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Rainbow Barn

by Delsy Gonzalez

By ReileyPublished 3 years ago 10 min read
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She made it.

She looked as glorious as ever. I didn’t think she’d come, seeing how this was last minute and all. But as soon as I had mentioned visiting the Rainbow Barn, her voice lit up over the phone.

Now she approached me along the evening path, her smile as radiant as I remembered. It had been three years since she moved out to study anthropology overseas in Spain. We would talk over the video chat to stay in contact, and she did visit twice over holidays. She had just been returning home when I called her.

She was here. My Katie.

“Hey Dad,” she said with the smile still on. “Look at you.” She gestured toward me. “Those jogging exercises seem to be doing you well.”

I returned her smile with a small one of my own. “They’ve kept me motivated. That’s for sure.” I stepped in for a hug. “It’s great to see you.”

Her arms slid around me. “You too, Dad.” She held me for a moment before pulling back. “I’m glad you called actually. I had been thinking about the last time that you told me stories in the Barn.”

“Really?” I chuckled softly, and began walking along the sidewalk.

“Yeah. I remember I drew a picture of the animals that had been painted on the wall at the time. Something just made me think about them now.” She adjusted the blue jacket that she wore, sliding her hands into the pockets.

I attempted to think back. “When exactly was the last time? Whose story did I tell you about?”

“I think I had just turned sixteen. Uncle Rob transformed into the gray horse with wings. You told me that he didn’t even know that he would be a horse, but that it made sense since Aunt Martha and…Mom had become horses.” She cleared her throat as her gaze lowered to the sidewalk.

I looked at her before facing forward into the falling night. Rob was my brother. Martha was his wife. They all died at different points in Katie’s life, Rob being the most recent. I knew that her mother, Jane—her passing obviously hit her the most. It happened when Katie was about eleven. Jane had always been a fighter, but eventually the breast cancer took its toll.

Jane’s spiritual metamorphosis had been into a magnificent pink mare. On the wall within the Rainbow Barn, she stood beside Rob the gray steed and Martha the blue flying horse. Their images became colorfully melded into the wood, making it more beautiful and haunting at the same time.

Great for storytelling.

Great for remembering.

I made a left turn down a dirt path that winded through the field where our barn was located. “Your mother loved hearing the stories too.”

Katie lifted her eyes, seeming to take in the familiar surroundings. “Aunt Pearl walked her there, right?”

I nodded. “Yes, she did.”

It had been the right thing. Pearl was Jane’s sister. At least we all got to say our goodbyes at her bedside in the house. Jane knew that we all loved her. Pearl had just been the perfect choice to walk my wife’s spirit to the barn, have her last words with her, and help her inner image become a part of our family’s eternal mural so to speak.

Every spirit required one family member to take the walk to Rainbow Barn, which was why we all made sure that no one died alone

“Sometimes I wish I could have been there to walk her,” Katie said. “I know I wasn’t old enough to understand all of it, but…” She cleared her throat again. “You know how you wish to get those last moments with someone.” She turned her head toward the trees in the distance. “I guess it was for the best since I’m able to hear the stories afterward.” She paused and nudged me, giggling. “I always said that you would make the perfect pony.”

I gave her a look. “Excuse me, what?”

Katie laughed more. “I’m just saying!” She peered ahead, brushing her hair back. “You and Uncle Rob told the best family stories though. Lily, Jason, and I would play around the barn, pretending to be Grandma and Grandpa’s essences.”

Lily and Jason were her cousins—Rob’s kids. Their grandparents had become a goat and a wolf. The wolf didn’t surprise me when it concerned their grandmother since she always barked at them—and at younger versions of me and Rob—to come in for supper or to stop touching her china. She was also fiercely protective of her family.

Katie and I continued forward. I immediately noticed the Barn’s fading red paint beneath the soft moonlight. It wasn’t literally a Rainbow Barn. But that domed roof above the rectangular structure, the two wide doors, the large window up above—a place filled with stories that only our family knew. On the outside, anyone would see just an abandoned barn house, but for us…

…it was an entirely new world.

“Place still looks the same.” Katie took a head start toward the doors, one of which she opened.

I stepped in after she did, looking around the old place that never grew dark inside. Empty stables, remnants of hay, some wooden boxes—all of which contributed as playing space for the family when we chose to come out here and hang by the creek within the woods not too far from here. My great-grandparents had been the ones who built this barn, and infused it with the magic that lived inside of it.

Katie beelined straight toward the opposite end and to the wall where the grand mural was located. It was a mural of our family members’s essences—created when my great-grandparents passed and became two eagles etched into the wood. In front of me was the masterpiece that developed over time. It consisted of an eagle pair hovering over three winged horses in the center; a goat and wolf to the right side; a fox and duck toward the left; and a brown bull by the pink mare.

