The Barn in Falcon Yard

Alice leaned out, whispering to Lore about needing to use the bathroom but being too afraid to ask to go. She had already gone that period and people would find her weird. Lore smiled but didn’t respond. Alice leaned back in and this time sat straighter.

They had planned to meet at the base of the stairs after the ceremony had ended. They wanted to do a last wrap-around the school before they never had to set foot in it again.

Tracing the wall’s one odd ridge (a bump in the wallpaper that the school was too lazy to rectify), they followed the hallways down from where they had Mr. Schwartz’s history class freshman year, Ladybug’s health class, and the changing rooms from last year’s gym class, which seemed to eternally ring from slammed lockers and boys shouting. They loved Ladybug—she was an older woman whose last name resembled bug in German.

They stopped in front of a classroom. Physics. Lore wanted to steal some of Ms. Pock’s pens. They were the special kind, she said. The kind that left blotches so wet it felt like a dripping wound. Alice didn’t understand why that was desirable in a pen. Lore slipped inside.

“No, don’t go. We still haven’t seen the West wing. Aren’t we meeting them soon?”

“Give me a minute. Alice,” she growled. “Just a sec.”

“Fine.” Alice acted as a lookout. No one cared about the pens. No one was coming their way. The rest were outside with their parents, still wearing their gowns and holding big bouquets of flowers. Yet she stood in the hallway, nervously checking both left and right, as if she were waiting to cross the street.

Lore came out after a few moments. It really was only a second. She needed to stop worrying about things. She wouldn’t have even gotten in trouble. It would have been Lore. And even then, what could they have done? Which administrator cared that much to postpone their summer vacation to deal with two barely-troublemakers?

They kept walking.

She heard a second set of footsteps after them. When she turned around though, the hallway was still deserted. Eventually they neared the tip of the East wing. It got too late to hit the West. They turned around to meet the others.

Alice felt dejected. She wasn’t done with her final walk-through.

They went out to the parking lot. Alice looked around, trying to find the pick-up truck.

Lore knew where it was—the truck dropped her off at school earlier that day. She had watched

Tommy park. Some boys were on the truck bed already. Lore swiftly opened the latch, jumping on. Alice went on after her.

The radio started playing. Someone was in the driver’s seat. It was an oldies station.

Alice didn’t recognize the song. Anders started singing. Tommy joined him. Lore laughed. She shouted at Tommy to start driving. Lore pulled a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips from a duffel bag that was stowed under the bench. Alice hadn’t noticed it was there.

“Let’s go to Falcon Yard,” Lore said, chewing loudly. Tommy nodded and started pulling the car out of the space.

Falcon Yard was an old farm. It wasn’t really functional anymore. A woman lived in the house that was on the land but the farm equipment was gone. No animals lived there. Lore went there often. Alice had gone only once.

Anders grabbed the bag from Lore.

“Hey!”

“I want one.” He tossed the bag back to her.

The drive felt long. Lore talked only to Anders—and shouted over to Tommy. Alice’s legs jiggled as the truck went on dirt roads. Her thighs were sticking to the metal seat and every time she lifted them up the skin suctioned onto the seat. She felt hot and gross.

Where were her parents? She didn’t see them at graduation. Should she have looked harder?

Would it be awkward if she asked for some chips? She didn’t really want chips. She wanted to just say something. Break her silence. She would only be in Farmington for a few more weeks before she would drive with her dad to the Arbor for camp. It was her third year as a camp counselor. She liked camp, even if being a counselor meant she was doing more work than the other campers. She wasn’t much older than them. Maybe by five years. Or less. She was excited about seeing Tilda there. They hadn’t talked since January, and that was by the phone. Were they still friends?

The car stopped. Tommy hopped out, holding four beers like they were trophies. Peeking out of his back pocket was a bottle-opener. The car keys made a lump in his front pocket. Lore jumped out onto the dirt floor, without opening the latch. Alice was the last to get off. She didn’t know what they wanted to do at Falcon Yard.

It was still light out. Straw kept getting in her shoes.

They entered the barn. It was a few hundred yards from where the car was parked.

Sunlight shone through the cracks in the roof, highlighting a straw loft that was hard to get to.

There was a rope attached to a hook, that with enough force one could launch themselves up.

Alice vaguely remembered thinking she was good at doing this. Or maybe that one time she tried she got lucky. She went first, while Anders went to shut the door. She got it on her second try. The first time her leg caught the ledge but the swing didn’t have enough momentum. It took

Lore three swings.

Lore dug around the straw. She was looking for something.

“It’s not here!” she shouted, looking down at Tommy and Anders.

They clambered up with the rope one at a time. Alice wondered how they could get down. How did they get down last time? Anders left the rope hanging in the middle of the barn.

It wasn’t wrapped around a hook by the ledge like last time.

Krak! Pssssssz.

Tommy had opened the beer bottle. Fizz leaked out.

Alice took out her phone. She got a text from Tilda. Thank god. Now she knew they were still friends. Funny coincidence, thinking about her and then getting a message from her.

