Chapter Text
The boy found Polly right outside the corn maze of Rigby Farm, beside the empty post. She didn’t know him, she knew she didn’t, but still…
“We haven’t met before, have we?”
He was lanky-framed and taller than her, though about her age, with golden locks of hair sticking out in odd directions from beneath his black cap. His jacket was too worn out for the October weather, but apparently the flannel shirt he wore beneath that was warm enough. Maybe it was how his clothes hung off his narrow shoulders?
But why that, of all things?
He smiled, expression softening as a blush spread across his tanned, freckled nose. “Yeah, I’ve seen you around. I wouldn’t expect you to recognize me, though.”
“Oh.” Polly tried not to wince. She nervously toyed with her ponytail. “Do you come here every year?”
“Something like that.” He reached out to shake her hand but hesitated. He dropped his arm and flexed his fingers. “I’m Nathaniel Rigby.”
“Rigby?” Polly dropped her hair and gestured vaguely to their surroundings: the two-acre pumpkin patch, the maze, the produce stall. “As in this Rigby?”
Nathaniel nodded, looking over the horizon of corn stalks. “Yup. Ms. Rigby is my aunt.”
A murder of crows hopped around the empty post, sitting on its crossbeam or picking at the hay bales lining the fence. She bit the inside of her cheek—“one for sorrow, two for joy” crossed her thoughts—before she turned back around to face Nathaniel. “There used to be a scarecrow there. Do you know what happened to it?”
“The scarecrow?” He scratched the back of his neck. “That old thing? What does it matter?”
She blushed. Of all things to start with, she chose that. “Nostalgia, I guess.”
He looked at the empty spot, something distant and indistinct in his eyes, and chewed his lip. She almost apologized for asking before he laughed.
“I guess he must’ve abandoned his post.”
“Oh.” She dissolved into a giggling fit, burying her face in her hands. “Oh, no, that was awful!”
Nathaniel was too pleased with himself. “That was the last straw, wasn’t it?”
“Stop that!” She managed around her laughter.
And that was it. That was all it took.
* * *
They’d chatted until sunset; he leaned against the fence and she sat on the hay. Nathaniel was shy; each time Polly asked him a question, he grew awkward, hesitant to be the center of attention. Instead, she answered whatever he asked: her school, life in the city, living with her divorced father, and why she came to the farm. She fondly recalled the minutea of their traditions, even if her father refused to come with her this year.
“—Ms. Rigby built the scarecrow the same year I was born,” she waved to the empty post, “so Dad would take my picture with him, like a growth chart.”
“This scarecrow was really important to you, huh?”
“Yeah, it was…it was kind of silly, how much I cared.”
“Silly? Why?” he asked, voice soft.
Polly tugged on her ponytail. “It’s embarrassing.”
He cocked his head, his smile crooked. The crows had moved to the parking lot, pecking at the innards of a pumpkin that a dad had been unfortunate enough to drop, trying to juggle it and a tantrum-throwing toddler. Nathaniel, however, had let the man take one of the pumpkins from the produce stall. He was sweet; he probably wouldn’t judge her too much for her preteen, cringeworthy behavior.
“My cousins were in town—I think I was twelve at the time—and apparently I’d made such a big deal about the scarecrow that they…” She hid her face in her hands. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”
“You can’t just leave me hanging.” Nathaniel leaned forward, meeting her eyes as she peeked out between her fingers.
She took a deep breath. “They called the scarecrow my boyfriend.”
Nathaniel arched his brows, disbelieving.
Polly stared at him, shrinking back in shame. “Please say something.”
He pursed his lips, trying to hide his grin. “That’s adorable.”
“It’s dumb,” she groaned, dropping her arms to her side.
Nathaniel opened his mouth to speak, but someone deep in the maze shrieked. Polly shot to her feet.
He laughed lightly, his expression unsure. “You okay there?”
“Yeah.” She exhaled, resting her hand over her heart. “What’s going on in there? I didn’t think there were any scare actors.”
“Aunt Rigby set up mirrors in the dead ends,” he explained. “So you turn the corner and it looks like something’s coming at you, but then you recognize yourself. It’s just a cheap scare.”
“Cheap as in weak, or inexpensive?”
He shrugged. “Both.”
Polly rocked on her heels, examining the path leading into the maze. The ticket-taker sat in a booth near the entrance, bored out of his mind.
“Do...do you wanna go through?” Nathaniel asked.
She turned to reply, but he didn’t move: only the faint breeze rustled his clothes. He was so tense it uneased Polly.
