Beyond the Firefly Field

by Munzing, R. E.

  They marched across the meadow and into the last stretch of woods, hacking madly since the end was in sight. Rain drizzled off and on, but the boys didn't get wet under the heavy tree canopy. The thick leaves also buffered the last streams of daylight as the woods quickly darkened. With night falling fast, the boys finished the remaining distance with a flurry of activity, arriving at the clearing's edge with a unanimous cheer. They were sweating profusely and gasping for breath, finding that the skies were much lighter after they'd escaped the woods. The boys spread out along the field's edge. It was roughly seventy yards across, and stretched for a hundred yards on either side.

  “See! There's the lake, so this has to be the last meadow,” Dillon said.

  The boys were disappointed to see that this meadow looked like all the others. It was nothing special. Not even a crop circle. Before them stood waist-high grass, bunches of wildflowers, and an outcropping of small bushes. Surrounding the field sprung a line of bushy plants and saplings leading into the woods. Near the lake, cattails indicated a marsh was lurking.

  After catching their breath, the boys took more notice of their surroundings. Crickets chirped. Birds settled in the trees, offering short songs of welcome. Fireflies sparkled here and there around the field. Leaves rustled in the woods behind them as raccoons searched for their evening meal. Ducks called to each other and splashed as they landed in the marsh. The boys silently watched as a herd of deer walked across the meadow to drink at the lake. It was a peaceful setting, but peaceful wasn't what the boys were looking for.

  “Tell me we didn't do all this for nothing, Ron,” Wayne begged as he stopped poking at his blisters.

  “I told you we should have gone into town with Mom today,” Phil said as he mimicked his twin. Both boys rubbed their lower backs and stretched their stiff muscles.

  “You did not,” Paul retorted, a delayed but expected reply.

  “You don't even listen when I talk or you would have heard me,” Phil accused, heating up for another argument.

  “I do too. You…”

  A cookie bounced off of Paul's head, cutting him off as Ron ordered, “Quiet, you guys, it's not even time yet. It's still too light.”

  The boys returned their attention to the field, except Paul, who bent down and picked up the cookie at his feet. They quietly watched and listened as more crickets joined the chorus, more birds roosted on heavy branches, more noise erupted from the woods as nocturnal animals scurried for their dinners, and more fireflies fueled the sky.

  Finally, after watching hundreds of fireflies lighting the field, Karl broke the silence. “If there were millions of these fireflies, you just might be able to see this field for miles.”

  “It's just as I suspected,” Brian whispered in a serious tone, “and now I'm sure. The fireflies light up the field as a beacon so aliens know where to land.”

  “Oh shut up, you moron! I shouldn't have told anyone and just come here alone,” Ron ranted amid the laughter.

  “Yeah, and we'd end up finding your skeleton next to Brer Rabbit's,” Wayne teased.

  “Wow!” was all Karl could say.

  The few firefly knots that initially dotted the field quickly grew into dozens of clusters made up of hundreds of the winged lanterns. The clusters multiplied from the hundreds to the thousands, making it hard to look at anything else.

  As the sky darkened, the firefly groups swarmed together and connected, covering the entire field. As the boys watched in amazement, the fireflies created a diamond-like blanket, casting an aura of light extending three feet above the grasses. Fireflies circled the boys, lighting the air as they passed, leaving trails of light behind them.

  The heavens began sprinkling again, but neither the boys nor the fireflies took notice. Still the numbers of fireflies increased.

  “Looks like you might have your millions, Clayton,” Dillon said, dodging two fireflies that were trying to land on his face.

  As the number of fireflies swelled, the boys stood awestruck at the spectacle unfolding before them. The fuzzy, plumed tops of the tall grasses reflected the fireflies' shimmer, lighting the meadow as though the sun was still mid-sky. Even the wildflowers glowed, throwing their hues of red, purple, orange, and blue into the pulsating light show playing in front of them.