TR: Are you coming to camp this year? My mom is driving to the post office to mail in my room order. I wrote down amelia but maybe i can change

TR: It’s only in three weeks. And I don’t know if I can wait for you to decide before telling them who I want to bunk with

AS: wait no say you want to be with me I’ll text my mom right now and have her send it in. don’t room with Amelia I don’t want to sign up if I’ll be stuck with some rando

AS: please please please wait

AS: My mom said she’ll mail the stuff in tomorrow. put my name down. I’ll put yours down too

Soon she would be at camp.

She hadn’t noticed until now that Lore and Tommy were making out in the corner, on top of the straw.

Anders was lying on his back, trying to light a match for his cigarette. He kept scraping the match against the stripe. Each time he scraped more wood fibers from the match broke. He got a new one when it snapped completely.

Her pocket buzzed. She checked her phone.

TR: sorry

TR: my mom said it was too late she sent it already. i already wrote Amelia

For one month she lived next to her, ate with her, hiked with her, washed rubber birkenstocks with her, sliced pears with her, cut bangs with her, and dug holes for earth Olympics with her.

Last summer she and Tilda took camp jobs helping Andy, the camp founder, organizing events. They had a pseudo-prom one night. Andy thought Alice and Tilda could figure out how to decorate by themselves. Alice was upset; it seemed like an impossible task. They only had until that night. At the time Alice had hated it. In memory, though, it was the perfect day. She and

Tilda spent hours—seven? Maybe even eight if she factored in their lunch break—blowing up balloons, inhaling helium, drawing on poster boards, cutting streamers. They played Juice

Newton while dragging the plastic lunch tables into the kitchen for more space and raiding the pantry for little pre-made cookie packets.

And when the other nine counselors saw their progress they were impressed. Julie even said that the room looked so cool and that she couldn’t have done that herself even if she had the whole week. Alice didn’t believe her. It wasn’t that good. But through the transitive property,

Julie thought she was cool. Which was cool.

Alice loved Tilda because she made her feel cool and a part of the counselor friend group. Julie only talked to her because she and Tilda were outside-of-camp friends, and assumed if Tilda liked Alice then she was probably cool.

Cool. Cool. She was cool. Alice had to reassure herself of this every once in a while.

Now what though? Should she even go to camp now? Without bunking with Tilda? Who else did she even like in camp? She couldn’t think of anybody. Julie? God no. Also didn’t Julie move away anyways?

And more importantly, what was left for her in Farmington if she stayed? In Country Day

High? Lore had Tommy and her family house in Cape Cod. Alice didn’t even know Anders at all.

They just hung out in the same space every once in a while.

Tssz. Anders finally lit the match. He put it against the cigarette and shook it out. He tossed it far across the barn. It fell underneath the loft.

Alice laid down. The straw made the nape of her neck feel itchy. She spread her legs out. She pulled her hair out of the way and closed her eyes.

Lore screamed.

Alice sat up, looked at Lore and then looked straight ahead, following her gaze. The barn had caught on fire. She was groggy. She wanted to lie down again. Lore scrambled up, jumped off the ledge, and miraculously grabbed onto the rope. She ran outside. Tommy and Anders jumped off and followed her.

Why didn’t they wait for her? Should she jump and catch the rope, or try to land straight onto the straw pile. Straw was flammable. What if some of the straw caught on fire before she got out of the pile?

She was probably safer trying to grab the rope.

She readied her stance and closed her eyes. Why did she close her eyes? She needed to see. She opened her eyes again. And then she lept.

She missed. She fell hard onto the floor.

Chkik. Hss. Pwp!

There was pop. Was that her leg?

She tried standing up, and cried out in pain. The fire waded towards her. Alice started crawling towards the door, scuffing her knees on the itchy straw. She couldn’t see. The barn looked the same in every direction. A gawky and scruffy red, vaguely-retro paneling, and flames.

Following the night cold—and fleeing from the heat behind her—she reaches the outside.

Thd.

A wooden plank fell against the hay. The fire reached the upper walls. That was quick.

She was lucky she got out. She looked down at her leg now. Her brown nylon legs are torn and melted. The patchy nylon glazes over a sharp lump in her calf.

Now she could see.

But where is Lore? And the others? She’ll crawl to the car. Maybe they’re there.

Her hands swipe over the wood chips as she moves. Her fingers slice open.

She looks up, and sees the truck still in the same place. Thank god. They didn’t leave her there.

Lore wasn’t there. Neither were Tommy and the other one. The driver’s seat. It was empty. Tommy definitely left the keys in the car. She clicked open the glove box and grabbed the keys. The car doesn’t start at first. Growling at her, it hesitated to move. But eventually does.

Where was Lore? They couldn’t have walked home. It was too far.

Alice drove through the farm; it was so dark she couldn’t find the main road they first came on. She saw the main house, which was settled haphazardly in the middle of the farm.

The lights were on, and a woman’s voice reached Alice through the open kitchen windows. Smoke squeezed out of the raggedy chimney. The shadow of a man crossed the window.

Trailing from the house was the road. Alice pulled out her phone to set up the GPS for home. Forty minutes. She turned the radio on. The oldies station was playing Juice Newton.