Trooper tossed his head and tried to step forward into the weed choked yard. “Whoa,” said Lauren and held him back. She shivered in spite of the warmth of the early evening.

The sides of the house were so weathered they were almost black and the windows were dark with grime. Some of the glass was broken. Lauren couldn’t have imagined a place more spooky and decrepit if she tried. Her eyes explored the barn across the yard. There was something even creepier about the barn, something indefinable. It was dark like the house, but it seemed scarier, especially in the unnatural stillness. Lauren listened again for a noise – any noise, but there was nothing. When Trooper took another step forward, she pulled him back again. He whinnied softly to her and turned his head.

“What is it, Trooper?” she asked. “Why did you want to come here so much?”

Trooper whinnied again and stepped forward. This time Lauren let him walk toward the barn. He wove through the saplings and brush to stand in front of the double doors. Lauren reined him to a stop and looked up at the huge building. A black opening yawned above her. “That must be a hay loft,” she said in a voice still shaking with emotion. “It’s an old farm. I wonder what happened to the people who lived here. Why they left?”

She looked behind her at the house. She could use the porch to stand on when she wanted to jump onto Trooper’s back. She slipped off the horse, then reached to touch his warm side, drawing comfort from his solid presence. The barn door was barred. Lauren was surprised, when she pulled up on the board attached to the door on her left that it lifted so easily from the bracket on the right. She pulled the left door back until it hit a small tree. Trooper took a step forward and pushed his head through the door, but Lauren pulled him back.

“You just wait here, buddy,” she said. “I’m going to explore a bit.” She tied him to the tree and turned back to the opening. As she passed through, she pushed the right side of the double door open. It too only opened a few feet before hitting a thick wild rose bush. But it was enough to let the light in. Late sunshine spilled across the dusty board floor.

The barn was huge. Ten stalls lined the back wall and all the stall doors were firmly closed except one. To Lauren’s right, at the end of the building, she could see a chicken coop and to her left was a large pen with a high wire fence.

Lauren walked to the right first, looking around her as she went. Pieces of farm machinery rusted against the wall opposite the stalls. She thought it was strange that they were parked so neatly and spaced so evenly along the wall.

Someone must have loved this place, she thought. It looks like they took good care of it before they left. I wonder why they didn’t sell their stuff before they went. I bet it was worth a lot of money back then.

Lauren came to the chicken coop at the end of the barn and pulled the door open. The rusty hinges protested loudly in the stillness and dust flew from the bottom of the door as it scraped across the barn floor.

It was dark inside the chicken coop. All the windows to the outside were shuttered. Lauren picked her way to the first window, unlatched it and pulled the shutters open. Light and fresh air billowed through the wire covering the window and Lauren looked around the abandoned enclosure.

There’s just a whole bunch of dust and feathers in here, she thought. Wait, what’s this?

She scuffed a pile of feathers with her foot and felt something solid. She jumped back against the wall, bumping one of the shutters with her shoulder. It banged shut, darkening the chicken coop.

It’s a dead chicken, Lauren realized. She put her hand over her mouth and stared into the shadows. All those feathery lumps are dead chickens! There must be twenty or thirty. Or more.

“Oh god,” Lauren whispered and leaped between the piles of feathers and out the door. She slammed it behind her.

Were they sick? she wondered. The poor, poor things. Her next thought made her cringe. What if there are more dead animals in the barn? A prickle of revulsion crawled up her spine.

Fearing the worst, Lauren walked toward the closest stall, the one with the open door. To her relief, it was empty. But inside the second stall lay the bones of a large animal. They were picked clean and tumbled in disarray over the dirty yellow straw. Lauren covered her mouth again and hurried along the row of stalls. All the other stalls were filled with the bones of dead animals. The skeleton in the last stall looked a bit different than the others. When Lauren noticed the iron shoes on the hooves, she realized it was a horse.

So the others are cows, thought Lauren and felt suddenly nauseous. Almost against her will, she glanced inside the large pen before she left the barn. A number of smaller skeletons were scattered behind the high wire. Then she was outside and her arms were around Trooper’s neck.

