Beyond the Fields We Know by Sarah Hall

Sarah Hall lives in Springboro, Ohio. She is a student at Wright State University and is working on a degree in creative writing. Her stories are almost exclusively fantasy with a touch of romance, and she is currently spending her time working on a novel that fits this description.

Mid-September, and the trees are just beginning to bleed, red droplets splashed over the streets and sidewalks, brown leaves like old blood raked into fragrant heaps. Julia crunches her way through them and takes a deep breath, an autumn chill just hinting at the corners of the wind. Her hands knead at each other roughly, and she wishes her skirt had pockets to force them still. Tears are pricking at the corners of her eyes already, and she dashes them away with her knuckles, trying her best to stifle her emotions.

Even in the bright coolness of the day, everything looks frozen. It’s as if the world stopped when she left this place and has only now begun to move again. Memories that had been forgotten come rushing back in a dizzying wave, washing away the minutiae of her life in the city and unearthing deeply ingrained artifacts she’d assumed to be lost. A tall and gabled house sits temptingly on the corner as she crosses the street toward it, inviting her to come and knock on the door, see if the face within matches the one she remembers. But she knows better, and she has an appointment to keep.

Somewhere, there’s music playing, the sweet sound of pipes, the tune at once mournful and celebratory—but she can’t hear it, lost in her own melancholy. The horned piper peeks out from a window of the house on the corner and sends a walking song down the wind to aid her on her way.

When the letter arrived, Julia had been surprised in more ways than one. First of all—a letter? She’d almost forgotten such a thing existed. Secondly, she’s positive she didn’t give John her new address when she moved. He would have had to go to considerable trouble to track her down. But why? The letter had given her a page’s worth of questions and no answers, full of lines like you’re the only one I can trust and I know you don’t want to see me, but you’ll want to see this.

She wants to be able to convince herself that’s why she’s come, to get answers. But it isn’t true, and she hasn’t been able to lie to herself through the ten long days between the arrival of the letter and the suggested meeting date. She wants to see him again, despite her better judgment, despite everything telling her it’s a bad idea.

She takes a deep breath and rolls her eyes, berating herself for doing this at all. There are too many other things she should be doing today—that deadline riding her, for one, worse than a bill collector at the door. She suddenly realizes that she’s left her cell in the car, and she shudders. Unreliable and annoying as the thing can be, she doesn’t feel safe without it.

The high school appears on her right as she turns a corner, a messy collection of buildings that have been remodeled and added to and remodeled again, until the whole thing resembles nothing so much as the magazine-clipping collages they used to do in what the school dubiously called “art” class. The unforgettable smell of rubber cement seems to drift past her nose, and she smiles, closing her eyes and enjoying the novelty of a memory that doesn’t have a heart wrenching emotion attached.

But, of course, memories never travel alone—another one comes right behind, as the light catches on the bleachers lining the football field and attracts her gaze. She can almost see the two of them sitting there under the bright lights, huddled together under an orange and black blanket, sitting on orange and black plastic cushions, surrounded by a sea of orange and black flags, banners, sweatshirts, and painted faces. He has his arm around her shoulders, and their faces are so close that their frosted breath combines into one trail of steam, floating off on the late autumn breeze. Everyone around them jumps to their feet, shouting joyously—something exciting on the field—but they don’t move an inch. In the next moment, he nods, and she reaches over and flips the page of the thick novel open on their laps. At the end of the game, as everyone is filing out and arguing good-naturedly with each other about a controversial final play, Julia and John are instead discussing how the portrayal of elves in The Shadowed Mirror compares to the portrayal of fey in Sylvan Forests of Ceresu, and which one is more successful.

“I don’t know, Jules, I like the elves. They’ve got this...nobility to them that the fey don’t.”

“Oh, but come on! The fey are wild and exciting and they have a sense of humor! Don’t you think the elves are a little...boring?”

“Since when did we have a problem with morally gray? That‘s what makes them interesting.”

“Well, both of them are better than those damned little fairies from Perish’s Underhills series. Honestly, did they even do anything in the story except fly around and look pretty?”

“Nothing, pretty girl, but that can’t be all. You know?” And he bends down and places a kiss on her upturned forehead before grinning and continuing with the conversation.

A tear runs down Julia’s cheek as the memory of soft lips on her skin fades away, and she places her hands over her face gently, letting herself feel the pain for just a moment before resuming her composure and tucking it away again. She looks around to get her bearings and picks up the pace, her heels clicking along the sidewalk quickly, all business. Two curious creatures with big, expressive eyes sit in a tree just above her head, watching her and grinning to one another. They know what’s coming, even if she doesn’t, and have to clamp hands over their mouths to keep their childlike giggles silent.

