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The stairs to the loft are shot, with cracks and holes in the boards, but the flooring above appears to have held. I can practically hear Leah’s giggles bouncing off the walls, hole-ridden as they are.
“She used to drag me up there to play Barbies with Penelope and Carrie,” I muse to the mare. “But Penelope always wanted to be Ken, so I was usually stuck with whatever friend Barbie had available.”
I swallow the knot building in my throat and drop the reins.
When I check the two large stalls on either side of the barn for wear and tear, I find them surprisingly sound. But the wall beneath the loft has two gaping holes, likely from the weather damage Pen had mentioned, but it’s not impossible to fix.
A long-forgotten memory tugs my gaze toward the ceiling, where the rope we used to swing down from still hangs.
I hear her voice as clear now as I did when we were kids.
‘Come on, Marcus!’
She had made a knot for her skinny bare feet to grip as she stood on the edge and prepared to jump. The beam above the loft was thick enough to hold her weight, but my sister was one of the clumsiest people I had ever met.
‘No, Leah. You’re going to get hurt, and no amount of crying will make me feel bad this time.’
But of course, I regretted letting her attempt it when she let go too early and rolled across the barn floor in a tangle of limbs.
‘I told you this would happen,’I scolded.
Her arms and legs were covered in cuts, and she was going to be a walking bruise, but I did what any good brother would do and sat her on the bench beside the utility sink to clean her up.
‘Pinky swear you won’t tell Mom.’
That was the summer Leah’s missing teeth were almost finished growing in, and her face was freckled, just like Penelope’s, from spending all day out in the sun. But despite the awkward stages of her prepubescence, she was beautiful and funny and everything I aspired to be.
Inside my memory, the younger version of myself wraps his pinky around hers, but I’m already gunning it for the exit, grabbing Sparrow before I lose myself in a tidal wave of grief.
I slide the doors closed harder than I intended, and a board pops off the face of the barn, hitting the top of my head before falling to the ground with athud.
Sparrow bobs her head up and down with a high-pitched neigh.
“Yeah, keep laughing,” I warn her. “We’ve still got exercising to do.”
Her whiskered nose lifts to mine as she snorts, and I playfully shove her face before cramming my boot in the stirrup, then haul myself up onto the saddle.
Sparrow easily ambles the rest of the way down the hill leading to the pasture. It’s been many years since I’ve ridden, but every movement and command comes back to me like riding a bike.
Her hoovesclompthrough the rustling grass, snapping stray twigs and kicking pebbles as she heads straight toward the metal gate along the tree line. Behind it, a river runs from the north side of the island down to this portion of Augustine. My uncle placed a fence of barbed wire around the forest’s perimeter long ago, which extends all the way down the rest of the property. But it’s not only used for keeping predators out.
“Don’t even think about it.” I tug on the reins. “I’m not in the mood for a swim.”
She yanks her head down defiantly, but before I can correct her, a blur of movement passes through the trees on the other side.
Sparrow’s head shoots up and her ears flick nervously as she takes a couple of nervous steps to her left.
“Easy.” I keep my tone clear and low as I search the trees covering the path to the river for a threat.
We’re both startled as a bird the size of a turkey pops out of a rustling bush several feet from the fence.
Sparrow rears back and the reins slip from my grasp, giving me less than a second to stuff my hands into her mane before she takes off like a bullet.
“Sparrow,” I grit, but she’s too far gone in her fear to hear me.
I grip her coarse hair between my fingers, hips rocking as the world spins by in various shades of green. My throat grows raw from shouting, but the words are garbled, lost in the wind.
I’ve heard that in periods of panic, the brain slows down its surroundings to allow the body enough time to make an escape. We’re given a single moment of clarity to make a life-saving decision.
