Stories sometimes follow a strange path from the first idea to print. This one began when I was asked to submit a story for an anthology about Coney Island. Since I'm not a New Yorker, I started off at a disadvantage! But I did some reading about its heyday in the 19th century, which coincided with a great influx of European immigrants. I added in my love for Greek myths, and came up with "Wood Song." But the anthology never came out. So there I was, with a story about a nymph on Coney Island and no market. Until, that is, some years later, with Katharine Kerr invited me to join a different anthology, this one dealing with forests. "Wood Song" was waiting, and it finally appeared in ENCHANTED FORESTS, published by DAW Books in December of 1995.

Wood Song

At certain times of the year, late at night, the Coaster Grove on Coney Island seems to sing softly to itself. Those who walk beneath the trees at such times feel a sense of awe, as though they walk in a holy place. The grove has stood for over a hundred years, immune to the twentieth century, wrapped in the peace of an older time, and some credit the sensation to age.

But even they do not know how deep the years are that twist around the young trees, or how far their roots extend. Like so many dreams of the New World, the dream that is the Grove began in the old, in a promise and prophecy given to a young girl as old as the Attic hills...

#

"Go; you'll feel better. See what a wonderful place this country is!"

The landlady's shrill voice grated on Daphne's ears. At least the woman spoke Greek. It wasn't a musical sound but it carried the accents of home, here in this new world of foreigners where Daphne was trapped by bricks and streets. And Mrs. Kontos meant well. She was kind. Kind, but she'd never heard the delicate song of a breeze dancing among spring leaves, never tasted the silence when trees hold their breath...Daphne never should have left her grove, no matter what the laurel had promised.

"You're so thin," Mrs. Kontos went on. "And pale as well. Go on, let the salt air put some flesh on you. A body'd think you was consumptive, to look at you. You couldn't go alone, it wouldn't be proper, what with you not married yet and at your age too, but the Pappadeases want to take you."

"Are there woods there?" None of the trees in this new land spoke to Daphne. She had tried to call them with her powers so many times, in the park near the tenement, on the tree-lined paths of Central Park. There was never a response, and she had almost given up hope of finding the grove the laurel had promised her. But at least the scent of green helped her stay alive amid the noise and crowds of this great city.

"Woods! What do you need with woods? There's people there, good people--well, some others as well, but Mrs. Pappadeas will watch out for you." Mrs. Kontos nodded as she looked at Daphne. "Your aunt is a decent woman, Miss, but she should have found a proper match for you before now."

Daphne said nothing. Mrs. Kontos meant well, but Daphne feared her. The tiny woman was a tireless matchmaker. Next she would again hymn the praises of the Pappadeas' eldest son, Nikkolas. He was past twenty and reckoned a good catch, with dark good looks. For weeks now Nikki had pursued her, confident that the eldest son of a prosperous family would never be refused as a match. Mrs. Kontos would be outraged if she knew how little interest Daphne had in him. But she had watch many young mortals such as Nikki fade with age, brittle as autumn leaves in as little time. Daphne shivered. Nikkolas Pappadeas was mortal, but she feared him even more than the landlady. She feared the autumn he would bring to her eternal spring.

#

Despite her misgivings, the next Saturday found Daphne standing with Mrs. Pappadeas on the deck of an overcrowded excursion steamer as it cast off from the pier and started down the river towards the ocean and Coney Island. The Atlantic wasn't the wine-dark sea she longed for, any more than Coney Island was one of the Aegean Kikladhes. But the Atlantic led to the Middle Sea and the home she'd never see again.

She tried to shut her ears against the horrible din of the "band," a small group of musicians who seemed determined to force payment from the crowd by playing till they yielded their silver dimes. Money was a mortal concern, but mortal concerns were hers now as well. Glaring at the nearest player, a sweaty German man puffing on a brass horn, she clutched her reticule with its precious coins. The pittance she earned at the florist's wasn't enough to support her. But her "aunt," Mrs. Zanos, still regarded Daphne with a trace of the old reverence and paid for her lodgings at Kontos' Boarding House.

Eleni Zanos had been a young bride when Daphne came to the village near Olympus, driven from her grove by a prophecy of wars soon to come and a promise of a new grove in a new land. When Eleni's family left for the New World, Daphne had followed, searching for her promised grove. Now only Eleni knew what Daphne was, and she was beginning to forget. If she forgot entirely...

"...much nicer, isn't it, Miss Dendrophilos?" For once, Mrs. Pappadeas waited for an answer and Daphne realized she hadn't been listening. So did Mrs. Pappadeas; after a moment she repeated herself. "I said, this is much nicer than the tenements, isn't it? Manhattan may be an island, but it's not like home." She looked wistful. The Pappadeases had been in the United States for over a decade, but a tiny island in the Aegean was still home. Her broad face tightened as she added, "I shouldn't complain. It's not Greece, but we don't starve, and we don't have the Turks." She made as if to spit, but refrained.

