“Alice, I’ve been waiting for you for a very long time.”
Did she hear the words or simply feel them? She wasn’t sure. She saw nothing except a luminous mist above the path. She had visited this glade almost every day for 20 years. She liked being alone with birds and rabbits. Alice loved the rabbits, especially the little gray ones. Usually she felt a sense of peace, but today she was uneasy. Someone was near her. She could hear breathing.
“Who are you?” she whispered timidly. The voice sounded like his, but it could not be. He was gone. She was shaking, but she didn’t want the voice to go away…again. She held the voice in the closed fist of her mind. She would keep it even if it wasn’t real.
She thrust her open hands into the mist but felt only the chill of wet air. She groped blindly. Suddenly she realized she could not see her hands. She jerked them back, shouting, “No, no! Don’t go!”
She was frightened and confused, yet drawn forward. Over and over, she tempted the wet unreality, never quite getting close enough to lose her footing. She leaned in, but not with her whole body, just enough. Her face kissed the mist. She could taste the droplets. She had tasted that kiss before.
She had come here many times before to watch the fog approach. Sometimes tall, graceful deer came, does with fawns, and almost always rabbits hopped over vegetable stalks to get to the ripe cabbage. She loved the deer and left corn for them, but the rabbits were her favorites. Once a wild sow came with nine piglets trailing behind her. Alice was a little afraid of them, but they were adorable with irregular yellow stripes on their backs. They were wild things in their element. But today was different. Was she finally in her element?
The forest was magical, but she had never ventured deep inside its heart. She longed to be wild and free like the yellow-striped piglets. Until today, she had preferred to imagine the beauty deep inside the glade. Sometimes she saw a glow coming from the glade. Sometimes she lived in her memory. An overgrown path led toward the heart of the forest, but she never ventured farther than a few feet inside. Vines overhung the path. Today, she wanted to go past the vines.
Nature was her element. The sounds and smells of a thunderstorm even when her cottage shook made her smile. They were nature. Cities with screeching tires and blaring horns frightened her, but not thunder. She liked the way the air smelled when the rain stopped after a storm. The air was clean, free of man scent. Even the animals understood that. They didn’t seem to mind Alice’s scent, but when others intruded, the animals disappeared as if they had never existed. Alice was a part of their world, but only Alice and the mist. The animals loved the mist. They wandered freely in and out, sometimes disappearing entirely then reemerging into the meadow. They seemed unafraid of the voice in the mist today.
Alice kept a small garden, mostly for her furry and feathered friends. She had two rows of sunflowers. The seeds dried on the stalks for birds to enjoy. She enjoyed the bright yellow beauty while the blooms followed the sun. She raised two rows of corn, one of string beans, one of sweet potatoes, two of tomatoes, one of cabbage, and two of strawberries. She maintained a hedge of blackberry bushes, six pear trees, and a lone pecan tree. Between the house and the garden was a scuppernong arbor where Alice spent many hours comforted by the shade and the growing golden fruit. In the late fall, she managed to make several jars of jelly and a bottle or two of wine. When the sweet potatoes were ripe, she harvested them and banked them in neat little straw huts to preserve them through the winter. Her kind neighbors brought her eggs and milk occasionally, and she fished in the small rill flowing behind her house. That all seemed enough for her until the mist came to the forest that November day.
Fog didn’t usually hug the forest on early winter evenings, but this wasn’t an ordinary fog. It was a mist with tiny diamond droplets, each one a promise. She heard the voice again. It called her deeper into the forest toward the secret glade. The voice wasn’t exactly a whisper, but it was soft like the eyes of the fawn in the meadow.
“Alice, I’ve been waiting for you for a very long time,” the voice repeated.
Alice should have been frightened, but this time she wasn’t. She followed the mist as it inched toward the glade.
This time Alice replied, “I’ve been waiting for you, too.” Now she knew it was his voice. She moved nearer to the mist and deeper into the forest. She reached her hand out to touch the diamond veil of droplets. Her hand penetrated the veil and disappeared. Then she felt another hand take hers. Two larger hands clasped her small one then she felt lips kiss the palm of her outstretched hand. She didn’t ask who it was. She knew. She smiled. She looked around at the magic of the glade. It seemed to encircle her, but she felt peace, not fear.
Still she hesitated to step fully into the mist. “How long have you been here?” she whispered.
“Since the day our time stopped. Do you understand why you came here, Alice?”
