Beyond the Veil

By Rhonda Fitzgerald-Hunter

Late in the afternoon, as the sky blushed with fading sunlight, I found myself staring out my bedroom window. Beyond the back of my apartment building, near the tree line, something unusual caught my eye — a platform that had always been empty was now live with movement. A dozen or more people gathered there, though I couldn’t see their faces. They were running, laughing, and celebrating, their joy palpable even from a distance. Their movements were strange, blurred, as though they were half-shadow, half-light.

Then, without warning, night descended. The fading light was swallowed by darkness, and I blinked in confusion. How long had I been standing here? The scene outside was no longer the same. The people had vanished, and in their place stood trees I’d never seen before. They rose tall and bare, their trunks brown and brittle, like giant sunflowers left to wither. There were no leaves, just twisted, skeletal branches, and I had the unsettling feeling that they were watching me.

I tried to shake the feeling off, but the night seemed to deepen, the darkness thick and heavy, pressing against the window. The trees seemed to shift. I blinked, my pulse quickening. They had moved — closer, facing me. Their branches no longer swayed gently in the wind but loomed, bending towards me as if trying to reach through the glass. And then, they started to change. Their gnarled forms twisted and lengthened, becoming humanoid figures, towering over the ground, impossibly tall — four stories high at least.

I took a step back from the window, my heart hammering. The figures beckoned, their arms outstretched, but I couldn’t move. They wanted me to come with them, their whispers curling in my mind. “You’ve seen us. Now, you must come with us. You belong with us.”

Fear gripped me, cold and sharp. I shook my head, barely able to speak. “No.”

The response was calm, but relentless. “You cannot refuse. Now that you have seen us, you belong with us.”

I didn’t understand. My voice trembled as I asked, “How long will I be gone?”

Their answer was soft, chilling. “Forever. You will always be with us, behind the veil. There are many worlds, and you belong in ours.”

Desperation clawed at me. “Please, can I leave a note for my children? So they will know where I have gone, so they won’t be afraid?”

The figures hesitated, their tall, faceless forms seeming to confer with one another. Finally, they agreed. I grabbed a pen and scrawled a note, my hands shaking. I told my children not to worry, that I was safe and would always be with them behind the veil. I gave them instructions — how to find me if they ever wanted to. I wrote that they only needed to look to the tree line, and when the time came, I would come for them.

As soon as I finished, a strange sensation washed over me, like stepping through a threshold I couldn’t see. The room faded around me, and I felt myself pulled into another place — a world behind the veil, where the air was heavy, and the trees whispered secrets I couldn’t understand.

When I awoke the next morning, I was back in my bed, sunlight streaming through the window. But the world didn’t feel the same. All day, I caught myself glancing outside, searching for the platform, waiting for the strange figures to return. As night crept in, I scanned the tree line for the sunflower-like trees, certain they were there, watching, waiting. And, somehow, I knew they would come for me again.