Rags and Bones

by Carys Crossen

The villagers decided she was a witch. They exiled her to the desert, to die of heat exhaustion or go mad of thirst.

She did neither.

She made a scarecrow, constructed it out of rags and bone. She placed it near a trading route, and waited.

In verdant lands, a scarecrow repels. In this desolation, it did the opposite. Birds, travellers, stray children flocked to it, for water, for succour, for company.

She feasted like a queen on the flesh of lost things. Blood could quench any thirst. Their bones and clothes she hoarded.

Soon, another scarecrow joined the first.

Carys Crossen

Carys Crossen has been writing stories since she was nine years old but only recently discovered drabbles. Her fiction has been published by Mother’s Milk Books, Dear Damsels, Three Drops Press, Blink Ink, Paragraph Planet, The First Line journal and others. She lives in Manchester UK with her husband.

You can keep up to date with Carys on Twitter @academicwannabe