When the Days Grow Short

Chapter 3
Out of Order

Chapter Description: A wrong drink and a wrong turn leave Dan lost among the corn—and increasingly uncertain which of his own signals he can trust.

Harvest Row occupied a broad lane between two barns, its food wagons arranged around picnic tables sunk into the grass. Chalkboards advertised apple fritters, cider doughnuts, roasted corn and pumpkin soup. Smoke from an iron firepit drifted low across the lane, carrying the smells of wood, frying sugar and coffee.

Dan walked several paces ahead of the others.

The overalls made a soft brushing sound between his legs. They were not waterproof, as Hannah had originally assumed, but ordinary cotton twill lined with something warm and fleecy. The fabric was comfortable. Irritatingly comfortable. It held the last chill from his wet clothes away from his skin and loosened around his knees as he walked.

That did not compensate for the apple on his backside.

He could feel it there. Not physically, exactly, but through every glance that followed him. He kept tugging the hem of his coat lower, only for it to work its way up again.

At the centre of Harvest Row stood a sage-green coffee wagon with tiny pumpkins arranged along its serving hatch. Its painted sign read:

THE WARM APPLE

Below it, in looping script:

Coffee, Cider & Cosy Things

Dan joined the queue before anyone could suggest somewhere else.

The line moved slowly. He shifted his weight, conscious of dampness still clinging inside his shoes. The dry socks helped, but his toes felt compressed and strangely warm.

He glanced down.

His right lace remained tied.

Good.

Hannah joined him, close enough for her shoulder to rest against his arm. Nate and Sophie went to inspect the doughnut wagon opposite.

“What do you want?” Hannah asked.

“Coffee.”

“I gathered.”

“Large Americano. Extra shot.”

She turned to look at him. “Have you eaten anything?”

“I sampled enough apples to qualify as lunch.”

“You ate half of one.”

“And yet I persist.”

He reached the front of the queue. The woman inside the wagon wore a knitted orange hat and had silver leaves painted beneath both eyes.

Dan ordered clearly.

“Large Americano, extra shot. Black.”

The woman smiled at him. “And for you?”

Hannah ordered a maple latte.

They stepped aside.

Dan watched the woman prepare the drinks through the open hatch. She filled one tall paper cup from the espresso machine and topped it with foamed milk. Beside it, she placed a shorter cup decorated with red apples, then poured something pale brown from a silver urn.

“That’s not mine,” Dan said.

Hannah glanced up from her phone.

The woman added a spiral of whipped cream to the shorter drink, dusted it with cinnamon and fastened a plastic lid over the top. The lid had a raised spout instead of the narrow drinking slot on an ordinary coffee lid.

She set both drinks on the counter.

“One maple latte and one caramel apple steamer.”

“I ordered an Americano.”

The woman checked the small screen beside the till.

“Caramel apple steamer,” she repeated.

“No. Large Americano. Extra shot.”

She tilted the screen toward him.

Two lines were visible:

MAPLE LATTE

APPLE STEAMER

Dan stared at them.

The words looked perfectly ordinary. He could remember standing at the hatch. He could remember saying Americano. The memory felt recent and solid, but seeing the order written there made it somehow less authoritative.

“Maybe I pressed the wrong thing,” the woman said. “I can remake it.”

There was already another queue behind him. Someone shifted impatiently.

Dan looked at the small apple-covered cup.

“It’s fine.”

Hannah took both drinks while he paid. When they moved away from the wagon, she handed him the shorter one.

“Do you want mine?”

“No.”

“You can have it.”

“I don’t want a maple latte either.”

He raised the apple steamer and found the spout with his mouth. Warm sweetness flooded his tongue—apple, caramel, cinnamon and something like melted vanilla ice cream.

It was excellent.

He swallowed and immediately took another drink.

Hannah watched him over the rim of her cup.

“Terrible?”

“Disgusting.”

He drank again.

Nate and Sophie had claimed one end of a picnic table. A paper tray of small cinnamon doughnuts sat between them. Dan lowered himself onto the bench and reached for one.

