Scarecrow (9 page)

“Hey, you okay?”

My head shot up, and I returned Franny’s smile. “Lead the way. I’m ready for anything.”

“Not for this, you’re not.” Franny warned me. She grasped my arm and yanked me through the last thickness of trees. “My Prince,” Franny announced, and her voice lowered breathlessly. “My Prince Charming.”

In that first crazy instant I thought it was Seth.

Seth standing there against a backdrop of meshed trees and towering hills and glimpses of ice blue sky between flaming red leaves. Seth, menacing and invincible and relentlessly watchful…But of course I realized in the next second that it was only Seth’s clothes and not a real person at all, and as my heart caught fearfully in my chest, I managed to take a step forward, to keep my voice steady.

“Franny…it’s so…” My voice trailed off as I stared up into its almost-human face. Whereas all the other scarecrows I’d seen until now had been makeshift forms of the most primitive kind, this one was frighteningly different. His head was uncannily lifelike—beneath a hat and a thick shock of what appeared to be real human hair, a face gazed back at me with features that seemed to shift and alter even as I watched. Amazed, I took a step closer, trying to examine the cheeks without touching them, the chin, the smooth forehead, the wrinkles at the corners of the eyes. It looked like
real
skin, so supple in places, so taut in others, and all of it so natural,
so natural,
except for the white, white coloring and the black holes where eyes should have been. The eyes…My hands reached out, hesitated just inches from those empty, repulsive eyes, yet at the same time they were so horribly beautiful and fascinating and I was afraid, wanting to back away from him, wanting to give in and caress the lines of his cheeks…

“Well,” Franny demanded, “was I right?”

“He’s so real,” I murmured, and my hand, groping again toward his face, halted once more in midair.

“It’s all right, you can touch him.”

But I didn’t. I couldn’t. My hand lowered to my side as I shuddered. “What…is it made of? It looks so
real.”

“Not it.
He!
But do you think so really?” Franny asked urgently. She followed my slow gaze up the front of the scarecrow, to his impassive face. “He
is
real.”

“Girlie thinks everything is real…
”
But they were talking about a child, not Franny…not this….

I stared at Franny, something in her voice sending pinpricks up my spine. A low wind sighed through the orchard, rattling the branches around us, above us, stirring the scarecrow uneasily beneath his clothes. Franny cast me a sidelong glance and laughed, the sound echoing unnaturally into the quiet.

“He’s real to me. That’s what I meant. But I can’t say, can I?”

I wasn’t sure I understood. “Can’t say what? That he’s real?”

“Course I can’t. They’d say I was like Girlie—which I’m not.” For a second she looked annoyed. “And, anyhow, Seth would wear me out if he caught me talking that way.”

I wondered if Franny even realized how much the scarecrow resembled Seth, but I decided against mentioning it. “What way?” I asked instead.

Franny’s lower lip jutted out; she flounced over and snapped off a twig. “He hates it when I talk about boys and stuff. All the nice things I’d like to have. And I
should
have them anyhow. I got a right to have nice things, and if Seth doesn’t want them he doesn’t have to have them.”

I listened, surprised at the obvious distress on her face.

“He tries to hide us all up here. Never see anybody. Never do anything. It’s not fair. It’s
my
life, too, and I got a right to a nice life, don’t I?” She glared at me, not waiting for an answer. “Oh, he thinks I don’t know about the world out there, but I do. Oh, I do, I do, I do.” She wrapped her arms about herself and waltzed gently back and forth, just a few steps, and gave me a dreamy smile. “Dewey—when he comes here to get eggs and bring our stuff—he sneaks me magazines sometimes—and I hide them and read them when nobody’s around.” She looked so pleased with herself that I had to smile.

“And what would Seth say to that?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter ’cause he’ll never find out!” she grinned, and waltzed again. “And me—I know about that world out there, and pretty clothes, and parties, and money—”

“It’s not all like that.” I wanted to tell her, tell her how different it could be, the reality of it all. I wanted to tell her about the really important things—love and family and people who really care. I wanted to tell Franny about all of this, about the things she already had right here, but she didn’t seem to want any opinions, and when I opened my mouth to speak, she rushed on again.

“And I know about boys out there and how they’re all strong and rich and handsome and smart.” She stopped dancing and a little smile played at the corners of her mouth. “How they make love to a girl and make her feel so pretty…” She broke off and looked at me directly. “How many times have you made love?”

