A Barn Named Crooked

It sits beyond the fields, huddled among the conifers, its mossy roof barely visible from her bedroom window. The place they say is haunted because horrible things happen there. Her brothers love to torment her with stories of kids going missing only to be found in this place and no longer breathing. When they truly want to scare her, they talk of limbs missing and faces unrecognizable. When they want to control her, they say it’s only the girls who go missing. What they don’t know, what they’ll never know, is that she can’t be controlled. Not by another person.

It’s the barn that controls, its lilting structure either beckoning or repelling. Nothing in between. Nearly all are repelled. Luna wasn’t. Something about the crooked barn called to her. Questioned her. Enchanted her. The summons wasn’t felt by her brothers, of that she was certain. They’d often dared each other to visit the barn dubbed Crooked yet none would take the bait. They were all far too frightened and not a scrap inclined to admit it. All talk, no action.

Luna decided to heed the calling and chose to do so under the next full moon, specifically selected for visibility purposes and as a tribute to her namesake. Weather permitting, she would sneak out and journey to the barn after the rest of the house was asleep. She could easily go during the day but planning the visit at night was much more exhilarating and helped her feel more prepared should the stories be true. She may get caught off guard during the day. She wouldn’t at night.

The day of the full moon was clear and sunny, without the smell of an upcoming summer rain. Luna could almost always tell when it was going to rain. The sky showed her. The wind told her. Her brothers never believed her, even when every prediction came to pass. She no longer shared what she knew. She no longer wanted to give pieces of herself to the invalidators.

Luna was lucky, being the only girl of five children she didn’t have to share a room. This made it easier to sneak out once the moon was high enough to create a spotlight. It took her about 20 minutes to walk past the crop fields to reach Crooked. There it stood, in its sagging melancholy. It didn’t scare her, and it still called to her. Crooked’s appearance reflected Luna’s own longing for an element of beauty.

Wading through the tall grass, she stepped up to the door. The oak behemoth and its frame were heavily worn like the rest of Crooked yet intact. Using all her strength, Luna pulled the massive door open barely enough to fit inside. Now within, she lit her lantern to take in Crooked’s mysteries. Her senses on high alert, she still felt the pull from something inside Crooked. If it was as her brothers described, she would soon find the remains of numerous children’s corpses and possibly their captor. And yet, her senses told her a different story.

The crunch of her footsteps satisfied an innate part of her. She imagined the dirt and debris each foot was crushing into the ground were all the hateful words and actions dealt to her by her brothers, her parents, her invalidators. Each pleasing footstep led her around Crooked’s perimeter. The walls looked to be reinforced from the inside with stone and an earthen binder, giving a structural confidence that its outer left severely lacking. The moonlight was now filtering in through Crooked’s highest window revealing more of its secrets.

Luna’s footsteps led her to the next wall and the reason for Crooked’s moniker. This wall didn’t have the reinforcements the others had. The wood planks making up the wall were still intact, but gravity was in control. This wall also had a large window which only furthered gravity’s agenda. This area also lacked the crunch that Luna was growing to love. As she held her lantern to the ground, Luna noticed it had been paved. Holding the light closer exposed splatters and droplets of red. Were her brothers there, they’d tell her it was blood from the girls who tried to escape and never made it out. Luna knew better. She knew that blood didn’t dry red. Dried blood was a rusty brown. She followed the splatters and noticed that other colors began to emerge – blue, green, orange, purple. Colors of paint.

Luna continued her exploration to the last wall, which held a nook. At once, she heard a rustling and nearly jumped out of her body! Did she dare see what was behind this nook? Her brothers would have already been running toward the door. She steeled herself and advanced around the corner. She jumped again at the rustling, this time to reveal a raven fleeing her roost. Raven landed on the windowsill and leveled Luna with her beady eyes. Then, Luna saw it.

Its wooden structure sat against the reinforced wall and Luna realized what was calling her. An upright piano. This piano, covered in dirt and cobwebs, still had a bench covered in the same. The keys were still protected by its cover as Luna reached out to lift it. She tapped one key, then another. The sound permeated her soul as she pressed her fingers to the keys. She had never played before. She didn’t know what keys she was playing or how to read music, but she knew what her soul wanted to hear. What Crooked wanted to hear. The forlorn tale of longing and discovery, of heartbreak and redemption. This barn held no malice. Only song.

Luna played for as long as she could before returning home. She didn’t want to be discovered. She would keep Crooked’s secret as long as she drew breath and return as often as she could to play for both Crooked and Raven. Luna’s brothers continued to tell chilling stories about the barn, but her heart held the truth.

The truth of music. The songs of Luna’s heart.