“Kind of,” she said slowly. “But you probably noticed, I—”
A crow cawed and she yelped. Uncaring, the crow groomed his wings.
Nathaniel smiled. “Don’t like being scared?”
“Yeah—well, not really, I’m just—” Polly sighed, frustrated with herself. Why was she embarrassing herself so much tonight? “I mean, I love spooky stuff. I love Halloween, and creepy things, and superstitions. But I hate jumpscares.”
“Jumpscares?” He repeated it as if he’d never heard the term before.
“You know, the sudden, in-your-face scares.” She giggled, mostly to alleviate her nerves. “Horror movies, haunted houses—even the really bad ones at cheap old amusement parks are too much for me.”
Nathaniel shifted his weight, relaxing as he assessed the cornstalks.
“I know how to get through the maze,” he said.
Polly hesitated.
“We can check it out without running into any mirrors.” He promised.
“I only brought enough money for a pumpkin, I wasn’t expecting—”
“Ah-ah-ah!” He shook his finger as a crooked smile crept onto his face. “Miss Polly, I am a Rigby. No need to worry about that.”
Well, if he knew his way through, and could get them past the mirrors…
She giggled, scuffing the toe of her boot in the dirt as she turned around. “Okay then.”
Nathaniel perked up, and Polly held up her hand.
“Wait here for a second.”
She walked along the row of hay bales, and the crow that had been grooming himself squawked indignantly before flying off into the darkness. She grabbed one of the fresh feathers and smoothed it out before returning.
Polly had once heard that black feathers represented arcane knowledge and wisdom; she wanted to make some kind of joke, like the feather was insurance that they’d make it through, but she worried about insulting him. Instead, she came back and asked, “is this sufficient payment?”
He stared at it and laughed. “What do I do with that?”
“Here.” Polly reached up—she had to get on her tiptoes—and stuck the feather in his knit cap, just behind his ear. “How’s that?”
They were close; the blush deepened on his cheeks. “Ye-yeah, yes. Thank you.”
She smiled. “No problem. Let’s go.”
* * *
“Which way?”
Nathaniel hummed and tapped his chin; Polly glared at him, but smirked.
“Don’t tease me.”
He chuckled. “Okay, okay. This way.” He nodded to the path on the right and they set off again.
They walked in silence, straw crackling beneath their boots, as Polly tried to think of something to say. Awkwardness pervaded their interactions, but it did nothing to deter her from spending time with him. Polly didn’t know what to do after clicking with someone so easily.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, but couldn’t make out much in the darkness.
Things were happening faster than she would have anticipated.
“There are too many crows around here,” Nathaniel grumbled, pulling her out of her thoughts.
She shrugged. “Well, the scarecrow’s not here to do his job.”
“He was never any good at scaring them away.” He snorted. “Your boyfriend was terrible.”
“No,” Polly whined, slouching against him. “You’re not allowed to tease me!”
“Sorry.” Laughing, he looked down at her, eyes glittering in the sparse light—there were barely enough lamps to show the way—and smiled. “You’re just fun. I like being with you.”
She opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again, lowering her head. Her dirty-toed boots kicked up dust as they walked.
“You know,” Nathaniel said uncertainly, “I’d always wanted to talk with you.”
Always? As in every year? “Why didn’t you?”
“I…” His brow furrowed, and it was clear he was wrestling with himself. “I just couldn’t.”
“Shy?”
He laughed nervously. “Something like that.”
A crossroads stood straight ahead, a wall of stalks with a path running parallel to it
“Well, I’m glad you approached me this year,” she said. “I’m having fun, too.”
He glanced over in surprise, and they locked eyes. Polly couldn’t think of anything to say, feeling somewhat lost in an unfamiliar way. In the darkness, it was hard to tell where the paths of the maze led.
“Right or left?” she asked softly.
“Left.”
They moved forward, but her foot caught on a lamp’s cable; she yelped, stumbling, but Nathaniel caught her.
“You okay?”
She drew in a breath, kicking the cable off her foot. “Yeah, it’s just dark.”
Hesitantly, he took his hand out of his pocket and extended it to her. She carefully entwined their fingers and let go of the breath she’d been holding.
“Thanks.”
His palm was rough, almost leathery, which made sense for a farmboy. His hands weren’t warm, though they weren’t cold, either.
Why did that surprise her?
Polly watched as they kicked up dirt and scraps of cornstalk. She wanted to enjoy the quiet, but she needed to keep talking. A part of her feared that they wouldn’t get this chance again—which was ridiculous, she could take the bus down here anytime she wanted, she could ask him to write his number on the receipt when she finally bought her pumpkin—but still, their time felt limited. Tonight would end, she’d go back home, and Halloween would come and go.
