The Rye Wife
After cutting the last rye on a remote Welsh-border farm, contract driver Imogen discovers she has been chosen to carry the Rye Wife—a harvest creature that will drag her underground when the Halloween bonfire dies unless another adult willingly accepts the final sheaf. Pursued and badly wounded, she watches a complicit local die trying to save her before passing the curse to Colin, a helpful driver who dismisses her warning as Halloween nonsense. Freed but implicated in the same betrayal that trapped her, Imogen pauses at the open gate as Colin offers the sheaf back to the farmer who arranged it all.
By MyAudioBooks.ai ·
Imogen kept the combine straight through the last standing strip of rye, and the farmhands at the gate stopped talking. The cutter took the stems cleanly. At its outer edge, where Gwen had asked her to leave a few whole, an armful toppled clear of the intake and lay across the stubble. She raised the cutter and brought the machine to a stop. Beyond the cab glass, three men stood with their hands in their pockets. Nobody gave her the usual broad signal that she had finished. Imogen opened the side window. "You can clap. Costs extra, but you can."
One man turned towards the farmhouse. The others followed him down the track. Her mother's message still waited on her phone, asking whether she should keep Imogen's chair free for Sunday breakfast. Yes, obviously. Imogen had spent enough weekends eating over a steering wheel. She would get this machine ready for collection, collect her money, and drive home to Birmingham.
The cab clock showed a quarter past four. On the final afternoon of October, in two thousand twenty-six, she had finished her last paid field of the season. At twenty-eight, she already knew which aches would last until Christmas: the pinch beneath her right shoulder, the tender patch where her heel rubbed, the tightness along her jaw after hours of machinery noise. Gwen's hill farm in Hob's Hope had paid enough to make all three worth having. Most of Imogen's contract driving kept her within reach of home. This Welsh-border job had come with a full day's rate for a small field, an extra payment for the late finish, and no argument about travel. Gwen had kept this rye standing long after any sensible neighbour would have cut it. She wanted it finished on Halloween. Farmers had paid Imogen to do stranger things, though usually with a tractor and a very firm instruction not to tell their wives.
She emptied the remaining grain, shut the combine down properly, and let the moving parts stop. Only after she had taken the key and climbed down did Gwen come through the gate. Gwen went straight to the fallen stalks. She gathered them by their cut ends, tapped them level against her boot, and carried them away from the machine.
Imogen rubbed the heel of her hand against her shoulder. "That enough for whatever you're doing?"
Gwen tucked a loose stem into the bundle. "Enough."
"Good. I'd hate to have to stick them back."
Gwen's coat sleeve rasped over the dry heads. "Come down when you're ready. There's food."
"And payment. Food's lovely, but the bank gets funny about stew."
"You'll have both."
Imogen watched her take the rye down the track. Then she sent her mother a reply: Keep my chair. Home tonight. Breakfast depends on how much you burn.
The equipment-hire driver arrived while she was clearing loose straw from the machine. His pickup brought the trailer for the combine's detachable cutter. He climbed out, checked the ground, and introduced himself as Colin. Colin pointed at the strip she had just finished. "All that waiting for that?"
"Don't knock it. Paid better than August."
"Should've left the rest till Christmas."
They got the cutter onto its trailer and secured it. Colin walked round it once more, tugging at a fastening she had already checked. Imogen held up both hands. "I know. Don't break the hire firm's toys."
"Break them Thursday. I've Fridays off."
He had another collection towards Worcester before returning with the lorry. Eight that evening, he told her. She agreed to have the combine waiting on firm ground in the yard, with room for him to load.
By the time Imogen had brought it downhill and cleared the worst of the dust, the farmhouse windows had begun to show yellow. The house stood on the north side of the yard, the supper barn to the west. Across to the east, sheep shifted behind hurdles inside a stone fold. A heap of timber waited on the southern side, just inside the open farm gate. Her car stood beside the house. The road beyond the gate lay clear.
