Sackcloth had been thrust over Erin's head. It smelt damp and itched her face with every movement. Kneeling on the hardwood chapel floor, Jack tied her hands around a splintered column. Pain swelled between her shoulders. A clawing hunger rumbled around her stomach like an oil-deprived engine.
Erin shivered. Her skin prickling with goosebumps. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
She'd felt it the moment they'd stepped onto BootHill.
This was a forsaken place. A place that dealt in death and punishment. Nothing more.
Why would BootHill be any more lenient to her? To Marshall, Socks, and Twelve? It wouldn't. It couldn't. That's all this place was.
Death and punishment. Nothing more.
"Twelve? Marshall? Are you okay?" she called. "Where are you?"
"I'm here," replied Marshall, somewhere to her left.
"Erin. I'm okay."
Twelve was ahead of her, somewhere in the middle of the chapel.
Wickermen scurried to and fro, muttering amongst themselves.
Mixing with the damp stench inside the sackcloth, was another strange smell. A putrid, rotten stench.
Erin inched forward but her bindings held fast. Disorientated by the sackcloth, she slipped, twisting awkwardly. A stab of pain roared across her spine. Angling her body to help relieve it, she ended up clattering to the ground.
The floor erupted with the smell of rotten wood and dead leaves.
With her ear pressed against it, she could hear the subterranean scurry of rodents and insects and stubborn, enduring life. Life that had refused to accept the doctrines of BootHill and slip, silently away. Life that had found a way to survive.
Perhaps there was hope.
Just a sliver.
Her fall shifted the sackcloth, revealing a small tear where she could view the room. Early morning shadows spread across the chapel floor, vibrating with the heat from a small fire in the centre. Positioned around the fire were six gnarled tree trunks. Two of them were occupied.
On the first sat Loren, the wickerwoman. She wore a battered Stetson and a thick leather belt studded with rhinestones and bloodied feathers. Tomas stood behind her, whispering something into her ear.
The other person wore a long, dark cloak that pooled on the dusty floor. It was made from dark squares of material, each about the size of a human hand, crudely stitched together with course thread. Bunched, uneven, lopsided.
"Patchwork," whispered Erin to herself, examining the long, black cloak.
The figure rose as Twelve staggered forward.
"The scare—crow," the figure in the patchwork cloak said, drawing the word out as through savouring it on her tongue. "I hear impressive things of you. Skills that I would have at my side, should you prove trustworthy. You built a boat and sailed The Endless Blue. You rescued a wickerman, sought an accord with Bavorski Beetlestone, and fought your way out of The Scrapers, taking down Harunara for good measure." Her voice was undeniably female but rough and sore, like her tongue was made of sandpaper. "You're a one scarecrow army— Twelve. Can I call you Twelve? I feel like I already know you."
"That is my name."
The woman laughed drily beneath the shadows of her cloak.
"A simple-minded creature, aren't you? Somewhat of a battering ram. All grunt, no finesse. But useful in a tight spot, I'll grant you."
Twelve fidgeted.
"And you're The Patchwork Woman, I suppose."
Sinking her hands into deep pockets, her head raised atop her slim shoulders, the woman took a long breath. "My name?" she said. "Yes. Some call me The Patchwork Woman. It sounds— imposing, yes?"
She bent her head to one side, her neck cracked.
Erin winced at the sound, the horrible smell in the room making her want to vomit.
"What do you want with us?" Twelve asked.
The Patchwork Woman sniffed. "You? Nothing much. I want warriors. You'd definitely qualify. But every part of me is screaming an alarm. Can you be trusted, Twelve? You wouldn't betray me, would you?"
"What makes you think I want to fight for you?"
"If not for me, then who? The birds, the mannequins— the girl?"
Erin felt The Patchwork Woman's gaze settle on her.
"Harunara's mannequins have been overthrown. Bavorski Beetlestone and The Blue King have settled their differences—" Twelve tried.
"Ah, yes," The Patchwork Woman interrupted. "The dog. Socks. What a ludicrous name. A creature that was once stolen as two colonies battled for ownership of The Endless Blue. But now the mutt is returned. An olive branch. A peace treaty. A union of the sky and The Scrapers against a mutual foe."
Initially, Erin wondered how The Patchwork Woman knew all of this.
She put it down to dark magic or arcane sorcery, but then she caught a glimpse of Jack loitering at the edge of the fire, his foot raised on one of the trunks.
Of course. The liar. The turncoat. He'd told her everything.
"Why do you want to destroy them?" Twelve asked.
"Me?" she replied. "I think you have your facts jumbled."
"Jumbled?"
"I do not seek war and destruction," The Patchwork Woman explained, her hands slipping from her pockets and spreading down her legs.
Erin's eye shot to the woman's hands.
Instead of being smooth and plain like her own, they looked malformed. Her hands were predominantly pale, but several of the fingers were much darker, as though burnt over a ferocious heat.
"All I want is the world," she went on, her head angled towards Twelve again. "The quickest way to end a war is lose. The wickermen— and Loren, here— were smart enough to acknowledge that. I promised them all manner of riches for their immediate surrender and allegiance. A return to their human bodies. A rebirth. A dream that I, too, am searching for."
"Erin," Twelve whispered.
"Yes," The Patchwork Woman hissed. Her body quivered excitedly. "Erin. The last human girl. And she's all mine."
A strangled scream lodge itself in Erin's throat.
Twelve was on her feet immediately. "Never," she cried, pulling a handful of arrows from beneath her ruined pirate jacket.
Stepping through the fire, she plunged the arrowheads into The Patchwork Woman's chest. They slipped through her clothing and imbedded themselves in something other than flesh. At least, that's how it seemed. Twelve released the arrows, then crashed backwards, exhausted, falling over the tree trunk, rolling through dust and fallen roof beams that cracked and split beneath her monstrous frame.
The Patchwork Woman took three long paces then vaulted into the air. Landing deftly, she straddled two tree trunks, looming menacingly over the fallen scarecrow. She grabbed the arrows and tore them from her chest.
"As I thought," she said, throwing the arrows aside. "Untrustworthy. Deceitful. And false."
And with that, she pulled a cord at the top of her cloak. The entire garment parted like a curtain and dropped to the ground.
Erin's scream bubbled on her lips. She realised then that The Patchwork Woman's name had nothing to do with the dark, fragmented cloak that she wore at all.
The truth was a true horror to behold.
YOU ARE READING
The Last Scarecrow
Fantasy(Scarecrows of Coldharbour Farm #1) WINNER Wattys 2021 | '...adorable and heartbreaking...' Erin loved to build scarecrows. She made a dozen in all. Her Pa showed her how. But he's dead now. Everyone is dead. The Many Years Storm saw to that. Terrif...
