Ghost in the Barn

(This is a work of fiction. Any semblance to actual people alive or dead, or events, is purely unintentional.)

Ten miles west of Berryville, on the old rural road now pretty much abandoned is the old Peterson farm. A beautiful ten acres hid away in the rolling grass hills. The land has been owned by the Petersons since before the Revolutionary War. Folks say that even George Washington himself slept in the old farmhouse once, but that isn't uncommon. The farm still existed but the Petersons had moved on. The most recent "old man Peterson" passed away six months ago. Neither of the boys took too much to farming or running horses.

Emily Turner was a young in body and spirit 63-year-old widow who had been living near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Her children lived in Alexandria. She had been looking for land that she could live on and would be an investment in the future. The old Peterson farm looked ideal. It was more convenient for the kids to visit, and the grandchildren would have plenty of room to play on long summer days. She hoped as Winchester and Berryville continued to grow toward each other that the land would become more valuable. She viewed it as an investment in her family and in their future.

Her tour of the farm was on a magically warm spring day. She fell in love with the place. Up the long swan-necked path, on the top of a knoll sat the two-story white-washed stone colonial house, a tool shed, a huge victory garden begging for someone to weed it, and off a little way a rustic old barn that had seen better days. Most of the modern conveniences had been added over the years, and many needed to be modernized. She was eager to put some sweat equity into the place.

She did not go into the barn. There was a heavy old-style padlock rusted to what looked like a hand-crafted iron latch. The real estate agent had been told by the Peterson boys that it was not safe and should be torn down immediately upon purchase. She pushed on the corner post and the building didn't seem that fragile, so she decided to wait until after she took possession of the property to take any action. With that, the deal was done.

First nights in a new place, especially in an old farmhouse far away from the sounds of the town can be chilling Every creak and moan made her concerned that she made the right decision. A beautiful summer morning broke with the fresh clean smell of the grass, sunshine on the stone walls soon warmed the old house. Emily was resolved to start weeding the garden. It was too late to plant a crop for this year, but no reason to wait until next spring. In the afternoon she decided to do a general inspection of the structures, especially the barn. Crowbar in one hand and flashlight in the other she headed to deal with the rusty padlock.

It did not take long for the lock and latch to be dispatched. One good whack of the crowbar and the bolts that held the latch to the door popped through. There were several different sets of holes in the door as if the latch had been replaced multiple times. She hooked her fingers around the edge of the right door panel and found the hinges resistant, rust most likely, though almost as if the door did not want to be opened. Eventually, it relented and swung wide. The barn was dark with shafts of sunlight from holes in the roof illuminating the upper hayloft like cathedral windows. It was too quiet she thought. She had expected to hear mice or rats scurrying to safety, but no noise at all. She walked slowly through the ramshackle structure. There were half a dozen stalls for horses. On the other side what appeared to be larger stalls, perhaps for cattle. At the far end of the barn, she found a workbench with antique tools, all rusted and unused for a very long time. Left as if the carpenter had just gone for a break, intending to return but never did. Across from the workbench was an odd table, setting upside down, jutting into the central aisle. The barn door banged shut and darkness snatched the barn. Emily was startled but thought it only the wind. She was satisfied with her inspection. She shut the barn door and blocked it with a stone to keep the critters out, then decided to go down to the house, clean up and call it a day.

That night, after the dishes were done and Emily was reading her latest novel with a hot cup of tea, the quiet of the house was fractured by what sounded like crying, someone was crying. It did not seem to be coming from the house, she checked all of the rooms upstairs and down, then the storm cellar. She stepped out on the porch and realized it was coming from the barn. This both concerned and outraged Emily. She had owned this property for less than three days and there were already squatters living in the barn. She would have none of that! She grabbed her flashlight and her duck hunting shotgun and cautiously trekked out to the barn always checking her back for others that were bound to join the party. She wished she had a dog.

The stone Emily had used to block the door earlier in the day was still in place. She kicked the stone away. The door creaked open under gravity. She showed the light onto the far wall of the barn. There in the lamp beam appeared to be the shadow of a person kneeling and crying.

"Hey," shouted Emily as loudly and angrily as she could! "I don't know who you are or why you are here, but you are not welcome. So get out, get out now, and don't come back."

