Happy Little Faces Jennifer Georgieff
I stood in the doorway, waiting for the odd feeling to leave me. The sun slanted through one of the smudged windows and glinted off the particles of dust dancing through the air. Somewhere nearby a fly buzzed, bouncing off of windowpanes in its attempt to escape the house. A small table stood in the middle of the room, two chairs on either side of it. Immobile on the threshold, I took in the small kitchen with its rough wood floor and white painted cabinets. A cheerful enough room, but something wasn’t right about the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. The moment that I opened the back door of the farmhouse and walked into the kitchen, I was aware of an unpleasant feeling. One that was very unwelcoming, almost creepy. Shaking my head and adjusting my ponytail, I took a few more steps into the room. A green checked curtain fluttered in the breeze from the open window, catching my attention. I walked over to it and bent slightly in order to look outside. It was all pretty magnificent. The green lawn shone in the sunlight, peppered randomly with dandelions. To the left I saw a row of outbuildings, each one adorned with chipped white paint and a faded green roof. To the right there stood a few more buildings, the king of which was the big white barn nestled into a small valley below the road. A quiet smile stole over my face as I gazed at it, remembering the tour that my uncle had just given me. The barn was picture perfect inside with the barn cats playing in piles of hay and the cows slowly munching their feed, all surrounded by gray stone that was cool to the touch. Beyond the barn, corn stood swaying in the breeze. The glossy green leaves reflected the bright light, producing an effect similar to sunlight on water. It was like a green ocean swallowing up the surrounding hills. A neighboring farm was just visible on a distant hill, past that sea of swaying leaves. My eyes searched the landscape until they came to rest on the expanse of trees on the other side of the barn. I was told this was where the cows were let out to pasture. A narrow lane was fenced off for them to travel down, and then it opened out into a ravine. The rest of my uncle’s land wasn’t visible. Unlike other parts of the state, this area was anything but flat. On the lawn next to the driveway, Uncle Rodney was prac-
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