I still remember Molly. She had long curls of shining brown hair. Green eyes with flecks of brown that sparkled like the surface of a clear, summer pond. Lips that curved up slightly even when she didn’t feel like smiling. A scream so sharp that it tore the night apart and kept going, right up until it buried itself in my heart.
I remember her. I do. It won’t take her from me. I won’t let it.
I woke up with my head pressed against the metal frame of the window. When I pulled away, my sweaty skin left a greasy smear on the glass, making the passing world outside seem muddled and strange. I was on the school bus home as it followed the same route it had taken since junior high. There was another five minutes before it came to a lumbering halt at the bottom of the hill where I lived—not enough time to go back to sleep, so I might as well wake up before I...wait, what was in my hand?
It was a small piece of paper. Not notebook paper or typing paper, but that thicker, more expensive paper you tended to see in journals and limited edition books. Except this paper was purple, a dark lavender that was the same shade as the lilies that had been on Molly’s sister’s coffin. She had died before I met Molly, but I felt like I knew her from all the stories I’d been told. Purple had been her favorite color, and so when she died, Molly had insisted that the funeral spray have purple lilies. She’d told me it was an asiatic lily strain called “Purple Dream”, and when I looked uncertain, Molly had pulled out her little notebook—leather-clad and careworn, and I already knew what she was going to show me.
According to Molly, the lavender pages in the notebook were just the same shade of purple as the lilies on the coffin. I didn’t know what to say. As much as we’d talk about times when her sister was alive, we rarely discussed the time surrounding her death. After a few moments, I awkwardly offered that it was neat that they both liked the same color so much. Molly had looked surprised.
“Oh, I don’t. Not really. But it’s a way of keeping her with me. Of not forgetting her. Of reminding myself what she liked. What she was like. I don’t want her just to be a memory, you know? Memories are such liars.”
I rubbed the folded piece of torn paper between my thumb and index finger for a moment, holding on to that moment when she told me how she kept her sister with her. Her, so sweet and earnest and wonderful and…me, finally admitting to myself how much I loved her. I didn’t tell her that day, or for weeks after that, but when I did, she’d just smiled and kissed me.
But where was she? She was gone, and I wasn’t sure where, was I? How did I not know? I looked at the paper again, the rough-hewn skin of it suddenly no longer comforting. It was strange and alien. A black door in a meadow that should never be opened. I wanted to throw it away, but a pain in my chest stopped me. No. I couldn’t run from this. I had to remember again. I had to remember all of it. And maybe this was a note from Molly. Something she left me that could help me find her again.
So I opened it. And I read the two words written there, my breath dying in my chest as I remembered again how I had heard her scream. Just two words, written in her heavy, flowing hand, but they were enough to press me down through my seat, through the world, until I was nearly gone. Just a thin thread between what had been, what was, and what might be. Two words.
Starfield Black
I hadn’t seen her since the past Friday, which was irregular for us, but I’d had to go out of town for a family reunion with my folks and when I’d thought of begging off, Molly reminded me that in ten months we’d be away together at college and there’d be less chances to spend time with our families. A weekend here and there would do us both good.
We both knew she meant that more for me than herself—her father was overseas and her mother worked at the hospital most weekends, so the odds of her socializing with either of them seemed doubtful. But she was right, I needed to take the time while I had it. Me and Molly had our whole lives to be together.
As soon as I saw her during morning break that Monday, I knew something was wrong. She looked pale and nervous, and my first thought was that she was sick. Taking her hand, I gave it a squeeze.
“What’s wrong? You don’t look right.”
She gave me a small smile, a little of her normal twinkle coming to life in her eyes. “You do charm me, Douglas. You’re quite the silver-tongued devil.” I was starting to smile at that when her eyes left mine again, as though the weight of holding her gaze was too much for her to bear. Pressing her lips into a thin line, she lowered her voice slightly. “I…I’m all right, but I do need to talk to you. Can we go over?”
“Going over” for us meant going behind the lunchroom where most of the high schoolers hung out during morning break. Usually there were a few kids back there too, but it was sparse enough that you had some privacy if you wanted it. I could tell from looking at her that this was something she didn’t want anyone else to hear.
So we went over, and we’d barely rounded the corner before she turned back to me, her eyes wider and a bit wilder than before. I went to ask what was wrong, but then she was grabbing my arms and talking in a low, urgent tone that brooked no questions or argument. At first, I couldn’t decide if it was excitement or terror I heard in her voice, but by the time she was done, I knew.
