Dryad - Worboys G. M.

John Caldor, tormented by grief after his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident, feels his mind break; he can feel the cold breeze blowing through the crack that has opened deep inside his head. It is no huge surprise then, when John meets a beautiful woman that no one else can see: Asha, the imaginary friend of his lost daughter.

Asha shows John her world, the world of the forest. She tells John that she is a narun, a being made of prana - the stuff of life. Her people are the aaranya - dryads. She shows him that she can merge with the trees and share their life. She tries to teach John that he is not broken, that his mind has opened so that he, too, can now sense the life of the forest around them. To John this is a world beyond belief, but he wants it to be real, he wants Asha to be real.

They argue and Asha leaves. John quickly realises that, whatever his doubts, he is not ready to be parted from Asha, and he enters the forest to try and find her. He finds more of her people and discovers that Asha has disappeared, and her people fear that a new conflict is erupting between the narun peoples. To save Asha, and help the aaranya, John must overcome his doubts. His path leads back to the human world where he finds that he is not the only human that knows of the narun, and John's own rare gift, the ability to sense life, now puts him in danger.