Evil smelled like salt, but there were complexities to it. Athing—a letter, a knife, an old rag—that had been used to harm, just smelled of salt. Earl smelled like a massacre of sailors left to fester on the shore, of rot and malice and pain.
It shouldn’t have been out in the middle of the day. Earl was something that should have been half-seen at night and in the shadows. That would have been slightly better. As it was, it made the dayfeelovercast, light and color sucked into gray as if someone had slapped a filter over the sun.
Ledger backed away from the thing.
“Hark didn’t speak for me,” he said. His voice scraped in his throat, rough and raw. “I made no invitation.”
Earl stopped and looked at him with its crooked, sunken head. One of its hands fell off and exposed the “bones” of it, a bundle of twigs roughly bound together with fishing line. It reached up and picked at the down-turnedUof its mouth, picking apart the coarse fabric. The burlap split in a jagged, crooked mouth and a fat dead beetle tongue poked out at the frayed edges of its “lips.”
So maybenotsomething better met at night.
“But… I was… invited,” it said, in a voice as dry as old paper. “Invited in. It… can’t be… taken back… so careless…. ly.”
So it was willing—and able—to argue. That was good. It was hard to stall something that only wanted to eat your liver and lights.
“Hark has no claim on my father’s land.”
It lurched forward, stopped for a moment, and then bent down to pick up a ball of crumpled paper. The property notice. It unfolded it with clumsy twig fingers—spots of moss and mold sprouted where it touched—and held it up.
“Law… of the… land,” it said. “Invited.”
Ledger spared a moment to hope Hark drove off the road tonight. He took a step back as Earl shuffled forward. The last thing he wanted was to get any closer.
“Fine,” he said. “But you made no deal with me. Hark isn’t my lover or my kin. Whatever he promised you doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
Earl stared at him. The beetle tongue poked at the frayed corners of its mouth.
“That is… true. Mr. Hark is… a mercenary… a businessman. We will… deal with him… accordingly. I cannot… cut his debt… from your skin.”
“Good to be on the same page,” Ledger said.
He thought briefly of the rental, but that felt… vulnerable. It wasn’this, and driving away was too close to running. Run, and something will chase you. Those were the rules. Ledger just walked away instead. It was a two-hour walk to town from here. He’d walked it before. It might take him a bit longer now—nearly two decades on—but he wouldn’t kill him. Staying here might.
He tried to hold his breath as he passed Earl. Somehow that didn’t help. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Earl turn to watch him go, cranked around at the waist like a contortionist or a children’s toy.
Ledger’s thigh muscles twitched and trembled with the strain ofnotrunning. He kept his pace steady and confident as he started down the drive. Just as a familiar black pickup started up it. Ledger stopped and stared at Wren’s face through the fly-specked windshield.
He held his ground as the pickup crawled toward him. It stopped just in front of him, close enough he could feel the engine's heat against his legs, and Wren lifted one hand off the wheel. He held up three fingers. Then two.
One.
Ledger gave in. He retreated back onto the property. Earl hadn’t moved.
They stood in silence as Wren pulled up and parked next to the rental. He killed the engine and jumped out, only to stop and sniff the air.
“Is that gas?” he asked.
Ledger ignored him. So did Earl. The scarecrow unkinked its body and smoothed the creased fabric of its stained old hoodie with clumsy hands in an odd little flash of fastidiousness. Something moved under the fabric, a wriggling bulge that Earl ignored.
“But I will… cut your father’s debt from… you,” Earl choked out as if the conversation hadn’t been interrupted. The ripped mouth chewed on the words as it struggled with them. “I will be madewholeone way or another.”
Ledger closed his eyes for a moment and tried to find his composure.
This isn’t my first time. The echo of his words to Wren bounced around Ledger’s head. He grabbed onto them grimly. Every instinct that he hadknewthat statement wasn’t true anymore. Last night, sure. This?
Earl?
That was different. Ledger might deal with sinners and the damned on the daily in his job, but they were… civilized. Not the same civilization as the mundane world, but with its own rules and social expectations and a desire to continue co-existing with the world that provided Amazon Prime and Uber Eats.
