It's spring again and you feel revived. You do alright in the cold: you've discovered ways to keep busy even when your farm isn't flush with green grass, swelling with new fruit. Even so, winter you merely endure. Spring unfurls you, refreshed, enlivened.

–

You're hunting spring onions in Cindersap Woods. The ground is boggy in certain spots, the mud sticky. Once upon a time you found a lot of mysterious artifacts around these parts. You don't know what drives you to hoe aside that patch of earth except farmer's intuition, and it must be the farmer's intuition again that makes you sift through what you turned up – it doesn't look like much at first. Then: there it is! A flash of color, auburn like Elliot's hair.

You forget about the onions. It's been so long since you found something you don't recognize. Gunther will be able to tell you about this, and maybe he'll give you a gift in return for presenting it to the museum.

"Petrified wood," he tells you, once you've taken the minecarts on a joyride to that side of town. He turns it over in gloved fingers, smiling, wiping away grit with a kerchief.

"I thought it looked like an opal."

"It does have some resemblance, doesn't it? No, though… This piece's origins are quite different. Petrified wood comes when a once-living piece of wood is buried under ground. Over time, the cell walls become replaced with minerals in the pattern of the original organic material. Quite a remarkable phenomena."

"How long does that take?"

"Oh, thousands of years. Perhaps some primordial farmer cut this tree eons ago, for you to find the chip today."

He smiles at you, hands the wood back.

"Don't you want it for display?" you say, with some surprise. You had your hopes up for that present.

"Oh, you filled up these shelves ages ago, remember?"

You did not.

–

It's spring again and you feel tired. You feel most connected to the valley when it's rousing to its greatest potential, but spring is also the time that demands the most work out of you, not just planting spring crops but preparing the entire farm for the productive seasons to come – and even just thinking about all those chores takes it out of you. It's a relief when night comes and you can put your feet up. Elliot corrals the children, sits them at the table to spend a little time with you before they're put to bed. They're still not talking, which is a bit unusual at their age, but they sure can scamper!

Your husband looks as good as he did the day you met. Big shoulders for a writer, that surprising auburn mane. He has the piece of petrified wood that reminded you of his hair squirreled away on his desk somewhere.

You talk to the kids, they don't talk back. You dole out hugs. Elliot picks up one, you pick up the other, to bed they go. Then it's you and your husband's time to enjoy, with only each other for company. Elliot brings you a chilled pale ale and you take a grateful drink.

"Would you like me to read to you?"

"Please!"

He smiles at you, that self-satisfied but gentle smile he had when you met, the one that made you roll your eyes and charmed you at the same time, and he retrieves his notes and the scribbles of the day: some kind of wild science-fiction tale about war breaching peace on a faraway world. He's a good reader and you fall into his words with pleasure. Although…

"Is that a second draft of something?" you ask him, when you've both crawled between cool sheets.

The lights are out, but you sense his surprise. "No… that was fresh material. Did it feel familiar?"

"It was good," you reassure him hastily. "I enjoyed it. I must be getting familiar with the world. You're probably building up a consistent enough tone that it has a reliable sound, you know?"

"Are you sure?" he frets. "An original book demands original ideas. My writing should be fresh. What if I were unduly influenced by another tome, or, Yoba forbid, It Howls In The Rain –"

You give him a kiss before he tizzies. "I'm sure it's all yours," you say, once the two of you have broken apart. "Relax, Elliot! It's late. Think about it more in the morning."

He went on a book tour once, ages ago. He wrote you letters while he was away. He's been at the farm since.

"Maybe we should take a trip," you suggest. "See new places, new ideas for you."

"Maybe," he says. He knows as well as you do that you have three seasons' hard work on the farm ahead of you.

You go to sleep.

–

The spring nights are just opening into warmth. You walk through Pelican Town, avoiding the townspeople trailing out of the saloon, and you refrain from rifling through the garbage cans. Every so often one of their lids blasts off bizarrely with a sound like a cannon firing, and in between how un-neighborly it would be and the mood you're in, you wouldn't want to wake any sleepers tonight. You're on the search for something, and you'll know it when you see it, and when you see him, you do.

Kent isn't the newest townie. But he's new er . He returned from his time away – oh, who knows how long ago?

(Jodi might know. Sam might know. Little Vincent is still playing with his blocks, going to Penny's school, loving snails. There's no way he has his eyes on that calendar.)

"Hey, Farmer." Kent's a big guy. Hard jaw, cleft chin, little smile. "I don't know if I'll ever get used to being back home. The peacefulness of the town feels like a mask."

Something spurs you to respond: "That's probably just you though."