Gwen met her by the kitchen door and made the payment while Imogen stood there. The amount reached her phone without a deduction or a last-minute complaint. Gwen nodded towards the stairs. "Spare room's at the back. Put your things there. Wash before supper."
"I'm going tonight."
"You can still wash."
That seemed fair enough. Imogen took her overnight bag from the car. She kept one packed through the season, even for jobs that promised she would be home. Upstairs, she left it on a chair beside the spare-room bed. The window faced the yard. From there she could see the sheepfold, perhaps sixty metres away, and a man moving between its hurdles.
Downstairs, Gwen called that supper would be ready at six. Imogen washed the grain dust from the creases beside her nose. She had earned the money, the meal, and an uncomplicated drive home. She wanted all three.
By six, Imogen had taken a place at the long table in the barn, with a bowl of lamb stew between her hands. The farmhands ate at the other end. Their spoons scraped steadily against the bowls, and whenever she tried to catch one of them in conversation, somebody offered her bread.
Gwen brought the rye in after the plates had been cleared. She had plaited the lower stalks into a thick handle. The heads spread above it, pale and heavy, with one greenish stem caught among them. She laid the bundle beside Imogen's clean spoon.
Imogen touched the plait. "What's this, then? Long-service award?"
Gwen kept her hands flat against her apron. "Last sheaf belongs with the last cutter."
"I've cut a lot of last fields. Usually I get a gate to shut."
"It's yours here."
Imogen lifted it. Dry grain scratched against her cuff. "Right. Thank you. Am I meant to hang it up?"
Gwen reached for the bread basket. "Keep it with you tonight."
An older man across the table pushed his bowl away. Imogen had heard Gwen call him Owain while they were eating. His hands had swollen knuckles and two nails worn nearly flat. Owain addressed Gwen rather than Imogen. "You could let her finish her tea first."
Gwen continued gathering plates. "She's finished her work."
Imogen set the sheaf across her knees. "And she's sitting here. What am I missing?"
Gwen turned back to her. "The room's made up. Stay the night. Have breakfast before you go."
"I've got breakfast waiting at home."
"It's a long drive after a day's work."
Imogen had driven farther after worse days. She opened her mouth to say so, then caught Owain pressing his thumb hard against the edge of the table. She wanted the joke back. Something about complimentary straw and compulsory accommodation. It would have made them answer her as a person rather than a task being passed between them. Instead, she asked Gwen a smaller question.
"Why did you want those stalks kept whole?"
"For the sheaf."
"Yes. And why do I need the sheaf?"
Gwen gathered the last two cups. "Owain will tell you."
She carried them through the barn door. Imogen stayed seated until Owain got up. He took so long straightening his knees that she almost offered him an arm. He kept his hands close to his own body.
Outside, a yard lamp buzzed above the barn entrance. Someone had lit the bonfire. Imogen checked her phone as she put it away: half past six. Flame was spreading through the kindling beneath the larger timber. Gwen stood on the far side with a long piece of wood. She nudged something deeper into the fire, then moved back from the sparks.
Owain stopped beside the barn wall. Imogen remained between him and the doorway, holding the sheaf. He rubbed his thumb along a crack in the stone. "People think they can leave it somewhere. Under a hedge. On a cart. They'll walk away, and they'll be thinking of something else, and then it's there with them."
"The straw?"
"It's more than straw."
"Owain. Whatever Gwen's paying you for the Halloween act, I'll match it if you give me a straight answer."
He pulled his hand from the wall. "You carry the Rye Wife now."
Imogen waited. A sheep knocked a hurdle across the yard. "That tells me absolutely nothing."
"When you cut the last standing rye, it came to you. Taking that bundle at the table didn't do it. It had already happened."
Her grip tightened on the plait. "What had?"
Owain's voice lost its wandering softness. "When that fire goes out, whoever carries her is taken under the ground. You, unless you give her on."
Imogen turned towards the fire. Gwen had set her piece of wood down. Two of the farmhands stood near her, close enough to have heard. "Taken under the ground means what?"
"Alive. She pulls you down."
