“That night the scarecrow came into our house:
A tall, thin, hideous thing wearing the blackest of clothes."
“He sat down on the bench and the cards fell out of our hands.
One man was telling a story and the words froze on his lips.”
“A woman was sitting on a stool singing, and he took the goodness out of her music.
The breath left our lungs and he filled our hearts with dread.”
An excerpt from the Gaelic poem “The Scarecrow” by an unknown author ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The corn barely swayed in the breeze, each stalk straight and rigid like a foot soldier standing at attention in some great army.
The rustling of the coarse, dry leaves, seemed to speak some ancient lost language that had long since been forgotten. The mysterious call of the corn, beckoning to travelers and adventurers alike, “Come and explore! See what may be hidden inside our shadowy rows.”
The children especially, they were always fascinated by the cornfields, spending hours on end, running through the endless rows, playing hide and seek, enjoying the fact that you could literally disappear only a few steps in.
He liked it that way, it provided him with the opportunity to feed often, and of course it worked to his advantage being able to hide in the fields, not that it mattered much. During this time of year he was at his most powerful, almost unstoppable.
He preferred however, to remain hidden and unknown, only a superstitious story to be told around a campfire late at night.
He had haunted the corn for countless years now and had come to be known by many different names throughout the centuries. The keeper, the dark one, or the soul eater, were some of the most common, only the oldest of the local villagers knew him as Sojornek, the faceless one.
He smiled now, as he moved silently through the rows of corn, his eyes glowing a furious red, deep-set in the hollow black pits of the empty sockets, his sharp, black teeth hidden from view in the deep recess of his mouth.
He was in his most common form now, the living scarecrow, a being of the very cornfield he now walked through, made from the stalks and leaves of the corn itself.
He made no noise whatsoever as he moved, his powerful will and magic preventing the dried leaves, sticks, and straw that made up his body from making even the tiniest sound.
He could hide the sound easily enough, literally will it quiet and prevent it with his power, but the smell, that was another thing entirely.
The stench that accompanied him was horrible.
Rotten dead flesh and blood, stained the ragged clothes that hung from his straw and leaf stuffed body. Maggots and worms crawled through the blood soaked stuffing and dropped off as he walked. Countless flies swarmed about him, creating a dark cloud that seemed to envelop him.
Not that he cared, this was only a vehicle to him, a tool to be used for moving about, killing, and feeding, the black smile now growing ever wider on his bloody, mud-caked face.
He stepped through the standing rows of corn into a small clearing and walked to an ancient wooden post that stood in the center. Kneeling down he turned and surveyed the area, this was his home, if any place on this world could even be called that.
The nearby corn had been broken and trampled down to create the small clearing in the center of this vast cornfield. Old bones stuck up out of the ground like the broken corn stalks that surrounded them, with smaller piles of bones and skulls strewn about the entire area. The decaying remains of a few bodies also littered the clearing, some human some animal, unrecognizable, torn apart and half eaten, blackened from rot and decomposition.
Numerous black crows moved about freely, almost ignoring him entirely while picking at the rotting corpses, they were used to his coming and going and gave him little notice. It was the ultimate irony that he could strike terror into the hearts of men and animals alike, yet couldn’t frighten the very crows that the body he now inhabited was designed to scare.
One very large crow approached him and pecked at some of the loose flesh that hung from his ragged clothes. In a lightning quick movement, he grabbed it with his straw covered claw, squeezing it tightly the bird squawked loudly just as he shoved it headlong into his open mouth and bit down hard, biting its head and upper body completely off, he squeezed even harder as he pulled it away from his mouth, blood and entrails sprayed out and onto his face, dripping down onto the ground.
He smiled when he felt the warmth of the blood on his face.
Throwing the rest of the uneaten bird’s body across the clearing, his smile vanished quickly as he realized he would have to sleep soon. The Solstice had passed and the corn was starting to die off, before long he would have to rest until next spring.
He frowned and reached down absentmindedly to tear off a piece of the rotting corpse nearest him and began to eat. Could it almost be that time again so soon, he was still so very hungry, it almost seemed as if he hadn’t fed at all this season, though the bodies and bones around him would testify to a different story.
As he chewed the putrid meat he thought back to earlier this evening when he had missed a chance to feed. The emptiness in his gut instantly replaced with the anger as it grew inside of him, the fiery glow of his eyes intensifying.
The little girl had been so close, so very close to the corn. Just another few moments and she would have been his. He watched her as she walked slowly towards the rows, mesmerized by his little spell, calling her to him.
Then, from out of nowhere, an adventuring ranger had called out to her, “Hi Ho, little lady.”
The spell held her tightly and she had ignored the ranger’s greeting, continuing to shuffle towards the corn as if she had heard nothing. He too, had ignored the intrusion, continuing to concentrate on the little girl, continuing to will her into the cornfield.
The ranger had approached the girl then, and called to her once again, “I say little one, might you tell a weary traveler where your village is?”
She had stopped then and turned lazily towards him, looking somewhat bewildered, as if awaking from a dream. The faceless one had clenched his straw hands into fists, “No” he had thought, “Don’t stop.”
But, it was too late, the spell had been broken. The little girl had looked up at the ranger with a puzzled stare, “What’s that sir?” she had asked innocently. He began talking to her then, his questions bringing her further out of the trance.
“My name is Temyen and I am looking for ………”
The words trailed off as the anger rose inside of him, he could hear no more.
His only thoughts were on the two of them. He could have probably taken them both right there. Oh, the ranger would have put up a good fight he was certain, but in the end not much could stand against him right now.
He had almost done it too, just reached out and grabbed them both pulling them into the corn, into his world, but to take two people from out in the open like that was risky. He may have been seen, and it was just getting too late in the season to risk that.
It might bring the wrath of the villagers down on him, and they might burn the cornfield or some such nonsense, not that it would hurt him in the least, but then he would have to move on to a new location, and that was such an inconvenience.
This was his home after all.
“No”, he thought absentmindedly, as he pulled some more of the rotten meat off the corpse and ate.
He could wait for another opportunity, the corn would give him that, it always did.