Julia has to slow down as she begins to descend a long, sloping hill, and as her pace slows her mind begins to wander again. Whatever fanciful part of her brain has decided to take control today skips ahead about two years from that football game, to one particular memory that has been nudging at her, begging for attention, ever since she stepped out of her car. This is the moment it chooses to break through. It’s from the last fall she spent here, at the very beginning of her senior year of high school, and she can remember feeling so anxious to get out of this town that she barely noticed anything around her, thoughts already on a journalism degree and the city news. But John hadn’t been willing to let her go so easily.

“You’re crazy, John. I’m sorry if I refuse to validate your delusions. Get some help.”

“You’re one to talk about delusions. Since when did you buy into the idea that living in this town is like living in a prison? Everyone should be so lucky.”

“I just think there’s more to life! Come on, think of all the opportunities we’ve never had living in a town this size! All the things we’ve never experienced!”

Suddenly, Julia trips over an imperfection in the sidewalk, the unexpected motion jerking her back to the present day. Glancing around quickly to make sure no one saw, she realizes that she’s walked over half the distance to their meeting place without realizing it. She’s come from the strictly residential areas to the town proper, or “downtown” as she used to call it, before she moved and realized what the word really means. Most of the buildings here were houses to begin with and have since been converted into shops and cafes. No two look alike, most painted in once-vivid colors with black or white trim. Along Main Street, the sidewalk comes right up to border the front walls of the shops, and she reaches out to run her fingers along the cracked and broken wood, very gently to avoid splinters. The wood feels warm, as if it’s still retaining the summer heat—a stark contrast to the smooth coolness of the big show windows, displaying everything from antique clockwork to books to homemade fudge.

On a Monday afternoon like this, not many people are stopping to look in the windows. Julia smiles to herself when she realizes she hasn’t lost the ability to tell a local from an out-of-towner in under thirty seconds. The locals wear everyday clothing and walk at a relatively quick pace, a destination in mind. The out-of-towners wear flowery hats and fanny packs and amble along aimlessly, exclaiming at how darned charming the whole place is. She wonders if they realize how the locals look at them and seriously doubts it. In the city, everyone’s a stranger.

She feels odd, going down this line of thinking. What am I, now? I’m not a local, not anymore. But I’m not quite an out-of-towner, either. I wonder if I confuse the locals looking at me. I know they are.

The clock tower chimes, and she instinctively looks at her watch even though she knows that tower is exactly seven minutes fast. Something flies in lazy circles around the spire of the clock, something that her mind vaguely recognizes as a bird but is not.

The graveyard is on the far side of town from where she’s parked, and she’s not sure why she didn’t just drive straight there. Perhaps some part of her wanted to put it off just a little while longer. But her time to procrastinate is growing shorter and shorter with each step she takes, and it’s too late to turn around now. She’s taken the time off work and driven this whole way, and she knows she’ll feel even worse if she goes home without seeing him than if she keeps going and does. So she keeps walking.

It’s beautiful here. There’s a part of her that feels guilty, taking aesthetic pleasure in a place of the dead, but it really is beautiful. The graveyard is surprisingly large for so small a town, probably due to how old the place is—two hundred years of residents are buried here. It’s built over a hill, with a black iron fence all around the border. At this time of the year, the grass is still bright and green, perfectly mowed, and the trees still hold enough of their leaves to cast sweeping shadows over the grounds. Some of the graves have dirty plastic flowers garnishing them, but most of the stones are adorned with fresh flowers, lovingly tended by those descendants that still live here. A few of the blossoms are starting to droop in the chill, just a few days away from becoming no more than the remains that lie six feet beneath them. There’s a fairy dancing on a freshly-filled grave just ahead of her, but she can’t see it.

There’s a tree at the very top of the hill that they used to walk to, and as she approaches it, her hands start their fidgeting up again. She doesn’t know why she’s here. There’s no good reason for this, and plenty of bad ones. She has a new life now, a life that she loves—a life that doesn’t involve any of this. It was all happily forgotten.

She makes her way up over the crest of the hill, and there, sitting on the iron bench below their tree, is the man she’s come to see. He has a newspaper in his hands, but he’s not reading it.

Seeing him again hits her like a physical force. Her mind and body both remember the closeness they once shared, and she can feel the distance between them as an ever-expanding void, a strange and unnatural place. She’s teetering right on the edge.

He stands as she comes to the end of the path, and they face each other there on the top of the hill, in the shadow of the tree. The wind suddenly feels colder than it did before, but she barely notices. She stares at him, waiting for him to speak. She has no intention of guessing at his purposes in setting this up. He asked her here—he has to go first.

“Julia...I didn’t think you’d come,” he says, and she can’t decipher the emotion in his voice. He was always a closed book to her, a foreign language.