I regarded her for several moments without speaking, feeling foolish, knowing my cheeks had reddened, but knowing by the pleading intensity of her face that she expected an honest answer. “Well.” I laughed uneasily. “I don’t think I ever kept count.”

Franny’s shoulders moved in a noiseless sigh. “Millions, probably. Was it…beautiful?”

“Yes.” My eyes lowered, not embarrassed now, but sad, and I forced Brad from my mind, steadily meeting Franny’s gaze again.

“Oh, I just knew it,” Franny breathed. “I just knew it would be.” She looked so serious and then she laughed, a carefree flirtatious laugh. “I dream about it all the time—how it’ll be—having somebody love me that way.”

“It’s natural at your age to think about those things. You shouldn’t be ashamed of your feelings. Someday you
will
be loved that way—”

“Oh, but I’m
not
ashamed.” Her wise eyes regarded me serenely, no hint of embarrassment. “No, I’m most certainly not.” The sadness had left her voice now, the anger, the yearning. She put out her hand and plucked at the scarecrow’s frayed cuff. “Dewey and me—one time when Seth was out working in the fields—”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Franny rushed on.

“We went in the smokehouse, see, and he showed me some things. Not
serious
things, you know, ’cause he’s married and he’s
old,
but…” Her eyes brightened mischievously, no hint of remorse. “He put his hand in my shirt.” She pointed to her breasts. “And I felt it…clear down…” She motioned between her legs. “Here. It felt
so
nice,” she sighed. “I’m sure I’d just love all the rest of it.”

I pondered a moment before I spoke. “With the right person it’s wonderful, but—”

“Oh, I never see anybody around here,” Franny cut in impatiently. “Dewey’s no fun, he’s too ugly anyhow. That’s why I made
him.”
She patted her scarecrow. “That’s why I made my Prince Charming.”

I looked silently at the scarecrow again. He really did look so much like Seth, it was unnerving.
How strange that this thing she loves, resembles what she hates so much…

“He’s my boyfriend,” Franny went on.
“My boyfriend.
I come here sometimes and talk to him and nobody knows.”

“Not even Seth?”

She shook her head. “I pretend I’m meeting him after dark, and he’s hiding here waiting for me, and I sneak out of the house late at night and we talk about so many things. I swear I’ll love him forever, and he swears he’ll take me away…” Her voice drifted, her fingers trailing slowly down the front of the scarecrow, down his bony frame, down, and up again, almost reverently…“And then…sometimes…” she glanced at me, her voice low and shy, hesitant now, “sometimes he makes
love
to me…here on the grass, on the leaves…under the moon…”

I watched her, transfixed, her young face transformed with aching, watched her slender, work-worn fingers move up again to his face and his skin, the cold, pale skin, and the black, soulless eyes, and he looked so much like Seth, the skin so real…

“Touch him,” Franny whispered, “touch him now…” and I couldn’t help myself, raising my fingers to the hollows of his cheek, the coldness, the startling texture of skin beneath skin—and a sharp cry of fear rose in my throat as the skin began to
move, responding
to my touch,
responding, yearning, pulsing
beneath my fingertips, and the skin seemed to cling to me like my own skin, melting, molding to my own so that all at once I tore myself free and stared at Franny in mingled horror and disbelief.

“You feel it, too, don’t you?” Franny smiled knowingly. “How real he is—”

“What is that, Franny—it feels—
alive.
”

The girl’s eyes lingered on me a moment, and then she giggled. “Why, it’s just a hide, Pam, an animal skin. What did you
think
it was?”

I rubbed clumsily at my fingers, as if I could somehow rid them of the whole unpleasant experience, and I knew I looked flustered and confused as Franny continued to watch.

“Well, of course I knew it was something like that.” I forced a smile that felt totally foreign to my lips, and my breath came out in an equally forced laugh. “It felt so…so strange…”

“Be careful now, or you’ll hurt his feelings.” Franny laughed loudly, her old self, and I began to relax a little as she pulled me down beside her on the ground. “And here all summer long I’ve been telling him how handsome he is.”

“What were the other scarecrows like? The others that you made?” I asked her. “Were all of them Prince Charmings like this one?”

Franny gave her straight hair a perfunctory shake. “No. Oh, they were all
wonderful,
as you can guess,” she said, giggling, “but none of them have ever been like him. He’s special.”

