends. But of course I’d also been hoping for my own too. I’d been hoping that these magical creatures could bestow upon me, even for just one kiss, some of the things that I didn’t have. The things that I was simply missing. 

The Dryads took Barry and Louise away by their hands. They didn’t bother to beckon me or banish me. I didn’t matter to them. So, like I always did, I tagged along, as these ancient beings, these strange spirits, guided my friends to the nearby clearing. 

The strange fungus was there, the crimson corpse flower that was so important to these creatures. They all formed a circle around it. As Barry and Louise joined hands with the dryads, I resigned myself to watching. To being an outside observer simply cataloging this strange behavior.

The great flower opened. And out of it poured the spores. I tried to inhale some too, desperate to be included.

Then Barry fell to the ground. And then he too opened.

His skin split apart, seems bursting with red, and yellow, and black. It wasn’t blood leaking out, it wasn’t gore, it was some kind of viscous goo that had replaced all the things that were supposed to be inside him. 

I screamed, but he didn’t cry out. I guess he didn’t have time because within seconds, he was all but inside out. Before I could even process what I was seeing, Louise was on top of him. 

She was slurping up what was left of him like a rabid animal, like her life depended on it. The others let her feast for just a few seconds before joining in, ravenous.

I tried to grab her, tried to get her away. It was too late, far too late for Barry, but she was my friend, too. But Louise shook me off, with a strength that seemed disproportionate to her small body. I tried to pull some of the others away, but they just ignored me, shaking their shoulders and vaguely swatting at me like I was a fly buzzing around them. 

I worried they’d turn on me, too. Then, when they didn’t, I started to wish they would. But Louise would not budge. I had to give up.

As I walked away from the gnashing and crunching and slurping, I passed squirrels and chipmunks and even bats swarmed together to watch from the nearby trees. They were mesmerized, all under the spell of the dryads. 

I alone was able to break out of it. An anomaly among not just the humans, but all of the other mammals in the forest. 

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the podcast inside your house! To hear every tale of terror as they are released, subscribe to our show on your podcast app or on Youtube or follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. Until Next Time; we hope this warmer weather is helping to put a little spring in your step, and maybe into your lungs too, and heck, why not put some spring directly into your bloodstream too while you’re at it. 

Xzc