...It was like nothing I had ever heard before. It began deep in the night…and it sounded like someone’s heart was breaking over and over again. It shook me to my very soul, attempting to pull me down into its sorrow.

I noticed that I had dark rings under my eyes when I looked into the mirror the next morning. I knew those rings were the result of wandering out into the overgrown garden at the wee hours of the morning while seeking the source of those cries.

“I’m worried, Madison,” Jeffery told me one morning. “You’re not sleeping anymore, and you look like shit.”

I looked up from my coffee cup. “It’s the crying.”

“What crying?” My older brother pulled his chair closer to the kitchen table. He peered into my face with that concerned look he liked to wear when he thought I was in trouble.

“What’s the point? I told you about it last week. You didn’t believe me.” I scraped back my chair and got to my feet. “Forget it. I need some air.”

I hurried out the backdoor before he could say anything else. Outside, I gulped the cool, early morning air and stood in the middle of the yard. It was a brisk autumn day. The leaves were falling around my head, landing on my shoulders and in my hair. I shuffled forward through the piles of dry leaves, past the dead rose bushes, to the tombstones on the other side of a small, black iron fence. The monuments were old, with cracks running through them and big chunks either missing or glued carelessly together.

I sat on a rickety bench under an old elm. I studied the tombstones and tried to imagine the names that had been etched on the epitaphs. I couldn’t help thinking how strange it was that the dead were once buried in people’s backyards, just like they were the family pets.

I looked around when the wind seemed to pick up and moan without warning, carrying with it more leaves to another temporary destination. I stiffened. The sensation that someone or something was watching me held me sway.

::Please.::

I got to my feet, scanned my surroundings, a desolate field, really, with no neighbors for miles. I had heard something, a voice. “Who said that? Where are you? Who are you? Why are you crying, waking me up in the night? Leave me alone!”

I noticed movement, more than just the wind in the trees this time. I continued to look around with trepidation, already contemplating the short distance to the house and how long it would take me to rush back inside.

Then I saw something…a figure. He stood among the trees, watching me—a young man, not much older than I was, dressed in gray flannels, and a pale blue shirt.

“What are you doing out here?” I called breathlessly.

He didn’t move. He didn’t speak.

“Hello?” I insisted.

::Please. Help him.::

“Help who?”

Slowly he raised his hand and pointed at the house. I followed his direction. “I don’t understand,” I mumbled. I turned back in his direction, but he had vanished.

I raced to the spot where he’d stood a few seconds ago, searched the only path he could have taken, which led to where the barn and stables had once been. Nothing. There were no footprints at all. The only thing I saw was a hill of undisturbed leaves piled in a wet heap. I looked up, my heart racing, as a bird cried over my head. The cry was echoed by the sound of a hammer pounding in the distance.

When I got back inside, Jeffery was working in the bathroom. We’d planned to gut that room today.

He looked up as I arrived with a toolbox. “You all right?”