The Flapping Page

I never believed in ghosts until the autumn of 2019, when my colleague, Miriam, dragged me to the annual Harvest Howl at the old Crayton Fairgrounds. The fairgrounds had been closed for years, but every October, a local troupe resurrected them with corn mazes, hayrides, and a haunted barn. It was all harmless fun, or so I thought. Miriam was a skeptic, but she loved the theatrics. I, on the other hand, had always felt a strange pull toward the unseen, a sensitivity I kept buried under logic and routine.

We arrived at dusk, the sky a bruised purple, the air thick with the smell of caramel and decay. The centerpiece was the Grand Pavilion, a rickety wooden structure that had once hosted livestock auctions. This year, a fortune teller had set up shop inside, her booth draped in velvet and strings of yellowing beads. As we approached, I felt a sudden chill, like a cold finger tracing my spine. Miriam noticed me shiver. ‘You’re just nervous,’ she laughed, pulling me inside.

The fortune teller, an old woman named Madame Zara, sat behind a round table cluttered with tarot cards and a crystal ball that seemed to have a crack in it. She gestured for Miriam to sit first. Miriam scoffed but played along, drawing a card: The Tower. Madame Zara’s eyes widened, but she quickly masked it. ‘Interesting. A change is coming, but beware of what you invite in.’ Miriam rolled her eyes, but I felt a knot tighten in my stomach.

When it was my turn, I sat down, and the room seemed to darken. Madame Zara stared at me, her pupils dilating. ‘You have a gift,’ she whispered. ‘But it’s a heavy burden. There is a child here. A little girl with pigtails. She’s been waiting for you.’ I laughed nervously, thinking it was a trick, but then I saw it: a small shadow darting behind the curtain at the back of the booth. I turned to look, but there was nothing. I told Madame Zara I had to leave, but she grabbed my wrist, her grip surprisingly strong. ‘She wants to show you something. In the old barn. Tonight.’

I brushed her off and dragged Miriam to the haunted barn, hoping to shake the feeling. The barn was a maze of fake blood and jump scares. But as we walked through, I noticed a discrepancy: there was a section of the wall, painted to look like a classroom, with papers nailed to it. And one of those papers was flapping violently, as if caught in a wind no one else felt. I approached, and Miriam called after me, ‘Hey, where are you going?’ That’s when I saw her again: a small girl with pigtails, standing by the paper, pointing at it. She had hollow eyes, and her mouth moved as if she were speaking, but no sound came out.

I reached out to touch the paper, and the girl faded. I pulled the paper off the wall. It was a missing child poster from 1987. A girl named Emily, age 7, abducted from the fairgrounds. The date was the same as today: October 31st. Miriam came up behind me, her face pale under the strobe lights. ‘What is that?’ I handed it to her. She read it and dropped it as if it burned. ‘We need to go,’ she said. But I couldn’t. I felt a pull toward the back of the barn, where a door led to a storage room, padlocked.

The door was unlocked. I pushed it open. Inside was a dusty, forgotten space. And in the corner, against a wall, was an old wooden crate. I knelt down and opened it. Inside was a child’s doll, its hair in pigtails. And a note, written in faded crayon: ‘He put me in the ground, but the dirt can’t keep me. I’m going to show you where he hid me.’

I heard Miriam scream behind me. I turned, but she was gone. The door slammed shut. I heard a child’s laughter, soft and sad. I clawed at the door, but it was stuck. The lights flickered, and in the darkness, I saw the girl again, but this time she was translucent, and her face was bruised. She pointed at a loose floorboard. I pried it up. Beneath it, a small bone, a child’s finger bone, and a key.

I took the key and tried it on the door. It opened. The hallway was empty. I ran, calling for Miriam, until I burst out into the cold night air. The fairgrounds were deserted, the lights off. I found Miriam by the car, trembling. She said she’d seen a little girl who told her ‘He’s still here.’ We drove away in silence, and I clutched the bone and the missing poster. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept hearing a child’s whisper, but I couldn’t make out the words.

The next day, I called the county sheriff’s office and reported the bone. They found a shallow grave under a tree near the barn. The remains matched a missing child from 1987. The killer was an old fairground handyman, long dead. But the case was closed. For me, it was only beginning.

A week later, I found a scrap of paper in my coat pocket. It was a drawing, crude, of a hand reaching out of the ground. On the back, in the same crayon script: ‘Thank you for letting me out. Now I can go home.’ But I haven’t seen the girl since. Yet sometimes, late at night, I hear the flapping of a page, and I feel a cold breath on my neck. And I know she’s not gone. She’s just waiting for me to find her again.