She woke up and he was in her bedroom, standing over her, smelling like musty straw and over ripened corn.
"I need a brain," he whispered, and she knew where the nightmare had come from. The Wizard, of course, what a silly thing to watch before bed. A scarecrow that needed a brain wasn't nearly as innocent as it sounded on the surface, apparently.
"I'm sorry," she muttered, hoping not to encourage the dream further. She pointed to the open bag of mini candy bars left over on her nightstand. "Have some candy, scarecrow."
She pulled the covers over her head and went back to sleep. In the morning, she looked out her window and sure enough, the scarecrow was just where he was supposed to be, posed above the cornfield with his arms outstretched like Jesus.
The day was long and hard, lots of animals to tend to, lots of cooking preparation with Mama to ensure a hot dinner when Daddy came home after a day in the field. When they were eating, Daddy was much quieter than usual, but Chelsea knew better than to ask if anything was wrong. Luckily, Mama asked instead.
"It's okay," Daddy said through a mouthful of fried pork chop. "It's just that something is wrong with the corn."
"The corn?" Mama asked, her voice low. "Oh, no, Dylan. We're supposed to sell that crop in just a few weeks. What's the matter with it?"
"It's the strangest thing," Daddy said. "Some of the ears seem to be missing their kernels. They're just dry husks filled with nothing. No worms, no disease. They're just....bare."
"Oh my Lord," Mama sighed. "We had better find a way to fix it. We need that money."
Chelsea tried not to let her parents' stress get to her too much. They'd be okay, she told herself, they always were, they'd seen bad crops before. Before bed, she gazed out her window. In the light of the moon, she could see the scarecrow hovering over the corn. His wide brimmed hat cast a black shadow over his entire face. Suddenly he twitched, just a small quick twitch, but enough to make Chelsea jump out of her skin.
She climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. There's no way he moved, she thought. There's just no way.
But after she fell asleep, Chelsea was awakened to a rasping sound. It was the scarecrow, standing in her room again, and this time she felt much more awake than before. The thing still stunk like musty straw and over ripened corn. It was holding Chelsea's Wizard of Oz tape.
"I need a brain," he moaned, and his voice sounded clumped with soil and burlap. "If I only had a brain."
"You can't have mine," Chelsea whispered, astonished at her own bravery. "You just can't, scarecrow. Go take someone else's."
The scarecrow stared at her in silence, his fabric face wrinkled in anger. Chelsea forced herself to close her eyes, and a few minutes later she heard the thing shuffling out of her room. She pinched herself, but didn't wake up. She wanted to look out the window to see if the scarecrow was on his post, but she knew that he wasn't, so instead she locked her bedroom door and dove back under the covers.
The next morning she was awakened to Mama screaming from outside. Chelsea sprinted downstairs, still in her nightshirt, but stopped dead when she almost stepped into a pool of blood soaked into the dirt in the front of the house.
Daddy's horse lay dead in the front clearing of the house. His head was torn open, with blood and yellow jelly strewn all around, his cracked skull gleaming white in the morning sun. Even from where she stood, Chelsea could see that his brain was missing. She looked up to the scarecrow in terror. There was red smeared down his front.
Despite her Mama's screams, Daddy seemed oddly calm, and Chelsea could swear she saw him shoot the scarecrow an extra glance or two while he dug a grave for the horse with his tractor. That night at dinner, Daddy told them that he was previously mistaken about the poor condition of the corn. The crop was lush now, he said. The kernels were full and juicy and as yellow as the sun. Everything was going to be okay.
The scarecrow didn't come into Chelsea's room again after that. Still, she threw away her copy of The Wizard of Oz, and when that luscious crop of corn was harvested, she didn't eat a single bite.
