Strawberry Fields Forever
by Gabrielle Salmans
“I’ve been having dreams about you,” I said, plopping down on the couch next to Cristina.
She laughed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“What do we do?” She gazed at me with a fond smile.
“Nothing. Everything.” I thought for a second, then looked up at her carefully. “What do you want us to do?”
“Nothing. Everything. Watch the movie you promised we’d watch.” She nudged my shoulder.
“Oh my god, fine,” I groaned. “But for the record, I think Hallmark movies are– ”
“Capitalist bullshit, I know. We’ve been down this road, Viv.” She put her head on my shoulder. “Play the damn movie.”
The remote was cool and light in my hand, but she was a warm and welcome weight.
She let the topic of my dreams about her fall by the wayside. Cristina Daniels had never been the prying type, even from the first day we met. As she had stood beside me and helped me scrub cruelly sharpied words from the front of my locker, she could have asked, “So, is it true what they wrote? Are you really one of those?” But the question never came. Instead, she said she was treating me to a coffee, told me to call her “Tina,” and led me by the arm to her white car.
The inside of her car smelled like strawberries, just like she did. I think she chose to envelop herself in the scent as a play on her strawberry blonde hair, cut cleanly to her shoulders. I admired the coordination, and came to find indescribable comfort in that smell. Maybe one day I would tell her about the strawberry field dream from a few nights ago, where we lay together in the dirt and ate the sweet fruits until our fingers were stained pink, where we downed a stolen bottle of wine and devoured a loaf of warm bread in a fit of giggles. Just not yet.
We were around 25 minutes into Cristina’s stupid Hallmark movie, and although part of me still wanted to gouge my eyes out, her quiet giggles at the Christmas one-liners somehow made it more bearable.
“Oh my god, did he seriously make her a pillow fort tent in the backyard? And is that a pie? Why is he holding a pie?!” I groaned and covered my face with my hands at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
“Why not?” she laughed.
“But the snow! The blanket is probably soggy and cold, and the crumbs are gonna get everywhere!”
“It’s the principle of the thing, Viv. He did it for the romance.” Her “r” was rolled and dramatic and she leaned into me further.
I scoffed and kept my eyes glued to the screen, inhaling the strawberry air.
“Well, he’s bad at romance.”
“I think we should do something like that soon. Camping, I mean. Not the pie or the outdoor pillow fort.”
“Tina, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s freezing out this time of year.”
She looked at me and rolled her eyes, her smile unfaltering. “And? The snow is pretty, and if a fire fails, we have body heat!”
She gave me a wide-eyed grin, the one she knew she could use to make me go along with any ridiculous adventure, big green saucers boring into my soul.
I’ve been around Cristina practically every day for the last three years, but I never stopped noticing her eyes, a mossy swirl of mischief, spontaneity, and unconditional adoration. That colour wormed its way into my thoughts, and by extension, into those dreams I can’t seem to stop having. Catholic school uniforms that were blue when I was awake are suddenly sage in nightmares of pop quizzes and painful punishments. A Cristina-eyed moon hangs in the sky and pours into me as I pick the strawberries from the field, and then I see her disappointed deer-in-headlights stare as she sees we’ve eaten them all.
“Hello?” She nudged me so hard I almost fell sideways into the springy grandma couch.
“Sorry, what?”
“You were spacing.” She frowned and stuck out her bottom lip a little.
“What did you say?”
“You were spacing.”
“No, before that.”
“Oh, right, I forgot to tell you! Guess who asked me to the formal?” She wiggled her shoulders and her smile returned in all its sunny radiance.
“You’re joking.”
“Nope! He passed me a note in English asking me to go with him. It was one of those ‘circle yes or no’ things!” She was singing her words and smiling more than I’d seen her do in a while. I shivered and clutched the blanket closer to my chest.
“And what did you say?” I felt sick.
“You don’t sound excited.”
“I’m excited, I promise.” I looked up at her carefully. “But what did you say?”
