Free A Life Earthbound by Katie Jennings

successfully rising through the ranks of the Enforcers, swiftly becoming one of the best. He frequented Euphora to visit with the Furies and with Thea, making sure they knew he was reliable and trustworthy.
    As they approached, Rhiannon clutched her bag and waited.
    Burke was a tall man, lean but fit, with big hands and a slender face topped with cropped brown hair. He had sharp brown eyes that were deceptively framed with smile lines, and a mouth that was just as quick to grin. But while he appeared friendly on the outside, inside he was a well oiled demon fighting machine, gritty, precise and effective.
    He smiled politely as he passed her, nodding in greeting. His son sneered in superiority, which she expected.
    They brushed past her and continued down the corridor to the Furies’ office, and as they continued she could hear Burke instructing his son.
    “One day you’ll be an Enforcer too, champ, and you’ll be the best there is. I’m going to make it happen for you, you hear? Just do as I say and we will be on top, father and son. The Callahan name will go down in infamy.”
    “Yes, father.” Michael’s response reminded her alarmingly of herself.
    He doesn’t sound very happy, she thought as she turned in the opposite direction toward the Greenhouse. Did he even want to be an Enforcer?
    She thought of her own father. He had always told her about her future as an Earth Dryad and how important she was to the world. But he had never asked her if that was what she wanted.
    In some of the books she read, they told of what humans did, how some of them became teachers, doctors or athletes. Did she have the choice to be something else, too?
    With that question nagging her, she entered the Greenhouse and spotted her father, working over his drafting table on a new fern he was designing.
    She debated whether or not to ask, wondering if he would be angry with her. But it seemed like a reasonable question to her, and her curiosity was so great she needed to know.
    When he heard her come in, he straightened and turned around. “How was class, Rhiannon?”
    “Fine,” she responded, as she always did. He nodded and rose to his feet, glancing one last time at his drawing and making a few quick notations.
    She clenched her hands behind her back and tried to find the right words to say.
    “I was wondering…” she began, her chest constricting from nerves and her clasped hands trembling slightly. He turned to face her, removing the reading glasses he’d taken to wearing recently.
    “About what?”
    Biting her lip, she took a deep breath. “Do we ever have the choice to…not be a Dryad?”
    Taken aback, he wondered if he had heard her correctly.
    “Choice, Rhiannon?”
    Seeing his confusion, she tried to elaborate. “I read that humans can become teachers or doctors…they have choices. Do we have a choice, too?”
    “Why in the world would you want something different?” he asked, alarmed and wondering where this came from. “It is our duty to be Dryads. What we do is crucial to the survival of this planet, Rhiannon. We don’t have the luxury of a choice.”
    Wishing she hadn’t asked, Rhiannon nodded solemnly. Of course he was right, she should have known that.
    Feeling he’d gotten his point across, Rohan motioned her to look at his charts on redwood growth in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
    She listened as he explained the importance of repairing the damage to an area that had been burned by human carelessness just a year before. Re-growth and mending the damaged trees was imperative for this endangered species of tree to survive.
    Although she listened, part of her was busy wondering why she hadn’t felt like a prisoner before in her own home, duty bound to serve Euphora simply because of who and what she was.
    After seeing her father’s reaction, Rhiannon never again questioned why she had to be a Dryad. She merely accepted and moved on.

    She wandered through the courtyard while everyone else went to