If thou wouldst sit with me beneath this tree

If thou wouldst sit with me beneath this tree

I will never forget my first trip - it was the strangest thing - and it was my last, too.

I was hiking near Black Hawk, Colorado, pushing toward the summit of Maryland Mountain when I spotted a perfect circle of red mushrooms with white dotted caps. A fairy ring, just like in the stories. Curious, I stepped inside to take a photo.

The ground vanished. My camera flew from my hands as I spun through darkness, tumbling like a sycamore seed until everything went black.

I woke on damp moss under dripping evergreens. My hands were smooth, my hair long, my legs unscarred. Sixteen again, and dressed in a rough wool gown.

What had I stepped into?

Shaken, I followed a narrow trail until hooves thundered behind me. A rider reined in, eyes sharp beneath a linen cap.

“Whom have we here, astray in the woods?” she asked.

“I… I don’t know,” I stammered.

She introduced herself as Martha, a cook for William Clarke in Colsterworth, Lincolnshire. Taking my confusion for memory loss, she brought me to the manor and put me to work. Only later did I learn I had ended up in 1659 in England.

Three days passed in a daze. Homesick for 2025, I slipped outside for air and wandered into the apple orchard behind the manor.

That’s when I met him for the first time.

A figure sat beneath a tree, scribbling in a little book—long fair hair, slight frame. I turned to leave quietly.

“Good morrow,” a deep voice called. “Thou must be the new maid of whom folk speak. Anna, is’t not?”

I turned back. Not a girl–a boy. Good-looking, with long brown waves and a chiseled chin, though his brow was knit with a sour expression.

“What’s up with you?” I asked without thinking.

He stared blankly. Remembering Martha’s counsel, I tried again. “What aileth thee?”

He chuckled. “Thou art a merry one indeed.”

“Yeah, I heard,” I mumbled, and louder I said, “Who art thou?”

“Isaac. Isaac Newton. I dwell yonder at Woolsthorpe Manor.” He pointed towards the house on the hill.

I stared. “The Isaac Newton?”

He laughed again. “What meanest thou by that?”

“Ahem, thou art famous where I come from.”

“And where is that?”

“Far away. Somewhere thou might not yet know.” I stepped closer.

He shrugged. “Since thou didst ask of my trouble, I shall tell thee; my mother is sore vexed. I let the sheep stray, and they ran into the neighbor’s garden to eat the crops. I care not for sheep. My mind is set upon the secrets of nature - chemistry, mathematics and the motion of the stars. Yet, thou art a maid – what knowledge hast thou of such matters?” he laughed to himself.

“More than you think,” I muttered.

I turned to go, but he spoke again, softer. “The labours of the field do weary me sore, yet thy presence maketh the air feel lighter. If thou wouldst sit with me beneath this tree, I should forget both plough and sheep. Thy voice is strange to my ear, and I would fain hear it again in the quiet shade.” He tapped the grass beside him and smiled expectantly at me.

The orchard hummed with bees. The wind swayed the branches. Isaac sat cross-legged beneath the gnarled apple tree, his shirt sleeves rolled, a smudge of dirt on his cheek.

“Under the apple tree, huh? You talk like a book I haven’t read yet,” I said, settling beside him. “All proper and thoughtful, like you’re trying to measure the world before it slips away. I like it. Sure, I’ll sit with you. You can teach me something, and I’ll tell you about airplanes—machines that fly.”

He blinked. “Air… planes? What strange word is this?”

Nodding, I settled beside him. He turned to me, brow furrowed as if I had just spoken in code.

“Thou speakest of marvels beyond my knowledge.”

I nodded, casually plucking a blade of grass. Who would have thought that I would meet Isaac Newton? I bit my lip to hide a grin.

“Yeah, big ones. With wings. They carry people through the sky. Some go faster than the speed of sound.”

His mouth fell open. Then, he laughed - a startled, delighted sound, like the hiccup of wonder.

“Thou dost jest. Wings are for birds, and Daedalus himself was cast down.”

“Not these. These fly on engines. Combustion. Lift. Thrust. You’ll figure it out someday.”

He studied me, eyes narrowing, awe dawning slowly.

“Thou speakest as though the future were a land thou hast walked, a path of time to come,” he said.

“Maybe I have.”

Before he could ask more, Martha’s voice rang across the orchard. “Anna! Where art thou?”

“I gotta go. See you next time?” I waved and ran back toward the kitchen.

