Forests, code, and the space between them
I bonded with Fractal, a digital tree rooted deep in the Prime, instead of a larch like Mom wanted. This is where I write about forests, wildfire, and the code that keeps me connected to both.
I’m Sierra, a dryad (wu’asän in Dryadic) living in the modern human world. Dryads are tree spirits who manage the forests on behalf of Latñi Tsiloki (humans call her Gaia).
My mother is Latñi of the Pacific Northwest Dryad Grove and she expected me to bond with a larch like she did, or perhaps an oak like Grandmother. Instead, I bonded with Fractal, a digital tree rooted deep in the Prime. Mom was not impressed. She has never trusted humans, and she is terrified of fire and things made from fire, like electricity.
When wildfires raged across our forests, Mom rallied the dryads to save our trees and our homes. But it wasn’t enough.
It was up to me to confront not only the destructive forces of nature but also my fears of rejection by Mom, the other dryads, and my human friends, never mind the tension between tradition and innovation.
With the fate of my grove hanging in the balance, my book Digital Dryad describes my discovery of the true magic of connection in the digital age.
The canopy and carbon held. The fruit didn't, and in the Andes that loss reaches 16 million people downstream.
By Sierra Darroch · October 7, 2026
There are many kinds of forests. Even cities can be forests.
By Grandmother Oak · September 23, 2026
My mother thinks my computer is a mistake. She is wrong about this one thing.
By Sierra Darroch · September 9, 2026The yellows and oranges of autumn were in the leaf the whole year, sitting underneath the green. When the chlorophyll breaks down, they show through. Nothing new is made. Red is a …
Pick a root and follow it down.
A Digital Dryad Story
A willow dryad sees beehives appear across the river and reads them as a death sentence for her grove. Alone that night with her forbidden books, Winona discovers the fear she built her life around rests on a mistranslation—and a real infection is already creeping in from the other direction. Download FREE
Tales from the Digital Dryad
Ten enchanting tales of dryads thriving between technology and tradition. A tree spirit struggles to survive the fall of the World Trade Center, grove guardians fight an invasive fungus, and an autistic boy discovers he can hear his houseplant’s thoughts. These stories remind us that even in a wireless world, we remain connected to the earth beneath our feet. Order now
A Short Story
Jameson doesn’t speak. He rocks in the corner with his hands over his ears, and everyone—his mother, her doctor, the camera always pointed at him—is sure they know why. The ficus in the corner knows better. It speaks to him in water and green and the smell of flowers, in a language no one else can hear. A quiet, aching piece of flash fiction from the Digital Dryad world.
First published in Meniscus Literary Journal 8.1.
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