The bundle pressed against Imogen's wrist. She shifted it away from her skin. "And everybody was happy to tell me that after I'd done the job?"
Owain lowered his head. "I'm telling you now."
"Then finish."
He took a breath through his nose. "You must hand the last sheaf directly to another living grown person. They have to take it willingly from you. Before the fire goes out."
"I put it down and someone picks it up."
"That leaves it yours."
"I put it in somebody's hand."
Owain shook his head. "Only if they choose to take it. You can't make them."
Imogen pushed her tongue against a sore place inside her cheek. "You keep saying living."
"A dead hand can't take it from you."
"And if I get in my car?"
"She goes with you."
He spoke plainly now, with none of the hesitation that might have helped her dismiss him. She hated that most. He had needed pressing to say something he already knew how to say.
Across the yard, Gwen lifted an empty bucket. Imogen called to her. "Is this what the extra money was for?"
Gwen stopped. "You were paid what we agreed."
"For driving a combine. Don't fucking pretend I agreed to this."
Gwen carried the bucket towards the house. Imogen took her phone out. Colin's collection was still at eight. She typed that the machine was ready in the yard and asked him to keep the agreed time. Ordinary coordination. She had promised to be there when he loaded. His answer came almost immediately: Still eight. Coming from Worcester side.
She put the phone in her right jacket pocket and zipped it shut. Owain watched her hands. "Keep hold of the sheaf."
Imogen stepped back into the barn and laid it on the table. "I'm getting my bag."
She left through the other door, the one nearest the farmhouse. Her car keys were in her left pocket. The car stood where she had left it. Beyond the fire, the gate remained open. Nobody tried to stop her.
Imogen took the farmhouse stairs quickly, one hand sliding along the rail. Through the kitchen door behind her came the rattle of a bucket against a sink. She could get her things, change into trainers, and be downstairs before Gwen found another way to answer the wrong question.
The spare-room door stood open. The sheaf lay across her pillow. She stopped on the landing. The dry heads reached almost to the wall, and the plaited handle pointed towards the foot of the bed.
Gwen had been ahead of her. There must be another stair, or she had come through the kitchen while Imogen was crossing the yard. That would explain the bucket. That would make this an ugly little arrangement between people who had decided she was available for frightening.
Imogen called down the stairs. "Keep out of my fucking things."
Water ran below. No answer came.
She went into the room. The bed stood with its head under the far window. Her bag occupied the chair beyond its foot. Between the bed and the open door, a narrow chest left just enough room to pass. She pulled the chair closer, opened her bag, and found her trainers beneath a clean sweatshirt. She would leave the jacket on. Change footwear, pick up bag, go.
Sitting on the edge of the mattress, she unlaced her left boot and pulled it off. Her sock clung at the toe. She peeled it down, expecting the flattened dampness of a blister.
A green stalk protruded beneath the nail of her big toe. It lay pressed into the flesh, wet along its length. A bead of cloudy fluid swelled where it emerged. When she lifted her foot, the stalk bent against the edge of the bed.
Imogen gripped it between finger and thumb. "What the fuck?"
She pulled. Pain ran through the joint of her toe. The stalk slid a little farther out, bringing a narrow red line with it, and something tightened deep beneath the nail. She let go.
The mattress rose behind her. Imogen lunged off it, landing on her right boot and the bare heel of her left foot. Her bag tipped from the chair. The chair struck the chest, narrowing the way to the door.
A ridge travelled beneath the coverlet from the pillow towards the place where she had been sitting. Stuffing crackled inside the mattress. The cloth split beside the bed frame, and dark crumbs spilled onto the floor.
A hand pushed through. Packed earth formed the back of it. Pale roots made the joints, bending where knuckles should have been. One finger pressed through the sheet and drew it down in a slow pull. Soil fell from the wrist.
Imogen backed into the chair. Its legs scraped the boards. The hand turned towards her. She shoved the chair against the bed and tried to squeeze past its back. Her bare toe struck the chest. The stalk beneath the nail folded sharply, and she gave a short, involuntary cry.