They’d find their way out of the maze. Autumn would end.
If she wanted to keep talking, they’d need to jump wildly off subject.
Somewhere in the darkness of the maze, a crow cawed.
“I’ve heard that if you hear a crow call out at night, you’ll have bad luck for a year,” she said.
“Crows aren’t nocturnal though, right?” Nathaniel replied. “They aren’t active unless they’re disturbed.”
“Yeah. And people who are mean to birds deserve bad luck.” Polly argued, swinging their arms. “The logic tracks.”
“It really doesn’t.”
“You’re not a fan of superstitions, are you?”
“More like ‘not a fan of crows.’”
She laughed, barely stifling a snort.
Nathaniel glanced over, the corner of his mouth turned up. “However, I don’t know enough about superstitions to consider myself a fan.”
She blew a raspberry. “Boring. Do you know any at all?”
“I know the rhyme about crows,” he said.
A rowdy group of preteens shoved past them, squealing; she’d been too startled to react, but thankfully, Nathaniel pulled her out of the way. They stood, the cornstalks brushing their sides and catching in their sweaters.
“‘One for sorrow, two for mirth,’” Nathaniel recited, and his even tone calmed Polly slightly. “Something, something, ‘five for heaven, six for hell—’”
“I think you know an older version.” Polly drummed her fingers over his knuckles, fidgety. “I’ve heard ‘two for joy,’ and I don’t think parents would normally teach their kids ‘six for hell.’ Did you hear it from your aunt?”
“She did. That makes sense.” He shook his head, laughing. “The next line I know as ‘seven for the devil, his own self.’”
“Definitely an older version. It’s usually ‘seven for a secret, never to be told.’”
Nathaniel stood, staring at her, unmoving even as the cornstalks brushed against Polly uncomfortably. What little of the breeze that could squeeze through the stalks teased at the edges of his flannel and the feather in his beanie.
“Do you know any other rhymes for counting crows?” he asked.
His...tone, whatever it was, had Polly scrounging around her memory for something else, anything else.
“Well, I think there’s a version I read in some dictionary of superstitions,” she said, “and it went, ‘seven for a witch, I’ll tell no more.’ Or something.”
Taking a deep breath, Nathaniel looked aside, down to the dirt. At a loss for what else to do, Polly reached up with her free hand, straightening the feather behind his ear.
“How many crows do you think we’ve seen today?” she asked.
He raised his head, as if deep in thought. “At least seven.”
She laughed. “There’ve been at least thirty.”
Someone down the path shrieked, and Polly winced, before the person started laughing. Nathaniel squeezed her hand.
“Shoot…” he whispered. “I can’t remember where we came from.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know that we had to go straight,” Nathaniel said. She could feel his hand shaking. “but I can’t remember which it is from where we’d been.”
All they did was step aside, and they’d gotten disoriented. The corn maze suddenly felt a lot more nerve-wracking.
“Okay.” She tried not to cringe at how weak her voice sounded. “Well, let’s just pick one, and if you realize that we’re on the wrong track, we can double back. We’ll just stick to the right side of the path and take only right turns. I hear that’s a foolproof way to get out of a maze.”
He looked at her, his anxiety unnerving. It almost bordered on despair.
“We’ll be okay,” she said. “I mean, if we expect mirrors, we won’t be too spooked.”
Nathaniel bit his lip, deliberating, before exhaling shakily. “Okay. We can do that.”
* * *
“There are a lot of legends about mirrors,” Polly said.
Nathaniel hummed, focused. They’d already doubled back on two paths, so this was probably the right one.
“There’s a lot of variations on one that says that if a girl passes a mirror in a dark room on Halloween, she’ll see her future husband’s face.”
“I have no clue how that would’ve started,” Nathaniel said.
“Humans tend to seek out faces when we can’t recognize shapes,” she explained, grabbing onto that thread for conversation. “So the girl would see her own face in the dark, but wouldn’t really recognize it. It’s the same explanation for Bloody Mary.”
“I haven’t heard of that one.”
“You haven’t?” Polly gaped, leaning forward see if he was joking; unfortunately, he was still serious and tense. “It’s one of the first urban legends anyone hears.”
He shook his head, and Polly launched into a brief explanation. The face would look worse because you’d have to spin around a few times. But according to the legend, she’d either tell you your future husband’s name again or kill you, depending on who was telling the story.