“I said yes, obviously.” She looked at the ceiling with a sickeningly sweet smile.
“Well, I’m happy for you.”
“Now we need to find you a date.”
She poked my forehead. I smelled strawberries.
“So when do you want to do that camping trip?”
She blinked at my subject change for only a split second. “How about next weekend?” she asked with a hopeful smile. Cristina Daniels had never been the prying type.
“Sure, next weekend it is.”
As I felt damp grass caress my arms and gazed at a glowing green gibbous, I knew I must have been dreaming. I didn’t remember falling asleep that night; recollections of unlocking my back door and creeping toward the kitchen passed like smoke through my mind, but I was unable to grasp them, unsure if they had even really happened at all.
I rose from the dirt, to gaze over the endless sea of bushes I had seen several times before. It was different this time. I had never seen the strawberry field this barren, and the moon so bright. My legs carried me through the rows as I reached through the vines for any hint of a berry’s soft skin, but felt nothing. In a panic, I tore through the plants until my hands were bleeding.
Odd, I thought, since when do strawberries have thorns?
“Viv?” A voice and a smell drifting within the wind.
“Tina?” I called back. I turned around to see her in her favourite winter outfit – a white cashmere crewneck and dark blue jeans – holding a woven basket.
“I couldn’t find very many. I think strawberry season’s almost over.”
She looked at me apologetically, holding out her basket as if it were a confession. It only held a handful of strawberries, a wrapped loaf of bread, a knife, and a stolen bottle of wine. So why was it that I could smell the strawberries so prominently?
I walked closer to her and held the basket, brushing my hand across hers. Her sweetness wafted over me, and my stomach growled with a want I refused to place.
Suddenly her arm was in my hand, and, under the soft fabric of her sweater, I felt her skin squish beneath my fingers. Cristina let out a yelp and struggled to break free from me, but I couldn’t let her go. I had no control over my own body. I couldn’t do anything but watch from within myself as I pulled her closer, rolled up her sleeve and placed my mouth on her arm. She tasted sweet.
I tore her skin like bread with my teeth and swallowed it. Red stained my fingers and my lips as my hands found the bread knife and plunged it into her, cutting morsels of meaty strawberry pie and devouring them as if I were starving.
We bled together, my hands still sliced from pillaging the bushes for berries. The knife was cool and light in my hand, but she was a warm and unwelcome weight. Her screams kept coming as I ripped her apart and drank her blood like wine.
The moon watched over it all, beaming.
The nightmare didn’t stop until Cristina’s corpse was mutilated and half- feasted on in the dirt, decaying strawberries scattered around her, the perfect white cashmere sweater torn and ruined. The carcass of a sheep in the presence of a wolf.
Cold air hit me as I coughed for breath. I clutched at my cotton sheets to prove to myself that I was fine, safe in my room. That it was only a nightmare and that I would never do something so horrific. The moon was half-full. I made eye contact with it, and something horrible dropped in my stomach. I thrashed through my blankets to find my phone and called Cristina. I had to hear her voice— ordinary, safe, and unsuspecting.
“Viv? What’s up?” She sounded half- asleep, and I knew I had woken her up. The something horrible moved slowly like a worm in my guts. “Viv?”
I had been quiet for too long.
“Shit, Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, I just had a really weird dream, and I just– I know it's dumb but I needed to make sure you were ok.” I forced the words out between gulps of air.
She gave me that adoring laugh, complete faith in me. I could almost see her smile, and could almost feel the daylight approaching.
“Well, I’m totally fine, just groggy since you woke me up at three in the morning. Do you want to talk about it?”
I heard the rustle of sheets as she sat up. If I knew one thing clearly in that moment, it was that she could not know what I had just seen, what I had done.
“No, no, I’m good. It’s all good.”
“You sure?”
“Totally sure. It was just one of those cold sweat dreams, you know? It’s wearing off. Sorry for waking you up. Go back to sleep.”
“Kk…you, too.” Cristina Daniels had never been the prying type.