More of the body forced through the bedding. A forearm emerged, bound in tight rye plaits. Behind it came a shoulder and the upper part of an adult woman's torso, broad enough to depress the mattress almost to the frame. Earth packed the spaces between the stalks. A root pulled taut across the front of its throat.
Its head rolled towards Imogen. A blunt nose stood above a split full of husks. One side of the face had broken away, showing the pale roots gathered beneath the soil.
Imogen grabbed the door frame. She had one foot into the passage when the hand closed round her left ankle. The grip hauled her backwards. Her knee struck the floor. She caught the edge of the chest with both hands, dragging it sideways as the roots tightened. A finger slid beneath the arch of her foot. Another pressed across its upper surface, into the soft gap behind her toes.
"Let go. Get the fuck off me."
She kicked backwards with her right boot. The heel struck the forearm and knocked away a piece of earth. Roots flexed under it. The grip held.
Imogen shouted Gwen's name. Her left heel scraped over the boards. She lost the chest and caught the upright of the door frame instead. The body dragged itself against the foot of the bed. Straw rubbed against wood, dry and close, while its hand remained wet against her foot.
She kicked again. Her boot crushed the edge of its wrist against the bed frame. The pressure eased enough for her to turn her ankle. She pulled with both arms. The root across the top of her foot caught in the skin. She felt it enter, then travel. A strip lifted from the base of her toes towards her ankle, white underneath before blood covered it.
Imogen screamed and kept pulling. Her foot came free. She fell into the passage with her left leg trailing behind her. Blood spread across the threshold.
Inside the room, the hand opened and closed, shedding earth onto the boards. Imogen dragged herself beyond its reach. Her right boot knocked against the opposite wall, and she used that foot to push herself farther along the landing.
The hand withdrew. For several seconds she heard the bed frame creak. Then came the soft fall of soil, followed by grain scraping against the underside of the bed.
She pressed her palm over the torn skin. Blood worked between her fingers. The car was still outside. The road was still open. Neither fact helped her get the roots out of her foot.
Imogen stayed against the landing wall until she could put weight through her right leg without sliding. Her left foot left a dark print when she lowered it. She kept her heel down and lifted her toes clear of the boards.
Inside the room, the coverlet sagged through the torn mattress. The sheaf remained on the pillow. She needed the dressings in her bag. She needed the boot. She needed to stop leaving the bundle for someone else to return.
Using the chest for support, she edged back through the doorway. Her bag lay open beside the chair. She pulled it within reach, took out the small first-aid pouch she carried for work, and got the sheaf off the pillow without touching the split bedding.
A dry movement came from beneath the bed. Imogen retreated to the chair by the door and set the bundle across the chest. She kept it within reach while she opened the pouch.
The skin had torn in a broad strip across the top of her foot. Soil clung along the loose edge. She used water from her bottle to clear what she could, biting the inside of her cheek when it ran into the wound. The stalk beneath her toenail had broken short. A green tip remained.
She laid a padded dressing over the foot and wound gauze round it. Her fingers shook badly enough that she had to start the tape twice.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Her mother had answered the breakfast message. She had kept the chipped mug, the reply said. Imogen could stop telling her to throw it out. Nobody else wanted the thing, and she had put it by Imogen's chair.
Imogen held the phone above her bandaged foot. She had complained about that mug for years. It leaked tea through a crack near the handle, leaving a brown ring her mother always blamed on the table. She wanted to sit there and have the same pointless argument tomorrow.
She began a reply. I'm just finishing. The words stayed unsent. Colin's collection, by contrast, had been confirmed in two brisk messages. Time agreed. Machine ready. She had managed that without even sitting down.
A point of rye lifted the gauze. Imogen put the phone against her thigh. A second point emerged beside the first, forcing through the white fabric from underneath. The dressing rose over the wound, tugging the tape. She pressed it flat. Something resisted beneath her palm.
"No. You don't get to do that."
