When the Scarecrow Hungers
As harvest moon rose, the fields stretched like a braid of gold under the sky. The scarecrow stood at the far row, sewn from old coats, with a head stuffed of straw and a crown of tattered hat. For years it kept the crows at bay, but I learned to listen for more than crow calls. I am Mae, keeper of the last farm on Hollow Creek Road, and tonight the straw man breathed in rhythm with the wind.
The night air carried the dryness of corn husks and something sour, like old wine left too long in a cellar. The scarecrow's buttons blinked with a pale light that wasn't there in daylight. The corn whispered, and if you pressed your ear to the stalks you could hear a hunger building beneath the soil, a hunger that wanted something more than kernels.
It is not rain that feeds the field, but what the field allows to wander when the world is asleep.
Whispers in the Corn
By midnight, the shadows moved with intent. The scarecrow tilted its head, not with a breeze but with purpose. The rows bent toward it as if drawn by a field-wide magnet. I found tracks where there should be only dust—bare feet, then hooves, then nothing but the scent of earth and old ash. The scarecrow had grown heavier, as if someone—something—had stitched it with a new hunger.
- Missing Livestock: a mare that vanished from its stall as if swallowed by the night.
- Unmatched Footprints: in the furrows, prints that did not belong to any animal or man.
- Whispers in the Stalks: a chorus of sighs that rose and fell with the wind.
- Fresh Red Kernels: mounded at the stake, as if the field offered itself up.
When the scarecrow's shadow lengthened across the barn, I heard the latch click of the old gate, though I lived alone with the dogs and the wind. Its mouth, stitched in a grin, opened in a soundless scream, and I knew it hoped for more than corn. The hunger was no longer for food but for life—my life, perhaps, or something I could not name but recognized by the way the night tightened around my shoulders.
In the fields, every harvest remembers what it has eaten.
End of Harvest, Beginning of Night
By dawn the land looked innocent again—stalks upright, the scarecrow still, the air free of the night’s ache. But the scarecrow hungers anew, and I fear the next moon will bring a debt larger than grain. If you walk these fields, listen for a soft rustle behind you, the sound of straw breathing. Sometimes the harvest isn’t about what you reap, but what you leave behind in the furrows.