To whom it may concern

"You know me," said the Mayor. "Light-touch regulation only. I keep the taxes low, I make sure the milk floats have enough engine power to catch a fleeing teenage boy, and once every thirteen years I organise a single camping trip that inevitably has one fatality."

He paused for a moment, considering.

"You know, I think that gives me a better safety record than the Boy Scouts," he added. "Maybe I should make that a talking point for my next campaign."

Radford scoffed, poured them both another glass.

"I don't know why you bother," he said. "Nobody runs against you."

Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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Night was falling and the wild flowers that carpeted the gentle rolling slopes at the foot of Wolf Mountain were closing up shop for the night. Mother bluebells dipped deep to kiss their children atop their curving petal heads, wishing them pleasant dreams and a tomorrow full of sunshine and light spring rain. Dandelions with pleasant open faces of vibrant yellow drew hardy greenery about themselves, their expressions closed-off at the coming of sleep.

Only the jasmine remained, white flowers spread wide towards the falling night and the awakening stars. It watched over the silent rows of muted colours, waiting.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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The corn maze towered above them, the entrance dark and shadowed and lorded over by a great scarecrow who seemed sometimes to have too many limbs and always to have too many teeth.

"Looks good, right boys?" Edgar enthused.

Marshall and Simon considered. The scarecrow, perhaps moved by some stray gust of wind, turned it's sagging and sackcloth face towards them and smiled a wide and nicotine-yellow smile.

"Great," said Marshall.

"Great," echoed Simon.

Syndi, resplendent in autumn colours and her hair teased into the consistency of straw beneath a broad-brimmed hat, scoffed.

"Still scared of the Wizard of Oz?"

Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Janet jerks her hand back, her eyes full and spilling over with the shock and the pain, and a sense of betrayal that almost drives out the crashing grey waves that have nearly drowned the brown of her irises.

Her fingers are hot and slick with her own blood, and even now it's a relief to feel the heat and see the colour, because it means the Baitshop hasn't yet managed to crawl all the way inside her.

Then the deep gouges are healing, and instead of scar tissue there are thin lines of gleaming scale in the knitted flesh.

Ongoing Verse: The Children

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Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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The trees grew thicker here, and what little sunlight filtered down through the overhanging branches became green and murky the further it penetrated.

Knots in the gnarled wood looked like screaming human faces, and in the spots where the bark had rubbed away, viscous red sap oozed like blood from a welling wound, filling the air with the copper tang of old pennies.

The path that Janet was on was lined with sea glass, and despite the blazing August heat and the many days that had passed without rain, the ground under her feet was damp, and smelled of salt.

Ongoing Verse: The Children

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Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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It took a long time to get all the blood out of his hair, and the bathroom was thick with steam by the time Marshall was done. He shut off the water and reached for the free towel he'd won in one of WERD-TV's stranger pledge drives.

(He was pretty certain he'd never pledged to them in the first place and had avoided the towel for months, suspecting some form of Harvest King-style shenanigans that would become apparent the first time his wet skin came into contact with the soft, fluffy, blue-and-yellow fabric. But then laundry gnomes had invaded the Eeriemat and it had had to close down for a few weeks while the exterminator caught and killed them and, well, needs must. It had worked out okay in the end.)

The mirror had fogged over and as usual the things that lived on the other side of the glass had covered the cloudy surface in rude messages accompanied by ruder illustrations.

"Not cool, guys," Marshall said, using part of the probably-not-secretly-a-trap towel to wipe away the graffiti. "What if my Mom came 'round and saw all these dicks?"

The things in the glass drew another, bigger, penis. Marshall sighed.

Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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There are four of them, huddled together atop a rocky outcropping overlooking a moon-drenched clearing. One of them, barely into adolescence, is still wearing his own Harvest Crown. It's been hard-used, for the corn stalks are bent and broken and some of the berries are leaking crushed redness down into the boy's hairline.

They're staring at something below, and the Harvest King feels a shock of recognition at the sight of Alderman Chaney, clothes torn and foot bloodied, howling up at them as he clutches the air around his wounded toes.

The smallest of the group spots him, and gasps.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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The first Harvest King was a young man, the night he climbed Wolf Mountain in the company of Alderman Chaney. Now he is old, but his face is still unlined, his eyes clear and his hair thick and glossy.

