The Rebirth

Not long after Mrs. Barras-Rodriguez came to fetch her daughter and lead the girl away, not long after the three old ladies created a hole in their knitting, not long after Oakley had disappeared back into his tree, Naida appeared.
And with her thoughtful verbal skills, Oakley was very gently coaxed out of his natural state of tree-
“Wake up, you old cow.”
A shimmer, and the six foot man appeared in the flesh. He took in her stringy hair, in its aquamarine glory, and her matted gray-blue bathrobe. Her eyebrows were furrowed together, and her eyes glinted flashes of sunlight-green. A very disapproving nose pointed in his direction.
Oakley tried to crack out his back. Human form did not do well for him. “Old cow, indeed. I don’t believe I resemble any sort of domestic creature, much less those useless spotted things. But, anyhow, it is good to see you. If you don’t mind, I’m politely assuming that your crankiness is due to your distance away from your life source.”
Naida narrowed her eyes. “My river,” she said, very icily for one who was not a snow nymph, “Is just on the edge of this park.”
“I said I was being polite, not dense. Now, it is very generous of me to give you a nice excuse for your terrible personality; I’d suggest not arguing back. To what do I owe the honor?”
Despite her cold exterior, Naida smiled inwardly. The old tree was infuriating, but she honestly couldn’t imagine London without him.
But as she remembered why she confronted him, her smile faded.
“She sees too much.”
“Oh, yes,” Oakley gave a small smile. “The little girl. I was wondering when she’d be able to find me.”
“She sees too much,” Naida repeated, adamantly. Not everything is about you, you useless domestic spotted animal, she wanted to say, but she refrained.
He turned serious. You can tell when he does. His eyes don’t have that wooden sheen to it; they’re more hardened, rooted.
“There are weird things here in London,” he agreed, starting to walk. Naida had no real choice but to join him. “I had known, of course, that there were odd things, but this is particularly odd. Very extraordinarily odd. Things even I haven’t seen…”
“Like ghost dragons coming out of young teenagers?” Naida demanded. “How can she see that?”
“She’s young. The mind is open to anything at that age. And she was born in a sort of open-minded, connected area, I’m guessing. She’s not limited to one culture like we are,” Oakley mused.
“It’s so infuriating, to be in so much danger, and not being able to see all those dangers.”
“On the contrary,” Oakley laughed. “Imagine how the London mortals feel, roaming around unaware! It must be bliss.”
Naida pondered this. “As long as there isn’t anything in my river,” she stated stonily.
Oakley hummed a crackling tune to himself. They’d gotten off topic.
Naida’s expression drooped to concern. “I’m worried about the poor thing.”
“I’ve taken care of it.”
“Oh, because your eloquent speech was so convincing. That’s not going to work.”
“It will,” he said simply, taking his time with his strolls, “Because she doesn’t want to believe in this world anymore.”
“She wants to see me,” Naida insisted. “And the rest of the nymphs. She trusts us.”
“She won’t see you,” Oakley said, “Because you won’t appear.”
“But-“
“Don’t be foolish! You’re worried about her? So do something about it! The more she can see, the more attention she’ll draw! Being oblivious will let the Mist strengthen around her! She’s already a mortal, so hopefully this will be enough protection until she’s old enough to fend on her own, or- if she's extremely lucky-maybe she’ll even forget about this world forever!”
Oakley rarely broke out into passionate speech. Naida had stopped to stare at him in shock. Tall, angry, and wrinkled, he resembled a dried jalapeño pepper. Several brown leaves had come undone.
“I don’t want any more deaths,” Oakley said, much more firmly and calmly now, “That can be prevented.”
The nymph didn’t trust herself to speak. The breeze got chillier. She folded her arms against her bathrobe.
“Okay,” she finally agreed. “So… what? She’s just going to forget? Just like that?”
“Not at first,” he predicted. Somehow the fence had gotten tangled with his beard, and Oakley tugged to rip the knots, his branches shaking. “She’ll wonder. She’ll decide that this couldn’t be fake; she could still see the monsters. And they were real. And she’ll continue to visit the river, and me. But we won’t appear. And then she’ll ask her parents, just like I told her to, if monsters existed, because she can see them. And her parents will tell her no, of course not, it’s just her imagination. And she’ll continue to see for a year or so, and maybe close her eyes and wish it to go away, and the Mist will begin to obey her. By then, she might be able to speak some English and make some friends. And when she asks her friends if they believe in monsters, mostly all of them sill say that once upon a time they did, but not anymore.”
Oakley managed to tug his beard free and continue walking, leaving behind a bunch of broken branches and dead roots. “And slowly that will settle in. She’ll fade into a regular life. She’ll see only what she thinks she sees. And that will be what’s best for her.”
Naida knew it was what was best, but she’d miss having the girl hang around the river. She’d miss having the little sister she’d always wanted. She’d miss listening to all the stories that were such a refreshing difference from the regular unnecessary gossip of the river.
And so Naida had to know- “Did Elena… say she didn’t want anything more to do with all of this? She said she wanted to forget? She wanted to forget everything?”
“Not in so many words,” Oakley responded, very gentle, very kind. Another surprise. “But she didn’t want the chocolate if the broccoli came along with it.”
And on that very confusing, very unhelpful note, the conversation ended.
Along with Naida's connections to Elena Rodriguez.

Notes

New chapters, new moving on, new section of this story, and new nico di angelo tomorrow!

finally.