What happened to them? The thought screamed through her head. It’s impossible for so many different kinds of animals to get sick at the same time and die. And if they had, the farmer would have taken care of their bodies. No, they were abandoned, the poor things! And they died of thirst and starvation. They died of neglect, locked inside tiny wooden stalls. How could anyone do that, just leave all their animals to die? As if animals can’t hurt or feel terrified!

Sudden rustling came from above her. With a gasp, Lauren froze. Slowly, she pulled away from Trooper and looked at the opening to the loft. Visions of bears and cougars leaping out at her raced through her mind, even though she knew the thought of a bear jumping out was silly. With shaky fingers, Lauren fumbled with Trooper’s lead rope, her eyes locked on the loft opening. She stopped when a tiny orange and white head peeked over the edge of the loft. The kitten stared at her for a moment as if trying to figure out what she was, then disappeared.

“Here, kitty,” Lauren called. The little head reappeared, this time with a tabby companion. Lauren was surprised at how enormous their ears were in comparison to their thin faces.

“You’re so cute, even if you do look like big-eared bats,” Lauren crooned. “Come here, kitties.” Two sets of large eyes looked at her suspiciously. When she took a step toward the barn, the kittens darted away. Lauren could hear the straw rustling, then scratching on the inside wall of the barn.

There must be a way to get up and down from the loft on the inside, she realized and hurried to the door. She looked inside just in time to see the two kittens jump from a decaying ladder that stretched up the wall beside a rusty tractor. It led to a hole in the ceiling, the inside entrance to the loft.

Lauren watched the kittens race toward the chicken coop end of the barn, then disappear through a tiny hole in the wall. She ran outside to stand beside Trooper again. The kittens were leaping through the undergrowth. She could hear their rustling and see glimpses of them as they raced toward the house. A few second later, they bounded up the steps to the house. Halfway across the porch, the orange kitten leaped on top of his companion and the two rolled into a tumbled heap. Lauren laughed at their antics and the two kittens stopped to look at her. Now that Lauren could see their whole bodies, she was shocked.

They’re terribly thin, she thought. No wonder their ears seem big. The rest of their bodies are so skinny. I wonder what happened to their mother.

“Here, kitties,” she called again. “Come and I’ll take you home and feed you.” The orange kitten was curious and took a step toward her, but the tabby was more timid. He scooted in through the open door.

They’re wild, Lauren realized. And something’s happened to their mother. Without her, they can’t find enough to eat.

“I wonder how they got way out here,” she said, turning back to Trooper.

She led the gelding to the front porch of the house and tied him to one of the support beams with a triple knot so he couldn’t untie himself. Then she turned her attention to the house. Carefully she walked up the steps and across the porch. The boards were weak and she tested each one before she put her entire weight on it, then she pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside.

Lauren found herself in an old kitchen. It had been cheerful at one time, but now the curtains had faded to gray and the floor was brown with dirt and debris. Dusty dishes and mouse droppings were scattered across the countertop. A rusty, old-fashioned fridge and stove stood against opposite walls and one window was broken. Broken glass, twigs, and dried leaves were scattered across the table. A squirrel or some other small creature had made a nest on top of the fridge, but the animal was gone and the pile of sticks and moss looked as forlorn and abandoned as the rest of the house. Lauren glanced around but didn’t see the kittens.

She walked across the kitchen and into a living room. This room was in even worse repair. Over the years, countless woodland creatures had stolen stuffing from the couches and chairs for nests and burrows. Holes were pecked, chewed, and ripped in the rotten fabric and rain had swept in from another broken window. The floorboards around the window were warped and cracked from the rain spilling across the floor. Lauren stopped to listen, but there was nothing to hear. She pulled the couches away from the wall and looked behind them, but there was no sign of the kittens.

They could be inside one of the couches; there were so many holes. She considered ripping into the old couches, but then changed her mind. I’ll check the rest of the rooms first, she decided.

Lauren walked through a doorway leading from the living room into a tiny dark hallway. Two of the three doors in the hallway stood open and Lauren peeked into the first one. It was a bathroom. She stepped inside and looked into the grimy bathtub, then behind the door. There was no other place for the kittens to hide and when she didn’t see them, Lauren moved on to the next room, closing the bathroom door behind her.