She added another pad and bound it firmly enough to hold the loose skin. The stalks bent beneath the fresh layer. Their pressure remained.
Her boot would barely admit the swollen foot. She loosened the laces all the way down, pulled the tongue forward, and worked her heel inside. Blood marked the lining before she had finished. She tied the top loosely and stood, supporting herself on the chest. The pain made her sit again.
She wanted someone else to decide what happened next. Gwen could come upstairs, see the blood, and take back whatever she had given her. Owain could stop describing it and do something useful.
Below the window, a man crossed the yard towards the sheepfold. His slow, uneven walk was Owain's. He passed through a little gate at its southern end and disappeared behind the stone wall. An ambulance would take time to reach the farm; Owain was here and knew what was happening.
Imogen got up again. She left the bag where it lay. Changing her clothes, packing her wash things, carrying a spare pair of shoes: those belonged to the departure she had imagined. She took the sheaf in her left hand. With her right, she slipped the phone into her jacket pocket and zipped it shut. The keys remained in the left.
She reached the stairs by keeping her weight against the wall. At each step she lowered her left heel first, then brought her right foot down beside it. A damp patch spread through the bandage inside her boot.
Gwen had left the kitchen. The sink smelled of rinsed stew and hot water. Imogen passed it without stopping and pushed through the back door into the yard.
The fire still burned on the southern side. Gwen stood near it, her face lit as she bent to move a piece of wood. Imogen could have called her over. Instead, she turned east. Owain had given her the rule. He could answer the next question with his hands.
The crossing to the sheepfold took longer than it should have. She kept to the lit part of the yard, placing her right foot on firm gravel before bringing the left after it. The rye heads brushed her sleeve. Whenever she paused, she heard a separate dry scrape close behind her.
Halfway across, she checked the time on her phone. Seven eighteen. She put it back and closed the zip.
The fold's south wicket stood beside a low stone corner. Inside, sheep pressed towards the farther hurdles. Owain's coat showed beyond them, near a trough against the wall.
Imogen reached the gate at seven twenty, with blood warming the inside of her loosened boot and the intact sheaf held clear of the ground in her left hand. Her right hand closed on the latch.
Imogen lifted the latch and pushed the south wicket inward. Its bottom dragged through the mud, forcing her to lean against it with her hip. Inside the sheepfold, Owain set down the hurdle he had been moving.
She let the gate fall open behind her. "Come here."
Owain stayed beside the trough against the stone wall. "You should be by the fire."
"Then walk me there. Take this and walk me there." She raised the sheaf. He drew his hands behind him.
The sheep crowded against the far hurdles. Imogen made her way towards the trough, dragging her left heel through the churned ground. The boot had begun to press against something stiff beneath the dressing.
Owain moved a bucket out of her path. "What happened to your foot?"
"What you knew would happen. How did Gwen get my number?"
He rubbed his palms against his coat. "You work round here sometimes. People ask."
"Who asked?"
"Gwen needed a driver."
"And you needed one who wouldn't know what she was cutting. Did you give her my number?"
Owain's hands stopped moving. "Yes."
Imogen rested her right hand on the trough. Cold water soaked the edge of her cuff.
"Did you tell her I'd come on my own?"
"She asked whether you brought anyone. I said you generally worked alone. That was all I said."
"That was enough, wasn't it?"
He pressed his lips together.
She wanted him to meet her anger without making her drag him through every small part of it.
"You sat across from me while I ate. You asked whether I had enough bread."
Owain lifted one hand, then lowered it. "I wanted to tell you before supper. Gwen said she'd speak to you herself."
"Before supper was after the cut."
"I know."
"Say when you should have told me."
He turned towards the sheep. Imogen struck the side of the trough with her palm. The slap made them bunch harder against the hurdles.
"Don't fucking turn away. When?"
Owain faced her again. "Before you came."
A loose rye head scratched her wrist. She shifted her grip lower on the plait.
"Have you seen someone taken?"
