The Gate at Grissom’s Folly

The summer I turned seventeen, my cousin Lena talked me into driving out to Grissom’s Folly. It wasn’t on any map, but everyone in Mercer County knew the name. The place was a failed homestead from the 1800s, a crumbling farmhouse and a rusted windmill on a stretch of land that had been contested between the settlers and the local tribes. The stories were all over the place: some said a family was slaughtered there, others said a medicine man cursed the ground before he was hanged. Lena swore it was a portal to the other side.

I’d heard the tales since I moved to Mercer from Ohio two years before. Kids at school whispered about it, daring each other to leave offerings at the gate. The gate was all that remained of the original fence, a wrought-iron monstrosity with a design that looked like twisted antlers. It was always left slightly ajar, no matter how many times someone shut it. Lena and I were just bored, looking for a cheap scare on a muggy July night. My gut said no, but my mouth said yes before I could think.

We took Lena’s beat-up Chevy down the gravel road that cut through the cornfields. The GPS died about a mile out, so we followed the hand-drawn map she’d gotten from a friend. The fuzz on the radio turned to static, and the air got thick, smelling of damp earth and something metallic, like old blood. Then we saw the gate, glowing faintly in the headlights. It wasn’t a trick of the light; the iron seemed to shimmer with a cold, blue-ish glow. Lena killed the engine, and we sat there, listening to the crickets, which suddenly went silent.

We got out, and the silence was so deep it pressed on my eardrums. The windmill above the farmhouse creaked, turning slowly though there was no breeze. Lena pulled a Ziploc bag from her pocket. Inside was a braid of sweetgrass, a few coins, and a small bone—she wouldn’t say what kind. ‘The old ones say you have to leave a piece of yourself to get through,’ she whispered, and she tossed the bag over the gate. It landed with a soft thud on the other side. The gate swung open with a groan that sounded almost human.

I didn’t want to go through, but Lena grabbed my hand and pulled. She was stronger than she looked. Beyond the gate, the path to the house was overgrown with weeds that snapped like tiny bones underfoot. The house itself leaned like a tired old man. The windows were dark, but I thought I saw a flicker inside, like a candle. Lena grinned, her teeth too white in the gloom. ‘This is it,’ she said. ‘We’re in the other place now.’

We entered through the gaping front door. The floorboards bowed, and the air was cold, making me shiver despite the summer heat. Dust coated everything, except for a table in the center of the parlor, bare and clean. On it lay a journal, open to a page. The handwriting was spidery, dated July 15, 1892. It read: ‘They come for the children first. The earth drinks their laughter and grows silent. I have sealed the gate with my own breath, but the wind will not remember.’ Below that, a list of names, all crossed out except the last: ‘Amos Grissom.’ That was the man who’d owned the land, before he vanished.

Lena laughed, but it was hollow. ‘This is great,’ she said. ‘I’ll take a pic.’ She raised her phone, but it wouldn’t focus. Instead, the screen showed static, and a face appeared—a gaunt, dark-eyed man with a gash across his throat. Lena dropped the phone, and it cracked on the floor. The face stayed in the crumpled screen, smiling. A voice, like wind through a dead tree, said, ‘You opened the gate. Now you must bring a child.’

I bolted. I ran out the door, through the yard, toward the gate. But the gate was closed, and for a moment, I couldn’t find the latch. Lena was right behind me, her breath ragged. When I finally swung the gate open, the blue glow was gone, and the night was pitch black. We dove into the car. The engine turned over, and we sped away, not looking back until we hit the main road.

The next morning, Lena called me. Her voice was shaky. She said she’d found something in her jacket pocket—the Ziploc bag, but the bone was gone. Instead, there was a tiny, desiccated finger, wrapped in a scrap of cloth. And in her mirror, she’d seen the reflection of the farmhouse behind her, though she was in her apartment miles away.

I didn’t sleep well for weeks. I threw away the cloth and finger, but it reappeared on my doorstep the next day. I moved out of Mercer County after graduation—to a city, to get away. But sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see that gate, still ajar. And I see a child, a little girl with dark hair, standing just inside, waving at me. She’s not alone. Behind her, in the shadows, stands the man with the gash in his throat. He’s holding the finger I tried to discard. And I know, deep in my bones, that he’s waiting for me to come back. He knows my name. He knows my future children’s names. And one day, when the wind is right, he’ll call me home.