"Yes, thank you, Mrs. Pappadeas. It's very pleasant." As the flood of words resumed, Daphne privately though the excursion boat not much better than steerage. It was as overcrowded, and to her nose almost as smelly. And if anything, it was noisier: the German band was still creating a racket that made her head ache, and there were screaming children and scolding parents and rude remarks in the half-comprehended English tongue and....

People. There were too many people. Mrs. Pappadeas was still speaking, her voice lost in the din. Daphne nodded without meaning. Mrs. Pappadeas was another one like the landlady, her voice loud after years spent among red bricks and mortar. It clacked endlessly, like the rattle of wheels and the clanging bell of the horse-trolley and the shouts of the teamsters that kept Daphne from sleep during the noisy nights.

Nikkolas stood beside his mother, smiling past her at Daphne. When he caught her eye, the smile widened. She shivered and turned back towards the sea, focusing on the open water at the horizon and trying to ignore the crowded bay. Despite the smells of a busy harbor, there was the fresh smell of salt, of Poseidon's realm. She whispered its name, "Thalassa." The sea. It eased the home-hunger a little.

Demi-gods had become mortal, mortals had been transformed, gods had died or vanished over the long years. Always Daphne had remained alone in her grove, speaking to the laurel. Even leaving her grove for the village of Florterini had not changed her, other than teaching her a more modern tongue. Her transformation had begun in the marble building she had mistaken for a temple, there on Ellis Island. Uniformed officials had filled in forms naming her Daphne Dendrophilos, niece of Eleni Zanos. At the time, she had thought little of taking a name in the fashion of this land. It had amused her to choose the name Dendrophilos, lover of trees. The officials had accepted it as a human name, and written it on their forms.

She realized now that had been the first step toward mortality, the question after question asked by the officials with their forms. Words had always held power, but only in this land did men weave words onto pieces of paper to capture souls.

Once the final words were spoken by the papa, the priest at the Orthodox Church, binding her to a mortal man, the transformation would be complete.

#

As the boat docked at West Brighton, Daphne gazed on the swarms with dismay. Despite eight months in New York City and the crowds on the excursion steamer, she had expected Coney Island to be an island such as she had known in Greece, with hills and perhaps a few trees, rocks and places where she could slip away and free herself, if only for a while. But this! A short distance from the water's edge, beer bars and oyster bars were jammed in between sideshows, while farther back hotels sprawled their way down the sandspit island. Instead of rocky shores, there was sand, almost hidden by the endless crowds of people. Hundreds splashed in the waves, shrieking with laughter, wearing costumes Daphne thought even more hideous than those she was forced to wear daily.

She let herself be urged down the gangway to the iron pier by a still-talking Mrs. Pappadeas. The younger children clung to their mother's wide skirts and chattered with excitement.

Nikkolas followed silently, his eyes never shifting from Daphne. She could feel them on her back, as hot as the sun overhead. Behind them all, Mr. Pappadeas carried the basket with their lunch. Once they reached the beach, they trudged along until they found a likely spot. Mr. Pappadeas set down the basket and looked around with a satisfied air.

"It's good, getting out of the city," he said, making one of his rare comments. He spoke in heavily accented English rather than Greek, and for a moment Daphne struggled to understand the words. She wasn't sure she had: they hadn't escaped the city, they'd carried it with them.

Mrs. Pappadeas, shooing the youngest children away from the water, replied in a more familiar tongue. "A pity we can't live here, Stavros. You could fish again."

He scowled. "And how would I get a boat, hah? I don't fish another man's boat. No, the fish-stall makes good money and that's what I am now. A fish-monger."

A fisherman, a man of the sea, son of generations of the sea. Selling fish caught by another. Nothing was as it had been. Daphne spent her days in a cramped shop, surrounded by flowers that were as far from their home as Stavros' fish were from theirs. Almost as far as she was from her own.

The day wore on, as tiring as a day in the shop. Nikki continued to follow her with his eyes. He tried to catch her alone, but Daphne was too old a hand at that game. She ignored him, as she had always ignored hungry-eyed young men. But she was afraid a match would soon be arranged. Eleni was her only "relative," responsible for Daphne in the eyes of the world. The longer they stayed in this country, the less Eleni remembered the village. Once she forgot the truth, marriage would be inevitable, and Daphne would never again dance with the trees.

The family sampled the pleasures of the island, spending their dimes on cheap trinkets and the sideshows. They bought oysters and Saratoga crullers, and the younger children played at the water's edge with the wooden buckets that every child on the beach carried. Daphne stared out over the waves breaking on the shore. She wanted to change herself into one of Zeus' eagles and fly towards the horizon, fly till wings gave out. But that power had never been hers.