She doesn’t know what she expects him to do. Come closer to her, maybe try for a hug, reminisce about how good they were together. Perhaps it’s arrogance, but she can’t come up with any other reason for him to write to her unless he wants to get back together. But he was always one to defy expectation.

He doesn’t answer her question. Instead, he flashes her that disarming grin that she remembers so well and walks right past her, back down the path, with not so much as a word of explanation. She catches a slight movement out of the corner of her eye and whips around, expecting to see someone behind her. But, from what she can see, there’s nothing there, nothing but a rustling in the yellow-tinged leaves of their tree.

Suddenly, the less than pleasant memory of why they broke up forces its way to the front of her mind. Anger surges through her, and she closes her eyes and takes a quick breath, trying to subdue it.

She turns and stalks after him. “John, wait. Come on. What’s this about?” she asks, her voice raised to make sure he hears.

He answers without turning around, and she has to strain to hear. “Just go with it, Julia. You never could take a surprise.”

She knows she shouldn’t take that bait, because that’s exactly what it is, but she can’t resist. She just can’t. “No one could take your kind of surprises!” she shouts back.

“Please. John. Seriously. You write me a letter after five years completely out of nowhere, make me come all the way out here on a workday, and I don’t even get a proper hello? That’s just not fair.”

At this, he does pause a moment, turning his head just enough to glance at her over one shoulder. “Hello,” he says, and keeps walking.

“Why are you pretending that you’re not?” he shoots back, and that makes her pause. It’s one of the things that she’d loved and hated about John at the same time. He always had this ability to get past your defenses with just the right words at just the right time.

She shuts up and follows him, because she has no answer for what he’s just asked.

He takes her back the way she’s just come, back into town. She’s not paying any attention to her surroundings this time—-he’s totally focused on him. He looks good. Better than her memories, probably because most of those are tainted by negative emotion. In reality...he reminds her of why she fell in love with him in the first place. When he turns that bright grin on you, hair falling into twinkling green eyes, you could almost imagine that he knows some amazing secret, and you would do just about anything to get him to share it with you.

She’s twenty-two, and she lives in the real world. She’s too old to be here, too old to be following John to God knows where for God knows what crazy reasons. But she does it anyway.

They’re back on Main Street, and he turns off into a tiny alleyway, one that you would never find unless someone showed you where it is. After a few moments, it becomes less an alley than a path between thickening rows of trees. She’s amazed at how small it is, overgrown with disuse, and how quiet! Main Street is mere yards away, and yet it feels as if they’ve stepped into a completely different world. Trees and shrubbery press in at them from both sides, and her hair and clothes catch on the branches. John is still going, so she fights her way through, hearing something tear and barely caring. She’s intrigued, despite herself, because now she knows where they’re going, and she wants to see it. She looks from side to side as she goes, peering deeply into the trees, almost but not quite glimpsing something more than vegetation in the dusky shadows.

They emerge after a bit of a hike into an open place, and it’s beautiful—a forest glade, so quiet you would think you were in the remotest wilderness, even though she knows that not two minute’s walk that way is the Parkinson’s backyard. Well, it used to be the Parkinson’s.

John stops in the center of the glade and turns to her, looking like nothing so much as a spirit of the forest with that nutty brown complexion and those deep green eyes. He laughs a bit, and starts to pick bits of leaves and branches out of her hair. She rolls her eyes—she’s sure she looks a wreck, while he somehow looks absolutely perfect with his hair mussed by the trees and a smudge of dirt on his cheek.

His grooming has brought him close, and his hands brush against her face just the tiniest bit. A shiver goes through her, and she catches her breath, hoping he hasn’t noticed. If he has, he doesn’t say anything, and she’s glad for that.

She nods. “Of course I do. I remember coming here after school when I didn’t want to go home, and reading, or talking, or just looking up at the leaves....” She does look up, and she can almost feel the shadows dancing on her face, the heat from the sun outlining their cooler shapes.

“We did other things here, too,” John says, in one of those indecipherable tones of his.

She flinches away and swallows hard. “Please, please, please tell me that’s not what this is about.”

He shakes his head, brows furrowed, obviously taken aback by her assumption. “No, I didn’t mean that! You really think I’d write you after all these years for that?” he exclaims.

“Well...no. You’re right. I’m just being paranoid. Sorry.” Her hands are wringing themselves to pieces, and she hopes he gets to the point soon. This is becoming more stressful than she wants to deal with.

He sighs and takes her hands in his. They’re big and warm, and they feel oh so familiar. “You said we used to read here. Do you remember what we read?” he asks.

“Well, a lot of things. But I do seem to remember a lot of fantasy novels,” she replies.

