Dragonfield by Jane Yolen

Drusilla could not bring him out again, but one of the tree branches reached down and stroked her arm in a lover’s farewell.
    She spent the next days under the tree, reading and weaving and playing her lute. And the tree itself seemed to listen and respond. The branches touched and turned the pages of her book. The whole tree moved to the beauty of her songs.
    Yet it was not until the next full moon that the man could pull himself from the tree and sleep away the dark in her arms.
    Still Drusilla was content. For as she grew in her love for the man of the tree, her love for all nature grew, a quiet pullulation. She felt kin to every flower and leaf. She heard the silent speech of the green world and, under the bark, the beating of each heart.
    One day, when she ventured into the village, Drusilla’s neighbors observed that she was growing more beautiful in her madness. The boldest of them, an old woman, asked, “If you have no man, how is it you bloom?”
    Drusilla turned to look at the old woman and smiled. It was a slow smile. “I am the tree’s wife,” she said, “in truth. And he is man enough for me.” It was all the answer she would return.
    But in the seventh month since the night of the apple moon, Drusilla knew she carried a child, the tree’s child, below her heart. And when she told the tree of it, its branches bent around her and touched her hair. And when she told the man of it, he smiled and held her gently.
    Drusilla wondered what the child would be that rooted in her. She wondered if it would burgeon into a human child or emerge some great wooden beast. Perhaps it would be both, with arms and legs as strong as the birch and leaves for hair. She feared her heart would burst with questions. But on the next full moon, the tree man held her and whispered in her ear such soft, caressing sounds, she grew calm. And at last she knew that however the child grew, she would love it. And with that knowledge she was once again content.
    Soon it was evident, even to the townsfolk, that she blossomed with child. They looked for the father among themselves—for where else could they look—but no one admitted to the deed. And Drusilla herself would name no one but the tree to the midwife, priest, or mayor.
    And so, where at first the villagers had jested at her and joked with her and felt themselves plagued by her madness, now they turned wicked and cruel. They could accept a widow’s madness but not a mother unwed.
    The young men, the late suitors, pressed on by the town elders, came to Drusilla one night. In the darkness, they would have pulled her from her house and beaten her. But Drusilla heard them come and climbed through the window and fled to the top of the birch.
    The wind raged so that night that the branches of the tree flailed like whips, and not one of the young men dared come close enough to climb the tree and take Drusilla down. All they could do was try and wound her with their words. They shouted up at her where she sat near the top of the birch, cradled in its branches. But she did not hear their shouts. She was lulled instead by the great rustling voices of the grove.
    In the morning the young men were gone. They did not return.
    And Drusilla did not go back into the town. As the days passed, she was fed by the forest and the field. Fruits and berries and sweet sap found their way to her doorstep. Each morning she had enough for the day. She did not ask where it all came from, but still she knew.
    At last it was time for the child to be born. On this night of a full moon, Drusilla’s pains began. Holding her sides with slender fingers, she went out to the base of the birch, sat down, and leaned her back against the tree, straining to let the child out. As she pushed, the birch man pulled himself silently from the tree, knelt by her, and breathed encouragements into her face. He stroked her hair and whispered her name to the wind.
    She did not smile up at him but said at last, “Go.” Her