It’s colder beneath the trees. The sun can’t penetrate this dense forest. The ground is thick with mud and I think of him last night, trudging through this in socks. Was he even thinking? Was it a conscious decision? Or was he too drunk to think clearly? Too shaken up after seeing the place where she hanged herself. Because I know that’s where he went.
Why had she done it? And how was it linked to the uncle’s murder? I know it has to be. Too coincidental otherwise and if there’s one thing I don’t believe in, it’s coincidence.
It takes me much longer than I expect to get to the barn because of the ground being so wet, but also because the property is much larger than it seemed on paper. When the greenhouse, which was built on the front of the barn, finally comes into view, it’s much smaller than I expect. And for as well as the house has been maintained, this structure is the opposite. It’s dilapidated.
Much of the glass that makes up the walls and ceiling of the greenhouse has been broken. I imagine it’s due to time and disrepair rather than vandals. The property’s gated. The back third—the original barn—is built of wood. I walk around it, look at the ground for proof that Kill was here last night, but find none. The rain would have washed it all away.
The door is literally hanging by its hinges and I carefully push it open. If I thought it was cold outside, it’s frigid in here. I’m chilled the moment I step inside and hug my arms around myself, the creepiness of the place making me feel even colder.
It’s dark too, the only light being the little bit that’s coming in from the cracks between the planks of wood. I take a step in the direction of the greenhouse. Plants that never stopped growing have made this place into a dense jungle with green clinging to every surface, the smell of earth and mold overpowering. I can’t walk in there if I want to, it’s so overgrown.
But that’s not the part I’m interested in anyway. I want to see the barn.
Wind whistles through the cracks in glass and wood and I look around for a light source, but remember that Kill was carrying a flashlight last night. I step toward the back, where it’s darker, where the wooden roof has somehow remained mostly intact. Large beams support the structure and from one hangs a wire and from it, the broken remnants of a light bulb.
I walk deeper in while voices inside my head warn me to stop. To leave.
Tell me I have no business here.
Maybe they’re not in my head at all, though, these voices. Maybe these are the ghosts Kill warned me against. The angry ones.
I walk on though, drawn to the darkness. I wonder which of the beams she used. I try to imagine the young girl walking from the house to this dilapidated old barn—was it dilapidated then? Try to think of her state of mind. Did she carry the rope with her from the main house? Was it night time? Daytime? Did she have second thoughts?
How scared was she?
Because I know she would have been afraid. Terrified.
What could lead a fifteen-year-old girl to hang herself? The papers never said, but she was a minor. That wasn’t strange. Of course given what happened with the uncle, there was speculation. Some papers even painted Kill as the monster who pushed her to it. I don’t believe that though. I just don’t.
A noise behind me has me let out a small scream and I jump. A metal something crashing to the ground. But when I turn, there’s no one there. Kill’s not behind me. Neither is Helen. A ghost, maybe.
A moment later, a mouse scurries under the barn door, exiting this haunted place.
“Just a mouse, Cilla. Just a tiny, little mouse.”
But my heart doesn’t stop racing as I turn back to survey the space.
I look down. Mud does mark the places he was in here. And he was wearing his shoes from the look of the prints. I follow them deeper into darkness until I see it. See why he had no shoes on when he came back to the house. See the chair standing upright against one wall. It’s been cleaned off because it’s the only thing here that’s not covered in a thick layer of dust. And what’s underneath it—oh God—it’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.
I walk to it. To his shoes now caked in dried mud standing neatly against the wall. Between them a smaller shoe. A ballet flat.
With a shudder, I stare at it, noticing as I near it how the color has faded to palest pink. There’s a smudge of the magenta it once was along the side. It’s small, maybe a size six or seven at most. And between his giant ones, it looks like a young child’s shoe.