Sophie slid the tray closer.

“Careful. They’re hot.”

He almost asked why she had said it specifically to him. Nate had already taken one. So had Hannah.

Then the doughnut burned his fingertips.

Dan dropped it onto the table.

A dusting of cinnamon sugar scattered across the dark green bib of his overalls.

Nobody reacted.

That was worse.

He picked the doughnut up again, holding it through a napkin. The outside was crisp, the centre soft and steaming. Cinnamon coated his lips. He alternated bites with long pulls from the cup until warmth gathered behind his ribs.

By the time he finished, the apple steamer was nearly gone.

He had not intended to drink it so quickly.

The four of them sat for several minutes, watching the farm traffic move past. A bell rang from the direction of the hayride. Somewhere nearby, a child was begging for face paint. The clouds had thickened, turning the noon light pearly and flat.

Dan’s annoyance softened.

It was difficult to remain genuinely angry while holding something that tasted like hot apple pie. His clothes were dry. The orchard bag had been left safely at the collection barn. The maze waited across the lane, its entrance marked by two tall scarecrows in matching flannel shirts.

He shifted on the bench.

The overalls pulled snugly across his stomach when he sat. Beneath them, his body felt full and unsettled—not painful, merely present. He loosened one shoulder strap by a notch.

Hannah noticed.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes.”

“Do they fit?”

“They’re fine.”

He drank the last of the steamer. The spout made a hollow sucking noise.

Across the table, Nate’s eyes flicked toward the cup.

Dan lowered it.

“Say it and die.”

Nate went back to his doughnut.

Sophie wanted something savoury before the maze, so they remained at the table while Nate fetched roasted corn. Dan began bouncing one heel beneath the bench. He only noticed because Hannah placed her hand on his knee.

The movement stopped.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You seem restless.”

“I’ve been sitting for ten minutes.”

She studied him for a moment.

“Do you need the bathroom before we go in?”

Dan laughed.

It came out louder than expected.

“What?”

“The bathroom.”

“I heard you. Why are you asking me that?”

“Because we’re about to go into a maze.”

“I understand the concept.”

“And you just drank all of that.”

She nodded toward the empty cup in his hand.

Dan looked down at it. The cup seemed smaller now than it had at the counter. Childishly small, he thought, although it had held more than enough.

“I don’t need to go.”

“All right.”

Something in the easy acceptance irritated him further.

Sophie had been listening. “You’re very attentive today, Hannah.”

“I’m always attentive.”

“You asked him if he needed the toilet.”

“I asked if he wanted to go before the maze.”

Nate returned with the corn.

“What did I miss?”

“Apparently Hannah thinks I need help organizing my bathroom schedule.”

Nate sat down. “That’s love.”

“It’s weird.”

“It would only be weird if she took you.”

There was a brief silence before Sophie laughed. Hannah smiled despite herself.

Dan shook his head.

“Great. Excellent. Everyone finished?”

He stood before anyone answered.

The sudden movement brought an odd pulse of pressure low in his abdomen. It vanished almost immediately.

He waited, trying to locate it again.

Nothing.

Hannah rose beside him and brushed cinnamon sugar from the bib of his overalls. Her fingertips moved briskly over his chest.

Dan caught her hand.

“I can do that.”

“You didn’t notice it.”

“I noticed.”

She looked at him.

He released her wrist.

“Maze,” he said.

The entrance stood beneath a wooden arch decorated with black crows. A board beside it displayed a cartoon map and the rules:

FIND ALL FOUR HARVEST STAMPS!

REACH THE BELL TOWER!

RING THE BELL AND CLAIM YOUR PRIZE!

At the bottom, Captain Honeycrisp held up a small wooden medal on a red ribbon.

Dan took one of the paper maps from a box.

The attendant handed stamp cards to Nate, Hannah and Sophie. When Dan reached for his, she tucked it against the map instead, as though helping him hold both.

“There you go.”

He pulled the card free.

“I had it.”

She was already greeting the family behind them.