We met every day after that. I’d slip out to the orchard, and Isaac was usually there beneath “his” tree, full of questions. I tried to explain a future world he couldn’t quite grasp. He was brilliant, but the things I described often sounded impossible to him.

“You’ll understand in time,” I told him when he gave me that quizzical look. “We build on those before us—Galileo, Kepler, da Vinci. One step at a time. You have a brilliant mind, Isaac, and history will remember you as one of its greatest.”

Silence stretched between us.

Then he said, “Mistress Anna, if ever I make any discovery of worth, it shall be by patient heed and long pondering, not by any gift of my own. Truth lies in simplicity, and not in the confusion of things. No man hath stumbled upon great knowledge without a bold guess.”

A rustle in the tree made us duck our heads. An apple dropped into Isaac’s lap. I laughed.

“No, but sometimes the truth literally falls into our laps. Don’t you think? Why do apples always fall down, Isaac? Why not up?” I asked, challenging him.

“Why, indeed? ’Tis a most proper question, sweet Anna.” Isaac took my hand into his. “Thou art curious beyond any maid I have known. I confess, thy company draweth me more than my studies. I marvel what hidden cause moveth all things. Why doth the Moon not fall upon the Earth, nor wander off into the dark expanse of night? Perchance there is some secret force that bindeth them both together…” He drifted into thought, eyes distant.

“Now, stop thinking about the nature of things and the cosmos,” I teased. “Tell me about the sundial you invented that everyone is gushing about.”

He brightened. “That I can tell. I set pegs into the wall and marked the shadows as they moved. By their course I contrived a dial more precisely than the clock upon the church tower. ‘Twas but a boy’s diversion, yet it pleased me to see the sun obey my reckoning.”

As the sun dipped, I said, “Isaac, I need a favor. I want to get back to my time. I mean, you must have understood by now, that I am from another time and there is this fairy ring in the woods I need to find. Could you help me? Do you have a horse we could use for riding?”

“I do possess a horse, though I ride but poorly,” he said slowly.

He looked at his feet with a sudden shyness and murmured, “Yet, I would not have thee depart.”

“Why?” I asked, not able to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

He knelt, taking my hands. “Because, sweet maid Anna, I am sorely in love with thee. I know not what I may seem to thee or to the world. But to myself, I am but a boy upon the seashore, diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the vast ocean of truth lieth all undiscovered before me. And thou—thou helpest me to see.”

My breath caught. I looked away, blinking back tears. The warmth in Isaac’s gaze made my chest ache with longing.

“Isaac… meeting you has been a gift. But I am homesick. And you—you are meant for Cambridge, for discoveries, not for entertaining a lost maid. You, dear sir, will be famous.”

He studied me. “Thou speakest as one who knoweth much about me already…”

“That’s because I do. Now, can you help me?”

Longing flickered in his eyes, but he rose, still holding my hands. “Wilt thou grant me leave to kiss thee once, sweet Anna, ere thou art gone?”

He fetched his horse, and we made our way to the forest. I guided him along the trail as well as I remembered until the fairy ring appeared—and beside it, unbelievably, my camera. I slid off the horse, picked it up, and turned it over. The lens was intact, but the body was not.

Isaac joined me, curiously inspecting the object. He took it out of my hand. “What marvel is this? What doth it do?”

“A camera. It takes pictures when it’s not broken.” I said, and sighed.

We stood next to the ring. I stretched on my tiptoes and kissed him softly on the cheek.

“Thank you, Isaac Newton! For everything.”

Isaac pulled me close and kissed me deeply.

Pulling away, I smiled at him. My heart twisted. Slowly, I freed myself from his embrace.

I hated to say goodbye. So, I pointed over Isaac’s shoulder and exclaimed, “Look, a boar!”

Isaac turned quickly, scanning the trees. “Where? I see it not.”

In that moment, I stepped into the ring, whispering, “Keep studying the falling apples, my friend.”

With the now familiar jolt, the ground beneath me gave way, and I let myself fall into the nothingness - the unconsciousness of the fall that carried me home to the twenty-first century.

Behind me, faint but clear, his voice rang out, “Anna! Though thou vanish as a dream, I shall remember thee whilst breath endureth. For thou hast opened my eyes to wonders, and I shall seek them all my days.”

I landed back in Colorado. The forest was unchanged, except the fairy ring was gone - some doors open only once.

Isaac’s voice echoed as I touched my lips, smiling through tears; he would change the world, and I had sat with him beneath the apple tree.

Whenever I looked skyward—at a bird’s arc or a jet’s contrail—I thought of him, cross-legged in the orchard, eyes alight with wonder.