A Light Behind the Trees

            “Hey, Jess. Jessica,” Meredith said, shaking her awake. “Wanna do something fun?”

            Jessica had slipped into an unexpected sleep for the last few hours. It was too late to call it a nap but too early to go to bed. She looked around wide-eyed before checking her phone. It was 11:30 p.m.

            “I did not mean to go to sleep so early. Fuck,” Jessica said, rubbing her eyes. She felt her forehead. It was wet. It reminded her of how her head felt after her mom kissed her to wake her up in the morning. She wondered if Meredith kissed her, but it was probably just sweat.

            “Me neither. We both passed out.”

            The women were traveling Australia together the year after college. They had been driving from farm to farm in a cheap car, working sporadically for a few weeks here and there and seeing as much of the country as they could before their money ran out. They felt like it might be their last time to travel abroad without worry, staying in sheds and hostels, before settling into their adult lives back home.

            This workday at their current farm had been particularly physically draining. They spent the whole day digging up thistles. The farm owner, Kurt, called it "thistle grubbing," which the girls didn't love the sound of. Their palms and shoulders were raw. They only had a day or two left at this farm, and they were eager to get back on the road. They were planning to stay at a hostel in a nearby city and drink for the rest of their trip.

            “Kurt’s wine really hit me,” Jessica said. She sat up in bed. She considered going back to sleep, but Meredith sat next to her and kept her upright. Meredith’s smile faded to a firm look. She leaned in close to Jessica’s ear and whispered.

            “Someone’s outside.”

            Jessica’s skin bristled, and her blood ran cold.

            “Oh my god.”

            “Oh my god,” Meredith pulled back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. But look. Just behind the trees. Across the field. I can see a flickering light. It’s been out there the last couple nights. I can see it right now.”

            Jessica slowly crept to the window and looked out beyond the quarter mile of field surrounding the small shed where they slept on Kurt’s property. At the tree line, just outside the border where the darkness of those lush giants stops the world, there was a flickering light.

            “I thought it was just someone camping or something,” Meredith continued, “until Kurt told us that story tonight. It’s her. It’s the witch.”

            Kurt's farm was a common stop for foreign travelers backpacking their way around Australia. It was a reputable organic farm with a bit of livestock that needed extra help in exchange for food and a place to sleep. The visa program they traveled through recommended him. He was an older, sun-drenched man with a full head of clean-cut gray hair. He usually roamed the property shirtless, but it was more in a dad way than anything inappropriate. The girls felt safe with him.

            But after two or three bottles of wine during dinner that evening, that safe feeling dissolved.

            He said a witch lived in the woods at the edge of his property. The girls laughed at that word, and he glared at them. They hadn’t seen him glare before. He said the witch sits at the edge of the trees at night and shines a flickering light to attract travelers. He told them never to explore the woods at night. He said he didn't want to see anyone else go missing, and, most surprisingly of all, he started crying. He sounded embarrassed. He sounded desperate. He begged them.

            Then they woke up.

            “You think a witch is out there?” Jessica said, smiling, poking fun with her tone. If she made fun of it, it couldn’t scare her. “Is she going to Avada Kedavra us?” She did her impression of Voldemort, which usually made Meredith laugh.

            “I don’t know, but something is out there, and I want to see what.”

            “Kurt said not to see what it is.”

            “Cool.” Meredith stood up and got dressed to go outside. She put on boots and grabbed her phone. “So. Are you coming?”

            Jessica got dressed to go outside. She looked around for a moment.

            “I can’t find the car keys,” she said. “I thought they were on the bedside table. Was I seriously that drunk?”

            “We don’t need to drive over there.”

            “There’s a tire iron in the car, and I want to grab it. For protection.”

            “To be honest, I don’t really want you swinging a tire iron around in the dark. You’ll probably conk my dang lights out with that thing.” Meredith laughed. “We can look for your keys when we get back. Let’s just go.”

            “Okay.”

            They set out toward the tree line, the small field of light from their phones guiding their path. In this remote area, their phones were only useful as flashlights, and they barely did that job well. All the lights in the shed remained on so they could easily see it when they returned. They heard banging coming from Kurt’s house, near the storm cellar, and assumed he was working on some kind of drunk, late-night project. He was always working. Farmers. It made them feel safer, knowing he was awake.