The first stretch of the maze was broad and easy, its packed-earth paths lined with corn higher than Dan’s head. Leaves whispered overhead. Wooden signs at each junction offered riddles whose answers supposedly indicated the correct direction.

Dan solved the first one incorrectly.

Nate chose the opposite path and found the first stamp.

“Lucky,” Dan said.

At the second junction, Dan took the lead again.

The map was irritatingly stylized. Instead of showing each path precisely, it reduced sections of the maze to pumpkins, scarecrows and curling lines. Dan turned it once, then again.

“The bell tower should be east.”

Nate looked up at the clouded sky. “And east is?”

“That way.”

Dan pointed left.

Hannah said nothing, but her gaze moved toward a wooden post beside them. A small arrow marked ENTRANCE pointed in the same direction.

Dan folded the map.

“The layout loops.”

They went right.

The paths narrowed farther in. Dry leaves dragged over Dan’s coat. The ground was softer here, and his shoes collected mud around the soles. Every few minutes, he became aware of a vague internal discomfort—pressure, warmth, a tightening that disappeared whenever he focused on it.

He blamed the drink.

Or the doughnut.

Possibly the overalls. The waist seemed to press on him in a way his jeans had not.

At the next junction, he stopped to adjust the bib. His hand remained there, palm flat against his lower stomach.

Hannah noticed.

“Dan.”

“I’m thinking.”

“About the route?”

“Yes.”

She glanced down.

He followed her gaze and removed his hand.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Then stop looking at me like that.”

Nate and Sophie had gone several paces ahead. Sophie turned back.

“Everything all right?”

“Perfect,” Dan said.

He walked faster.

They found the second stamp by accident. The third stood in the centre of a little clearing with hay bales arranged around a wooden skeleton. Sophie stamped all four cards while Dan studied the map.

The bell tower appeared to be close. They could hear it occasionally—a bright clang followed by applause from people who had reached the end.

Dan chose the next turn.

Five minutes later, they returned to the skeleton.

Nobody commented at first.

Dan picked another route.

The skeleton reappeared ten minutes later.

Nate sat down on one of the hay bales.

“Captain.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m just saying—”

“The map is wrong.”

Nate held out his hand.

Dan did not give it to him.

A tight sensation gathered low in his body. He pressed his thighs together briefly, then stepped apart when he realized what he was doing.

Hannah saw.

“Maybe we should take a quick break.”

“Why?”

“No reason.”

“I don’t need a break.”

“All right.”

Again, that mild agreement.

He hated it more than an argument would have deserved.

Dan opened the map and forced himself to study it carefully. The drawn paths seemed to shift when his eyes moved between them. He found the skeleton symbol, traced the route with one finger and selected the left-hand path.

“This way.”

Nate rose.

For several minutes, the path appeared promising. They did not return to the clearing. The bell sounded closer. Dan quickened his pace, ignoring the way the movement stirred the fullness in his stomach.

Then the corn opened onto a dead end.

A painted sign waited against the stalks.

OOPS! EVEN BIG ADVENTURERS NEED A LITTLE HELP SOMETIMES!

Captain Honeycrisp pointed cheerfully back the way they had come.

Nate made a small sound behind him.

Dan turned.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You were going to say something.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

“I’m not.”

Dan looked toward Hannah. “You believe me, right? This map is useless.”

She stepped closer and lowered her voice.

“I think you’re getting frustrated.”

“I’m not frustrated.”

“You are.”

“Because none of you are helping.”

“You won’t let us.”

The words landed harder than they should have.

Dan shoved the map toward Nate.

“There. You do it.”

Nate took it without reacting. Sophie leaned over his arm, and the two of them began comparing the symbols with the route behind them.

Hannah remained beside Dan.

He could hear the bell. It seemed absurdly close, separated from them by only a few walls of corn.

“You should go,” he said.

“We’re all going.”

“They’ll figure it out faster without me arguing.”

“You’re not being left.”

“I didn’t say I was.”

Nate looked up. “I think we missed a turn near the last stamp. If we go back—”

“I saw a path here,” Dan said.