I chanced another look up at the scarecrow, a bony Seth pinioned against the sky. I glanced quickly away. “He does have a certain presence, I must admit.”

“Well, I think it’s downright mean of Seth to make me burn him, Franny pouted. He’s my scarecrow, and I should be able to do what I want with him.”

“Do you really have to burn him? It does seem a shame after all your hard work.”

The look Franny gave me was derisive. “Yes, I have to. He’ll
make
me do it. He
always
makes us do it.”

“But why?” I looked at her incredulously. “I really can’t see the point—”

“Look,” Franny said. “There doesn’t have to be any point at all. The only point is that Seth says so. And we have to do what Seth says.”

I heard the raw anger in her tone…saw her lovingly finger the faded hem of the scarecrow’s shirt.
She really loves this thing…whether it’s right or wrong, she feels it’s all she has…
The realization hit me, and in spite of everything, I felt a twinge of righteous indignation.

“And what would happen if you didn’t?”

“Oh, Seth wouldn’t like it. He’d be really mad at me.” Franny said simply without a moment’s hesitation. “If I didn’t do it, he’d do it himself. And I’d get in awful trouble.”

“I see.”

She nodded, more to herself than to me, and her quick fingers worked themselves in under the yellow-gold leaves, scattering colors across her knees, sifting a fine spray of dirt into the lap of her skirt. “I don’t like doing things I don’t want to do.”

Hearing those words made me chuckle as long-ago memories surfaced unexpectedly. I hadn’t thought of them in years, but now I saw myself in Franny’s rebelliousness, and it amused me. “You know my father was very much like Seth in some ways—stern, demanding, always expecting so much out of me. In fact, I thought he was horrid at times, he’d make me so angry.”

“Did you ever want to run away from home?” Franny looked up with interest.

“Oh, lots of times.”

“And did you?”

“No.” My smile faded. “I was always too afraid.”

“So what did you do?”

“Stayed,” I sighed. “And never took chances.”

“Then I expect you weren’t much of a handful like I am.” Franny grinned. “You’re so quiet. And sadlike. Sometimes it’s like you’re not feeling things at all.”

I looked at her in a mixture of surprise and admission. “Things happen,” I said softly, turning away. “In life, things happen that can make you not
want
to feel anything.”

Franny shrugged. “But you
did
get away. You did get away from home
finally.”
She sounded so wistful that our eyes met. Yes, I thought, yes,
but I never ever took those chances and now it’s too late, and I’d like to get away from here, too, just like you, only I’m still afraid…

Franny’s long sigh brought me back to the moment. “You got away, but I never will. Not if Seth has anything to say about it.”

“Oh, Franny, maybe he’ll change his mind, maybe—”

“Nobody ever leaves here,” she said dully, her eyes fixing upon my face. “They never have, and they never will. It’s the way it’s always been.”

A cold chill snaked through me as I stared at her, and without warning Micah’s voice whispered insistently at the back of my mind,
“I’ll help you get away.”
Shaken, I willed it away and tried to focus once more on Franny.

She was staring mournfully up at her scarecrow, at his ragged sleeves billowing in the wind, at his head nodding slowly, rhythmically, as if he understood and sympathized, ready to die a martyr’s death for her sake. His skin seemed to tremble—some muscle in his make-believe jaw. I could swear I saw his chest rise ever so slightly with an invisible breath.

“I reckon I oughta take him down before Seth does.”

I patted her arm. “I’ll be glad to help you.”

Franny shook her head. “No. You’d best get on back to the house. Can you find your way?”

“I think so.”

“Then I’ll see you later.”

On impulse I gave her shoulders a squeeze, but she only shrugged despondently, sending me off with a sad smile. As I made my way back through the orchard I couldn’t stop thinking about this strict adherence to ritual, these obsessions with tradition and Seth’s rules. At this particular time in Franny’s young life, she
needed
her special fantasies and dreams—surely Seth could see that the harder he was on her, the more resentful she’d feel and the more she’d long to run away. It didn’t seem natural to me, this squelching of a girl’s restless spirit, yet as I broke through the trees and surveyed the patchy yard, the sagging barn, the broken-down wagon, and Girlie squatting on the step with some wooden plaything, it hit me again how unnatural this whole place was. I wished more than anything to be free of it.