Geis of the Gargoyle by Piers Anthony

adults had.   But she had fed me and shown me the way home, so I had to forgive her her adultish ways.
     
    "Thanks, Ms.   Dryad," I said, about to go.   "I know I'm just a kid, but I do like the favor.   You're a nice woman, for a grown-up."
     
    A curious ripple of emotions crossed her face.   Maybe she realized that I was making a real effort to be proper by adult definitions.   That I wasn't a bad boy, just an ordinary kid, crude around the edges but gradually getting polished.
     
    "Hiatus, what are your hopes for the future?" she inquired.
     
    "Oh, that's easy," I said with enthusiasm.   "I'll grow up and get famous, growing big eyes and ears and noses on everything in sight, and everybody will be amazed."
     
    "That is an interesting ambition," she agreed.   "But what of romance?"
     
    "Huh? I mean, what's that?"
     
    "Normally boys grow up and get interested in girls, and marry them and form families of their own.   Have you no such ambition?"
     
    "Oh, sure, I guess," I agreed, catching her drift.   Girls were always more interested in the mushy stuff than boys were.   My sister was stupid in the same way.   "I'll marry the most beautiful girl in Xanth and let her do the housework."
     
    "That is all?" Something concerned her, but I couldn't tell what.
     
    "Naw, I'll be out growing big noses on trees and things, making them sneeze," I said.
     
    "On trees!"
     
    "Sure.   Trees look real funny with noses.   It's real fun to grow a Mundane elephant nose on a tree.   Get it? A trunk on a trunk." I had to laugh at my cleverness.
     
    For some reason she seemed annoyed, but she didn't make anything of it.   "What about your wife?"
     
    "Her? I dunno.   I guess she'll do what women do.   You know, laundry, cooking, sewing, making beds, sweeping dust, all that dull stuff they like."
     
    Desiree still seemed to have some kind of subtle problem.   "Are you sure they like it?"
     
    "Well, maybe not, but who cares? Mom never complains."
     
    Desiree considered.   "As I recall, your mother was a ghost for eight hundred years.   Perhaps she had her fill of freedom, so was glad to be mortal again, even if it meant tolerating dull routine.   But do you ever thank her for what she does for you?"
     
    "Huh?"
     
    The dryad seemed to come to a decision.   "Perhaps it would be better if you did not marry," she remarked irrelevantly.   "Better for womankind."
     
    I shrugged.   "I'll find someone, 'cause I'll be handsome and they'll all want to marry me," I said confidently.
     
    "Perhaps so," she agreed.   But then she contradicted herself.   "And perhaps not."
     
    "Huh?"
     
    Desiree faced me squarely.   "Child, look at me," she said.   "Look deep into my eyes, and at my hair, and at the rest of me."
     
    Curious, I did as she bid me.   I met her gaze.   And something happened.
     
    Her eyes were green and as deep as the spring I had drunk from, like two grassy pools.   I felt myself drifting into them, now swimming, now floating, now sinking, just getting encompassed by the way of them.   Her hair was brownish red, with leaves on it, like a tree in autumn.   It was as if I stood within a quiet magic forest, just looking at her.   It was wonderful in a way I had never before appreciated.
     
    "When you are a man," she said with quiet conviction, "you will never see a girl as fair."
     
    And I realized that she was fair, and more than fair; she was the most beautiful creature I could ever have imagined.   Strange that I hadn't noticed that before, but maybe it was as it was with the magic path: I couldn't see it until she showed me.   There was simply nothing in all Xanth that could possibly be as lovely as this maiden of the forest.   I had known that dryads were pretty creatures, but never actually experienced it.   Now I knew completely and forever.
     
    She moved her tiny hands, and they were like delicate leaves fluttering in the breeze.   She made a little turn, and for the first time I