Josie’s father would be irritated to no end. It happened every year; the glossy black birds with red and yellow shoulder patches swooped through the fields to feast on their corn. She expected to hear the loud bangs of the propane exploders, a device that her father relied on, to scare away the pesky birds. The cracks never came, only the flapping of wings and the chatter of the redwings.
Josie couldn’t stay hidden in the field forever. No one was coming to rescue her. She needed to save herself. Josie struggled to her feet, and the cloud of birds noisily rose and moved on to another section of the field. Her leg muscles screamed in protest, her arm pulsed and was swollen and hot to the touch. Another wave of nausea washed over her, and Josie closed her eyes and conjured up their farmyard at dawn.
It calmed her, the thought of the big red barn and her mom and dad drinking coffee at the kitchen table. The morning sun gliding up from behind the barn meant that if she headed in the opposite direction of the sun, she would come out of the field somewhere near the house.
Step by step, Josie made her way through the canopy of green, the hot morning sun burning the top of her head. She quickly found the path she took the night before. Stalks lay flat, leaving a crumpled, frenetic trail. Josie’s heart hammered in her chest.
She was so close to home. She wanted to run toward the house, fling open the front door and find her parents, Ethan, and Becky sitting at the kitchen table, irritated because she made them late getting on the road to the fair, but Josie was too scared. Instead, she hovered on the edges of the field, peeking between the thick stems.
At first glance, everything looked just as it should. The yard and house looked the same as always. Her father’s truck and her mother’s car sat in the drive. Ruby-throated hummingbirds hovered above the bright orange butterfly weed next to the house. The copper weather vane rooster atop the barn spun in the hot breeze.
But still, Josie couldn’t bring herself to step out into the open. The screen on the back door swung on its hinges. Maybe everyone overslept, Josie thought hopefully, though she knew it wasn’t likely. The outdoor goat pen was empty, and humanlike cries came from the closed-up barn. Josie knew it was just hungry bleats coming from the goats, but their desperate calls caused the hair to stand up on her arms. Her father never forgot to feed and milk the goats.
She wanted to sprint to the house and find her family and Becky waiting for her, but the soles of her feet, chewed up by rocks and parched earth made it impossible. She cringed with each step.
The chickens in the coop clucked at her approach, harassing Josie to feed and water them. Please let everyone still be asleep, she begged silently.
Josie looked up at the house. She remembered the bangs and the flash of light she saw in her parents’ bedroom window the night before. Nothing moved behind the curtains, but they were a bit askew, as if someone was peeking out from behind them.
It was just a bad dream, Josie told herself; she had been walking in her sleep. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. She’d had an awful nightmare.
Once past the barn and the henhouse, the goats and chickens grew quiet. She passed the old shed where her mother kept her gardening tools and passed the trampoline where she and Becky had jumped with so much joy the night before. It felt like a million years ago.
Josie cocked her head in hopes of hearing her mother and father chatting at the kitchen table. All was quiet except the creak and bang of the screen door opening and closing with the hot breeze.
Josie caught the screen door midswing, stepped into the mudroom, and closed it behind her. She’d get a talking-to for leaving the door open all night too. Josie spotted her father’s dusty work boots on the mudroom floor and another surge of anxiety rushed through her.
The kitchen was empty. There was the hum of the refrigerator, the whir of a ceiling fan. In the living room, a pair of Ethan’s tennis shoes lay on the floor and the paperback book her mother had been reading lay open on the arm of the sofa.
Josie moved to the bottom of the stairs and looked up.
“Mom? Dad?” she called out. No answer. She couldn’t lift her left hand to place it on the banister so she hugged the right side, her shoulder grazing the wall to steady herself.
She should have turned around and gone right back down the steps, but she couldn’t stop her hand from pushing open her parents’ bedroom door and stepping over the threshold. The room was dim, the sun diluted by the curtains that covered the windows. The air smelled out of place but familiar. A prickle of fear buzzed through her.
“Mom, Dad,” Josie whispered, jiggling the bed. “It’s time to get up.” There was no answer. It was too quiet.