Are We Really Alone?

There was a 14-year-old girl who lived in a rural area on her family’s land. This land had been in the family for 4 generations and had been built on over the years by the family. The girl lived at the end of the dirt road that served as the main road for each house. At the end of the road past her house was an open field with 2 large pecan trees she called “the twins” that sit next to each other in front of the empty pasture past the field. To the left of the trees stood her grandfather’s barn with all of his old farming equipment, and to the right of the trees sat a rock that marked an old well to a log cabin that was long since taken down. The girl’s grandfather had died the year before and she had been thinking of him a lot as the 1 year anniversary of his passing drew closer. The girl enjoyed coming out to this field when it was nice outside to look out over the empty pasture and to the tree line at the woods behind it. It was peaceful and allowed her a moment to relax. In the summer evenings, she could sit on the rock and watch the lightening bugs dance across the open pasture. One day she came out to sit on the rock over the old well as she had done so many times before and she watched the lightening bugs dance across the field as the sun began going down. In the distance there was the sound of cars from the main highway in the distance, but everything was otherwise peaceful and quiet. She sat there for a while longer as it got dark until she finally decided to walk back to her house.

As she stood up from the rock and began walking back to her house, she heard the sound of a little girl laughing. She turned and tried to figure out where the sound was coming from but couldn’t pinpoint where it was. There weren’t any kids here. She had 2 young brothers, but they were back at the house inside, probably getting ready for bed and the sound was coming from behind her back towards the open field. She stood there for a moment waiting to see if she would hear it again and after another minute or two, she did. This time, it seemed to be traveling as if there was a toddler running in the field laughing as they went. Still seeing nothing, the girl walked closer to where she thought the sound was coming from, in order to get a better view. As she approached, there was a new sound along with the distant laughter. It was the sound of an old music box playing child’s lullaby. She listened to the song wondering if she would recognize it, but she had never heard this lullaby before. She stood there listening and waiting and could still hear the sporadic laugh of the toddler and the music playing. She didn’t feel fear, or sadness. She only felt that the laughter was truly joyful.

Once the music stopped playing and the laughter stopped, the girl turned back around and went back home. A few days later, she walked next door to her grandmother’s house to visit. While visiting her grandmother she told her about the child’s laughter and the music box in the field a few nights before. Her grandmother asked her where she was, to which the girl replied, “down by the well rock on the rock”. She continued her story while her grandmother sat and listened without interrupting. When the girl was done, her grandmother told her a story of her own. Her grandmother asked if she remembered that the well under the rock used to be for an old log cabin that her grandmother lived in with her great grandmother when they first bought the land. The girl told her grandmother she remembered. Her grandmother told her that when she was little, before the old house was torn down and the well was buried, she had another sister along with her older sister that the girl grew up knowing. Her grandmother told her that her little sister only lived to be about 4 years old and had died. The baby had been born with a heart condition that couldn’t be operated on at the time. Due to this, the baby struggled and had a hard time for those 4 years. The baby’s mother had gotten her a small music box one year and it was the only way she could get the baby to fall asleep. The baby loved that music box and would play the lullaby throughout the day before bringing it to bed with her to listen to as she fell asleep. She eventually died in the house and was buried at a nearby church. Several years after she died, her mother built a house at the beginning of dirt road, tore the old one down, and lived there until she eventually passed away as well.

When the girl’s grandmother told her about the aunt she never knew and her favorite music box, she was stunned. She never knew her grandmother had any other siblings than the ones she had grown up knowing. She asked her grandmother if she remembered the tune and her grandmother said it had been so long since she heard it, and she was also a little girl at the time, that she can’t recall it from memory. Her grandmother asked if she remembered it from the other night but since it was a song the girl had never heard before, it had already faded from memory.

The girl continued to sit out on this rock until she grew up and bought a house of her own. In those years between hearing the little girl and her music box, and her moving out, she never heard the little girl or the music box again. The girl grew up and had kids of her own and still thinks of her grandfather occasionally. When she thinks of him and thinks of that dirt road she grew up on, she can’t help but wonder if the little girl is there where her home used to be. Playing in the field with her music box. Free from all the medical conditions she once struggled with. The girl will also wonders if maybe she heard it that day because the little girl was trying to console her while she sat there missing her grandfather who had passed away the year before. Was she reaching out trying to bring joy into the darkness? Or was she simply playing with her music box not minding who was around?