The demand caught the attention of the mysterious figure. He did not walk out of the shadow, more than he condensed into something more realistic looking as human, yet the light now seemed to pass undisturbed to strike the back wall. He was a cachectic African-American male with sharp sunken eyes, within which was the look of terror. He had no shirt or shoes, only a pair of ragged cut-off pants held up with a rope belt.

"OH LORD," exclaimed the African-American man! "Please Master, please don't shoot me. I'll go back to Master Greene. Just please don't shoot me."

"Master," Emily whispered to herself in an inquisitive tone. "Sir, can you tell me your name?"

The African-American man looked Emily in the eye, his fear seemed to fade a bit. "My name is Joshua, miss ...." He trailed off as if asking for her name.

"My name is Emily," she responded to fill the gap.

"Miss Emily" Joshua repeated.

Emily looked at Joshua in the light. He faded in and out of the shadow, like a TV with rabbit ears. His words kept playing in her mind. No African-American would use a word like "Master". He looked like a Holocaust victim. She knelt down to look Joshua eye to eye.

"Do you have a last name Joshua," asked Emily to inform the police of a possible escaped prisoner?

"No, no, Miss Emily, I belong to Master Greene down near Front Royal," replied Joshua looking more and more agitated as they spoke.

"Belong," questioned Emily?

Before she could continue her thought she was interrupted. "Yes ma'am. Please don't turn me over to the bounty hunters. I don't want to go back to Master Greene. I want to go north. Rumor is that I would be free in the north. I am not sure what that means, as long as I am away from Master Greene."

Emily could not believe her ears, none of what he was saying made sense. Perhaps he was an escapee from a mental institution and was delusional.

"Are you hungry Joshua," asked Emily?

Joshua nodded his head. "I've been on the run three days and nothing but stream water and grass."

"Come down to the house and I'll make you some food and we'll sort everything out," said Emily as she reached out her hand.

Joshua recoiled in terror, his head shifting left and right looking for a way out, or perhaps someone about to attack him. "NO! No, Miss! I can't do that! I was told this place was safe for my kind, but they lied. These are mean people," Joshua exclaimed in what appeared to be anxiety and shortness of breath.

"And anyway," Joshua looked down at the ground in a mixture of shame and sorrow. "I can't leave the barn. I've tried lots of times, but my feet are here. I can't go."

Emily still could not reconcile her thoughts, could this be real?

"Joshua, did someone kill you," asked Emily in a low soft compassionate tone? Joshua broke into the same sobbing that Emily had heard from the house.

"Show me where your feet are Joshua," asked Emily?

Joshua pointed to the turned-over table. "Under there," he whispered and bowed his head.

Emily stood up and thought for a moment. Deciding it was too late to resolve the situation she told Joshua that she would return the next day and help him get north. Joshua started sobbing again, this time out of happiness. She was not sure how she was going to fulfill that promise but she was determined to try.

The morning broke early after a long night of searching the internet trying to determine the correct course of action. She discovered there are things on the internet even stranger than her discovery in the barn. She knew she did not want to call the authorities. They would exhume Joshua, put him in a box in a warehouse somewhere, or even put him on display. She wanted Joshua to have peace in the north. She called her old parish priest back in Chambersburg. The church was as old as the countryside and had a cemetery as part of the land, though neither she nor the priest remembered when the last person buried there was. Dubious of the ethics of the plan, Father Abeba agreed to allow the bones to be buried at the church provided he could see them and she erected a proper stone.

Emily found a long wooden box in the storm cellar and headed for the barn. She moved the table. Just inches under the surface she found the remains of Joshua. She lifted the skull to eye level. "Hello Joshua," and sighed. The long finger of her left hand sank into a ragged, quarter-sized hole approximately halfway between the inion and the posterior rim of the foramen magnum. She set the skull in the box and began to cry. She completed the exhumation and some extra soil in case she missed anything and placed the box in the back of her pickup. That night the barn was hushed.

Two days later Emily arrived in Chambersburg with Joshua and his headstone. Father Abeba performed a small service and the box was laid in freshly blessed soil. The stone read "Joshua X. Born - Unknown. Died - Unknown. Completed his journey north - 2021."