“ ’Night, Tina.”
“ ’Night, Viv.”
I sank back into my bed, and the night was quiet.
It didn’t stop at one nightmare. Every night for a week, I found myself back in the strawberry field and filled with a maddening hunger. Every night, Cristina presented me with fewer and fewer strawberries; every night I was compelled by a slightly fuller moon to satiate myself with Cristina’s flesh and blood; and every night, I called her in a panic to ensure that I hadn’t gone through with it.
Cristina treated me to a coffee that Monday after school. She handed me a warm paper cup, and our hands touched. I hated how familiar it was, and I hated that jolt in my stomach that felt a little too much like hunger.
We sat on a park bench and she leaned on me, like she always did.
“Seriously, are you ok? You’ve been calling me every night,” she asked gently. Her sentence hung in the air. I shivered, clutching my sweater closer to my chest. I knew how calling her every night sounded, I knew what other people could think, what she might think.
“Really, I’m fine. I think it’s just school stress, finals season, all that bullshit. Nightmares are just one of those things.”
“Yeah, work really has been piling. We need that camping trip.” Cristina filled my nervous silence with words and plans and warmth, like she always did.
The nightmares continued. The phone calls did not. I would reach for my phone after devouring Cristina’s body and soul, but stop myself before I could call. I would remind myself that it was just a dream. It always was. Still, I woke up with the scent of strawberries in my nose and the taste of it on my tongue.
It was Friday, two days before the December full moon. The darkness fell and my eyes grew heavy. I knew what was coming, and I couldn’t fight it anymore. Every part of me was tired. I lay in my bed and stared at the moon, welcoming its wicked gaze.
“Go ahead,” I whispered, “I’m all yours.”
Again, in the field. Drier than ever, not a berry in sight. I followed the same ritual as always, tearing through thorns for fruits I would never find. I listened for Cristina to call my name, and took her basket before she could hand it to me.
“Is something wrong?” she asked. Something new.
“I just want to get it over with.”
“Is it exhaustion or eagerness?” A smile danced across her lips, and I shivered.
“What?”
“Is it true what they wrote? Are you really one of those?”
“No, before that. You said something before that.”
“Is it really exhaustion, Vivian, or is it eagerness?” Cristina Daniels pried. Her eyes were the moon—full, green, and reflective.
“I don’t– I can’t–”
“You’re going to do it, anyway. You know you want to at this point. Be honest. You’re not just used to it. You like the taste of me. You’re sick and you like it.”
I wanted to say something. Anything. Nothing. Everything. But my voice wouldn’t obey me. My mind raced with ideas. She wasn’t stopping me, she wasn’t pleading. She offered me her arm, sweater sleeve rolled up, and I took it. Bread and wine, meaty strawberry pie.
The camping trip had been her idea, hadn’t it? The conversations passed like smoke through my mind. She had said the location was a surprise. This couldn’t be it, surely.
“I know it’s not great outside of summer, but it's the principle of the thing.” A wave of her hand. “Plus, a strawberry field in the snow has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? What better way to spend the solstice.” She filled the air with her voice and pulled a sweater over her shirt. White cashmere. “Also, don’t make fun of me, but I did bring a pie.”
This wasn’t real, was it? It couldn’t be. Night was falling too quickly. She pulled a basket out of her car, a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. “Stolen”, she said, with a mischievous smile.
The moon was full. Odd, I thought, the Strawberry Moon is usually near the summer solstice, but it’s the dead of winter. And yet, I still smell strawberries.
None of my thoughts made any sense. I really should’ve gotten more sleep.
I don’t remember what happened and what didn’t. Did I feast on bread and wine that night? Flesh and blood? Meaty strawberry pie? Did she cry and beg for mercy? Did she say anything? Cristina. Tina. Viv. Vivian. Exhaustion. Eagerness. Nothing. Everything.
“I’ve been having dreams about you,” I said, plopping down into the snowy ground next to Cristina.
She was quiet.