Murmurs of approval and solemn nods came from all the others.
The headmaster of the secondary school reached into a large satchel, pulling out black candles, jars filled with contents I didn’t recognize, bundled herbs with feathers, and placed them onto a small straw bale.
One of the others, a new face in town, stepped forward holding a strange talisman in his palms.
“Bring the Great One,” he commanded.
Within minutes, a young woman with flowing blonde hair well past her waist entered the stables. She wore a black gown with gold embroidery work along the sleeves and down the seams at her sides.
All the members of the Council bowed before her like she was a damn queen.
She carried a thick book bound with charred black leather. When she opened it, the pages were a deep yellow with ink that suspiciously held a crimson tint.
“Tonight will be the first night of the harvest hunt. May tonight’s sacrifices bless you all.” The woman waved her hand towards the nearest Councilman, who fumbled to light the black candle with trembling hands.
I was left unable to look away from the scene unfolding before my eyes.
Chanted words were unrecognizable to me, but the chill they brought on was noticeable in the air despite the unusually warm day.
Glancing over at Maribelle, she looked ready to pass out or scream bloody murder. It was hard to tell with that damn lazy eye of hers.
The ritual, or whatever creepy bullshit hadtranspired, went on for almost fifteen minutes. The final words spoken were emphasized by an unnatural gust of wind that snuffed out the flame of the central black candle.
Harlow was now leaning forward in her seat, staring at me wide-eyed, either in disbelief or completely enthralled by the history behind Falston’s first fall festival.
“What did you do after they left?” she inquired.
This is where things got messy. I proceeded to tell her about my running off to find Bale, only to have the Town Council show up.
“I don’t know if they knew I had been in the stables all along, if Maribelle said something, or if they realized it during the ceremony. I suppose it doesn’t matter. They knew I had seen too much for their liking,” I explained.
Here came the recounting of the messy parts of our past that either Harlow would accept for what they were or reject us both from her life.
Whatever words were chanted there at the mouth of the alley between buildings, I watched as my best friend crumpled to his knees. The excruciating pain was clear from how his body convulsed, joints audibly popping, muscles sounded like they were being shredded into strands, and sounds that made screams impossible.
The sight rendered me distracted, allowing the newest member of the Council to draw a pistol on me. I never heard the shot, just felt the impact of a bullettearing into my gut and the gooey warmth of blood soaking my clothes afterwards.
Every member of the Council present stood by and watched with indifference. The blonde-haired woman stood at the center of them all, speaking more words in that strange tongue.
I didn’t remember much after that. When I came to a while later, I found myself in the center of the cornfield at the clearing where the scarecrow held his post. The whole world looked different while I laid there.
Attempting to get off the ground felt foreign; none of my limbs worked the way I willed them to. Eventually, my brain saw past the shock that I no longer had arms, but instead had black, feathered wings.
The scarecrow mounted on the cross frame was not the familiar burlap back stuffed with straw that I knew well. In its place was an incredibly lifelike variation. Larger, more detailed, and creepier than the one that Mrs. Halloway had sewn together as a ward against crows trying to feed off the corn.
Bale took his moment to interject his experience. “One moment, we were ordinary citizens, and the next, we were condemned to a life existing as things we never knew were possible.”
“But why?” Harlow asked. It was the million-dollar question, the very one Bale and I had asked for the first several years.
It made Bale laugh humorlessly. “When you find out, let us know, kitten. I’m sure it’s somewherein those books you’re so fond of.” Beneath the sarcasm lay a genuine hope that one day we might have an answer.
While Bale did his version of the dishes, dumping them into the sink to be handled later, I squeezed Harlow’s hand reassuringly.
“You said that the Council mentioned a harvest hunt. Is that…?”
She was too fucking smart for her own good.
“The corn maze chase,” Bale bluntly confirmed for her.