“Oh, that’s right! And we dressed up as two of the characters for Halloween that year...we were pretty obsessed, huh?” She laughs at the memory.

“You could call it that, I suppose. And do you remember what we used to look for?”

This question is tougher, and she has to think for a minute before hitting on what he’s talking about. “Oh! We were convinced that there was some kind of door, a portal or something, to one of those fantasy worlds we read about. We would say, oh, it’s such an old town—there has to be one here! God, did we really believe that?” She laughs again at their silliness.

Her laughter subsides, and she stares at him, suspicions beginning to grow. “John...why exactly are we here again?”

He licks his lips and leans closer to her, staring deep into her eyes. His voice is barely more than a whisper. “Jules. I found it.”

She’s frozen for a second. Then she wrenches her hands away from his and backs off a few steps. “What did you say?” she whispers back harshly.

His expression is utterly serious, and his voice is so full of conviction he could be speaking in a courtroom or a church. “I found it. The door. It was right here all the time, right under our noses—we just never spotted it.”

She shakes her head, trying to find appropriate words. There are none. She reaches for the only thing she can think of. “You are such a liar! You lied to me when we were together, and you’re lying to me now, and I’m not going to stand here and listen to that! Goodbye!”

She turns and starts to fight her way back through the overgrown path. She’s suddenly desperate for the company of other people, the steadying background noise of talk and cars and ringing phones. But John lunges for her arm and pulls her back, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close to him. He leans down and whispers right into her ear, and she can feel the heat of his breath on her skin.

“Julia, things went bad at the end. We both did our share of fighting and lying and intentionally hurting each other. And then it was over. I know I was glad to have all that ugliness behind us, and I bet you were, too. Why would I want to bring all that up again? It’s hard enough seeing you and knowing that you were the best thing that ever happened to me and that somehow the world stole you away. But when I found the door, I knew I had to tell someone—and who else could I tell? You were the only one I could think of who might not think I was totally insane. You’re the only person I’ve ever known that might find the joy in this instead of just the impossibility.”

“Please, Jules. Let me show you. Then you can run, if you want, and I’ll be out of your life for good.”

He has that look on his face again, that I know a secret look that’s so irresistible, and she wants nothing more in that moment than to kiss him. But he’s already rushed away, to the very center of the grove, and he kneels down on the damp ground and starts digging. Looking closely at the spot, she can see that it’s been recently disturbed, the ground loose and easily thrown aside. The adult in her is scoffing already—but the child in her, the part of her that’s been emerging more and more since she set foot back in this town, is becoming excited. She can’t keep a tiny smile from her face.

John works quickly and efficiently, and he grins as he begins to reveal something under the dirt. She joins him on her knees, staring down into the hole as he clears away the last of the earth so she can see...a trapdoor, rough wood with iron hinges. Their eyes meet, and she can feel the grin on her face to match his.

“Should I open it?” he asks, and she nods quickly. He reaches down and grabs a large iron ring, pulling up hard. The trapdoor swings up and rests against one side of the hole in the ground. It’s deep, so deep that she can’t see anything within it—only darkness and a sense of space continuing below.

She gives him a strange look, but follows his instruction. Bracing her hands on the cool, damp earth, she leans down, her head disappearing into the hole. And below the smell of disturbed earth, below the smells of autumn coming from above, she smells something else, something unmistakable—the bright flowery scent of a midsummer breeze. But it’s not the summer she’s used to—it’s clean, it’s pure, and it’s so strong.

John is staring at her, waiting for a reaction. She looks back at him with wide eyes. “Do you smell the summer?” he asks.

They sit there in silence for a long time, one on each side of the hole in the ground. There’s a tiny voice in the back of her head that’s muttering something about impossibility and work and responsibilities, but it’s drowned out in an overwhelming wave of joy.

Creatures of all shapes and sizes have started to emerge from the trees around them, forming a loose circle around the two people and the door. There is the satyr with his pipes, the giggling tree sprites, the small dragon more often perched in high places, and the dancing graveyard fairy.

She reaches across the opening and takes his face in her hands, drawing him toward her, and, hardly knowing what she’s doing, she kisses him, a midsummer breeze from another world bathing them in its warmth. It feels familiar and exotic at the same time, and there is an excitement within her that she hasn’t felt in a long, long while.

When they break apart, they’re wearing matching smiles again, and she knows exactly what she’s going to say.

As she follows him into the tunnel, she takes one more look around the glade. She can feel the hand of fate on her, and a sense of unbreakable connection with this world that she’s known and left and known again, and she knows that someday, she’ll be back. Then she works her way down into the tunnel and takes John’s hand, walking fearlessly into the darkness and the summer breeze.