“What do you mean? I knew the first time I stepped out of my car and smelled the forest that I belonged here,” she replied.
The voice laughed. She remembered his laugh and the day the laughter stopped. “I’m sure you did. Did you recognize the scent? The breeze that blew past you when you got out of the car—how did it make you feel?”
“Happy,” said Alice. She could feel rather than see his smile.
“I’m sure you were. I was touching you the only way I could. The wind blowing through your hair was my fingers.”
Alice stood close to the mist, unable to see her hand. “Come to me now,” she whispered. The mist hovered in the center of the glade. The light of the fading day peeked over the tall trees and into the glade, making small rainbows across the mist as if it were celebrating a promise.
“Is that what you want?” the voice asked.
“Of course, I do! Why would I not?” Alice answered.
“If I come to you, you won’t be able to see me. You will feel my touch, but you won’t see me. The only way you can see me is to come through the mist to me.”
“Well then, I’ll come,” Alice said.
“Wait! Don’t do that yet.”
Alice felt his hand close around hers. She stood very still.
“If you come through this mist, you will see me, but you won’t be able to go back to the other side. You will come to me, but not today.” He took her hand and put it on his face.
Alice gasped and raised her other hand to his face. Now she couldn’t see either of her hands, but she could feel his face.
“Alice, don’t move. Don’t step closer to me, please. Stand very still.”
Suddenly, she felt his arms around her. She clutched what she knew was his body and began to cry with her head against his shoulder. He held her tightly and let her cry while he gently stroked her back.
With her head still resting on his chest, she whispered, “I want to see you, to touch your face.”
“You can touch my face any time you want to. Pretend you are blind. You can feel all your other senses. You just can’t see me.”
“I don’t understand,” Alice said.
“You will in time.” He took her hand and said, “Come with me. We can walk along the creek. Alice, do you understand now why you’ve been so happy here for the past 20 years?” The mist moved along beside her as she walked.
“Yes, I think I do. You have been here all the while, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have. Have you noticed the mist before?”
“A few times, why?”
“Those were the hard times for me. Those were the days I wanted so much to pull you to me so you could see my face and know I was near you. I didn’t know until today what would happen when you put your hand through the mist. I only knew if I pulled you to me, you couldn’t go back.”
“How did you know that?”
“I’ve seen it happen to others beyond the mist. Some were happy about their fate; others were not. I didn’t know if you would be happy beyond the mist. And you have something to do before you can come to me.”
“Can we stay here like this for a while before I decide? What is it that I have to do?”
“We can stay here for a while, but one day you won’t feel me beside you. When that happens, look for the mist. Then you will have to decide.”
“I came here looking for peace and comfort when you went away and never left. This seemed like sacred ground. Now I know I’ve been happy here because you’ve been here all the while.”
“Alice, it isn’t time for you to come to me. I want you to do something for my family and for other people who lose loved ones early.”
“Of course, what do you want me to do?”
“I need you to write our story. Tell my family all about us. Tell them in a story how much I love them. Publish the book so others who have lost loved ones can know we never lose those we love. Love does not die.”
“I will do that. I will find them.”
Alice felt the cold night air on her hand where his warm hand had been. She returned to the cottage and went to her desk. She gazed at the forest and saw the mist rising. She smiled and began to write their story. Now she knew the ending of the story. A blue butterfly lit on her window sill in the last fading embers of light. She opened her laptop and began to type.
She would leave their story as bread crumbs in her path. She searched for his relatives and found two of them. When the story was completed and published, she ordered two copies and addressed two envelopes. Each envelope contained a book and a deed to half of her property. She dropped them into the box at the post office and returned to the advancing fog. She draped her red sweater around her shoulders.
After only a few steps, she penetrated the mist. She saw him. He was there at the end of the lane beside his car. He had one foot propped on the fender of the ’58 Chevy and that grin, the grin he wore the first time she saw him. She walked toward him at an even, unhurried pace. She winced when she saw the scar across the left side of his face. She kept walking, but she put her hands over her face and began to sob. He enfolded her in his arms and let her cry. He rocked her back and forth and whispered, “It’s ok, I’ll never leave you again.”
She got in the car. He leaned in and kissed her. She left only breadcrumbs on her path. A blue butterfly lit on a fallen log and watched them drive away.
—
Corinda Pitts Marsh is a retired university professor and writer. She has published more than 15 novels available on Amazon. “Alice in the Mist” is a short version of one of those novels. She is a Florida writer primarily writing historical fiction.