Every harvest, the scarecrow in the high field turns on its pole. It points one straw arm at a house, and before the snow that family packs up and leaves. They never write back. This year Wren counted the empty homes: eleven gone. Last week the scarecrow turned. Its arm now points straight at Wren's own front door. That makes them the twelfth. This morning the crows stopped singing all at once, and the field went dead quiet. Wren stands at the fence, heart pounding, and decides not to wait for the snow.

Wren decides the scarecrow only has power while it stands. So they grab the gas can from the shed and a box of matches. "If you can't point, you can't choose," Wren whispers, and starts climbing the fence with the can sloshing in one hand.

Wren douses the scarecrow in gas and strikes a match. The flames roar up fast. But as it burns, the fire doesn't make smoke, it makes a sound, like a hundred voices crying out at once. The straw turns to ash, and eleven shapes made of smoke rise up and drift toward Wren.

The smoke shapes circle Wren once, then sigh and float up into the sky like they've been waiting years to be let go. The fire dies. Where the scarecrow stood, there's only clean ground and quiet. Wren walks home, and the crows follow, singing the whole way. The empty houses won't be empty for long.