"Would you care to bathe, Miss Dedrophilos?" Nikki's voice broke her thoughts. It was polite enough, pitched low so his mother wouldn't hear. "You can rent a bathing costume for only a quarter. I'd be happy to go in and keep you safe." He moved closer and smiled at her possessively. As though she already were his mortal wife.

Careful as he'd been to speak softly, his mother overheard. "Nikkolas! She's a good girl, not one of those shameless creatures." She nodded sharply out toward the rope, where several young ladies in bathing costume clung, squealing as the waves broke over them. "No lady would dress that indecently. Leave her alone."

With a muttered apology, Nikki drew back, his face sullen.

Daphne was grateful for his mother's intervention. The water was tempting, but she refused to don one of those bathing costumes. She didn't find them immodest, but they were ugly. The heavy black wool clung to the limbs, hampering them as much as the voluminous skirts of the dresses she wore at the shop. Modern clothing was as graceless as the shape of their buildings.

Daphne turned her back on the ocean. There was no answer there.

As the time drew near for the return trip, Daphne again felt the pull of the sea. If she could throw herself over the rail--but that would be cruel repayment to the Pappadeases, and useless besides. She was no child of Nereus. They would steam upriver and return to the swarming tenements, and soon she would forget the hills of Thessaly and accept the arranged marriage.

As though to confirm her fears, Nikki once more tried to draw her apart from the others. "Before we leave, would you like to ride the roller coaster?" The final words were in English, and she had no idea what they meant.

Before she could ask, Mrs. Pappadeas shrieked. "Nikki! That devil's road? Here we give our guest a day to enjoy and you want to scare her half out of her wits." But she was beaming as she spoke; she obviously approved the idea.

"What is this roller coaster?" Daphne asked. The Church's devils held no terror for her, but this new world was full of other fears.

"A new thing, they just built it last year," Mrs. Pappadeas said. "There are cars on little wheels and you roll over hills made of wood. They used to call it the sliding hill."

"Please--I would be honored," Nikki said, his dark eyes hot on her.

Daphne didn't want to go anyplace with Nikki, but the phrase "hills made of wood" intrigued her. "Perhaps if you would like to, Mrs. Pappadeas," she began.

Nikki's mother shook her head violently. "No! It's for you young people. But maybe the children..."

They walked down the beach toward the new attraction, suitably chaperoned by Nikki's younger brothers and sister. As they drew close enough for her to see the hills in question, Daphne regretted her impulsive yes. The structure was just a flimsy latticework of wooden beams and cross-braces, like a railway bridge grown wild. Closer, it looked even more like one, for there were twin rails to carry the cars. It wasn't as shaky as it appeared at a distance; the beams were solid wood and the rails were supported at every point. As Mrs. Pappadeas had said, the top of this bridge to nowhere was sculpted into dips and crests. It was an impressive piece of American engineering, but it wasn't a hill of wood. Daphne had grown tired of American engineering.

There was a line of people waiting to ride the amusement. Nikki spoke firmly to the children. "You will ride in a different car. I will ride beside Miss Daphne." He took her arm as calmly as he had assumed the right to use her name.

For once, she hardly noticed his arrogance. The under-structure, as regular as Arachne's weaving, drew her. Uprights stood like sturdy trunks, regular and strong. Beams crossed the way the branches of trees that danced in her grove had done.

Daphne moved closer to the supports. It was cut wood, dead and separated from the living trees, yet it called to her as no living tree had called her yet in this land. She stretched her hand out and touched the wood with reverence. Under her fingers, it felt alive, warm from more than the heat of the sun. This was the promise of the laurel.

The touch of Nikki's hand shocked her back to awareness of her surroundings. His arm had slid around her waist while she stared in fascination at the web of wood, and he now took advantage of the children's shrieking excitement and the holiday atmosphere to pull her closer. "My father has said he will speak to your aunt next week," he murmured, his mouth almost brushing her hair. He said no more, and there was no need. She knew what he meant: arrangements for their marriage. Her reluctance was ignored, as no more than the proper modesty of a decent girl.

One of the children tugged at Nikki's sleeve, demanding his attention to settle a squabble, and Daphne carefully pulled away from him. Her fingers stroked the wood once more, savoring its warmth. The tree-longing was stronger than it had been since she had left her grove, but it could do no good here. Dead, dry lumber. If it were a tree--but she knew better. Goat-footed Pan had never held his revels in this strange land, and the trees locked her out of their heartwood. Still, this wood spoke as her own grove had, calling her name.

