“Dreams don't put food on the table, baby girl.”
But Missy had seen the faded photograph hidden in her grandmother's sewing box. The one that captured a moment in time of a younger Amelia. The one with bright eyes and a theater playbill clutched in her hand. The two of them were much more alike than her grandmother cared to admit.
When Missy’s stream of urine finally ceased, she reached into her jacket pocket and extracted a napkin saved earlier from her funnel cake, the paper still sticky with powdered sugar. It wasn't ideal, but it would have to do. She wiped herself quickly, grimacing with disgust when she had no choice but to stuff the napkin back into her pocket.
Standing required more coordination than she expected, her legs stiff from squatting. She nearly toppled over, catching herself with her fingertips against the hard ground. Once she was steady enough, she managed to pull up her underwear and jeans without any further issues.
“Missy.”
Her head snapped up.
Her name had practically slithered through the night air, and she was confident that it wasn’t her imagination.
“Hello?” Missy winced when her voice was louder and higher than she had intended. “Is someone there?”
Silence answered her.
Missy swallowed hard, the involuntary action clicking audibly in the stillness. She squinted into the darkness as she slowly knelt to locate her phone. At least it was in an area that didn’t contain her urine. It took her at least a minute rummaging through the dead leaves and debris before her fingers came into contact with the plastic case.
“Help me.”
The voice was louder this time around, though still a raspy whisper. Missy instantly recognized the voice. At least, she was relatively sure who was nearby.
“Richie? That’s not funny.”
The festival lights seemed miles away now, their cheerful glow barely penetrating the woods where she stood. Shadows pooled between trunks, darker patches within the darkness where anything—or anyone—could hide.
Richie was well aware of her fear.
They had all grown up hearing about theThreshing Man. But she was seventeen, not seven. She was old enough to recognize the legend for what it was—a story meant to keep children close to home during the harvest season, when farm equipment and hunting accidents posed real dangers.
Still, the timing sent a chill through her that had nothing to do with the residual reaction of Old Man Gleason’s moonshine.
Someone always disappeared during harvest season. Urban legend or no urban legend, no one could dispute that fact. Missy recalled her grandmother describing theThreshing Man. He wore tattered clothes that rustled like dried corn husks, he was over eight feet tall, and there were hollow spaces where his eyes should have been.
He comes when the harvest moon is full, taking what's owed.
A nervous laugh escaped her lips right before a flash of anger took hold. Richie had probably corralled the others into playing a prank on her. If she were honest with herself, a part of her was relieved that she was leaving him behind.
The day of graduation would be the start of her new life. By the time May came around, she would have saved enough money for a bus ticket to Nashville. All she needed was to convince Lucas Solomon to go with her. This place, these woods, these superstitions…well, they would all be memories soon enough.
“Help me.”
Missy had been wrong about Richie and her friends. They weren’t playing some sick joke. The voice cutting through the darkness sounded a bit deeper. She didn’t waste a second turning on the flashlight on her phone. Aiming the beam in the general vicinity of the plea, she couldn’t make out any silhouette.
“Where are you?” Missy called out, taking a few steps forward. “I can't see you.”
At first, a sob answered her. Missy began to second-guess her decision to let Richie and the others off the hook. She could easily picture them offering up a jar of moonshine to get someone else to scare her.
“I’m stuck. Chuck and his friends said they wanted to show me something, and then they pushed me into some type of netting. I can’t get my ankle loose. They left me here.”
Missy groaned, all the pieces clicking into place.
Chuck Nords was a year younger than her, and he had made a sport of tormenting others since elementary school. The same Chuck who had put a frog in her backpack in sixth grade and locked a freshman in the supply closet last month.
“Keep talking,” Missy said with resignation. She really should go back to the festival, find Richie and the others. That would be the smart choice, but she also commiserated with the boy. There was nothing worse than being helpless. The kid would only be embarrassed if other boys had to rescue him. “I'll find you.”
“I—I think I'm by some fallen tree. And this netting is thick." The boy's voice cracked a little. She would have been scared, too. She lowered the beam on her phone to make sure she wouldn’t trip over a branch or rock. “They said theThreshing Manwould find me.”