It was both.
Doug, I went…I went walking out behind the house last night. Well, it wasn’t night when I started, but it was heading that way. And I didn’t plan on walking so long, but I was jittery and missing you and I just had this feeling that…well, that I needed to go out. So I did.
I walked down the trail behind the house, you know, the one that goes to the river. And I got there, went over the kissing bridge and I decided I’d go on to the edge of the Stalwart farm. It was a good ways, but there was still light, and you know how fast I am. I figured I’d go and be back before the moon was even up.
But time gets strange when night sets in. It was dark quicker than I’d figured, and by the time I reached the first field, I was beginning to regret my choice. Now I had to walk back in the dark and try not to twist my ankle or step on a snake.
I was turning to do just that when something in the field caught my eye. Or not a something, but rather, a nothing. The sky was turning more black than blue, but I could still see across the field some. Enough to see a patch of dark in the middle of that tall grass--a bit of shadow that didn’t belong.
At first I thought it was a new shed or small silo even—it had been a couple of months since we’d last walked that far in that direction, after all. But the more I looked, the more I saw that was wrong. It wasn’t a building or a piece of equipment or…well, or anything that I could tell. It had no features or form, just a vertical slice of night, like the rest of the world hadn’t caught up to it yet.
I should have left right then. I don’t know why I didn’t. Instead, I headed into the fallow grass, and I wasn’t worried about it being late or snakes any more. I just wanted to see it closer. Make sense of it. I felt scared and happy all at once, and I had this strange idea that if I got closer, I could maybe narrow it down to just the happy.
Getting closer didn’t help much. It was bigger to me now, but it still had no discernable features other than the hazy edges where it ended and the field began. Well, that’s not entirely true. As I got closer, I saw it was way taller than I’d thought. I don’t know how I didn’t see it from far off, but it stretched up all the way into the sky, farther than I could see the end of it. That and…well, it seemed to vibrate a little. I could feel a hum coming off of it as I got closer, kind of like being close to a big power line. The hairs on my arms were standing on end, and I still thought about cutting and running, even at the end, but I didn’t. Instead, I just kept going.
The rest of the sky was dark now, and I was already seeing the first stars peeking out. I figured I still had another twenty yards or so before I reached the edge of the thing, though it was hard to say for sure. But then my next step…well, it just disappeared. For a second I thought it had just gone away, but then I looked around and realized that the darkness wasn’t what had disappeared.
The field had.
Doug, I was standing in the middle of an orchard. It was still dark, but it was a different kind of dark there. Pure black, but yet somehow I could still see. I saw the rows of trees, and beyond that, rolling fields that stretched out to the base of a mountain. A mountain, Doug. Not the little hills like we have around here. It was the biggest thing I’ve ever seen—jagged and curved like the tooth of some giant monster that was waiting under ground. And on the mountain, way off in the distance, I could see tiny green lights. Someone lived up there, wherever there was, and I could sense from the sights and the sounds and the smells that things were living all around me—just not things like I’d ever known.
That’s when it really hit me that I was some place different. I looked up between the trees at that inky black sky and…there were no stars. Not the first one. But I did see a moon. It was funny-looking though. Not white and round like ours, but pinkish, with a bluer top that stuck out and…Doug, it wasn’t a moon! It was two moons. The second one, the little blue one, it came on out after a minute from behind the big pink one. Seeing them…it made me so happy. It made me wish you were with me so much.
That’s when I realized I needed to try to leave again. Needed to come back and tell you about it if I could. So I went backwards back the way I’d come, and I tell you, my heart was pounding. I was afraid it wouldn’t work and I’d be stuck. But I was also afraid it would work, and it might not let me back in once I found you.
She was crying a little now, and I went to give her a hug, but she shook her head.
“No, I’m okay. I…I got back out, obviously, and even though I went straight home, it was almost midnight when I got there. I’d been in that place for hours I guess. I wanted to call you or go get you right then and there, but I knew it’d seem crazy.” She looked up at me, her expression growing slightly hurt as she tried to smile. “Though judging from how you’re looking, I didn’t do a much better job today than I would have last night.”
I returned her smile nervously. “Baby, I don’t think you’re crazy. But I think maybe you had a real vivid dream or something last night. That’s what it sounds like to me.”
Molly’s face hardened slightly. “I know a dream. This was no dream. I remember it clearly, and…” Her eyes roved around as though she was searching for something. “And I had a leaf, a leaf from one of those trees, stuck in my hair this morning! I flushed it before I thought about it, but I swear it was there.”
