Homecoming

It’s been in my dreams for as long as I can remember. This dilapidated old barn with paint chips gathering on the high grass around it. In my dream I’m always standing in a line of trees and it’s across a field.

Sometimes in the dream it’s deep in the night with nothing but a cold full moon. Sometimes it’s early morning and a thick grey mist rises from the ground. For years I’ve never been closer than halfway across the field, and then I run. There’s an ominous feeling that pervades the dream, that pushes me to spin and run from the barn, from whatever is there watching me. Waiting.

The alarm clock radio blared out “Werewolf of London” as I jerked awake, my body covered in sweat and my breath short.

“It was just a dream, you are ok Abby.” I murmured to myself.

The dream lingered in my mind. The same barn, the mist, the peeling paint, but I had been outside the door, my hand reaching out when the alarm had woke me. I took a steadying breath, swung my legs over the edge of the bed and padded toward the bathroom to get ready for my day.

My therapist would tell me that I’m making progress, that once I open the barn door and face my illogical fears I will be able to move forward with my life. It’s bullshit. It’s a barn in a dream.

I was 13 when my brother was killed by a drunk driver. I went through a dark period of depression and grief. My parents were so traumatized by losing Thomas that they might have over reacted to my darker moods and the next thing I knew I was staring at padded walls and then 5 years of meds and therapy. I know they just worried but it was smothering. The one thing that brought me peace was photography.

This year I enrolled as a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania and I was so excited to finally have some freedom. I was majoring in photography and it had been a great first term. Ever since I can remember I’d love taking pictures so it made perfect sense to me to major in photography and pour all my sad feelings into art. The term was almost over and all I had left to do was submit my final photography project. So today I was driving out into the country to take some pictures of farm houses and maybe some of the Amish so I could finish up my project.

I glanced out the windshield as my car bumped down the rutted dirt road. I was definitely lost. I kept looking for some form of civilization in hope that they would give me some directions back to a highway and home. It had been a great picture taking day, If only I hadn’t taken a wrong turn somewhere.

As I rounded a bend in the road I saw what I thought was a barn up ahead. A barn meant a farmhouse! That meant people! Relief started to flood through me until I got closer and slammed on the brakes in utter disbelief. It was the barn from my dreams. It was exactly the same. The dilapidated walls, the same peeling paint, and high grass. I sat there frozen in shock. How could this be real?

What happened next seemed like a dream. I don’t remember getting out of the car, or crossing the field but suddenly there I was standing in front of the doors. I reached out my hand to make contact with the door and I could feel the old wood under my skin, it felt warm and almost inviting, not ominous like in my dreams. I pushed the door and it opened into a clean fresh smelling space. Not a broken down old barn but a beautiful new one. I stepped inside and admired the freshly painted stalls, the oiled tack hung up on the walls. The stalls just waiting for someone to bring in horses. Fresh hay was stacked in a spacious loft and from the edge I saw a little white face peer over and meow at me. Was that a kitten?

What had I been afraid of? This place was clean and pure and beautiful. I climbed the ladder to the loft and I was pleasantly surprised to find a whole litter of kittens. I sat down in the hay and they climbed onto my lap and began to rub against my fingers and purr. I don’t know how long I sat there drifting, but my attention was suddenly focused as a door slammed open and the sounds of gruff men’s voices carried up to me. They carried lanterns and were dragging a girl with them. I flattened myself on the edge of the loft and peered over the side to see what was happening. Below me the men were wearing black felt hats and pressed white shirts and long beards. I was sure they were Amish but something didn’t quite feel right. I stayed very quiet and waited. Two of the men held a young woman by the arms.

She was obviously very pregnant and was sobbing hysterically. Wearing nothing but a plain white cotton shift i could see the fear on her face. The men unceremoniously dumped her on the barn floor and she wrapped her arms around her belly, sobbing and whimpering, “please don’t do this.”

Before I had time to wonder what they were going to do, one of them spoke.