  “Wow!” Clayton exclaimed. “No wonder you can see this meadow from the tree house. This place is like the Fourth of July. Maybe it is a beacon.” Then he thought of bringing Wendy here to show her something she would never see in the city.

  “Still, that's a lot of work just to see a bunch of fireflies. So I hope we do get to meet and greet aliens,” Paul said as the last of the twilight faded and the sky turned black.

  “What's that?” Ron asked, pointing to the far side of the field almost directly across from them.

  “Yeah,” Brian agreed. “What is that?”

  Ron was pointing to a strange shimmering of blue, purple, and green lights dancing around the edges of a bright cluster of yellow firefly pulsations. Unlike the reflected wildflower hues, these colors moved quickly and seemed to force a light source of their own. Growing brighter, then dimming, the lights teased around the edges of the cluster, disappearing in one place and reappearing elsewhere.

  “As long as we're here, let's go see,” Wayne proposed, starting across the field. He took only a few steps when the drizzle turned into heavy rain.

  And as the rain increased, the fireflies decreased dramatically, winking out by the thousands. The bright cluster across the field quickly broke up, and the strange accompanying lights disappeared. Within seconds, the boys found themselves drenched and surprisingly cold, standing in the middle of the very dark meadow.

  As if breaking free from a trance, the boys raced back to the sheltering woods for cover. Before long, rain spiked through the leaves ensuring a miserable, muddy, and slippery walk home.

  The two flashlights they carried dimly lit the trail as the boys walked slowly in thunderous silence. They all thought about the spectacle they had seen, and pondered the source of the bizarrely colored lights beyond the firefly field. They all wondered if what they'd seen was worth the effort it had taken them to find it.

  When the boys finally arrived back at the tree house, nobody wanted to climb the steps to sit and talk, the trip back having sapped the last of their energy reserves. The twins were so tired they readily agreed with each other on everything. Dillon and the twins left quickly, with Karl following behind. Clayton stayed for a bit, glad of the short walk to his house. Wayne, Ron, and Brian kept him company, sheltered from the rain by the tree house overhang.

  “What do you really think that light was?” Ron asked.

  “A hunter probably used bright-colored plastic ribbon to mark his trail, or maybe broken balloons from somebody's party,” Clayton answered, trying to convince himself.

  “So how come the light was moving around?” Wayne countered.

  “Maybe there was a breeze on the other side that didn't reach our side of the meadow,” Clayton suggested, not quite as sure as before.

  “No, wait, I think I've got it!” Brian announced excitedly. “It's the reason for that mysterious North Pole thing. The fireflies make Christmas presents for the whole bug kingdom, and the lights we saw came from the wrapping department!”

  They all rolled their eyes.

  Wayne and Brian started to leave, taking the flashlights with them. Ron, not wanting to walk home alone in the dark, quickly convinced Clayton to go back to the field tomorrow. Then he hurried after the other boys and the reassuring light they carried.

  Clayton stood alone under the tree house, then sat down to think on a sheltered bench. His mind wandered through the day's events, the memory of the strange dancing lights crowding his thoughts. He shivered as a sense of something unfamiliar taunted him.

  Ron was right. They had to go back to the firefly field tomorrow to see what those lights were all about.

  Clayton got up, stretched, and walked across his own fie
ld, thinking of ways to invite Wendy to the tree house and the firefly light show she would never believe.

  Strange Colors

  The next day brought more rain, and everyone was relieved to stay home to recover from the previous day's exhaustive effort.

  Each boy made excuses to their parents to beg off from daily chores. In doing so, they bragged about the “sidewalk” they carved through the “dense jungle” and over “mountains.” They bragged of bridging “deep gorges,” only to find that the mysterious light they saw from over a mile away was just a bunch of fireflies. They invited their families to come see the millions of fireflies, but the invitations were declined. Only Penny showed any interest at all, but only if the boys carried her to the firefly field and back again.