I nodded, trying to keep my expression neutral. “Okay, well, I understand. We should go back after school and see if it’s still…”
She was already shaking her head. “No, we can’t wait. Don’t you understand? It could go away. We have to go now. Step through while there’s time.”
Frowning, I pulled away from her slightly. “Molly, if there is something out there, we don’t need to just go messing with it.” After pausing, I added. “It could be dangerous.”
She snorted. “You don’t believe me anyway.”
I sighed. “No, you’re right. I don’t. It doesn’t sound real. But I do trust you. More than anyone on this earth. And real or not, if you say it’s there, that’s good enough for me.”
Her smile was brighter this time as she stepped forward to give me a hug. I felt as much as heard the next words she muttered into my chest.
“Okay then. Let’s go.”
The bus shuddered and squealed as it came to a stop at the bottom of my hill. Stepping off, I stuffed my hands in my jacket, the right one clutched tight around the message like it was a talisman. Maybe that’s exactly what it was.
I knew no one should be home, but I was still anxious as I crept inside my house and pulled the keys for the old pickup off the hook by the door. The thing barely ran and would breakdown in a stiff wind, but that was okay. It didn’t need to get me far.
Just past Molly’s house, to where the woods began. I could make my own way from there.
I was anxious as she drove us across and out of town—partially because I’d never skipped school before, but mainly because I was worried about her. Something was wrong here, but I didn’t know what yet. And whatever it was…it had my Molly tight in its grasp. So until I could see what was going on, I had to go along. I looked over at Molly and she caught my eye, giving me a smile.
“We’re here.”
She had driven down a side road that ran along the Stalwart property, and even as we got out of the car I saw the dim shape of the thing in the field.
“My God. What is that?”
Molly beamed at me. “I know, right? I told you it was real.” She came around and grabbed my hand, pulling me forward toward the field. “Come on. We need to go now.”
For a distance I walked without resistance. My mind was trying to justify or reconcile what I was seeing. It was just as she’d said, and even in the near midday sun, that patch of night stood out like a wound in the world.
But as we got closer, I started feeling that hum on my skin, in my bones and my brain. It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t feel right either. And something in me turned at that, though I wasn’t sure if I was feeling fear of danger, or just the unknown. Either way, the result was the same. I pulled my hand from Molly’s and stopped in my tracks.
She slowed to a stop and looked back. “What’s wrong? It’s fine, Doug. I’ve been in already. You know I wouldn’t bring you here if I thought it was something bad.”
I stared at her for a moment and then past her to the looming dark that wavered a few yards further on. “How? How can you know that isn’t bad? And how do you know that where it goes isn’t bad?”
Molly smiled and rolled her eyes at me. “I told you, I was there for hours. And nothing bothered me. It’s a good place. A magic place. I could feel that.” Her face grew more serious. “And we can be happy there. Really happy. I could feel that too.”
I rubbed my face with a clammy palm before meeting her gaze again. “And what if you’re wrong? What if it closes and we’re trapped there?”
She frowned slightly. “Then we’d be trapped there together.” Waving her hands, she turned back toward the darkness. “It’s better if I just show you. I’ll go in first and then you”
Suddenly she was gone.
“Molly!” I ran closer, but there was no sign of her. Just unrelenting darkness and the static buzz the thing was putting off. “Molly, can you hear me?” I waited, at first hearing nothing, but then faintly:
“Doug? I can hear you. Come on in. It’s like it was before. It’s wonderful here. Please come in.”
I felt my feet going numb. “I…I’m scared, Molly. Just come back out, okay?”
Several moments passed and then: “Doug, I can’t. It’s not letting me back out this time. I…maybe it’s getting ready to close. But maybe you can still get in. Please, baby. Come in now before it’s too late.”
My mind was filled with reasons not to, but none of them mattered. I had to go to her. Be with her. Help her if I could. Maybe it really was a wonderful place, or if not, maybe we could find a way back out to—
As I reached my hand out, I felt a force slam through my body, sending me cascading backwards for what seemed like forever. I remember landing in the dirt and weeds and wondering why it was nighttime already. Wondering where Molly was and why she was screaming my name. I needed to find her, tell her I was all right. That everything was okay and…
“That movie was dumb.”
I looked down at Molly as we walked out of the theater and grinned. “Yeah, I mean, yeah it kinda was. But it was still pretty good.”