(there are leaves in his hair and it hurts to pluck at them. he tries not to think about it)

The rock formations here are strange and twisted, and they capture and keep sound in a way technology won't replicate for years after his disappearance. He can still hear the echoing gunshot, and the night air smells of smoke and silver.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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Marshall Teller knows there were other Harvest Kings before him. The photographs with their wreaths of corn stalks and holly leaves have mysteriously vanished, and Mister Radford claims to have no idea where they went, but he remembers - old-fashioned clothes and crowns of dead and dying plant matter and a space, afterwards, where a person should have been.

Marshall Teller hopes that there won't be other Harvest Kings after him. Mister Chaney walks with a limp and eats more vegetables than he used to, but something still howls out in the cornfields at night, and Marshall dreads his twenty-sixth year.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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She calls to the waiting woods, and the wind carries her words far under their shadowing canopy of leaves.

"Get lost," she says. "Go back to the Kingswood, and don't come here again unless you're summoned."

The trees murmur to one another, and Syndi chokes the breeze that should lift their voices. Their branches start to shake in alarm, and the air around them presses down, heavy and muffling.

"You need to go," she says, a tone Marshall's heard from their mother during an unnegotiable bedtime or a homework assignment that cannot be put off.

The trees inch backwards, slightly.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Polaroid pictures lay scattered across the windowsill, and on the floor around Marshall. Syndi isn't sure how many exposures a single roll of Polaroid film has, but she doesn't think it's this many. The moss furring the camera does nothing to deter her suspicions.

"Hey, weirdo," she says, leaning against the windowsill and putting her hand over the camera lens. "What're you doing? Looking for UFOs over the World o' Stuff's parking lot again?"

Marshall stares at her as though waking from a heavy sleep. Confusion flashes across his face, then fear, then, blessedly, annoyance.

"Get out of my room!"

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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"It's not totally his fault," says Simon, because loyalty counts, even or perhaps especially when your best friend has accidently summoned a bunch of monstrous trees and his sister is promised to a towering funnel cloud who likes picnics.

Syndi raises her other eyebrow, and the smirk becomes a knowing grin.

"Oh, Simon," she says, and reaches out to ruffle his hair with hands that are too cold and smell like ozone. Simon can feel the staticy build-up and the rise of what feels like truly monstrous levels of frizz, and he sighs and tries in vain to flatten it.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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The knocking jolts a sudden, startled squeal out of Simon, emerging before he can muffle it with his one free hand.

Outside he can hear Syndi, her voice low and full of the strange hissing of stray drafts caught in boarded-up places.

"Marshall!" she says, loud enough for them to hear, hopefully not loud enough to disturb their parents. "Quit goofing around with your plant buddies and open this door."

Simon sets the camcorder down on the edge of Marshall's bed, hoping the mud and leaves won't get into the workings, and picks his way across a carpet of brambles.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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And now, the trees are moving, and she can feel the lack of her between them, feels that there is no breeze to ruffle those leaves and no wind to stir their branches.

And Syndi is... annoyed. She lies in her bed, blinking up at the ceiling and examining the feeling, turning it over inside a mind that howls and whistles more than it speaks.

Yes. She's annoyed. And it's that same flash of irritation she gets when Marshall uses the last of the milk, or turns the TV up loud while she's reading, or talks during Todd and Donna...

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Before she was crowned Miss. Tornado Day, if you'd asked her about religion, Syndi Teller would have paused, and thought, and shrugged and said she supposed she was 'culturally Christian, I guess?' and not thought much about it.

Even afterwards, when cool breezes dried her sweat-damp skin as the air hung motionless and stifling all around her, she'd viewed it more like a secret identity, part super-hero, part slightly embarrassing medical condition.

The Lady of the Cold was a weather God, and the King of Summer, and the red-gold whisper that crackled in the air of fall, but not her.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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"Simon," he says, and his throat is full of mud, and his voice is soft as rustling whisper of ripe corn in the fields.

He coughs and tries again, forces a grin through lips that feel stiff like bark and sticky with resin.

"Simon, grab the camera."

Simon doesn't let go right way. He stares at Marshall for a long moment, watching the green recede and the shadows shrink, before he releases his grip and darts to the Polaroid sitting on top of the chest of drawers.

