A New Woman

"Sam! Sam, I know you're in there!" Gia rattled the door handle, and the cheap interior lock popped open. She burst in, catching Sam and the dryad in flagrante delicto. Gia clutched a bucket of chemicals in her hands.

"Gia, no!" Sam cried.

"Aha!" Gia said. "I knew it!" With that, she flung the weed killer over the nut-brown nature spirit. Sam leapt aside.

The dryad, dripping wet, glared peevishly at them both.

"You're... you're alive," Sam said.

"Of course," the dryad answered. She thumped on the trunk of the tree in the pot beside her. "Plastic tree. Plastic dryad."