There was a time when the barn was Claire’s sanctuary. As a child, she’d join her father in tending animals, stacking hay, and chasing cats out of the feed room. He’d make up stories about knights and dragons, turning ordinary chores into adventures. But then, right after her sixteenth birthday, everything changed. One morning, she found the barn padlocked and her father’s expression unreadable when she asked why.
“It’s off limits, Claire,” he’d said, voice gentle but final. She’d let it go, trusting there was a reason, but over the years the barn became a place of mystery and maybe even a little resentment. Her brothers dismissed it as just another of Dad’s quirks. Yet Claire often found herself glancing at the old structure, wondering what had happened to make her father shut her out—and what, if anything, he might be hiding inside those walls.