Kent blinks, like you've thrown him off, but he rallies easily enough: "Maybe so."

You stand by him under his thinking tree. You've shared beers here, gifted him roasted hazelnuts and fiddlehead risotto. He loves you. You're one of his closest friends. You're one of his wife's closest friends. You're one of his kids' closest friends.

If you wanted to get wild, if you really wanted to give the town something to whisper about besides when Marnie and Mayor Lewis would just own up to it and get together, you could kiss him right here. And if you did that, and then you turned around and walked away, he'd probably follow you. Jodi's whispered all her secrets into your ear, her worries that she tied the knot too young, her longing for the freedom she gave up early. You'd bet she'd forgive you, even move on with a smile. Sam would get over it. Vincent would be alright.

You love Elliot. You have kids of your own. You love your kids. Someday they'll go to Penny's school, they'll become adults, they'll talk to you, and even if that fails, even if they don't ever say even a single word, there'll be more to them than running back and forth and wearing hats…

"Do you ever go to Zuzu City, soldier? It's not too far away."

"I don't know why I'd ever leave. My family's here. All I was there was a garbageman."

"Maybe it would be good for you. A change of pace, know what I mean?"

"I don't need that." Another thing that's predictable, year in, year out, is that the mosquitoes are out in force. Kent slaps. You slap. Smears of blood on both your palms. "It'd be too noisy there. Too many people make me nervous these days. And besides, if I need a break from Pelican Town, there's Ginger Island. It's a great place to bond with the family. I really appreciate you fixing it up."

"Right."

Ginger Island. The jungle, the volcano, the beach, the farm untrammeled with orderly rows of crops. You can't even remember what it was like to see it for the first time.

–

It's spring again but this time something's strange. The peacefulness of the town feels like a mask . You told Elliot not to wait up, you're hunting salmonberries and plan to be out late. And you are hunting salmonberries. You were.

Coming north through Cindersap Forest, you avoid the farm's lower entrance, detour over, and knock on Leah's door.

Tap, tap. Tap, tap. It's late, but she opens up after just a few knocks, expression concerned and then relieved to see it's just you. She's as gorgeous as she was when you first saw her, too, a little more weathered than some of the town's younger bachelorettes, the faintest of lines traced under her eyes. There was almost something between you two, back when, and it could've worked out just as easily as things did with Elliot, you can feel that possibility between you still, but… well. Leah didn't slather coconut oil all over her body.

And then Leah, familiar with lovers who pushed too hard, refrained from pressing the matter.

All that's in the past now. Today she is your friend and nothing more, opening the door to you for no reason other than kindness, letting you into her house.

"You're out late. Is everything all right?"

"I've been feeling restless. Itchy feet!" You laugh. It's not the same as it was at – what was it again? Your office job. That one made you dead inside. Stardew Valley… well, what kind of person would feel dead inside with all this relentless life around?

You've always felt attuned to this valley. That's the truth. It is deeply alive. That's the truth. You're hungry to learn every one of its secrets, and you're on the cusp of one again for the first time in a long time, a long long time, you don't know how long a time, you can just tell.

"What have you been up to, Leah?"

"The usual! I'm out here, drinking wine and living life. I'm glad the weather's turned. It gets pretty cold in my little cabin."

Emily made her a blanket at some point. It's folded at the foot of her bed, you can see it at a glance. Nothing more ever happened between them, at least as far as you know, and you think you'd know. Nothing ever flowered.

"Want to look at my latest piece?" Leah asks, and you can't think anymore about how she's very eligible, and gorgeous, and talented, and a catch, one who should've been caught by now. And you're grateful to be freed from thinking about it.

"Of course."

"I think you'll be impressed. Not to brag, but I'm very excited with where my work's going lately."

"Brag? Take the credit!" you kid her, "It's your work."

"I can tell you're not an artist when you talk like that! The muse moves in me. I'm very privileged. Come painting with me sometime, you'll do it enough to get feeling it too."

Instead of confessing you'd rather not, you say, "Don't keep me in suspense – let's see it."

Her newest sculpture is out back. Leah leads you to it, humming a playful fanfare.

You have one of her earlier pieces stashed somewhere on the farm. You centered it in a grove of trees, you think – it must still be there, you'd find it if you cleared out the overgrowth, at one point you'd built a little patio, set a bench there and some barrels of flowers…

That piece, you remember, was a single carved knot. It had a twist it was possible to trace with your gaze, with a distinctive beginning and end.

You had no idea how reassuring you should have found that at the time.

