Free Apparition by Gail Gallant

anything else. I turn around and head up behind him. It takes forever to get to the top of the hill, and now, in the distance, I can see the old farmhouse, dark and desolate. At first I don’t see a barn. But as I get closer it appears behind the farmhouse, like a charcoal monster in the moonlight. It’s one of those really tall ones, probably a hundred years old. The kind with boards that are dry and grey, some of them loose or missing. They always look like a stiff wind could bring them crashing down. I’m trying not to think about what happened here only five weeks ago. I’m focusing on Jack. That’s the only way I can do this.
    He must already be inside. I cut across the front of the farm property, toward the far side, and get to the barn door as quietly as I can. It’s busted where there used to be some kind of bolt. I can just about poke my head inside. I move in slowly, carefully. I don’t want to startle Jack, and I don’t want to aggravate him.
    The barn is gigantic. It looks even bigger from the inside. Moonlight is peeking through cracks between the boards, thin vertical lines of light reaching up into the rafters. There’s a stale and musty smell. Lower down in the shadows I can dimly see stalls on one side and a kind of loft along the other, a platform running the length of the right wall, about five feet above the ground. As my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, I see old junk stored underneath the platform and a few broken ladders leaning up against posts. In the centre the barn is empty from floor to roof; it feels like a medieval church. Jack is nowhere in sight.
    I’m not sure I want to go any farther in. I listen. I hear a faintshuffling on the dirt and hay floor, coming from one of the stalls. I squeeze inside and whisper, “Jack?” The stall door swings open, making me jump. But I can’t see him there.
    I’m trying to control my fear. “Jack, grow up,” I hiss. There’s no response. I’m going to have to be patient. I’m going to have to wait him out. I listen again, and something like a cobweb brushes past my face. It’s cold. My arms flail in an involuntary spasm. “Ugh, I’m getting out of here.” But then I hear another noise, coming from a far corner. “Jack?”
    Nothing.
    Oh God, don’t tell me there are animals in here. I’m staring hard into the shadows, looking for movement. But I’m not taking another step. I’m staying here by the door.
    A gentle moan comes from somewhere high in the barn, and it draws me in. I’m looking up, turning slowly, straining in the darkness to see where the sound is coming from. I run my eyes along a major beam, a massive tree trunk that runs across the width of the barn at the top of the walls, some twenty feet up. It’s Jack. He’s crouching on the beam high above me, his head in his hands. He’s crying.
    “Jack? Jack, what’s wrong?”
    He doesn’t answer.
    “What are you doing up there? You should come down.” I can’t tell if he even hears me. There’s something bunched up on the beam beside him.
    It’s a rope.
    “Jack, please come down and talk to me.”
    He continues to moan and cry, and then his tone changes. He’s still crying but he’s also shouting, sputtering, angry. It sounds like “She said she’d come. She said she’d come.” He sounds like a child having a tantrum.

    What the hell? Now he’s wailing—a tortured cry like nothing I’ve ever heard before. I’m stunned. This can’t possibly be my brother. He seems completely mental. Or is he on drugs? I look around. Who is he talking about?
    “Jack, you aren’t thinking straight. You’ve got to come down. Right now!” I’m trying to sound tough, but he acts like he doesn’t even hear me. “I’m going to call Joyce if you don’t come down right now.”
    I’m standing directly below him, looking up. He’s still crying and muttering, but now he begins to edge along the beam toward the rope. I watch, thunderstruck, as he ties the rope around the