Through their eyes.

The old barn stands lost and forlorn at the boundary of a vast property. It has been unused for decades. Well not totally unused. It houses the usual families of mice and lizards and the occasional passing stray fox, and the rafters and rotting loft have been home for many generations of barn owl. Quiet, observant, wise looking, ghost faced barn owls.

It was not always the case. The barn had once been quite central to the day-to-day life of a busy farm. A beautiful stone cottage once stood not too far apart, home to hard working farming folk and full of fat cheeked, noisy children. The cottage is all but gone now, the stones slowly removed to build garden retaining walls of a bigger, better homestead some miles away, closer to water and the new roadways built to encourage urban sprawl. The barn now stands alone, crumbling and almost forgotten. A relic of a world gone by. I say “almost forgotten” as there still lives one who remembers those bygone days.

Lisa loved the barn. It was dark and cool against the harsh elements outdoors. It had a mix of warm smells. Hay, horses, cows, sheep, oil and the musty smell of the barn owl droppings. She liked to think of it as her secret place but of course whenever she could not be found in the cottage, the family knew she was in the barn. “Whatever do you do in there?” her mother would scold kindly. “I watch the barn owls” she would say, “They have another hatching”. “Well, if you spend all your time in there, in the dark, you will have eyes as big as theirs,” her brother interjected and started flapping his arms and calling “Hoot, hoot”. They laughed. If only they knew how she often wished she could be a barn owl. Able to fly and come and go as they pleased. Not that she was ungrateful for her life, she loved her life and her family, even if her brothers could be bothersome at times. It was just she knew there was a big world out there and she would like to see some of it. “Come” she said to her brother. “If you are quiet, I’ll show you their nest”.

In 1922 they all took refuge in that barn as a grass fire swept across their fields. The high roof and lack of windows gave respite from the smoke and the terrifying views. It was in here that the children were gathered as mother birthed her children in the cottage. Her yells and screams muffled by thick stone walls and their own cries of fear and worry contained. It was from this very loft that Charlie had fallen and broken his neck. His grave now lost among the tortured, thirsty trees. And it had been here, at the tender age of 14, while the family had been toiling in the fields, that Lisa had been raped by the traveling farm hand who disappeared as quick as he had appeared. Only the owls had seen it all.

The following pregnancy and subsequent birth of a baby boy became the big complicated family secret. To the world, mother was with child again. Each morning as time progressed, she padded her belly with pillows filled with scrap wool. She feigned fatigue and other womanly troubles to exclude her from more social duties. Later, Lisa had been ordered to fake illness that demanded isolation and long rest to keep her swelling belly well away from curious eyes. They had never blamed her of this situation. They were practical folk and knew the misfortunes of the world, but they had great hope for her to marry well and escape their own fate, so they did what they had to do to keep this dream alive. The boys were still a little too young to understand it all and were fed embellished tales and white lies to keep their curiosity calmed.

So, mother became sister and uncles became brothers. This is how young Thomas knew his world. Lisa never really recovered from the ordeal and although doted on the newest sibling with almost desperate, motherly love, she never later married or bore more children. Mother and father provided firm but fair guidance and discipline with kindness and almost cautious affection. Thomas grew strong and handsome and confident from the guilty love bestowed upon him. His brothers soon learnt that the youngest was not necessarily the weakest and Thomas was defiant and determined to be heard and seen and included in their big boy games. It was a picture book of an almost perfect family, but for the first few pages torn from its’ start.

Lisa did not visit the barn much these days, but Thomas found the same fascination in the building that she had in her younger, more innocent years. He came into the house with tall tales of ghosts, insisting the heart faced owls were phantoms of ancestors long passed watching over him as he built his fortresses of hay and scraps. The older boys embellished his fantasies with the death of Charlie, who they say was carried up and dropped from the ceiling by one of them. Later, he would laugh at his gullibility, but the child believed every word and treated the owls with reverence and curious fear.

