Tree Sprites Part 1

The grass was crispy. Cars were glittery and the paths were white. It was frosty. Actually it was -3 degrees and very cold. The perfect condition for the Tree Sprite.
Young and bouncy they were as they only awoke if the temperature was -3 at 0600 hours on a Tuesday morning. Now of course this is very specific and so very rare that Tree Sprite would sleep for the rest of the time. Not everyone knows this but sleep does keep one youthful and the Tree Sprites slept so long that they were almost going back in time!

Very few humans see the Tree Sprites and those who do will soon forget, unless they make you hurt. It was one of the things Tree Sprites had developed over the years of sleepy evolution and fast human settlement to keep them safe. Dead or dying people were the only people so far to have been able to describe the Tree Sprite and so they were thought to not exist, to be witchcraft or more recently, a medicine induced hallucination. But this was the day when that changed.

She was driving home from work. It was 06:07 and she'd been driving for an hour when she entered her home town and saw the white paths, glittery cars and crispy grass. It was very cold but not in the car. Thinking about breathing in a nice fresh breath of ice cold air she pressed the button to make the window come down and the air bit into her like a short sharp shock. So did the Tree Sprite. It was about 6 inches tall and had long limbs about two thirds the size of it's body. It looked very human except it was twiggy. She later supposed that's why they survived for so long sleeping in the trees for years on end because it was camouflaged. 

But yes, the Sprite. Almost as soon as the window had opened in it flew bouncing on the steering wheel and landing in the humans lap. It bit her quickly and sharply on the leg. She cried out in shock, swerved the car a little bit and merged the bonnet with a lamp post.

Looking into her lap the Human saw a Tree Sprite curled up into a little ball and fast asleep. It wasn't -3 in the car.

To be continued...