The Journal Entry of One Violet Cooper

Alice Thompson is a published author who has been a featured writer for the literary non-profit organization Death Rattle. She has also been featured story teller at Story Story Night, a live storytelling program that presents true stories based on a theme. Alice is currently working on an Autofiction novel.

You can contact Alice at alicernelson@gmail.com, on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/authoralicenelson/, or on Threads @authoralicenelson

August 14^th, 1997

Dr. Anderson suggested I write it all down–that it would be helpful to get the story on paper and out of my head. A day hasn’t gone by that I haven’t thought about it, but I’m not sure this will help at all. And it happened so long ago that I’m not sure how much of it is real and how much is just part of the nightmares that began afterward.

But I’ll do it because Dr. Anderson suggested it. He’s been so helpful in getting me to talk about it, especially since my parents never would.

So, here’s my story. I’m Violet Cooper and this is my journal entry. Everything you are about to read is true to the best of my recollection.

Summer, 1984

The song played quietly in the background. Abel was singing along softly, his leg dangling over the arm of the chair as he flipped through his Superman comic book.

“Give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above. Don’t fence me in,” he sang.

“Abel, could you shut your face and turn that dang song off?” I said.

“No,” Abel said quietly.

“Mom! Abel’s been hogging the record player with that old song all afternoon. Can I listen to something else?”

Mom came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel. “What would YOU like to listen to, Violet?” she asked with a knowing smile.

“Uh…I don’t know. I’m just tired of this song,” I said.

Mom laughed. “Oh, Vi. Let him listen to it one more time.” She turned to Abel. “Just one more play through, young man, then turn it off.”

“Yes, Mama,” Abel said, sticking his tongue out at me when Mama turned to go back into the kitchen.

***

The house we lived in was built by our great-grandfather, Chester Callahan. Abel and I found a box of his things in the attic—unfortunately, that Cole Porter song was among them. Abel also found an old picture of a tall, frighteningly gaunt man wearing a black fedora and matching black suit and tie, holding the hand of a little girl.

“Is this great-grandad?” Abel asked Mom.

She shook her head. “No, it’s not him, but maybe he was a friend of your great-grandad’s.”

Abel didn’t care who it was. For some reason, he loved that picture and had the nerve to hang it up in our room.

“Take that old, ugly thing out of here, Abel. It’ll give me nightmares,” I told him.

Abel pouted, then shoved the picture under his mattress.

***

After I suffered through one more round of Don’t Fence Me In, Mama said, “You two go out and play until dinner’s ready.”

“Mama, can we go into the field?” Abel asked.

Mama hesitated. She didn’t like us in the field, and I didn’t much care for it either. Sometimes when we were out there, it seemed to get bigger, and the house looked different, as if it kept getting further and further away from us.

“You can go. Just keep the house in view, kids,” she said with a serious look on her face.

“We know, Mama,” Abel and I said in unison as we ran outside, trying to beat each other to the fence that separated the backyard from the overgrown field.

Mama always told us to keep the house in view, and we always did. Until that one day we didn’t, and Abel never came back home again.

***

It all happened so fast. We were running in the field, throwing dirt clods at each other. Abel was wearing that red cape Mama made for him; he was pretending to be The Man of Steel, and he wanted me to be Lois Lane.

“I’m not gonna be some helpless girl who needs Superman to rescue her,” I huffed.

So, Abel went off, pretending to leap tall buildings in a single bound, and I turned and started picking the wild flowers that grew in vast quantities in the unkempt field.

“I came out as soon as you asked,” I heard Abel say to someone behind me.. “Mmm hmm. Oh, yes. I love that song, too.”

I thought it was Abel’s friend Dewey, so I stood up, thinking maybe the three of us could play some fun game. But when I turned, Dewey wasn’t there, and neither was Abel. The red cape was the only thing left behind, billowing in the wind as if an invisible Superman hovered over the field.

“Abel!” I yelled, but he didn’t answer. I turned round and round, surveying the whole field, but Abel was nowhere to be seen.

We had gone out so far, I couldn’t even see our house. How did we get so far from home? I thought. There’s no way we went out this far.

Then I heard Mama yelling, “Violet, Abel, dinner’s ready!”

I ran, following her voice because I still couldn’t see the house. Tears streamed down my face until, suddenly, the house seemed to fade into view.

***

Mama and I stood at the fence that divided our yard from the field. I was holding her hand as Daddy, along with the sheriff and plenty of volunteers, searched for Abel. But I knew they’d never find him.

I didn’t say that to Mama. She kept fidgeting and glancing at me now and then. It was as if she were saying with her eyes, “All you had to do was keep an eye on your brother.” Or maybe that was just my guilt telling me tales.

***

Weeks passed, then months, and people stopped searching altogether. The sheriff opted instead for posters with Abel’s face on it. Those posters haunted me; it was like his eyes were trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t look at them long enough to find out what that was.

“It’s as if he vanished from the face of the earth,” I heard someone say, and I knew they were right.

One night, I heard Abel’s voice coming from the den. I just knew it was a dream—my mind clinging to the hope that my little brother would return.

I crept up to the door of the den, quietly listening as Abel sang that dang song. “Give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above. Don’t fence me in.”

Abel didn’t sound like himself, though. The voice was flat and toneless.

Then I heard a strange man’s voice say, “You sing beautifully, young man.”

“Thank you,” Abel said in that voice that wasn’t his.

I peeked into the room. Abel was sitting in his favorite chair with his leg dangling over the side, looking at his Superman comics.

The only thing was, Mama had moved that chair, his comic books and the record player into the barn weeks ago. She just couldn’t stand looking at them anymore. It was a constant reminder that he was gone.

So, this had to be a dream…but it felt so real.

A man was standing next to the chair. It was the Man in the Black Suit—the very same one in the picture from the attic.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Violet,” he said softly.

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, because your brother misses you dearly, that’s why,” The Man in the Black Suit said.

Abel looked up at me and smiled. I missed his smile, but this one was hollow, and the sparkling brown eyes that once lit up every time he grinned were dull and empty.

“Hi, Vi-oh-let,” Abel said robotically, stretching out my name in a way that unnerved me. Still, I was happy to see him.

“Why’d you leave me Abel?” I asked, tears brimming in my eyes.

“I had to, Vi. But you can come with us, if you want. The man said it was okay.”

“I can’t go, Abel.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you’re in heaven. Since I’m not dead yet, I can’t go with you.”

Abel looked at me closely. “I’m not dead, Vi.”

“What are you, then?” I asked.

“I’m with The Man in the Black Suit,” Abel said, as if that explained everything.

Then Abel stood up from the chair and came toward me, his arms outstretched as if he wanted to give me a hug. But I shook my head and began to back away. It didn’t look like Abel anymore; the eyes were too dark, and his lips had stretched into this twisted grin.

***

“Violet, Violet!”

I woke up in my room with Mama gently shaking me and calling my name.

“You were having a bad dream,” she said.

“I was dreaming about Abel,” I told her. “He wanted me to come with him, but I was too scared to go.”

She held me tightly. “I miss him too, baby,” Mama said, stroking my hair.

We stayed like that for a while, and I was starting to drift off to sleep when I saw it: the picture of The Man in the Black Suit. That very same picture Abel wanted to keep in our room, the one that Mama packed into the box and put in the attic weeks ago.

This time, instead of a little girl standing next to the man, there was a little boy.

“Abel,” I whispered. “Abel, is that you?”

When the image nodded, I opened my mouth and began to scream.