Excerpt: Points of Light

A most interesting half-sister to have
The small village of Wading River was located on the north side of the Grand Island in the northern Ent Colony of New Orc. To the north of the Grand Island Sound was the Ent Colony of New Ent. Simple roads existed to the west, south and east, but for the most part the people of Wading River farmed the land, fished the sea, waded for clams in the marsh and lived a simple colonial life.
It was spring time, in the year of the Lord 1770, according to the Human calendars which, like most of the customs of the Humans as well as the Humans themselves were originally exported from the “Old World.” John Floyd Jr. lived in a small house next to the large lake of the village, along with his father, mother, and his brother James. He had just recently reached his eighteenth birthday, the oldest son in the family, but not the oldest child of his father.
Today was a break from the normal spring duties on the farm. Packing a basket of food and drink he headed off towards the south road. There, just a short walk from the village was the old oak tree and his most interesting half-sister. It was twenty years ago that his father went off on a grand adventure around the colonies, originally to find the reason why there was no longer communication from a ore mining facility in the mountains of New Ent. In the course of the adventure, the senior John Floyd encountered a strange creature of the forest, which he later discovered was a Dryad. At first the dryad attempted to force her will upon John, not having seen a human male in a hundred years, but after some discussion, John willingly submitted to the fey creature with the promise that when the child was old enough he would come back and take her to her village where at least her child would not have to spend centuries waiting for male human companionship.
He was good at his promise and brought back the sixteen year old Dryad to the village and to an old oak tree that was over a hundred years (or so it was thought) old. There she bonded with the tree and has lived there ever since. The nature of her magical bonding prevents her from going more than a certain distance from her tree.