“I think it’s kinda lame.” She finished her explanation weakly. “I prefer other mirror legends. You know, if you look into a mirror, it reflects your soul.”
“That’s just superstition.” Nathaniel chuckled, though he sounded choked.
Polly’s chest knotted, and she cut in front of him before they could turn the corner, stopping him. “You don’t regret guiding me through, do you?”
“What? No, why would—” He seemed frantic now. “I’m just—”
She took both his hands. “I like being around you. But if you’re uncomfortable, you don’t need to lie to me. I can find my own way out if I need to, and there’ll probably be people coming through to check for stragglers when it gets too late.”
“No, I do like being around you,” he said, leaning closer. “I’m just worried. I’d said I’d get us through this, but I got distracted.”
Polly’s eyes widened, taking him in; she hadn’t noticed before, but he smelled like earth and sweet hay. “I’m fine, Nathaniel,” she breathed. “People are meant to get lost in mazes. I’m not afraid.”
He searched her face. She brushed his hair off his forehead and straightened the feather one last time. “Let’s keep moving,” Polly said, walking backwards around the corner and pulling him along. “We won’t get out if we don’t try.”
His frown softened, and he went to say something. But Nathaniel froze, stopping Polly in her tracks and nearly unbalancing her. His expression melted into pure horror. She gripped his hands tighter; he shouldn’t react like this to a simple mirror.
“Nathaniel?”
He dropped his gaze to hers, swallowing, but the terror of his expression didn’t budge.
Slowly, she turned around.
“Polly, wait—” he finally spoke.
The dead end was closer than expected, barely six feet away from the corner, but there was nothing out of the ordinary at first glance: Polly, Nathaniel, three full-length mirrors, three reflections of Polly, and three reflections of a scarecrow.
Her scarecrow.
She was holding Nathaniel’s hands; her reflection was holding a weathered pair of leather gloves. Polly tore away, and when Nathaniel’s hands stayed extended to her, the scarecrows’ in the mirrors did as well.
She tried to say something, glancing between the glass and the boy she’d followed in here, but choked on any words she’d tried.
No wonder she’d thought she’d recognized him—she knew that shirt, that coat. She knew how they hung off a skinny, narrow, beanpole frame.
“Wh—” she managed roughly, “what?”
Nathaniel flinched, hunching his shoulders; his face twisted in despair before he hid behind his hands. “Polly, I’m sorry.”
The scarecrows hid their burlap heads and painted smiles behind their gardening gloves.
“You know my name,” she realized. Then she laughed, high and reedy. “I never told you my name.”
He looked up at her, biting his lip to hold back tears, but the smiles of the scarecrows didn’t change.
Her insides were completely knotted up. Her feet weren’t on the ground. Her head felt so heavy.
This was almost…comical.
She tried again to say something, anything, even if she swore, but she could only laugh again. It was terse, it shredded up her throat. A frantic little giggle that barely reached him.
She should have been terrified. What was she even feeling?
He risked a step closer, and she flinched back. He looked so hurt, so distressed, so human.
Was he human? Really human?
“I—Polly, I’m sorry,” he faltered. “I didn’t know how, or if I could even tell you, but I…I had to meet you. For real.”
Oh, right. She’d essentially grown up with this thing.
In the midst of her strangled laughter, she spoke. “Why?”
“Because I—” he halted, wrapping his arms around himself and digging his fingers into the seams. “Because I loved you.”
She stopped laughing. Everything was too quiet without it; she could hear him heaving for breath.
He blinked, brushing his hand across his face, and he stared at the tears streaked across the back of his hand.
He didn’t even know what crying was.
Of course he wouldn’t, Polly thought, trying to stay steady on her weakening knees. He shouldn’t be alive.
But it was Nathaniel.
But it was the scarecrow. And she loved the scarecrow, but—
But not like this...right?
“Polly?” He took a step towards her.
She lurched back, straight into the mirror. Her head hit the glass, which shattered.
And that was it. That was all it took.
* * *
Polly woke up—she didn’t know when—to a crow cawing. It was still dark.
She didn’t think fainting would ache so horrendously.
Blinking back her tears, she pushed herself up, and belatedly hoped that she hadn’t touched any glass.
The glass—the mirrors. Nathaniel—the scarecrow.
Polly staggered, trying to get to her feet, but froze.
Gold surrounded her, straw piled in the middle of the pathway, but the wind had blown some of it towards her. Polly tucked up her knees, shrinking away, and covered her mouth with her hands.
Her eyes stung, but she kept them wide, staring at the black feather among the scattered straw.