The second room held a double bed and a fancy dresser. Now this looks more interesting, Lauren thought as she walked to the dresser. She picked up a picture sitting on the dresser. A man, a woman, and a girl who looked about nine years old gazed back at her. A family. They were smiling at each other and looked happy. Quickly, Lauren put the picture back, facedown.

Lauren picked up a small perfume bottle from the dresser and sprayed some on her wrists, then sniffed. “Ew gross,” she said and put the bottle back on the dresser. “I smell like rotten flowers.” She rubbed her wrists on the bedspread in an effort to get off some of the scent. When she sniffed again, she wrinkled her nose in disgust. Now I smell like rotten flowers, mildew and dirty laundry. Ew!

Lauren slid open the top dresser drawer. Clothes had been chewed into mouse nests. She poked at the threads and jumbles of disintegrating cloth, then shut the drawer and opened the one beneath it. There in a soft bundle of chewed paper was a little wiggle of pink. With her fingertip, Lauren carefully pushed back some of the paper fluffs. Four tiny pink mice squirmed in the nest as the cooler air brushed over their hairless, fragile bodies.

“Sorry, little guys,” Lauren said and gently pulled the fluff back over them. A woman’s face looked up at her from the pile of fluff, part of a chewed up photo. “It looks like you made good use of that old photo album, anyway.” Slowly, she pushed the drawer back in. She dropped to her knees in front of the bed and peered into the shadows beneath. No kittens.

But they have to be here somewhere. This is the last room they can get inside, unless they squeezed underneath that closed door. They’re awfully skinny, she reasoned as she climbed to her feet and walked into the hallway. Or they may have another way into the room. She walked to the closed door, turned the knob and pushed it open.

Wow, what a cool room, she thought as she stepped inside. The bedroom was much better preserved than the rest of the house. The window was still intact and the door being shut had given it some protection against the woodland creatures and weather.

Lauren turned a full circle in the center of the room. It was obvious that the person who had lived here was artistic. Paintings covered the walls. Some were of plants and flowers, some of mountains and meadows, and some were of animals. Lauren looked closely at a painting of a bay mare with a buckskin foal. “Cool. He’s the same colour as Trooper,” she said and touched the foal in the painting. “He even has Trooper’s crescent shaped star on his forehead.”

Books lay in a stack on the night table and some of Lauren’s favorites were in the pile. She picked up the top book, a copy of Black Beauty, and leafed through it. The line drawings were coloured in with pencil crayons. Ginger was a bright red chestnut with a blaze and Black Beauty glowed a velvet black with blue highlights to make him look shiny.

Lauren looked around at the pictures again. I’ll use my paintings at home to decorate my room. I’ve always just hidden them away in my bottom drawer, but they’re as good as these ones and these look so cool inside the frames. And my mom was an artist. A rush of warmth swept over Lauren’s face. Is an artist. She didn’t die. She just abandoned me.

Lauren slumped down on the bed and put her face in her hands. A small cloud of dust rose from the bedspread. How could she have forgotten? Lauren felt tears prick at her eyes and immediately straightened.

No! I’m not going to cry, she vowed. I’m never going to cry about her again. She doesn’t deserve it!

Her hand brushed against a piece of paper lying on the bedspread. She looked down. It was a photograph, ripped into little pieces. A chill touched the back of Lauren’s neck. She pushed the pieces around to see if she could put them together. It’s a man, she realized. Why would someone rip up his picture?

“But I would’ve ripped up my Dad’s picture just an hour ago,” she whispered. She pushed the last pieces of the photo in place. The man’s eyes were sad, his mouth a tense line across his face.

Just like my dad’s will be when he finds out I ran away. She sighed. I think I know why he didn’t tell me the truth about Mom. He was trying to protect me. He wanted me to think she had no choice when she left us. He did what he thought was right for me, even though it wasn’t. He should have told me the truth. But I can forgive him. It’s her I’ll never forgive. Never. No matter what!