Too bad she wasn't Supermom for real. X-ray vision would come in handy right now. The light was a little better up here, thanks to the large triangles cut into each end of the barn. Uneven squares of dirty blond hay were stacked around like an autistic giant's alphabet blocks. Stalks of tobacco dangled upside down at the far end of the barn, speared on poles, the drying leaves like the wings of reddish brown bats.
Could Jett be playing some bizarre game of hide-and-seek? She wasn't the type to scream. If Jett wanted to get attention, she usually came up with some mind-blowing observation or another. But Katy had been neglecting Jett in favor of Gordon lately, even though Jett's world had been shaken more than anyone's by the move to Solom.
"Okay, Jett," she said. "Fun's over. Come on out."
She heard a giggle, or maybe it was only a breeze rifling the parched tobacco.
"Dinner's probably burning," Katy said. "If you thought the swordfish was bad wait until you smell scorched cabbage."
Katy felt silly holding the knife, so she rucked it behind her back as she headed between the rows of hay. The air was as thick as snuff, motes spinning in the shafts of dying sunlight. A few loose piles of hay were scattered here and there, near the black square holes in the floor through which food was thrown down to the animals. Katy expected Jett to jump from behind a stack at any moment, or burst up from one of the hay piles in a sneeze-inducing spray of gold. Good prank, except that would spoil dinner. She wanted Gordon in a good mood so maybe they could finally finish consummating their marriage.
"Cute, honey. We can have a good laugh over the dinner table."
No answer. The time Jett had taken acid in Charlotte, she'd stayed out all night, hiding in a storm sewage pipe, showing up late for school the next day, dirty, wild-eyed and ravaged by insects. Katy, who had waited up sleepless and had several times resisted the urge to call the police, had picked her up from school, taken her to the doctor, and let the school psychologist give the lecture. Something in Jett had changed after that, a drifting look in her eyes, a secretive smile that spoke of more journeys to come. Hopefully this wasn't one of them.
Katy made her way through the maze of bales to the far end of me barn. She looked through the triangle to the wooded hills above. A few goats dotted the slopes, browsing in the brush at the edge of the forest. In the adjacent meadow, separated by a stitch of fencing, cows worked the grass, their heads swiveling, ears twitching against the insects. She was about to turn back to explore the loft again when a light flickered in the distant trees.
Somebody with a lantern or flashlight. The ridge was Gordon's property. It was nearly hunting season, but Gordon's land was posted. Gordon said his neighbors were always welcome, as long as no bullets flew around and no drunken hunters mistook his cows for oversize deer. She'd have to tell him about the trespassing later, when such ordinary oddities would matter.
"Jett, seriously. Don't make me get mad." She tapped the knife against a post. "The scarecrow trick was a good one. Spooked the living daylights out of me. I bet you can't wait to tell Gordon."
No answer. Maybe Jett had already slipped down the stairs and was waiting at the dinner table, or in her room, cheeks swollen with the laughter she was storing up. At any rate, Jett was twelve and could find her way to the house with no trouble, even in the dark. Even stoned out of her eyeballs.
But that scream-
It hadn't sounded like a joke.
If there had even been a scream. Maybe, like the perfume in the kitchen or the footsteps that had no legs, the scream had been nothing more than invisible smoke. The farm wasn't haunted. Despite the way Gordon's first wife had died.
This was silly. Jett had promised to quit drugs as part of their new life. If a mother and daughter couldn't trust each other, they were hopeless anyway. Katy decided she would check on dinner, and if she didn't see Jett in the house, she would grab a flashlight and return. Without the knife.
"Okay, Jett," she yelled, her words stifled by the hay. "I'm going back to the house."
The lower floor of the barn was darker as she descended the stairs. The air was as cool as a cellar. A soft, moist sighing arose from the packed floor. She swallowed hard and took another step, nearly slipping to fall alongside the prone scarecrow. Something large and pale moved in the shadows, and Katy tightened her grip on the knife.
Damn Gordon and his mountain legends. The one about the haunted scarecrow, in particular. About how it only walked at late harvest, when the corn was turning hard and brown and the first frosts settled on the land. According to legend, the Scarecrow climbed down from the stake where it had hung all growing season like a neglected Christ on the cross. Then it dragged itself into the barn, where it feasted on one of the animals, filling its dry throat with fresh blood. Sustained until winter, the scarecrow then returned to its stake, though on moonlit nights you might see rusty red spots on its sackcloth head. Gordon's eyes glistened as he'd told the story, and Katy had given the uneasy laugh he expected in response.
This was the right time of year. And the scarecrow that had fallen at her feet looked just like the one that leaned broken and sad in the cornfield at the end of the vegetable garden.
No. That was just a mountain folk tale. Not a wives' tale, because no wife would be so stupid as to pass along a story like that. Katy could come up with a rational explanation. Holder of a business degree from Queen's College, assistant to the board of directors at Wachovia Bank, she was made of stern stuff. Almost boring bat ultimately practical.
So think.
Surely a big farm like this one had several scarecrows. Gordon's family had probably saved them, the same way frugal farm families had always hoarded things that could be used again. Besides, it was just a sack of straw. Flannel and old denim and straps. No matter the legends.
The dim outline of the scarecrow made a lesser darkness on the floor, the gray socks of the feet poking out of the jeans, gloves at the end of each sleeve. The left sock, the one closest to her, twitched.
The wind, had to be. Except the air was as still as sundown.
Katy put out her own foot, meaning to kick the sock in case a frantic mouse was inside and upset that its nest had been disturbed. The straw toes flexed and curled, and then the foot kicked back at her.
The scarecrow would rise to its elbows and knees and haul itself off to eat a chicken or pig or maybe even a cow, ready to gnaw with those teeth-what would its teeth be? — kernels of giant, hardened corn, piercing flesh and grinding bone and-
The boots sounded above her again.
She hadn't imagined them. Despite her hallucinations in the house, she wasn't losing her mind. Scarecrows didn't move by themselves and her new house wasn't haunted. Never mind Gordon's goddamned legends.
Crumbs of straw fell in a snow between the cracks in the flooring planks above. Someone was up there for real.
The barn door beckoned. Twenty steps and Katy would be out of there, away from animated scarecrows and footfalls and demented goats.
And away from Jett.
Katy paused heart like a horseshoe in her throat.
She couldn't leave Jett here.
If Jett even was here.
The barn had grown darker, the sun settling behind the trees on the ridgeline, fingers of deep red light reaching across the valley. The footsteps above had ceased. Katy's palm was a wooden knot around the knife handle. What good would a knife do against an animated scarecrow? Even if she shredded the cloth, dug into the chest, and found the rag-ball heart, would that even slow it down? Or would it keep crawling, rubbing against her, choking her with its chaff, that uneven grin never changing?
A knock came from one of the stalls. It was soft but insistent, like the hammering of a dying rain.