The Midnight Call

It was 11:47 p.m. when Sarah’s phone buzzed on the nightstand. Half-asleep, she groaned, reached for it, and saw the name: “Mom.”

Her heart sank with the weight of a rusted anchor, beating harder and harder with every shallow breath she took. Mom never called this late.

“Hello?” she answered, voice thick with sleep and apprehension.

There was a pause. Then her mother’s voice, soft and trembling, said, “Sarah, I found it.”

“Found what?”

“The locket. The one Grandma used to wear.”

Sarah sat up, pushing the yellowed, moth-eaten comforter aside. “I thought it was lost years ago.”

“That’s what we thought,” her mother whispered. “But it was in Dad’s old toolbox. I don’t know why he kept it there.”

Sarah felt a strange mix of emotions—relief, curiosity, and something darker. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, but there’s something you need to see. It’s not just the locket.”

The tone in her mother’s voice was enough to make Sarah start pulling on her jeans. She didn’t ask any more questions. She just drove, the streets eerily empty, the streetlights casting long shadows.

When she arrived, her mother was waiting in the arched doorway, clutching the locket in her hand. “Look inside,” she said, handing it over.

Sarah flipped open the tiny silver clasp. Inside was a picture of her grandmother, younger and smiling—but there was something else, folded carefully behind the photograph. She slid it out: a faded scrap of paper with just three words scrawled in messy handwriting.

“Find the barn.”

Sarah stared at it, then at her mother. “What barn?”

Her mother shook her head. “I don’t know. But we’re going to find out.”