“Scarecrow”, a tale by Bernardo Esquinca

The country house adjoins an abandoned farm.

Every summer, Daniel and his cousins spent a fortnight on the family property, indulging in their favorite game: hide and seek. They could move freely as long as they did not go beyond the limits imposed by the wire fence. There were many places to hide: the laundry rooms, the cellar, the carpentry workshop, the grandfather's studio or any corner of the old house, including the huge fireplace.

For Daniel, however, the temptation to hide on the farm was very great: no one would find him there. What stopped him was not the fear of punishment from his parents, but the warnings of Edgar, the eldest of the cousins. No one should visit the abandoned farm because it was surrounded by the spirit of its former owner: a maddened farmer who murdered his family with the scythe to mow the wheat and then committed suicide by slicing his neck.

Fear grew with the testimony of Álvaro, his favorite cousin. One stormy night — he had confessed to him — Edgar showed him the ghost. He didn't want to, but he was forcibly taken. In the middle of the field, under the lightning light, he watched the terrifying apparition: he rose above the ears, extending his arms as if he wanted to embrace him. The farmer's hair looked like snakes and on his face he had a frozen grimace, halfway between a smile and a scream. Álvaro only looked a few seconds before turning around and running away, but that image would haunt him in his sleep.

On another occasion, Santiago, the smartest of the cousins, told him something that made him thoughtful.

“Edgar has a pact with the devil. He goes to the farm on the sly, to meet the ghost.

- Do you swear to me?

“For this one.” James kissed the thumb that made a cross with his index finger. I've seen him run away several times in the early morning.

When the holidays ended, Daniel remained obsessed with the subject. In the classroom, while the teacher spoke of the exploits of some distant and unlikely hero, her cousin's encounters with the evil spirit were increasingly real in her imagination. What were they talking about? , he wondered. What mysterious knowledge did he transmit to you from the world of the dead? Daniel did not dare to ask Edgar directly; he knew that he would get a rain of coscorrones in return. But he wanted to know, so he came up with a plan: he would follow Edgar without him noticing and spy on his encounter with the ghost of the farmer.

The following summer was like the previous ones: moms cooked, dads drank tequila and played cards, cousins fought with cousins, and in the middle of it all was the game of hide and seek. There were fewer and fewer places left that no one knew. “Why did Edgar almost always win?” , thought Daniel. Did he really have a pact with the ghost and he hid it in places impossible to find? That would soon be over, he was determined to discover his secret. He patiently watched his cousin's movements, until one night he realized he was getting out of bed; from the bedroom window he saw him go out into the back garden. Daniel put on his sneakers and went after him.

It was very dark outside, but he heard the noise of the fence moving. When he came before her, she realized that she had a part of it up and slid underneath. He advanced in the direction of the farm; he could hear the noises Edgar made as he made his way through the bushes.

Suddenly, the plants closed around him; he was in the middle of the field, just the place where Alvaro had seen the ghost. He began to move more cautiously, as his heart went faster; Daniel felt it coming out of his mouth, waving like the fish that jumped out of his hands one morning in the river.

The night wind pushed the clouds into the sky and the full moon appeared, bright. In this unexpected light, Daniel detected something on the ground, a few meters away from him: a blue headband, like the one worn by his cousin Lorena. He picked it up and kept walking among the plants. The cold blew through his pajamas and smeared on his bones. Trembling, he separated some branches, came out into a small clearing and was paralyzed.

Daniel had before him a vision that he could not understand. On the one hand, there was the scarecrow, imposing and silent, rising above its domain to prevent the birds from eating the harvest. I had seen others before and knew their function. What I didn't understand was what Edgar and Lorena were doing: she knelt, with her face on the ground; he behind, with her eyes closed, panting. I wanted to escape from there, but at the same time I couldn't stop watching.

On one side of them, at the base of the trunk that held the scarecrow, she recognized other objects: the leather bracelet of her cousin Lorenza; Sofia's comb; the vest that her grandmother wove for Jimena, the cook's daughter; her sister Sandra's red shoe... Then she had an intuition about what she should do. He hid in the cornfields, waited for Edgar and Lorena to leave, and then placed the headband at the feet of the scarecrow.

Without knowing why, Daniel returned every night of that summer to contemplate the objects that made up that strange altar.

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