A white farmhouse with sky blue shutters rests on old farmland, surrounded by tangles of blackberries. It waits, ready to welcome travelers in for much needed rest. A boy had lived there long ago, when neighbors were many days journey apart and precious socks were darned and mended like the Ship of Theseus.

His family came from a long line of miserable farmers, and he was the first child born without a mean bone in his body. He spent his evenings after undeserved beatings and belittling with the animals. His greatest friend in the world was a glossy black goat he called Wick. Wick was warm sturdy comfort. When the boys body needed mending he’d bring rags to clean his wounds and cry fat rolling tears onto Wicks lamp black coat.

One night there was no hiding from the rage that burned inside his parents. He had done nothing, he had done enough. He wrenched himself free from their large mitts of hands and the stench of whiskey on breath and ran into the dark. He sprinted to Wick, hoping he could disappear into the goats midnight black coat. But one twisting, frothing drunk found him; no doubt it was the sound of the boys pounding heart that led him there. After finding the boy clinging to Wick he drove his great boot into the goat. The barn was filled with screams from animal and man, and scrambling hooves, and breaking bones. The boy held Wicks heavy broken body close when all was silent, their blood swirling together in the dust.

The boy floated through his days, beatings, and sleepless nights. He floated through a walk in the dark and and the snow into a towering being with a massive cape of glossy lamp black fur. Small, glinting eyes gazed into the boy. They spoke without speaking and filled the night air with impossible stillness.

Men came with supplies in the spring. They took their hats off at the threshold of the farmhouse, pockets full of payments, waiting to greet a family who never came. They found the husband and wife together in the barn. Black soot streaked into their nostrils. Their lips were ringed with soot, their mouths packed with ash. Their eyes were horrible charred pits and their stomachs arched towards the sky. Sunshine streaked through the rafters painting patterns onto their decaying forms in an otherwise undisturbed barn.

The barn was burned and tilled into the earth. They salted the ground where the barn had stood. The land was abandoned. Only blackberries grew, encircling the tainted patch of earth.

The story was lost to time, buried into the land. A house was built on the patch of yard that never grew. The new owners never lived there; no one can live there. Travelers come and stay for a night or two and never return. The owners have decorated beautifully. Bright joyful paintings scatter themselves on the walls, each one covering a lamp black streak of soot.