They reached the head of the line. While Nikki fished in his pocket for enough nickels to pay for them all, Daphne whispered a prayer in the old tongue to the gods that were gone. If they proved as dead as this wood, she would accept her new world and life, let the past slip from her. She glanced around. Crowds clustered around the sliding hill, but for the moment no one's eyes were on her. Moments before, a cloud had covered the sun. Now it slid aside. As the sun shone forth again unshielded, Daphne called on Phoebus Apollo and reached one last time for her long-unused powers.

At first nothing happened. The crowd pressed close around her, jostling and sweaty and cheerfully noisy. Again she called on the god, straining with her heart toward the wood and the life she could feel still deep within it. Then the sun's warmth flooded her, renewing life in her clothing-hampered limbs. Under her seeking fingers, the wood quivered, alive. The crowd-noise changed, fading and becoming the sound of a chant to the god.

"Yes." She whispered the word over and over, as the wood opened its heart to her, waking under her hands. The ridiculous heavy costume she had worn in deference to the strange customs of this land thinned and faded. Faintly, in the distance, she heard a mortal voice calling her name, but she did not turn. She had left poor Nikki far behind her.

She began to sing, the song of spring and new leaves, the song of trees, and spread her open hands flat against the wood. Wood. It was no longer dead wood, it was living tree, many trees, a grove interwoven with many branches and crowned with iron railings.

"Soon we will dance," she promised them, and stepped forward, merging into the now-living wood.

#

At the front of the ticket line, there was confusion as a young man looked around for his companion. Confusion gave way to panic, and later to an organized search. Long after a sobbing family of Greek immigrants had been sent home by the frustrated police, the search continued, but even under the roller coaster itself, there was nothing to be found.

The sensational press took up the story quickly. Rumors of white slavery circulated, as always. The Pappadeas family found themselves briefly famous, and the fish-stall thrived. The missing girl's landlady defended her honor. Miss Dendrophilos was a good girl, almost betrothed to that nice young man, Nikkolas Pappadeas. In the newspaper, the betrothal became a settled thing. A young lady who was merely almost betrothed wasn't as tragic, or as newsworthy, as one who had attained that happy state.

The girl's aunt was interviewed, but she spoke so little English the reporter gave it up as a bad job. Anything she might have said would only have added to the confusion, since she no longer remember much about her niece. Eleni Zanos had confused memories of a sacred grove near Olympus, and a young girl older than the oldest man in the village. She put it from her mind, retreating into Greek and timidity in the face of the reporter's questions. He went away satisfied. He had enough, with the romantic Mrs. Kontos and the broken-hearted Nikki.

Long before the last echoes of sensation died away, before a new lodger moved in to Kontos' Boarding House, months before a suitable bride was found for Nikki Pappandeas, the newsmen returned to Coney Island. No one thought of the missing immigrant girl when the supporting structure of the roller coaster, made of seasoned wood, began to sprout. At first the owners were accused of trickery. But the cross-pieces continued to put forth twigs and leaves, and the uprights sheathed themselves in bark.

The roller coaster became the most famous thing on the island, surpassing even the Iron Pier and the Elevator. Slips were taken from the living wood and nurtured, growing into a new species of tree. The popular fancy at once dubbed the trees coaster-trees, and it was noted that trees planted near one another would grow together, connected by branches resembling the cross-pieces of a railway bridge. Science had no explanation for the new species. Members of the Royal Society crossed the Atlantic to visit Coney Island, and the newly-formed National Geographic Society published an article about the living artifact. Darwinists claimed it as clearly evolutionary, while pulpits around the country praised the miracle.

But even miracles grow commonplace. The story slipped from the front pages to the back ones, then quietly vanished as an item of interest. The scientists adjusted their theories to account for it, then accepted it just as the public had done. However impossible it was, it had happened.

The roller coaster at Coney Island has never lost its popularity, and the picnic grounds in the Coaster Grove are still the most popular at the resort. Neither the picnickers nor the occasional scientist, still hoping to solve the old puzzle, ever see the beautiful young girl watching from within the trees. Daphne, no longer tied to mortal form, welcomes visitors to her grove with soft breezes and the scent of green leaves. Sometimes she slips from the wood and wanders past groups of young men near the shore, teasing them as she never dared tease poor Nikkolas.

She had been mortal then, or almost. But her spirit has been given back to her, and she is home.

#

At certain times of the year, late at night, the Coaster Grove on Coney Island seems to sing softly to itself. Those who walk beneath the trees at such times feel a sense of awe, as though they walk in a holy place. Beneath the metal tracks of the old roller coaster, a nymph dances praise to the ancient gods of Greece. The laurel, the original Daphne of legend, had prophesied truth for her namesake. In a new land, in a new grove beside new seas, the dryad Daphne sings to her trees.