She rolled her eyes. “You like dumb movies. It’s shameful, but true.” Snickering, she went on. “But I mean, that couple were supposed to be spies, right?”
I nodded. “Yep. International spies, which are always the fanciest.”
She returned my nod. “Right. And yet when he’s trapped in that meat curing shed or whatever, hanging by his feet, and she comes in acting like she’s with the bad guys so she can rescue him, what does he do? He eats his poison tooth because he’s heartbroken she betrayed him or whatever, which she didn’t, but they were too dumb to figure that out.”
I shrugged as we reached her car. “I mean, yeah. But that’s the point, right? It’s like Romeo and Juliet. It’s tragic because it’s all a big misunderstanding. They were supposed to be together, but things got in the way.”
Molly poked me in the chest. “Exactly. Romeo and Juliet is dumb too. Stupid people making rash decisions rather than talking about stuff or making a plan.”
Laughing, I poked her back in the stomach. “Yeah, well what we just watched wasn’t exactly Shakespeare. But I don’t know. I think people do dumb stuff in the heat of the moment.”
She nodded, her eyes narrowing slightly. “They do. But we won’t.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “We won’t?”
“Nope. Because if either one of us is either kidnapped or trapped or being tortured by a secret cabal of spies, and the other one comes to rescue them, we’re going to have code phrases to let each other know what’s up. You know—I’m on your side, it’s time to go, that kind of thing.”
I snorted a little. “You are special. Like gifted—but not really gifted—special.”
Molly glared at me. “Mock me if you will, but this might save our lives one day. My code phrase will be…Lemon Muskrat. So if you’re ever coming to get me out of a bad spot, just tell me that so I know everything will be okay.”
I turned to get in the car. “Okay, Agent Lemon Muskrat.”
“Wait.”
Stopping, I looked at her across the roof of the car questioningly.
“What’s yours?”
“My passcode thingie?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes. This is serious business. We both need one for it to work well.”
Smirking, I rubbed my chin. “Hmm. Let me think. How about ‘Spacefield Black’.”
Molly let out a groan. “Seriously? You’re still butt-hurt we didn’t go see that sci-fi thing?”
I grinned. “No, it’s wholly unrelated. Though it probably would have been better than the dumb crap we just watched.”
Sighing, she nodded. “Probably yeah. Okay. You’re stuck with it now. When I come to rescue you, remember that you picked a dumb space movie for your cool spy password.”
Laughing, I opened the car door. “Yeah, when it comes up, I’ll be sure to remember.”
When I woke up in the field the next morning, the doorway to night was gone. Molly wasn’t there either. I found her car where she’d left it, but there was no sign of her. Then I called her mother, hoping she’d found her way home somehow.
Molly’s mother didn’t know what I was talking about. I don’t mean that she didn’t know Molly was missing. I mean she didn’t know Molly at all. That she was her daughter or that she existed at all. We had a frustrating and terrifying phone call that morning followed by a longer, more heated conversation in person that afternoon, and she swore that she only had one daughter, Susan, and that Susan had died ten years ago.
It was the same with everyone. People as school, her friends, my friends, my own parents, no one remembered her. It was as though when she stepped through that doorway, she’d been completely erased from every place in this world.
Except for me.
I still remember Molly. Six months have passed, and every day I find it harder to picture her face or hear her voice. Every time I wake, I make myself recount every detail I can remember, hold onto every memory, even if they are becoming memories of memories of memories. Even though it’s like I’m grasping at sand, and every time I reach, I can tell there’s less in my grip, and I’ve been terrified of the day that I put out my hand and there’s nothing left.
But then today, the note came.
It’s impossible that she could have gotten me the note. Impossible. But then again, I sit writing this in a field two miles behind her old house, staring up at the black gateway that waits patiently for me to finish. I’m not afraid of it closing too soon. She says this time its for me, and it will wait for me to be ready. That she can’t come back out without us losing that world for good, but that she’s prepared a place for us there. A place where we will be safe and happy and together.
I don’t trust this thing or the strange world that lies beyond it. I don’t understand how it works or how it has the power to wipe Molly’s memory from this world. And I write this account knowing that it will likely never be read. For all I know, it might crumble away as soon as I pass over.
But I’m okay with that. Things aren’t worth less because they don’t last forever. And they don’t cease to be just because no one remembers them. The moments and the thoughts and the feelings and the life that fill all of them, they always matter even when we can’t see them any more. And the things that matter the most, well, they never truly end. And there’s always a way to find our way back to them.
Now I’ve found mine.
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