The Trespasser

When we were kids, my older brother, Landon, would pack his Batman suitcase and run away from home anytime he had even the slightest disagreement with our parents. During each escape, Landon would bid me farewell in his typical over-dramatic manner, and I would cry for him not to leave me. My brother shimmied out of his bedroom window more times than I could count...only to return home after he ate the sandwich and twinkie he took for supplies. Landon acted out so often that my parents came to anticipate his sporadic disappearances; they knew that my brother would never actually leave our small town's borders. He just needed time to cool down and come to his senses.

I reminisced about my brother's fearlessness as I bypassed the no trespassing warnings that hung across the mayor's property line. The dirt path was less kept than when I was a child; the trail scarcely visible in the overgrown grass. Mayor Gilbert's small pond no longer looked inviting; the water's color sat a stagnant brown.

I trudged over the last hill, marching right into a puddle of mud as I finally made it to my destination. At the end of the path stood a withered, old barn. The building was primarily a faded pink color now, but the wood once glowed a bright fire-engine red. A few flakey patches of rose peeled off the bowed boards closest to the foundation and rusted nails stuck out at every angle.

Landon waited for me inside the barn's open door with a massive smile on his face. He looked older now. Landon had lost some of the roundness in his face, and he was nearly a foot taller than me. Just like Dad.

Landon stepped back as I entered the barn's open area. The building had diminished further since my last visit, but it still smelt of sandalwood and leather. Most of the wooden stalls had begun to dry rot, and the toolsets that clung to the wall were in shambles. I felt a little squeeze in my chest as I gazed across the room. I wished that the barn still looked as vibrant as it had when Landon and I were small. Who knows how much longer the barn would continue to stand before the mayor decided to have it knocked down.

My brother strolled over towards a wooden bench and took a seat; I knocked off a few cobwebs before joining him. Afterward, I unpacked a paper lunch bag and handed Landon half of my sandwich.

"We haven't been here in a while," Landon remarked. He kicked his legs back and forth on the seat while I took a large bite of ham and cheese.

"I just needed a little timeout from reality," I chewed.

"Why?

I paused for a moment, letting the question echo loudly across the room. "I'm moving to California tomorrow," I finally admitted out loud.

"I know," Landon said without missing a beat. "You're a Stanford girl now."

I smiled a little, unable to completely conceal my excitement. Our dad attended Stanford University before settling down in North Carolina. Dad never pushed me to apply for a specific college, but he was over the moon when I decided to continue his academic legacy.

"Hey, it's a good thing." Landon encouraged me.

"I'll just miss you... and our conversations."

"You can still talk to me whenever you want, Jenny," he explained, calling me by my nickname. No one called me Jenny anymore.

We sat in comfortable silence for a long while. I watched as a blue jay swooped down from a nest in the corner of the room. It made a few circles before soaring out the top window of the barn.

"Mateo is going to Berkeley," I suddenly remarked. "We are going to give the separate college dating thing a go."

"Would I like him?"

"I think so," I nodded, giving the concept some thought. "Mateo is a pretty good baseball player. He could have given your home run streak some competition."

"I don't think there is such a thing as a home run streak in little league," Landon snorted before changing the subject. "So what else have you been up to?"

I opened my mouth to give Landon some more details about the past month at school when a bright light flashed through the building and landed on my face. I shielded my eyes from a flashlight beam as a man in uniform stepped into the building.

"I got a call about a trespasser. Are you aware this is private property, Miss?" a middle-aged deputy with salt and pepper hair asked from the doorway.

I turned my head to look at Landon, but just like a fleeting daydream, the deputy had popped me back into reality. My brother no longer sat beside me on the bench. I was alone in the barn. Half of a sandwich and a piece of twinkie sat untouched beside me on the wooden seat.

Suddenly, the deputy's expression flashed with recognition, and he switched the light off. My eyes momentarily readjusted to the dim room as the officer walked further into the open space.

"You're the sister of the boy who fell from the loft, aren't you?" the deputy realized.

"Yes," I whispered, barely allowing myself to glance towards the large hole in the loft flooring.

When Landon was ten, he ran away over a bad grade on a math test. As usual, Landon escaped to the mayor's barn and intended to spend an hour or two in his favorite hideaway. No one could have known that Landon would never come back home.

"That must have been ten years ago now," the man remarked, thinking back to the incident. "Is this your first time coming back to the barn?"

"No. It's just my first time getting caught," I admitted, anxiously rubbing the dirt floor with my shoe.

The deputy inspected the building and tested one of the wooden beams. "Can I ask why you would ever want to come back here?" the deputy asked curiously.

"It was my brother's favorite place. I come here to see…er...I mean, to talk to him," I admitted, realizing that I probably sounded a little crazy. Still, how were my visits to the barn any different than my parent's trips to the cemetery? Personally, I felt silly talking to a rock with a couple of dates carved through the middle. So instead, I came to the barn, I brought Landon's favorite foods, and I imagined what he would look like if he were alive today.

"I understand...but this barn is in worse shape than it was a decade ago. Your brother would not want you to make the same mistake that he did."

"I know."

"Let's get you out of here, and I'll tell the mayor that I didn't find anyone on the property. Deal?

I nodded and slowly stood in defeat. I left the food behind on the bench as if Landon might somehow know that I brought it for him.

After the deputy exited the broken doorway, we both turned around to admire the old barn. Truthfully, I wanted to hate the place. I really did, but I could never completely erase the sense of magic that I felt in the barnyard. Landon and I used to sneak over to the property to play cowboys or trade secrets, and those memories were some of the fondest moments that I had with my brother.

"What did you need to talk to your brother about today?" the deputy asked softly. He wasn't trying to pry, but there was a legitimate curiosity in his tone.

"I'm leaving for college tomorrow. I won't be able to come visit the barn anymore."

"Ya know, I have a sister, and I'm willing to bet your brother would rather you live your life than stay caught up in the past here," the deputy explained. "It's what I would want for my Millie if anything happened to me."

I sniffed and wiped my nose with my wrist. We stood for a while longer, as if the deputy was giving me the time I needed to say goodbye. I hesitantly drifted my eyes to the window over the loft, feeling the tension build in my body as I stared into the eye of the barn. For a split moment, I could physically see my brother again. He wasn't the older version that I had cooked up in my head, though. The figure was the ten-year-old boy that I remembered. It was as if the barn were giving me one last piece of magic. A melancholy farewell.

And then he was gone.