  The following day, after a long wait for the field to dry, Clayton finally got to the tree house mid-afternoon. It wasn't too long before the twins and Karl showed up, then Ron and Brian arrived. For awhile the boys compared cuts, bruises, and blisters, and complained of sore muscles. Finally, Clayton approached the subject of the strange lights glowing beyond the firefly field. He anticipated hearty enthusiasm for their next adventure to solve the mystery, but he was met with dismissal and reluctance instead.

  “We did a lot of work just to see fireflies, and now you want to take another long walk in the dark?” Brian asked.

  “Besides, the trail is still muddy,” Paul said.

  As the others agreed in unison, Clayton felt swayed by their negativity. His memory of the way the colors shimmered became an illusion, lost in a sea of yellow firefly light.

  Though nobody seemed to want to see the fireflies, it was decided that the trail could be put to better use to reach the back of Farmer Hawkins's orchards. The discussion shifted back and forth between the school year starting next week and the old farmer’s orchards beginning to yield heavy fruit.

  As the end of summer approached, Farmer Hawkins was well aware of the boys’ seasonal forays into his orchards to steal his harvest. He had acquired a knack for sensing their presence and vigorously chased them away. The boys never bothered to get to know the old farmer, the only person in the area still raising animals. They thought he was just a mean old man. His bigger-than-life appearance was aided by his six-and-a-half-foot-tall stature. His bushy, white hair and eyebrows made his tanned, weathered face stand out in a seemingly scary way. His appearance fit the rumors about him, adding to the excitement of their raids for fruit. Chuckling, the boys decided the new trail would be perfect for sneaking around to the backside of Farmer Hawkins’s orchards undetected.

  In the days that followed, anxiety about wasting the last of summer vacation spread throughout the Marsh Lake community. With a final flurry of activity, families kept busy with last-minute excursions or short family trips to enjoy the last few lazy days of summer. The firefly field, and whatever lay beyond it, would have faded into obscurity, were it not for Penny.

  She begged Clayton to take her to visit the firefly field. He finally agreed, making plans to go the next day.

  As things turned out, Clayton was only able to talk Ron, Phil, and Karl into going with them. The others either had other plans or were disinterested. As Paul put it, “The walk there and back in the dark isn’t worth seeing fireflies again, and whatever lies beyond the firefly field is better left a mystery. Going to see what’s actually there will only lead to disappointment. I just know it.”

  About an hour before sundown, the willing five met at the tree house.

  “Everyone got a working flashlight?” Clayton asked, gazing at the almost cloudless sky above the oat field.

  Everyone turned their lights on and off to be sure, then followed Clayton around the bushes hiding the trail.

  “So, this is where the trail starts. I looked for it yesterday, but I couldn’t find it,” Penny admitted as she looked down the trail heading to the bridge. She was so excited to finally embark on this adventure, especially after her brother told her how pretty the lights were.

  Phil quickly informed her that it took well over an hour to build the bridge they were now crossing. Penny was impressed as they cut through the woods with ease, hugging the wide trail that meandered through the leaf-covered forest floor. The boys, however, were filled with stark memories of the difficulties they had faced during its construction.

  “You need to pave this trail so we can ride our bikes on it,” Penny ordered.

  “As you wish, oh wonderful Penny, Queen of the Universe,” Clayton said with a bow.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer yellow bricks? It would match the yellow ribbon around your ponytail.”

  Clayton watched his little sister walk confidently along the trail without a care. She was almost five feet tall and full of skinny-kid energy. She seemed to fluctuate between being a tomboy and a princess without warning. Her big, brown eyes were frequently filled with awe as she went about expecting to live a fairytale life.

  “The trail was hard enough to make, and we’re definitely not going to pave it,” Ron objected vehemently.

  “Okay, I’ll take the yellow bricks then. This is like walking out of a tunnel,” Penny happily announced.

  As they came out of the woods to cross the first meadow, Penny’s high voice scared some deer who were sleeping in the tall grasses. The deer quickly ran out of sight as the group crossed the field into the next “tunnel.”