Disaster did not close her eyes to the family. In 1936, John the eldest of the boys and the apple of his father’s eye, was bitten and died from a snake bite. The sorrow was physical. The family aged and soured, and a silent blanket fell and lay heavily over them, suffocating the hope and joy from their lives. If not for Thomas, the house would hear no laughter again and even then, it was reluctant and guilty moments caught in surprise. Johns grave lay along side his brother, twin beds of rock monuments of could have beens.

In 1939 the war brought some prosperity and security to the farm. The dwindling empire resurged in global nationalism and regardless of personal hardships and differences, people united towards a common goal. It was the war to end wars they said but back on the farm they received little news and understood less. All they knew was that their work was now notably important, and they were encouraged to produce the fuel to feed the fighting machine that was the flesh of the brave and naive. Brian at the age of 19 was drawn to the romance of defending his nation and although strongly discouraged by his desperate parents enlisted his life to the cause in 1940. With tears in their eyes, they farewelled their son for the last time and eight months later lost him forever. The grave they built had no body below. It was empty like their hearts and hollow like their souls. Life had been cruel.

Young Thomas was not unscathed by the loss either. At 13 he had developed a seriousness and temperament of a much older boy. Not only did the tendrils of protection squeeze tighter but he felt it his duty to personally replace the space left by his brothers. He played less and worked harder. He acted tough and protective and forced himself into every part of his remaining family’s life, desperate to be all they ever needed. The weight was heavy, and Lisa mourned the loss of child in him. Every now and then they would spend some time alone in the barn looking at the owls together and these were the moments Lisa treasured the most. She saw so much of herself in him but wanted so much more for his life than she had achieved. The dream of flying away and seeing the world all but banished. They had both been forced to grow up too fast. They had both seen too much sadness.

Mother found a lump in her breast. From discovery to death was less than a year. This was the straw that brought down the haystack. Father was lost, his grief too great to bear. The three of them now locked in a spiral of despair. The farm began to fracture. Father became frail and ghost like, his body wasting and his mind dissolving. Lisa became mother and matriarch, exhausting herself in chores and worry. Her skin tightened like tanned leather and her once beautiful golden hair grew wild and unkempt. She struggled under the burden of duty and responsibility that sucked the flesh from her bones. She grew old. Thomas grew strong and cynical. He became a man in this harsh new reality. He pushed aside child-like dreams and learnt the ways of the farm. His days no longer spent in fantasy and captivated awe but in fixing fences and driving tractors and herding stock beside the skeleton of his father. This did not last long, Father died just shy of two years of his beloved wife.

Needless to say, this marked the end of an era. The farm was inherited by Lisa who by this stage was too broken to care. When Thomas turned 21, he found Lisa hanging from the rafters of her beloved barn, her grotesque bloated face the gift she left her son. By the time the farm became his, Thomas had grown such a hatred for the land. He had buried Lisa in the town cemetery determined to save her from the insult of interning her in this hell. The price he received for the farm made him quite a wealthy bachelor and he was impatient to leave the bitter memories behind. Packing up the cottage, he found things that used to make him happy, now made him sad and bitter. He would keep nothing. Packing up the books he chanced upon a diary and he recognised the hand of Lisa. That night, over a bottle of port he learnt his history and his truth. He was stunned. Suddenly small parts of his life grew to significant moments. Pieces of a puzzle completing a full picture. He read his mother’s life of joy and sadness and hopes and love and suffering and desperation. He cried, for in her words, he found himself.

He repurchased the barn and the small parcel of land that surrounded it and had it fenced off. He caressed the stone graves of his brothers, or those he thought were his brothers. He spent his last hours sitting in the cool darkness of the barn thinking of the great secrets these walls had held and the rare moments of joy he had shared here with Lisa, his mother here. He watched the owls watching him, little ghosts, seeing all. Generations of them watching the story of his life unfold. All along they knew. He would never return to this site again, but he knew he would never forget it. Heavy from the truth he quietly turned away and locked the barn behind him and all the while, the owls watched him leave.