            The stars were bright, and they could see the outline of the tall woods ahead of them. The flickering was deep behind the tree line, but as they approached, it never appeared to get closer. When they got up to the tree line, the flickering light looked as far away as it did when they were in the shed.

            “Jesus Christ,” Meredith said. “I thought it would be like right here. How far back is it?”

            “Yeah,” Jessica said softly.

            They stood staring into the trees. The flickering light was all they could make out of the pure black. They smelled smoke. It was a campfire. Jessica shifted her weight backward, and Meredith shifted her weight forward.

            “You’re not bitching out on me, are you?” Meredith said playfully.

            “That’s literally someone camping,” Jessica said. “It’s not a witch. I don’t want to just roll up on someone camping in the woods. We’ll startle them, and they might freak out or something. It’s not a good idea to do that.”

            “They’re on Kurt’s property. And I hate to break it to you, but we aren’t that frightening.”

            “That isn’t the point.”

            “We’ll make our presence very clear so we don’t frighten them. We’ll just ask them what they’re doing. In a friendly way.”

            Jessica thought she heard cars driving up the long gravel driveway toward the main house. Headlights. She turned, worried that they might need help with something. But Meredith grabbed Jessica's wrist and pulled her through the tree line into the darkness.

            “Kurt can handle whatever they need,” Meredith said.

            Once they passed over the threshold, everything outside the forest disappeared. The campfire was suddenly only about 10-20 yards away. In a snap, it had jumped so much closer. Jessica looked back, but she could no longer see the shed's lights. No headlights. The flashlights on their phones only provided a small illumination bubble that spanned barely a couple feet. They were absorbed into the infinite night of those woods. Darkness crushed the world around them as they made their way toward the only other light they could see.

            “Hello!” Meredith hollered. No response. They made very clear, intentional steps, trying to provide full warning of their arrival, walking as respectfully as they could while trying not to trip in the dark. “We work at the farm. Just saying hi!”

            They entered a small clearing and stood next to a neat little campfire surrounded by rocks. Deeper in the woods, beyond this fire, Jessica saw another light flickering even further back. Someone else was camping not too far away.

            She choked on startled breath.

            Two dark figures, each about the height of Jessica and Meredith, were standing, tense and staring. The flames danced off their faces. They were women about their age, and they looked like backpackers.

            The girls politely turned their flashlights off and returned them to their pockets.

            “Hey,” Meredith said. “Are you girls camping out here? That’s totally cool, by the way. We work on this farm. Do you know Kurt?”

            They stared back at her quietly. Meredith and Jessica looked deeper at their faces. It didn’t make sense at first, and they tried to brush it off. A trick of the light. But the longer they stared, it was unshakeable. In the dancing firelight, the women looked like them. They looked exactly like them. They were even wearing the same clothes. Only their clothes were in much worse condition. Their faces were dirtier. Like they had been out here for days.

            “Stop talking,” the woman who looked like Jessica said. She turned her head toward the other campfire flickering deeper in the woods. “The witch is over there. Do not go toward that light.”

            Suddenly, the woman who looked like Meredith kicked out the fire and plunged the group into darkness.

            Jessica stood, terrified, motionless. It was like her eyes were closed. Her body wouldn’t let her make a sound. She could only see the other flickering campfire further in the woods. The thought of plunging deeper into the darkness clawed at her chest, but she was unable to object when Meredith's hand grabbed her wrist and started pulling her toward the second light.

            They brushed past sharp branches and bushes, cutting their exposed skin and huffing through the abyss. Jessica didn't have time to feel scared of the new light. They had nowhere else to go. They couldn’t see the tree line. They couldn't see their shed. The next light was their only way forward.

            When they arrived, Meredith let go of Jessica’s wrist. The camp was empty. Only a small fire crackled, filling the clearing with a soothing orange glow. Meredith sat by the fire, and Jessica stood beside her. Meredith gestured for her to sit, and after some convincing, she agreed.

            “I’m sorry,” Meredith said.

            “It’s okay,” Jessica said. “We’ll find our way out of here.”

            “No,” Meredith said. “I’m sorry I let you die.” Jessica looked at her. “Before. In the past. I let her get you. I let the witch get you. I’m so sorry, Jess. That's why I had to run. That girl. That girl who looked like you. That was her. That was the witch. She was trying to trick you. She took you when we first came out here to investigate. But I didn’t let her get you this time. I got you away from her. I saved you this time.”