“Sarah Baker, you know the laws of our people. You were told no children. We let you and Jacob marry on the condition that you produced no children. You know the curse that is on your line. How could you be so careless! You know what must be done!”

The young woman began to sob harder and then scream as water spilled from between her legs and across the dirt floor. The men turned their backs and stepped away as she began to labor. An old woman, was ushered inside to help and in what seemed like just minutes, the girl had pushed out the child, bloody and screaming into the old woman’s hands. The woman pulled out a knife and cut the cord and then wrapped the child in a small cloth, before she turned and left the barn.

I looked back to where she sat, tears running down her exhausted face looking at wonder at this little life she had just brought into the world. Then she looked up at me and I felt terror run through my body as she said, “Live and avenge me”

What? What did that mean. I was starting to think I had finally had a psychotic break when the moonlight streamed through a small window and landed on her bare arm. Where there had been fingers before, now there were long, razor sharp claws, she tucked the baby close to her chest and began to stalk toward the men, growling low, her body changing as she moved. Like rippling water fur appeared wear there had been skin and then she was upon them.

Her long claws ripped out the throat of one man and slashed at another, severing his arm. They screamed and backed away from her, but there was no help for them. Within minutes all that was left in the barn was carnage and the stink of blood and shit and death.

I held my hands over my mouth to keep from screaming. Then out of the shadows stepped a young man with an axe. I watched in horror as he lifted the blade and buried it in her throat. She fell, blood gushing onto the floor and over the body of her newborn child. As she convulsed and died her body shimmered and slipped back into the form of the young woman she had been.

The man with the axe knelt next to her, and wrapped her in his arms. Tears running down his face as be rocked her and murmured words I couldn’t hear. Then he gently picked up the baby and looked at her tiny face, gently stroked her little fingers and I heard him sob Abigail, my love, I am so sorry. Then he stood and carried the baby out of the barn.

As he passed through the door he turned and looked right at me. I felt my heart race unsure what to do. He just looked at me and then he said, “I knew you’d find your way home.”

I sat up screaming. There were no kittens. The air smelled like mold and decay. Gone was the place I had seen. This barn was falling apart around me. I had no idea how I had gotten into this loft. Everything was so foggy, had it been a dream or a memory?

I scrambled down the rickety ladder out of the loft and rushed to get out of this barn before it collapsed on me. I reached out to pull the door open when a quiet voice from the shadows said, “Hello Abigail. I was wondering when you would come home.”

My body turned cold as I turned toward the voice and saw the face of the man who had just moments before been walking out the door with a baby. My head was swimming. None of this made sense! This wasn’t possible. I felt my body give out and I collapsed against the door.

“Don’t be afraid, Abigail. I won’t hurt you. My name is Jacob and what you saw was a memory. The memory of your birth. The girl you saw, Sarah, that was your mother, my wife. I’m your father. I know this is all a shock but please listen!”

I just slumped there staring at him. Shock leaving me frozen in place.

“Our family is cursed and Sarah and I were allowed to marry on the condition that we didn’t have children and pass on this curse. We were so young and we loved each other so much. We didn’t really believe there was a curse. We were careless and we made you. We hid it for as long as we could and we were going to run away the night you were born, but we waited too long. I tried to stop them, but they locked me in the cellar and by the time I was free Sarah had given birth to you. I watched from outside as she changed. As she killed all those men.” There were tears running down his face as he told me the story. “She wasn’t my Sarah anymore! She was some kind of monster! I was so afraid that i acted without thinking. I killed her.”

He was calm now. The last of his tears spent. He stepped toward me, “They would’ve killed you too so I took you and gave you to a friend who promised you would be raised by a good family. I always knew you come home.”

He held out his hand to me but before I could take his hand he suddenly jerked back. I didn’t understand but then I caught the moonlight on my claws. Claws? I looked again, flexing the claws where my fingers had been. Realization struck and I smiled at him as I stretched this new body and said, “Hi Daddy. Mom sends her love”