This sculpture twists and turns and winds back on itself. It's a fractal, it's a nest of knots as intricate as a dahlia blossom. It's one of those magic-eye pictures where all you have to do is relax your gaze for a moment, cross your eyes slightly, uncross them, and the thing you couldn't see will jump out at you.

And you know it, you can feel it, something here waits to be seen. If you relax your gaze and cross your eyes and uncross them and look where the sculpture stands you will see… something.

You want to do it. It wants you to do it. It is coaxing you towards doing this. The woodgrain of this piece turns in circles. Like a whirlpool, it winds to a central point. Ring upon ring, it eats its tail, just like the course of the year, just like your fingerprints. Eddies that feed back on themselves. Just like your fingerprints. Year after year identical. Just like your fingerprints. You could probably draw your own fingerprints. You could probably call out each line in the grain of Leah's wood by name –

Something very large is waiting for you. Something huge is waiting, wanting, daring for you to spot it. You can feel the expectation like an area of lower pressure. Your ears pop. It wants to suck you in. That huge thing is under the sculpture, or – or behind it, somehow? Lurking like a prize fish in the deepest part of the pond, the muckiest end, a tough old river king with its lower lip trailing fishhooks like a rockstar – something is in here – the wood is not wood – not just wood – if it ever was –

– it feels like a mask .

You need to get away from this art.

You need to get away from this town.

You don't know how you get back into Leah's cabin but from her expression, it's possible you scared her in the process. Her hand is on your back. Her face is close to yours. "Are you alright? Do you need a drink? You're white as a sheet–"

"No," you get out, stomach churning, throat hot: "I need some air. The sculpture is beautiful, Leah."

And you are not lying.

It is a masterpiece.

–

You urge your horse through the Cindersap. It's overgrown; branches thwack at you, tear at your hair and clothes like they want to drag you back. The ground is thick with fallen branches, stones, weeds. You're on your way to the one who'll know something about what's wrong, if anyone in town will.

The wizard's tower is twined all around with sweetpeas. If you'd come earlier, their blossoms would be open and the air would be thick with scent.

It's late and they're closed.

You've known the wizard long enough to invite yourself in. That cauldron you drank from so long ago is still smoking up the room. That brew didn't taste bad, and it showed you things, strange things, inexplicable, beautiful actually, but, but –

– but you'd really like to have your wits about you right now.

"Rasmodius!" you call, and there he is, eying you from under the brim of that dramatic hat. He reaches out and puts his hands on your shoulders. Just like that, you are halted.

He's never really been friendly with you the way other villagers have. But he's told you things, he's shared his secret thoughts. Nothing new for a long time, though. Not for a long long time, and now he's looking at you with a stolid expression, and if you hadn't seen that face so many times you might think that's all there was, but now you can see he's searching for words, he doesn't know where to start, he feels pity for you, and that might perturb you more than anything else you've realized or sensed or felt.

"Your energies are perturbed. Did you have a vision? Set your feelings aside, perceive the truth." He steers you to the table as he speaks, pushes you firmly into a chair. Obediently, you sit.

"I went to see Leah. She showed me a new sculpture – I have no idea how long she's been working on it. It was – layered. Confusing. Deep. Like I could fall into it."

He's ladling up some of that cauldron's brew into a rough mug. He's bringing it over. And when he extends it for you to take you slap it out of his hands without thinking, and the potion sprays all over the stone floor.

You and he both look at that. You can picture a time when he'd have had sharp words to say about this behavior, but today he just looks at you, and you, in turn, know you have to explain yourself.

"That's the last thing I want right now," you say weakly. "I remember what it was like drinking it the first time."

"Do you?" he says. "That would be very impressive."

"Why would it be impressive, Rasmodius?" You fold your hands in your lap, clasp them. No more drinks will be accepted in this outpost. "I remember what a lot of drinks taste like. I've had coffee and triple shot espresso and cranberry candy and Joja Cola and a lot more, I remember all of those."

He sits down at the table next to you, turns towards you. He's trying to catch your eye, but you'd rather it not be caught.

"At certain times certain beings may only be communicated with under certain… special… circumstances."

"I'm not a being, I'm a human – being –" Nonsense. You gather yourself. "I came here so you could help me. I want you to tell me what's wrong. Something strange is – is, it's a strange season, that's all."

"Stardew Valley has long been possessed of many unique qualities. Many of those qualities are benign. But the spirit world is not always concerned with human welfare, nor is it obliged to be." His voice is quiet.

"Is something attacking us?" You feel a wild hope at the suggestion. If you can take a sword to this problem, you can solve it. It can all be set right. But Rasmodius is looking at you so sadly, and he's shaking his head –

"You must open your eyes to the truth," he says. "It does not follow that something is malignant if it is not benign. Long have I been waiting for you to realize the nature of your existence here, my old friend. The truth of this world is more than you can see with the eye."

