The Reception of 1927

My dark hands rested against the wizened wooden door, and even though my eyes were closed, the image of the Agnello Family Barn danced before my mind’s eye. Its jagged, towering walls; the support beams which creaked with each breeze; the holes in the bottom of the stage which we had gotten our curious fingers stuck in on every occasion … it was all there, in some aspects untouched and frozen in time. The multitude of tales being withheld in the rotting walls flowed through my fingers like jolts from a lightning storm.

Fierce wind billowed about me, whistling through the cracks of the aged elm, yet the ragged dress that hung on my small frame remained still. Nothing seemed to bother with me much since the day the Agnellos’ married their second daughter off to some up-and-coming star of the cotton industry—the Agnellos’ being the family who had bought me at the price of three hens.

I slowly applied pressure onto the thick elm doors with the tips of my fingers, though I knew such efforts were not necessary in my form. I didn’t open my longing eyes until the large doors stood gapingly open, their hinges crying out ever so slightly. As the first rays of light shining through the broken-out windows registered in my mind, I saw …

~~~

“Tahnee! Taaaahnee! Where are you, girl!” Cook exclaimed from the kitchen.

I quickly shuffled over from the main hall of the barn, carrying a basket of tablecloths higher than my line of sight. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Christ, put that down before you falter into something important! These glasses better not have a trace of grime left when I return. Do you listen, girl?”

I nodded slightly. “Yes, ma’am.”

She chuckled mirthlessly and shook her head. “Yes, ma’am is right.”

My fingers were red and itching by the time I’d scrubbed clean the nearly three hundred glasses. They haven’t opened the doors to this many people since … ever, I don’t think. Boy, you’d think Matilde was a princess in waiting instead of a barn house bride!

“Hey, Tahnee, ditch the mop! Michael said the ceremony is ‘bout to end.” Daniel’s hand landed hard on my shoulder. He was much taller and broader than me, with a scowl permanently etched into his features. It was poignant, I thought, that the harshness of the world could already be seen in his once radiant brown eyes. We were lucky enough to serve in the House instead of the fields, but we were not hidden from the extremities nor kept from them.

I nodded and sloshed the rag back into the bucket, spilling suds over the rim and onto the newly varnished elm flooring. “Tahnee!”

“I got it, I got it. Calm down, would you? A bit of water never hurt nobody,” I said, picking up the bucket, careful not to splash any onto my already damp rag of a dress. I threw the greenish-brown water out onto the grass once I reached the makeshift kitchen’s side door and wiped my hands on my apron. Daniel was already patting up the excess water with a bit of cloth when I returned, and when he stood he shot me a dreaded glance. The wedding bells sounded from the church, echoing in the expanse of the family barn. The guests were about to arrive.

I left Daniel as people of all ages began to file into the building. Chatter and cries of children filled the hall, and I stood patiently against a wall holding a tray filled with the glasses I had cleaned a mere hour before. They were now full of a white, shimmering liquid, and I wondered for a moment what the elixir would do if someone as low as I were to drink it. I battered the thought away as a chime sounded from the kitchen, signaling us to start our path weaving through the tables and offering the strange liquid.

My toes ached and my stomach rumbled by the time the main course was served, and I had caught glances of Daniel on the other side of the barn, awaiting orders just as I. I held my small hands behind my back and studied my feet as people walked past me, wondering if they even bothered considering what my story was. That I was fifteen-year-old Tahnee without a last name; at least, that’s what others introduced me as. Others usually got a laugh out of that one. While I stood there silent, that is.

My ears seemed to bleed as a loud crack echoed about the barn, instantly pulling me out of my thoughts. I fell to the ground in a crouching position, eyes clutched shut and my hands folded over my ears. Shouts and shrieks sounded as though they came from the bottom of a deep lake, and feet stampeded past my slight frame. Another crack, followed by more screams, and I dismissed the fleeting thought of a storm.

My eyes flew open as I gathered my skirts about me, stooping low against the wall and rushing opposite the direction everyone else was flooding. I should find Daniel first. I have to find Daniel first. Shot after shot was fired, my already weak knees threatening to buckle at every blast when I finally stumbled into the kitchen. Oh God, you should be here. Why aren’t you here, Danny?

I stood blatantly visible in front of the table before shaking my head. He’s probably already out the side door … but I’d rather not be stampeded. He’ll have to come find me eventually. I lurched to the old, woven tapestry on the wall that appeared so deliberately out of place in the simple kitchen. I hastily pushed it aside and fiddled my hands over the cracking wood until I found the virtually invisible handle—a handle that was more of a one-inch piece of splintered wood to anyone with a passing glance, but I guess that was the point. I pulled hard and dug my fingers around the bit of wood before the door grudged open, and I staggered inside with my skirts in a bunch as I shoved the door closed behind me.

I laid my head back on the outer wall, my wild brown curls a mess of sweat. I fell to the ground with my knees pulled up to my chest, the confining walls glaring down on me with heat and humidity. Could Daniel have even fit in here with me if we tried? Maybe it’s best he flew without me … maybe he could even steal away from this place by dawn, lest the patrol catches up with him.

I wheezed in shallow breaths as the shots rang out one after another. Screams echoed in an unending chorus. Until it all stopped. And it was just me. Me and my ever-shallow breaths. Me and my cries for help. Me and my silence.

~~~

The hall had been long deserted, musty with nostalgia and drenched with pasts long forgotten. Forgotten, yes, but not gone. I would never be gone. I lived in the walls of the Agnello Family Barn. I remember Cook coming about and searching for me, calling out my name as if scolding a child. Not even she knew of our small space. Only Daniel. And Daniel left me for the hounds long ago.

I wondered if he ever thought to come back for me … to check if our small hiding spot with no exit from the inside had ever come to use after all. But as most thoughts do, it eventually passed. That’s all I did anymore was think. Think and roam about the old Agnello property. Maybe one day the strange men who wander about my residence will decide to do away with the barn, just like they did to the trees around the scalding fields. The cotton was long gone, the fields overgrown. I like to call them my fields now.

I finally wandered over to my resting place as I usually did, tutting at the old wooden boards concealing my long-decayed remains, and came to the former kitchen’s side door. It remained a gape in the present, the walls around the frame rotted out and dismantled.

Though I couldn’t necessarily feel the breeze as I sat in the tall grass outside my resting place, I could imagine it. I could imagine many things. Things no living man had time to imagine, yet I could. I could do close to nothing during my sorry life as a servant girl. Now, I simply watch and imagine, as a barn owl would observe its prey.

Chained to the Wedding Barn is what I am now. A chilling breeze, an ominous tap on wood as a man with a peculiar hat and spectacles walked through my barn, scribbling down on a strange piece of paper.

Sometimes I heard voices attempting to reach out to me, voices from the floorboards of the barn—some people killed during the reception of the wedding of 1927, others from even longer ago. Daniel never attempted to speak with me, though the times I’ve tried. My Daniel was off somewhere else, perhaps haunting over the whipping stand where he had been killed after his possible capture. Those were the most common punishments for such behavior, after all.

I return to my barn at dusk every evening, remaining there for the better part of the night. It was a ritual of sorts, I suppose, or a routine. But I never slept. How could I when I was already in a state of unending repose?