The Vermilion Veil

I was eleven the summer my family moved to the old farmhouse outside of Ellsworth, Kansas. The place had stood empty for nearly a decade, and the realtor had been all too eager to offload it. My father, ever the optimist, saw it as a fixer-upper, a chance to escape the city. My mother, more pragmatic, had only one condition: no talk of the previous owners, who had fled in the middle of the night, leaving behind half-eaten meals and a child’s bicycle in the yard.

At first, the house was just old. Creaking floorboards, drafty windows, and a persistent smell of dust and dry rot. I spent my days exploring the vast sunflower fields that stretched to the horizon, the stalks whispering secrets in the wind. But the nights were different. Every night, I dreamed. Not ordinary dreams, but vivid, tactile nightmares that I couldn’t wake from, where I felt every sensation as if it were real. I dreamed of drowning in a sea of black oil, the thick liquid filling my lungs. I dreamed of being buried alive, the weight of the soil pressing down on my chest. And in every dream, I never realized it wasn’t real. The terror was absolute.

One night, about a month into our stay, I had a dream that was different. I found myself standing in the center of our living room, but everything was wrong. The furniture was covered in white sheets, and the walls were bare, stripped of the family photos that my mother had hung. I felt a pull, an irresistible urge to walk to the front window. I looked out and saw the sky had turned a deep, sickly orange, like a smoldering fire. And there, along the edge of the sunflower field, the treeline was ringed with a faint, purplish glow that pulsed gently, as if breathing. Above the trees, a patch of sky seemed to sag, a bulging darkness that looked almost solid, like a bruise on the heavens. I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. The purple light began to seep into the field, and I saw the sunflowers bowing as if in worship. Then, I heard a voice, not in my ears but inside my skull. It said, ‘You see it now. You always will.’

I woke up gasping, my pajamas soaked with sweat. I stumbled to my window, half-expecting to see the orange sky, but it was just the dull gray of pre-dawn. I tried to shake off the dream, but the image of that pulsing purple and the sagging sky stayed with me. Over the following days, I noticed that I would see the orange tint in my peripheral vision, just for a split second, then it would vanish. I would hear a low hum, like a distant saw, when I was alone in the house. And the dream repeated, night after night, always the same: the living room, the window, the orange sky, the purple glow, the voice.

I didn’t tell my parents. I knew they would dismiss it as a phase, or worse, forbid me from talking about it. Instead, I started to investigate. I dug through the old newspapers in the barn, looking for anything about the house. I found a yellowed article from 1987, headlined ‘Family vanishes from farmhouse; no leads.’ The family had been the Hollands: a couple and their seven-year-old daughter. The article mentioned that the daughter had been prone to nightmares, and that the family had been acting strange in the weeks before they disappeared, often seen standing in their yard, staring at the sky. The last entry in the article quoted a neighbor saying, ‘They kept talking about the color of the sky, how it was wrong. I thought they were just crazy.’

My blood ran cold. I had seen that orange sky in my dreams. Was I going to vanish too? I couldn’t let that happen. I decided to visit the only person who might know something: old Mrs. Hattie, who lived two miles down the road and was known for her gardening and gossip. She was a spry ninety-year-old, with sharp eyes that seemed to miss nothing. When I asked her about the Hollands, she grew quiet, then invited me in for iced tea. She told me that the Hollands had moved into the house hoping for a fresh start, but soon after, the daughter started having ‘fits’ at night. She would scream about ‘the sky falling’ and ‘the purple lights.’ The parents tried everything, but nothing helped. Then, one night, they just vanished. The police found the back door open, the TV still on, and a half-eaten dinner on the table. The only clue was a note in the child’s handwriting that said, ‘They are coming to take us to the place between the suns.’

As she spoke, I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold glass in my hand. I asked her if she ever saw anything strange. She leaned in and whispered, ‘Once, a few years ago, I was driving past that house at night, and the sky above it was bright orange, like I’d never seen. And there was a spot that was darker, like a hole in the sky. I didn’t stop. I drove as fast as I could, and I never looked back. Whatever is there, it doesn’t want just a look. It wants you to believe it’s real.’

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying her words. Then, I heard it: the hum. It was faint at first, but growing louder. I got up and went to the living room. The house was dark, but there was a faint glow coming from the window. I walked to it, my heart pounding. The sky outside was orange, the same sickly orange from my dream. And there, along the treeline, the purple light pulsed. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. The voice spoke again, clearer than ever. ‘You are ready. Come to the edge.’

Before I knew it, I was walking out the front door, my bare feet on the cold grass. The field of sunflowers swayed, but not from wind. They were bending toward the trees, as if bowing to something. I walked toward the purple glow, my body moving on its own. I reached the treeline, and there, in the clearing, was a sight that stopped me cold. The air itself was torn, a vertical gash of swirling purple and orange, glowing from within. It looked like a wound in the world. And floating in front of it was a woman, her skin pale as milk, her hair flowing upward as if in water. Her eyes were black, and she was smiling. ‘Hello, child,’ she said, her voice warm and terrible. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’

I tried to scream, but no sound came out. The woman reached out a hand, and I felt a pull, like a hook in my chest. ‘Your dreams have prepared you,’ she said. ‘Now you will join us.’

But as she spoke, I remembered something from my mother’s strict bedtime rule: never talk to strangers. And I realized that this woman, this thing, was the stranger. I forcefully dug my heels into the dirt, and with every ounce of my will, I shouted, ‘NO!’ The moment I did, the glow flickered, and the woman’s face contorted into a snarl. The ground shook, and I felt the pull intensify. I closed my eyes, and I saw a memory: my mother’s face, my father’s laugh, the taste of pancakes. I clung to it. I screamed again, ‘I’M NOT GOING!’ And then, everything went black.

I woke up in my bed, the morning sun streaming through the window. I was soaked in sweat, and there were scratches on my arms. I ran to the window, but the sky was a normal, pale blue. The fields were calm. I thought it was over. But then I saw it: a faint, purple line on my wrist, like a vein that glowed in the dark. And I knew it wasn’t over. I knew that somewhere, beyond the edge of the world, that tear in the sky was waiting. And that the woman, whatever she was, had not given up on me. She had only marked me, and one day, when I was least expecting it, she would come again. And I would have to be ready.

I never told anyone the full story, not even my parents. We moved away a year later, but the memory stayed with me. Sometimes, on the clearest nights, I look up at the sky, and for a split second, I see a patch of orange, just where the stars are. And I know I’m still on her list. I just hope that when she comes back, I’ll find the strength to say no again.