            Jessica looked at Meredith’s clothes. Although they had just run through the woods, her clothes looked much more roughed up. Her face was dirtier. It looked like she had been out here for days. Jessica was sitting with the woman who kicked out the fire.

            Her skin bristled, and her blood ran cold. Her legs were full of electricity. She stood up to leave but stopped. A startled breath choked her again, only this time it made her cough, and she fell into a coughing fit, spitting in the dirt, eyes bulging.

            At the edge of the light, a shadow loomed. A silhouette rocked back and forth.

            “That’s the witch, Jessica,” the woman who looked like Meredith continued. “She can’t come over here. Jessica and I made this fire earlier. Other Jessica. The Jessica from the past. Or your future, I guess. But it isn’t your future. Because I saved you. You didn’t get caught this time. Only I did. But that was the past me. So, it’s okay. And I’m safe here in the future, so it’s okay. It doesn’t matter. She can’t come over here.”

            Jessica let go of everything she didn’t understand about what the woman was telling her and asked one thing.

            “You’re sure she can’t come over here?”

            The silhouette moved restlessly at the edge of the light.

            “I’m sure,” the woman who looked like Meredith said. “Because this is our fire. She can’t come over to our fire, can she!” she yelled at the silhouette. “That’s why she was telling you not to come over here. She was using me to get you again, but I stopped her this time. We’re safe here now. In this time. We’re safe. We’re going home, Jess. We’re getting out of these woods.”

            Jessica watched the silhouette slowly get smaller until it disappeared back into the darkness. The woman who looked like Meredith laid next to the fire and gestured for Jessica to do the same.

            Jessica sat upright, staring at the surrounding trees. She would be able to find her way back in the morning. She continued staring at the woods until the scene before her gently morphed into a dream. She saw shadows weaving through the campfire, and she felt a weight on her chest holding her down until she suddenly snapped awake to the daylight. And she was alone.

            She looked around for Meredith, but she was gone. At first, she thought it was dawn, but soon realized the sun was going down. It was dusk. How long had she slept? The fire was no longer smoking beside her. She shot up and looked around. She could finally see the shed through the trees, now lit by the quickly fading sun. She needed to get help to look for Meredith.

            Jessica burst through the tree line back into Kurt's field and sprinted to the shed. She stopped at the door and looked inside through the window. It didn't make sense at first. She thought maybe a new set of farmhands had moved in. Maybe two new women had come to visit. She started crying.

            Through thin glass, she was looking at herself and Meredith sleeping in their beds like they had been the previous evening, their mouths stained with wine, wearing the same clothing.

            Jessica screamed.

            A large, calloused hand wrapped around her mouth, dragging her backward.

            “Shh,” Kurt said, drunk. His bare, sweaty belly pressed against her back. He dragged her to a storm cellar entrance near his house. A lifetime of thistle grubbing had given him a strong hold, and she couldn’t fight out of his grip. She bit, and he squeezed harder. “I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t have gone out there. I told you not to go out there. Why did you do that?”

            He kicked open the storm cellar and held her at the entrance. Jessica lowered her head.

            Inside the cellar were mounds of flesh. Bone. Hair. A blood gulch. But the features on the bodies seemed to repeat. The mass appeared to be made up of the same two bodies, over and over, at different phases of decay. And they all looked like Jessica and Meredith.

            She screamed again, biting down on Kurt’s hand harder. He tried to force her into the cellar, but as he pushed her, she grabbed his wrist and used his weight to pull herself out and throw him down the stairs. He landed with a wet thud in the bodies. She kicked the doors closed and put a stick between the handles to keep them locked. Then he started hitting the doors.

            Jessica ran back to the shed. She quietly let herself inside and grabbed the car keys off the table beside her sleeping self. She looked at herself and Meredith, wine-drunk and snoring. Beautiful. Tears still welling up in her eyes, she bent down and kissed each of them on the forehead, a salty drop falling onto their faces with each kiss.

            When she got outside to her car, she took the tire iron out of the trunk, ran back to the storm cellar and replaced the stick just as it splintered. Kurt’s frustrated pounding rattled the doors beneath her hands, leaving them trembling on the steering wheel long after she drove away.

            As her car sped down the gravel road toward the nearest town, high beams plowing through the growing dark, Jessica prayed the way she and her mom used to before bed. She prayed that she wouldn't be too late. That she'd bring help before 11:30 p.m., when the girls would wake up in their beds and see the light behind the trees.