  Their travel along the trail was mostly silent. In some places, they could see tracks left from their slippery return trip on that rainy night. Up and down the gentle hills they went, making good progress. The wooded parts of the trail darkened with canopied shadows and caused a shiver to run through the little group. Finally, they came to the meadow where masses of fireflies had already started the evening’s light show.

  “Wow, this is so cool!” Penny proclaimed as she surveyed the hundreds of fireflies twinkling around the field. Clayton had been right. She just wanted to reach out her arms and hug all the fireflies.

  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. This is not the show; they’re just getting started,” Ron boasted.

  The meadow was light enough to see the opposite edge of the field. Clayton strained to find something, just anything, hanging in the trees where the strange lights first appeared.

  “Awesome!” Penny shouted. She pulled out a glass jar from her waist pack and, after unscrewing the top, took several steps into the field to trap unsuspecting fireflies. Once again their numbers kept increasing, just as they had before.

  An overjoyed Penny flitted about, easily catching the insects, then holding her jar to the sky to watch them light up.

  As the number of fireflies approached the first evening’s spectacle, Clayton pointed across the field. “There’s the strange cluster again. Let’s go!” He started across the field as the others followed close behind.

  “Where are we going?” Penny asked, lagging behind as she gazed in amazement around the fire-lit field.

  “We’re going to see the fireflies massed on the other side,” Karl informed her.

  “Why? There’s plenty on this side. See?” Penny caught several more luminescent bugs and held up the jar to prove her point. There were now about two dozen captured in the jar, glowing as bright as a beacon.

  “We want to see what’s beyond the firefly field,” Karl said.

  Penny shrugged and quickly caught up.

  About halfway across the field, Clayton stopped and pointed. “There! See? The colors are back and moving around again.”

  The others, still following single file behind Clayton, leaned over on either side to catch a glimpse.

  “What colors?” Penny asked as she hopped up and down behind the boys. “I don’t see anything.”

  “You will,” Clayton said, then started walking again. The others followed, trampling a narrow path through the sea of wildflowers and tall grass.

  As they approached the opposite side of the field, a three-dimensional cluster suddenly formed. Those walking behind noticed t
he clustered mass thickening around Clayton’s upper body and head. Finally, Clayton stopped walking and stuck both hands into the frenzied form, which quickly dispersed.

  With a sharp intake of breath, Clayton froze and stood motionless, eyes wide and mouth gaping. From the view behind, his friends saw what appeared to be a fireworks explosion streaming from Clayton’s head and body as fireflies fled wildly in all directions.

  “What?” Ron demanded in an impatient voice after a few seconds of frozen silence. He scurried over and stood to Clayton’s right. He quickly gasped and stood motionless.

  Phil came around to Clayton’s left side. He took the same quick breath, standing as still as a statue. Karl hurried to claim a place beside Ron and had the same reaction.

  “What is it?” Penny demanded as she jumped up and down, trying to see over the boys. Since the boys were flanked by bushes, which left no room for her in their front line of defense, she finally wiggled her way in front of them, squeezing between Clayton and Ron.

  She turned to follow their line of sight. The apparent vision was only a few feet from where she stood, and the beauty shining before her was stunning.

  Nobody moved.

  Before them appeared a resplendent creature. The first thing they noticed was its Lilliputian size, a mere two-and-a-half inches tall. And, the creature had wings! It floated a few inches above a nearby tree’s lowest branch, three feet off the ground. Occasionally, the remarkable being fluttered its wings like a creature swimming under water.

  Shaped like a butterfly, the wings were outlined and crisscrossed with brightly glowing, golden veins. Between the veins stretched a membrane displaying vivid, shimmering colors traveling in swirled patterns outward from each wing’s base.

  Sometimes the patterns changed hue as they shimmered within the wings.

  And what strange colors they were! The colors were reminiscent of something you could almost name…almost blue, almost green, almost red, almost orange, and almost purple and lavender. Almost, but not quite.