I roamed my eyes over each of the animals, remembering every single one of them. The fox was my grandfather, and he had always been a cunning one, so I always knew why his transcendence involved that animal. My grandmother was the duck because—on the surface—she and my grandpa didn’t seem to match; but on the inside, they were made for each other. The brown bull was Jane’s father—always intense and sturdy. As that bull, he awaited his wife Helen’s presence within the mural, but she was still alive and kicking.

Katie’s hand passed over the manes of the horses. “Every time I come here, I feel like they’re all here again.”

“Well, that’s the point,” I said with a chuckle. “I’m pretty sure that’s why your Grandpa Hayden and Grandma Miriam designed it in the first place.”

A wistful smile found Katie as her fingers brushed down the manes. She glanced up toward the eagle images, and raised her hand as far as she could in their direction. “I’m so glad you brought me here. I think this was the perfect place for me to ground myself again after coming home. Being away for so long, you forget a lot, you know? You forget what used to matter and why it mattered to begin with.” She looked at me, that nostalgic smile growing. “Thanks again, Dad.”

My gaze found hers, seeing her appreciative expression and realizing how much she had matured and grown over the course of just three years. She had seen different parts of the world that I never had. She dedicated many of her projects to her mother, and had repeatedly told me how Jane’s spirit pushed her through. Now my Katie was here in Jane’s presence again, probably feeling that tenacity and strength that my wife always evoked.

It was perfect.

I felt it too…also from my daughter.

Katie lowered her arm, taking a step away from the wall. “What made you think of the Barn though? Is it because of that fatherly instinct you always talk about?”

She made a mock impression of my voice as she finished that question, causing her to laugh afterward and me to laugh with her.

But my laughter had quickly faded as I gazed more deeply at her, really seeing her and remembering when she was a little girl who was always so joyful and intelligent. She had been mine and Jane’s only child, but we treated her like everything, and tried to give her as much of ourselves as we could, despite many struggling times. Now seeing her here in front of me—I knew it was all worth it.

Katie’s smile gradually faltered though—gradually as she continued staring at me, appearing to notice my own wistful expression. “Dad…why’d you bring me here…?”

And when her eyes absorbed more of my presence, I knew that she knew.

I knew that she remembered…

…being by my side in the hospital with Grandma Helen, Lily, and Jason also in the room. I knew she remembered telling me that she had rushed down all the way from Spain to see me when she heard I was hospitalized. The sickness had been eating away at my mind, and I could barely register anything around me. I had been deteriorating over the years, forgetting things here and there, but attempting to keep my memory in good shape.

Eventually though, I would forget what I did just moments ago. I would forget where I was or even who I was. Lily and Jason had stayed at my house to take care of me, and when I collapsed in the living room, they immediately called Katie.

No, I hadn’t known what was going on then, but after I flatlined in the hospital, I remembered everything. I remembered my wife’s mother, Helen. I remembered Lily and Jason.

I remembered my Katie. And I wanted her to remember me without feeling guilty—to let her know that, even far away, she had always been there. To let her know that I would be okay.

That we would be okay.

But reality hit her harder than I imagined. The tears crashed down her face as she advanced toward me with her arm extended. “No…Dad, no! Dad!”

Her voice cracked at the end, and I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t sting me inside.

How could I have told her though? How was I supposed to enter this encounter, knowing I entered it to say goodbye?

When Katie attempted to reach for me, her hand went directly through where I had been standing. Just like my family before me, I had become a phantasm—a ghostly image that glanced at her one more time to tell her, “It’s okay, Kate. I love you too.”

Her last words in the hospital had been that she loved me. I figured that I’d let her know that I heard her—all before my image disintegrated and morphed into the mural behind me.

Katie released a wail upon seeing me vanish. Her arms flailed about as though trying to catch me and keep me there with her. She sniffled and wiped at her face with her sleeve, her breaths coming out unevenly as she attempted to calm herself. She wept some more and peered up at the mural, instantly pausing as she drank in what lay before her.

Beside the pink mare had now been a white stallion with great feathery wings.

She stepped closer to this stallion on the wall. Then, after several moments of assessing it, a broken smile took her lips. She placed her fingers over the new horse’s mane. “I knew it,” she whispered. She chuckled softly, sniffling and wiping her face again with her other hand.

“I knew you’d make the perfect pony.”

Fantasy
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About the Creator

Reiley

An eclectic collection of the fictional and nonfictional story ideas that have accumulated in me over the years. They range from all different sorts of genres.

I hope you enjoy diving into the world of my mind's constant creative workings.

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