A Dark Fantasy Story
Each day, as Rachel Sallow stepped outside and began the long walk to school, the other children crossed the street to avoid her. At first, it had made her upset, but by the time she made it to the third grade, she was just grateful for the quiet. When the other kids were farther away, it was harder to hear them whispering.
Children in every town have stories about places you should never go and people you should never talk to. They tell each other about haunted bridges, old women who are actually child-eating witches, and old men who secretly buried their wives under the roses in the back garden. In this village, all of those stories were about the Sallow family.
The oldest stories were about Prudence Sallow, who lived during “the pilgrim days,” whenever that was. Prudence was a widow, childless and alone. Her husband had longed for a family for years, but Prudence had been unable to give him children. It was a source of constant conflict until the end, when her husband died in what modern people call “mysterious circumstances.”
One evening, Prudence was awoken by a voice calling in the darkness. It was a hollow, echoing sound, like someone calling from deep inside a cave. Stepping outside in her nightgown, she followed the voice, walking out of the village gate and into the woods beyond. She was gone all night. When she returned, she was different. Changed.
Somehow, she had gone from barren to nine months pregnant in a single night. When the people in the village asked about this miracle, she responded with only scorn and insults. Her eyes had changed as well. Before, her eyes had been full of warmth, her face shining with love. But now, her eyes were cold and dark, like the windows of an abandoned house.
She soon gave birth to triplets. While she stayed in the house, taking care of her children, her crops grew and were harvested, though no one ever saw anyone working the fields. Curious neighbors found footprints in the dirt and the mud, inhuman shapes with massive strides that no man could match.
From then on, people were increasingly wary of the Sallow family. Whatever calamity befell the village, it seemed to pass by the Sallow farm. Whether drought or flooding or fire or fever, the Sallows survived while everyone else suffered.
Rachel knew these stories, even though her mother had tried to hide them from her. She heard the older children passing the tales along to the younger ones, a whispered warning, a spell to protect them from danger. She kept going to school and did her best to ignore the constant gossip, but it was almost impossible when it came from teachers. Even the adults seemed to hate her. She had even heard Mrs. White, the kindly science teacher, saying “There’s something wrong with that girl. She’s got the devil in her.”
In the hallway between classes, someone grabbed Rachel’s pigtails. She turned to see Ezra, an older boy. His clothes were always torn and dirty from climbing trees and roughhousing with the other boys on the way to school. “Why are you so scared?” he laughed. “Afraid I’ll hurt you? Can’t you just use magic on me?”
“Let me go!” she hollered. She slapped his hand, pulling away.
“Why don’t you go to church like everyone else?” he demanded. “You some kind of commie atheist?”
“No,” she said. “My family just has our own god.”
He scowled. “That’s not how religion works! You can’t have your own private god!”
“Well, we do.”
“What’s his name then?” He folded his arms, a satisfied expression on his face, like he had caught her in a lie.
She glanced at the other children. Their stares made her wince. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
A girl Rachel’s age laughed. Pauline, the daughter of the principal. Her clothes were always immaculate, and far nicer than Rachel’s. “I heard they worship John Barleycorn.”
Ezra laughed. “That’s not a god! That’s just some dumb old folk song. You might as well pray to Yankee Doodle!”
Rachel blushed. “That’s not true. He is a god. And besides, he didn’t always call himself that. He’s used lots of names.”
Mrs. Jenkins, the home room teacher, pulled Pauline and Ezra aside. The chubby woman swatted the back of Ezra’s head. “Leave her alone. Both of you. You know the rule about the Sallows. Don’t cause trouble.” She glanced at Rachel guiltily. “They… they might hurt you.”
“If they’re going to act like I’m a monster,” Rachel thought, “I might as well be one.” She scrunched up her hands like claws and made a hideous face, roaring. The other kids ran off, screaming. Ignoring Mrs. Jenkins’s shocked expression, she headed to art class, laughing.
After school, as Rachel walked home, the other students stayed farther away than usual. They seemed to be making a special effort to avoid her. “Who cares?” she said to herself. “I hope they all get lost in the woods and… and… eaten by wolves!”
When she made it to her family’s farm, she pulled up the hood on her coat. She didn’t like the feeling of being watched. “I know it’s silly,” she thought. “John Barleycorn probably can’t even see me. He probably doesn’t see anything.”
She immediately felt guilty about her doubts, wincing. Of course John Barleycorn could see her. He made the corn grow, right? They never planted anything. It just appeared. Supernatural intervention was the only possible explanation.
That night, Rachel begged her mother to let her leave school. “I hate it there. People are always saying bad things about us, about our family. They think we’re dangerous. They think I’m a monster just because I’m different.”
“They’re jealous of us,” Mother Sallow said, nodding decisively. “Their gods are distant and invisible, but our god is here. They struggle to keep their faith, but we don’t. Although our god’s flesh is gone, we can still see him watching over us.”
Rachel frowned. “Mamma, why do we get to have our own god when everyone else has to share theirs?”
Laughing, she patted the spot next to her on the couch, waiting for her daughter to join her. “A long time ago, your distantly Great Grandmother Prudence met a god in the woods. Back then, he was known as the Green Man, or the Man of the Forest. He knew the natural beauty of the world was being destroyed by mankind, and soon he would have nowhere to live. He offered to serve Prudence and her descendants forever, and all they would have to do is keep a place for him, some perfect piece of nature with plants and animals.”
The young girl shook her head. “But if he’s a god, why does he need us? And why are we his only believers?”
Mother Sallow went to a bookshelf and pulled out a huge, leather tome. She flipped through the pages, showing Rachel illustrations of hooded figures in robes, creatures with wings where their eyes should be, and strange drawings of beings that seemed to move, hiding from view before she could see them clearly. “There are lots of things that call themselves gods. Some were put in charge of a planet or a continent or a country. Our god is more… local. His influence ends at the edge of that field outside. He isn’t immortal like some of the others. He even died once.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. “He died?”
“Don’t worry, darling. Your great grandmother Chastity fixed him. He was calling himself Beowa then, but she turned him into John Barleycorn. She made us a new god from the bones of the dead one.”
Rachel grumbled, rising from the couch. She grabbed the book and threw it on the floor. “This isn’t right! I want a normal god!”
Mother Sallow slapped her. “Never say such things! He has blessed us for centuries! Now go to your room and pray he didn’t hear you.”
Rachel turned and headed for the hall, rubbing her cheek. “I hate you!”
She stomped down the hallway to her room and slammed the door. She threw back the blanket and climbed into bed, grabbing her one-eyed teddy bear. “When I grow up, my kids can have any gods they want.”
As she drifted off to sleep, a face appeared in her window. Furious eyes burned in the darkness. A gravelly voice murmured, “Ungrateful wretch.”
The creature’s hand scratched at the glass. He had spent centuries serving this family, with nothing to show for it. Instead of finding his cult new followers and letting his power grow, they had kept him for themselves, sapping away at his strength like leeches. Over the years, their family had shrunk, and with it his powers. He had gone from ruling the entire natural kingdom to presiding over a few acres of feed corn. His tree of rebirth, once glorious and mighty, had been reduced to a pair of sticks. Even his body had withered away. He was just bones and rags now, with a bag of yellow burlap that he wore as a mask.
He had nothing left. It was time to end this family, before he was too weak to lift a scythe. He would remake himself with their flesh, and become a new deity once more. But first, the Sallows would face the wrath of John Barleycorn, the scarecrow god.
