They told stories in Eldergrove about the Harvest Man.
Every autumn, when the leaves turned brittle and the air tasted of woodsmoke, the elders spoke of him in hushed tones. A tall figure stitched together from dead branches and rotting burlap, with a hollow grin and eyes like dried pits.
He came for the disobedient. The greedy. The ones who dared take from the earth without giving back.
Mara always thought it was just a story. A tale spun by superstitious villagers. Until the night she saw him.
That autumn was cruel. The harvest failed early, frost creeping over the fields like a thief in the night. The townsfolk grew desperate. When the last storehouses emptied, and the bones of livestock littered the frostbitten ground, whispers began.
“A sacrifice,” old Widow Ainsley muttered in the square. “It’s the only way. It always was.”
They chose Owen Maddox. A loner. Drunk more often than sober. Accused of stealing grain from the mill. The perfect scapegoat.
Mara’s father, the village headman, was among those who bound him and left him in the clearing by the old stone well at sundown.
“The Harvest Man will take what’s owed,” they said.
Mara watched from her window, disgust and fear coiling in her stomach. She didn’t believe in ghost stories. Didn’t believe in ancient things that walked at night.
Until the wind changed.
It came suddenly — a foul, sharp scent like rotting leaves and old blood. The branches outside scraped against the house with skeletal fingers.
And then she heard it.
A rasping voice carried on the wind.
“Oooooooweeen…”
Mara’s skin prickled. The air inside her room thickened. A terrible, heavy presence settled over the village.
A scream tore through the night.
It wasn’t human.
It was the sound of branches snapping, of earth splitting, of something ancient waking from long-forgotten soil.
Mara’s heart pounded. Against every instinct, she crept from her room, past her snoring father, and into the night.
The village square was deserted. A trail of broken branches and muddy footprints led toward the woods. The moon hung low and sickly, casting everything in a pale, bruised light.
At the clearing by the old well, Owen was gone.
In his place, a crude figure stood — seven feet tall, made of twisted wood and bound with rope. Its head was a decayed sackcloth mask with empty holes for eyes.
And on the ground, a smear of blood.
Mara’s stomach lurched. She turned to flee, but the figure twitched. A slow, jerky motion as it turned toward her.
And spoke.
“One… is not… enough.”
A terrible, dry chuckle filled the clearing as the Harvest Man stepped forward. Twigs cracked beneath its feet, and the earth seemed to pulse with each step.
Mara ran.
Branches snagged her hair and tore her dress as she sprinted through the woods. The voice followed, a rasping chant in the wind.
“Give… give… give…”
She stumbled into the village just as the first pale light of dawn touched the sky. The Harvest Man did not cross the threshold. It stood at the edge of the trees, watching, its grin stretching impossibly wide.
The villagers found her trembling by the well.
She told them what she saw.
Some wept. Some crossed themselves. The old ones merely nodded.
“It’s begun again,” Widow Ainsley whispered. “He’ll come each season now. Until the debt is paid.”
And so, from that year forward, Eldergrove made its offering. Every harvest moon, one would be chosen. Bound and left by the well.
Sometimes a thief. Sometimes a liar. Sometimes… no one at all.
But the Harvest Man still came.
Mara left Eldergrove when she was eighteen, never to return.
But on autumn nights, when the wind grows cold and the scent of rot hangs in the air, she dreams of him.
And in those dreams, the Harvest Man calls her name.
“Mara…”
Because some debts are never forgiven.
