My little brother hasn’t slept in his own bed since we returned from the old family farm last autumn. He used to be the loudest, most energetic kid in the house, but now he speaks in whispers and spends every night in the barn, curled up beside our cow, Daisy. My parents think it’s a quirky phase, but I knew it was something more. My suspicion was confirmed one night when I heard him whispering to Daisy, “I kept it a secret from them. Even though I know you witnessed, you remained silent. Thank you.” The cow simply blinked, as if she understood every word.
When I confronted him, he didn’t seem scared—just relieved, as if a great weight had been lifted. Through tears, he begged me not to open an old toolbox and to keep a picture hidden. I didn’t understand his warning until the next morning, when I saw my father looking at a dusty photograph of the farm’s barn, a structure that had burned down two years ago. In the corner of the photo stood a tall, unnatural shadow. My brother saw me looking and pleaded with a terror I’d never seen before, “Don’t open it.” When I asked what he saw, he just shuddered and said, “Daisy knows the truth.”
Driven by a growing unease, I investigated the barn’s ashes myself. The air felt heavy, charged with a secret. Daisy stood watch over the ruins, her gaze profound and knowing. That night, I found my brother in the barn and pressed him for answers. He finally broke, confessing that the barn fire was no accident and that he had seen the shadow from the picture in real life. He spoke of a toolbox containing strange artifacts from the fire, but he couldn’t bring himself to explain further. Some truths, it seems, are too heavy for words. My brother doesn’t sleep inside not out of fear, but out of a solemn duty to a secret only he and a silent, watchful cow share.