He pushes it into his best friend's human, human hands, and prays.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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The floor is soft and spongy under Simon's feet. Every step disturbs a cloud of pollen, crushes new-growth grass and sprouting things and releases the fresh, sweet smell of the green.

He slips one small hand into the crook of Marshall's elbow and yanks, hard.

"Marshall!" he says again, and it's every time Marilyn caught them outside in the summer without sunscreen, every time Edgar has scolded them to come down off the roof. It's the time Syndi glanced up from her textbooks to see Dimsdale standing beside them at the World o' Stuff.

It's everything Simon knows about love.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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From a pile of blankets and sleeping bags on the floor of Marshall's bedroom, Simon stirs, opens his eyes and blinks in sleep-fuddled confusion. The room is full of green light and smells of hot-house vegetation, and the carpet beneath him is crushed grass, damp with dew.

"Marshall?" he croaks, struggling to sit up in a makeshift bed turning to moss and bracken even as he lies there. "Mars?"

"Simon," his best friend says, in a voice that belongs to his best friend, and belongs to something far older. His hands press against the window and his fingers are strange.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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The trees were moving, though no wind stirred their branches. Thick with pale green leaves, newly-budded with the coming of spring, they cast writhing shadows across neatly manicured lawns and fresh-paved roads.

The grinding noise of asphalt being torn and churned was horribly loud in the quiet spaces of an early Sunday morning in Eerie, and families gathered at their windows to see what was happening.

The day was bright, the sky a clear pale blue, and the blotting shapes of the walking forest turned sunlit living rooms to gloomy caves as they inched past houses full of frightened people.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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The Harvest King was there, and he was Marshall Teller, and he was something else entirely.

Simon could see the crown, not dry and dead and brittle like the skeletal brown thing withering in the Evidence Locker but bright with red berries and yellow corn and green leaves that had never known the killing kiss of an early frost.

It circled Marshall's head and tangled in his hair, and parts of it were growing from and through him, and some of those berries were beads of blood meant to feed the soil and his eyes were the gold of cornfields-

Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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The pine trees had been sodden with the unending rain, and the sudden cold snap froze the water beneath the bark so they swelled and creaked and cracked loud in the quiet of the deep woods.

Marshall Teller walked on, feeling the eyes of unseen and unseemly things watch him from the dark places. Something giggled in the underbrush, the sort of laugh that fit better on a knife-wielding porcelain doll than some fluffy-faced forest creature.

Maybe it was a doll. Certainly there were things in the Kingswood who had eaten enough lost Royalty to start taking on human affectations...

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: The Children

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The ketchup bottles were filled with blood. It wasn't quite the red-running rivers that usually heralded an apocalypse, but still. Not a good sign.

Elvis eyed the squeezy yellow bottle to his left that had, as recently as yesterday morning, contained mustard.

No, he thought. Better not to risk it. Blood was bad. Pus, or bile, or some other yellow sign of sickness and calamity could only make things worse.

"Radford," he said, waving the man over and indicating the gory splatter decorating his French Fries.

Radford blanched.

"Already?"

Elvis nodded.

"Any day now," he said, and rose to leave.


Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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Ongoing Verse: The Children

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Elvis glanced down at his plate and blanched.

What had previously been a mountain of crisp, golden French fries was twisted in upon itself, a spiralling nightmare of potato starch and horror. Lights flickered in his peripheral vision and he turned to see that the Mutant Attack cabinet in the corner was now spewing coruscating fractal patterns from it's smudged glass screen.

The bell above the World o' Stuff's double doors jangled loudly, and the little paperboy walked in, stinking of wet dog and puberty.

The King fished out a few bills, tucked them beneath the salt shaker, and left.


Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Out in the cornfields, the wolves were howling. Marshall's skin prickled, fur rising beneath human flesh, and he forced it down again. Behind the counter Mister Radford gave him a sympathetic look, sliding a couple of barely-grilled hamburger patties onto a plate before passing it to him.

Two seats down, Elvis stopped crooning to himself long enough to shoot Marshall a suspicious look, before tossing down a wad of twenties and beating a hasty retreat. Outside, a familiar-looking husky observed through the storefront window, tongue lolling, expression smug.

"Moon's loud tonight," Radford commented.

Marshall nodded, lips tight over long teeth.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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