"How long have I been in this town?" you choke out, though maybe you should've asked a better question. What's out there? Or is it in here? Or is it everywhere?

Why now?

What's trying to be seen?

He rises from his seat, steps over the cup and still-steaming spilled potion on the floor. He ladles you another dose and presses it into your hands. "Clear the scales from your eyes and you will see. You have made the most of your life here, haven't you? The gifts you've been given weren't an accident."

You look into that drink. You wish just looking was all you needed to do. And then, because it is one more mystery, the last one possibly of them all, in spite of the promise you made to yourself not to, you drink. You have to see it through. You have to know.

–

That insidious potion takes hold fast. Your head is spinning before the last drops have even passed your lips. You've felt this before. Spinning-head sensation as you are gently detached from the surface of this world, your consciousness lifted into some other one.

It doesn't hurt. It doesn't even feel bad, just dizzying. This valley has given you so much. You burrowed into your life here and lived it to the hilt, isn't that right? You explored deep woods and caves, deserts, seashores and jungles, you made your money and married your husband and cultivated a dozen wonderful friends. You were a hero and the talk of the town, you squeezed the last bits of juice from the fruit, the dregs of blood from the stone. You had a life most people in the world could only dream of, and it lasted for a very, very long time.

And in that time –

In that time –

You were made ready, too. You were marinated, too. You were pickling, too. You were germinating and ripening, you were aging like wine. A sweet final product. A carefully nourished feast.

(A sacrifice.)

The days when you laid down on the sun-warmed earth to follow the procession of popcorn clouds, gilded buttery with sunlight, are gone. Clouds and open sky will never be yours to gaze upon again. But for a moment you feel like your body is cradled in the whole valley, and the stars do in that moment wheel above. Your head at one end, your feet pushed together, a little cramped, in the other. Your hammock. Your cradle.

Your blood isn't being sucked out. This isn't like the mosquitoes feasting on you. But you can feel something, something alien, something so large, intersecting into you. Not your body, but your thoughtform. Sleepy trails of unawareness in the wake of that penetration.

After all this. After it all, you don't even see as much of it as you did in that moment of looking at Leah's statue.

Dirt piles over your face. It's cool. It feels good.

Roots will penetrate your body. Minerals will seep into your bones. It's time to pay the piper, and you have so much to pay for. You've been fattened up very nicely. You'll be a tasty treat.

It was a great life, wasn't it? The very best life anyone could hope for.

–

The valley is broad, sheltered by rack upon rack of mountains that only part to allow a spread of beach. It's warm there, a sweet-scented warmth, a cozy home for birds, rabbits, frogs, all manner of other forest creatures, along with some stranger beings. There's hardly a better place to be for anyone, and if the valley had a voice and were inclined to speak, one might guess it would say smug things about that fact. Something about it seems slack and satisfied, and welcoming, as if the valley is a mouth and the surrounding mountains a pair of loosely parted lips ready for kissing. Anyone could make it their home.

The little town that calls Stardew Valley home is not quite populated enough to bustle, but slowly seems to churn. The few inhabitants go about their daily lives. The village is falling apart a bit: the bus line is closing down because there's just not enough traffic for it to stay, the bridge to the quarry is crumbling, the minecart wheels are rusting, trash accumulates in the corners, grass sticks up around the cobblestones, the community center could use a new roof… Anyone could come and renew it.

The decay goes unnoticed. Other demands keep everyone busy. A veteran wanders the town aimlessly, unable to settle. An artist refines her craft at the intersection of town outskirts, lake, and forest. An author, confused, wanders back to the seaside, and that he walks that path feels natural and appropriate, and that he goes back into a ramshackle cottage filled with the smell of the sea feels like putting on an old and comfortable pair of boots. Home again, home again, jiggity jig. These people are primed for novelty. Anyone could come and befriend them.

West of town there are traces of cultivation. Certain areas where fruit trees raise their shaggy heads and grow unpruned. Varieties of plants thriving at a population density that indicates that at one point, someone cared for them. Weeds and tall grass also run wild. In this rugged zone, shining purple tool heads are swallowed in the underbrush, treats for some enterprising anthropologist. Anyone could find wonderful treasures there.

And the ruins? The remnants?

Well.

There was a farm there once.

There isn't now.

THE END

The title is drawn from the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem "Binsey Poplars."

This story was much improved by the wonderful beta work done by bloodmoney, meikuree, and thesunkencost.