I’m on my way home when I pass by Old Germantown Road. On impulse, I hit the brakes, back up, and make the turn. It’s fully dark now, and my headlights reveal fog hovering above asphalt that’s pitted and cracked. The vegetation is slowly devouring the road so that it isn’t much wider than a single lane. Not many people use this road since the new highway went through. The county no longer maintains it, and I imagine in a few years the land will reclaim it completely.

The Hochstetler farm—what’s left of it—sits on a hill a half mile down. The house burned to the ground and was never rebuilt, but some of the trees survived and now look as if they’re standing sentinel—or waiting for the family to return. The old German-style round barn that Willis Hochstetler transformed into a furniture showroom still stands. I remember my mamm and datt talking about how the farm had once been a showplace with its white four-rail fence and wraparound porch adorned with hanging Boston ferns. Camera-wielding Englischers traveled for miles to park at the end of the lane and shoot photos.

The place fell to ruin after the family was killed. The tourists stopped coming. The Amish spoke of the things that happened that night only in whispers. But I heard the stories. When I was a teenager, rumors abounded. Ghost stories mostly. And a few sightings of Wanetta Hochstetler walking the hilltop, calling out for her children. Some said if you came out at midnight and listened, you could hear the screams of the children as they were burned alive.

Those stories scared me when I was a kid. But as I entered my teenage years, I became intrigued and even partook in several illicit visits myself. Tonight, as I approach the beat-up mailbox and turn into the muddy lane, I feel all those old stories creeping up on me.

I park in knee-high weeds with my headlights illuminating the place where the house had once stood. Leaving the engine running and the headlights on, I grab my Maglite and get out. I pull on my slicker as I start toward what had once been the side yard. I didn’t know the Hochstetlers; though they lived in the same church district as my own family, I was too young when they died to remember any of them. But I feel the loneliness of this place. The lingering sadness. A sense of injustice.