He pushed through an opening to his right.

It was not exactly a path. The corn stood thinner there, the ground beneath it already flattened by other people making the same mistake. Beyond it, Dan could see a clearer track.

“Dan,” Hannah called.

“I’m checking.”

He stepped through sideways, holding the stalks apart. Leaves scraped his cheek and caught against the straps of his overalls.

The clear path was only a few feet away.

He turned back.

“I found it.”

But the corn had already fallen closed behind him.

He heard Nate say something, muffled by the stalks.

Dan pushed his hands between them. “Come through.”

“Go back to the clearing,” Nate’s voice called. “We’ll meet you there.”

“What?”

“The proper path loops around. Don’t force through.”

Dan looked at the track beneath his feet. It ran in both directions and appeared far more direct than the route they had been following.

“I’m already through.”

Hannah’s voice came next, indistinct. “Dan, wait—”

The rest disappeared beneath the ringing of the bell.

He took several steps along the path, expecting it to curve back toward them.

It did not.

He stopped.

Behind him, the corn rustled, but nobody emerged. Their voices faded as they returned toward the junction.

Dan hurried back to the place where he had forced through.

Every section of corn looked identical.

He pushed at one opening and met an impenetrable wall of stalks. He tried another. Dry leaves slapped his hands away.

“Hannah?”

No answer.

He walked quickly in the direction he thought they had gone. The path turned twice, forked and ended against a wall of corn.

Captain Honeycrisp smiled at him from another sign.

NOT THIS WAY, ADVENTURER!

Dan turned around.

The pressure low in his abdomen had returned. It pulsed without meaning, tangled with the nervous energy rising through him. His feet would not remain still. He shifted, paced two steps, came back.

“Hannah!”

Somebody laughed beyond the corn.

Not Hannah.

He chose the left fork. It curved back onto itself and returned him to the same sign.

His breathing shortened.

This was ridiculous. The maze was designed for families. Children were completing it. He could hear them ringing the bell.

He took the other fork and began walking faster.

The path divided again.

He chose right.

Dead end.

He turned too quickly, caught one shoe against the other and stumbled into the corn. Stalks crackled beneath his weight. Something scraped his neck.

“Fuck.”

He pushed himself upright.

A warm sensation flickered between his legs.

Dan froze.

It was gone before he understood it.

He looked down. The front of the dark green overalls appeared unchanged.

For several seconds, he listened to his own breathing.

Then the bell rang again.

“Hannah!”

His voice broke around her name.

No answer.

Dan started running.

The overalls pulled at his knees. His shoes struck the packed earth too heavily. The pressure inside him swelled and vanished, swelled and vanished, never resolving into anything he could identify.

He reached another junction.

The same wooden skeleton sat in the clearing ahead.

Relief surged through him so sharply it almost hurt.

“Hannah?”

The clearing was empty.

Their footprints covered the damp earth, indistinguishable from dozens of others. The fourth stamp stood beneath the skeleton’s hand. Dan had no idea which path led out.

He spun around.

His right foot caught.

He stumbled, recovered and looked down furiously, expecting the lace to be loose again.

The double knot remained intact.

A stronger warmth spread between his legs.

Dan stared at himself.

For one dislocated moment, he thought the lining of the overalls had somehow retained heat from walking. Then a dark patch appeared between his thighs.

His body went rigid.

“No.”

He clamped every muscle he understood how to control.

The release stopped.

Dan stood in the middle of the clearing, scarcely breathing, his thighs locked together. The darkened patch remained small enough to hide if he kept his coat closed.

He needed to move.

He took one careful step.

Pressure rolled through him again. His body answered before his mind had formed the command to resist.

Warmth spread rapidly through the cotton.

Dan grabbed the front of the overalls with both hands, as though he could physically hold the fabric away or stop what was happening inside it. The dark stain widened beneath his fingers and travelled down the inner seams.

He tried to stop.

For one second, he thought he had.

Then his body released fully.

