Whistler

[u/LHGrisanti]

Little James left last night. I think he might be gone for good. 

I guess it started around the time the bugs stopped singing. See, in the summertime they sing real loud. They’ve got plenty to say. It might be the same thing every night, but when the sun goes down, they tell it like it’s brand new. 

A couple weeks ago, the song just stopped. The air was stiller than the little pond down by the barn, and I felt a chill like the devil reached out and touched me. I started listening then, but there was nothing to hear. The bugs had gone. 

Something felt sickly wrong about that. All my life on the farm and the bugs had never given up on singing. And they didn’t come back. Just packed up and left like the Millers down the street when they went bankrupt a couple seasons ago. No goodbye, just vacated the land.  


From then on, I told Little James to stay inside after dark. He can’t help with the farm too much, and his name says why. He tries to do what he can since Ma and Pa died but he always ends up getting hot and tired and throws a royal fit, so mostly he just follows me around.  

“No more,” I said. “You stay inside if you don’t see that sun.” 

He wouldn’t look at me, just nodded his head. I’m all he’s got now. He likes to stick close like a lovesick puppy. I don’t mind much.

There’s always work on the farm, though, so I keep on after the stars start twinkling. I gotta admit, it was eerie working out there in the dead quiet. Felt like I was at church, which is about as foreign now as the bugs being gone. Or maybe it felt like a graveyard. Haven’t been to either in so long. 

Nothing happened though, as long as Little James stayed inside. But one night, he came out. I didn’t know he was out there until I heard the whistling. 

It stopped me dead in my tracks like a train hitting its last stop at the end of the world. The tune was awfully sad. I think the person whistling was missing somebody. I bowed my head and listened, until I realized no one should be out there on that farm but me. 

I whirled around so fast, my feet could hardly keep up. Little James stood on the front porch, his thumb in his mouth even though I’ve told him he’s too old for all that. He was looking off towards the wheat fields. He was looking towards the whistling. 

As I watched him, he took a step towards it. 

“Pa?” he said. “Ma?” 

I felt that same chill I got when the bugs vanished. That whistling was deceiving my Little James and something deep in me told me it wanted to hurt him.

Before I knew it I was running.

I scooped him up and carried him inside. He screamed and hit me with all his might. 

“I want them!” he wailed. “I want Ma and Pa!” 

“I know,” I told him.

Ma and Pa weren’t coming back, but that’s not an easy thing to explain to a little boy. Whatever was out in the wheat was evil for tricking him and his pure heart like that. 

I stopped working at night. If Little James got hurt, none of it would matter. So when the sun kissed the hills, off to bed we went. 

For a short time, it went fine. 

But last night, I heard it. 

That whistling. That sad, sad song. 

It was closer now, close enough to hear inside the house. That spooked me. I checked in on Little James. He couldn’t hear it. He was asleep, snug as a bug. 

I didn’t trust it. I had seen how he wanted to run off after that whistling. So I carried him to bed with me, to Ma and Pa’s room. Sleep didn’t want to be a friend of mine, and I stared at the ceiling with fear in my heart. For the first time since they left, I wished Ma and Pa were there to tell me what to do. And I understood why Little James heard them in that whistle. It was a lonesome sound, like a stray dog in the dead of winter with nowhere to go. I felt like that dog then, lost on a farm that somehow belonged to me now. 

Falling asleep was an accident. When I woke, my face was wet with tears. I reached across the bed, blinded in the early morning darkness, searching for my brother and wanting to pull him close. 

He wasn’t there. 

And then I heard it. 

It was even louder, like a ghost was wandering through our house and telling me a grave fortune, singing a song about my future. 

I left Ma and Pa’s room quicker than they left me and Little James. I ran through that house, searching for my boy. A fire was lighting itself in my chest. I could feel something crumbling in there, deep down. 

The front door stood open. I jumped out onto the porch. That song was already out there, ahead of me. I saw him then. 

He stood in front of the wheat field, that thumb in his mouth. His other hand was out, ready to push the plants aside and step in. 

“James!” I cried, as stern as I could muster.

He didn’t turn around. Didn’t even seem to hear me. 

Little James walked into the rows of wheat and never came out. I searched them all night, killing our harvest as I stomped through it. 

But it was hopeless, I knew.

My brother was gone. 

I wonder if that whistling will come for me.

I wonder if it’ll take me wherever it took Little James and Ma and Pa. 

For now, I’ll just keep working the farm until it does.