The sound was soft but unmistakable in the empty clearing. Liquid pattered onto the packed earth between his shoes. Heat ran along his legs, soaked into the thick new socks and gathered inside the shoes Hannah had watched him retie.

Dan could do nothing except stand there.

The bell rang somewhere beyond the corn.

When it finally ended, the silence felt enormous.

His breathing came shallow and fast. He loosened his hands.

The green fabric was nearly black from the crotch to both knees. Even the smiling apple on the seat would be surrounded by wetness. There was no possible explanation involving a spilled drink or a puddle.

There was only one possible explanation.

Dan’s mind moved around it without touching it. He looked across the empty clearing as though someone else might arrive and provide a different one.

The skeleton grinned at him.

He backed toward the nearest wall of corn.

“No,” he whispered.

As the warmth began to cool, a faint acrid smell rose from the soaked cotton. Dan breathed through his mouth and refused to decide what it meant.

Leaves rustled along one of the paths.

Footsteps approached.

Dan dragged the hem of his coat downward with both hands, but it covered almost nothing. He turned toward the corn, pressing himself into it, trying to hide the front of the overalls while exposing the soaked back.

“Dan?”

Hannah entered the clearing.

Relief crossed her face first.

“There you are. We’ve been waiting outside for almost ten minutes. Why were you still—”

She stopped.

Dan could not look at her.

Her gaze moved slowly down his body.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The distant music, the bell and the murmur of people beyond the maze continued with grotesque normality.

“Oh,” Hannah said.

Dan gripped the hem of his coat.

“I couldn’t find the exit.”

Her expression changed. The irritation disappeared so completely that he wished it would return.

“Oh my God,” she said softly. “Dan.”

“It’s not—”

He had no idea how to finish.

Hannah came toward him.

Dan stepped back.

“Don’t.”

“It’s okay.”

“It isn’t.”

“I know. Just let me—”

Her fingers touched the wet cotton at his hip.

Dan recoiled, but she had already understood.

“It was an accident,” she said.

The word landed softly and enclosed the whole impossible event.

“No, I’m fine.” His voice sounded thin and breathless. “We’ll go home.”

“What?”

“We’ll tell Nate and Sophie something came up. We can leave.”

Hannah was already unbuttoning her coat.

“We’re not making Nate and Sophie drive two hours home because of this.”

Dan stared at her.

Because of this.

“I can’t go back out there like this.”

“You’re not going back like this.”

She removed her coat and wrapped it around his waist. She turned him slightly, crossed the sleeves in front and tied them herself. Then she tugged the back of the coat lower until it covered as much of him as possible.

Dan stood motionless while she arranged him.

“We’re going to get you cleaned up,” she said. “Then we’ll decide.”

He looked at her.

She had already decided.

Hannah took his hand.

The gesture was so ordinary that for half a second he allowed it.

Then her fingers closed securely around his, and she began leading him toward the path.

Dan looked down at their joined hands.

“Hannah.”

“Come on. There are toilets beside the cider barn.”

He wanted to ask how she knew that.

He wanted to pull away.

Instead, he followed her out of the clearing, his soaked clothes cooling against his skin with every step.

She led him through a narrow staff opening near the maze entrance, avoiding the queue and the picnic tables where Nate and Sophie were waiting. Families passed in the opposite direction. Dan kept his eyes on the ground and Hannah’s coat clutched closed around his waist.

The restroom building stood against the side of the barn. Two painted signs marked the separate entrances.

Dan angled toward the men’s door.

Hannah’s grip tightened.

“Not that one.”

She guided him past it.

Dan looked up at the white figure painted on the other door.

“Hannah—”

She pushed it open.

Authors note: 

Hope you're enjoying the story thus far! I have been in such a fall mood and wanted to share some cheer with you all. In total I have about 10 chapters planned and will post every few days untill the end of the month! I thought I would spoil you, by posting three chapters on day one, since the story is a bit of a slow burn, and I wanted to hook in a few readers! I really am curious to hear your thoughts! I'd love to start working on a christmas special soon this year, since I ran out of time last year - so if you have any suggestions on what you might like to read, I am all ears.