Owain's mouth worked before he answered. "There was a man. Years ago. He'd come down from Shrewsbury to cut for us. He thought he could get across the field to the road."
"What did you do?"
"We went after him."
"And?"
He rubbed his thumb against a flattened fingernail. "He got to the hedge. I could see his shoulders above it. Then only his head. He kept asking us to pull. There were roots round his arms, and the ground was coming up over his mouth."
Imogen swallowed against the taste of the skin she had bitten inside her cheek.
"Did you pull?"
"I stayed where I was."
Behind her, the wicket scraped against its stone stop.
Owain took a step towards her. She held the sheaf out between them, its heads trembling from the effort of keeping her arm straight.
"Then do it now. Take it from me."
"I can't."
"You can. You know exactly how. You take it, and I get to keep my fucking foot."
He backed against the wall. "No, Imogen."
She pushed the bundle farther towards him without touching his coat. "You picked me."
"Yes."
"Then take it."
His voice came thin and plain. "I won't."
The pressure inside her boot tightened. Imogen lowered her arm.
He had confessed to precisely what she had made him say. Gwen had done the same. A question answered, everything around it left untouched. Imogen thought of the collection message sitting in her phone, brisk and complete, and gripped the trough until the concrete hurt her fingers.
Owain reached towards her right elbow.
"Come away from there."
A foot settled in the mud behind her.
Imogen turned towards the wicket. The Rye Wife stood just inside it, fully clear of the wall.
Earth packed its thighs and belly beneath bands of tightly plaited rye. Roots crossed the hips and ran down the knees, pulling taut as it brought one foot forward. Its broad shoulders tilted at different heights. Where the side of its face had broken away in the bedroom, pale roots gathered beneath the cheek and entered the dark split of its mouth.
It raised its head. Husks fell between the roots at its throat.
Imogen dragged her left foot backwards. Her heel struck the trough, and the creature came towards her through the space she needed to reach the gate.
She tried to move round the trough's nearer end. Her right boot found a flat stone; the left caught in the mud. The Rye Wife bent without slowing. One hand closed over the loosened laces and drove her foot sideways against the concrete.
The dressing pulled tight over the torn skin.
Imogen struck its wrist with her right fist. Earth broke beneath her knuckles, exposing roots that flexed without letting go. With the sheaf clamped in her left hand, she tried to lift herself onto the trough.
"Get it off. Owain, get it off me."
He caught her beneath the right arm. His grip hurt, and she leaned into it with everything she had.
The creature's fingers pressed through the gaps in her laces. Something entered the wound across the top of her foot. She felt the dressing lift inside the boot, then the sharp drawing sensation of skin being pulled away again.
She screamed into Owain's coat.
He planted one foot against the base of the trough and hauled her towards him. "Hold my shoulder. Your right hand. Hold on."
Imogen seized a fold of his coat. He pulled again. Her boot scraped along the concrete, leaving a wet red smear.
The Rye Wife's other arm swung low. Roots opened from the wrist and struck Owain's calf.
His trouser leg dimpled around three pale points. They drove through the cloth and into him. Blood ran over his sock, darkening it before it reached the boot.
Owain made a short, strained noise. He kept pulling.
Imogen's heel came clear of the trough. The creature released her boot and caught the back of Owain's neck instead.
She had time to feel his grip tighten once.
The roots in his calf drew his leg sideways while the hand at his neck drove him into the wall. The back of his head struck a projecting stone. Bone cracked against it, and a piece of scalp folded open above his ear.
His hands fell away from her.
Imogen landed on her right knee. Owain collapsed beside the trough, one leg twisted beneath him. The Rye Wife followed his falling weight into the narrow gap between concrete and stone. Its shoulder caught beneath the trough's rim. Soil spilled into the water.
Imogen crawled towards Owain. She caught his coat and dragged until his head came clear of the wall.
Blood spread beneath his cheek. At the back of his skull, the hair had parted around a pale broken edge. Grey tissue showed inside the opening. His mouth moved against the mud.
She got her right hand under his jaw and lifted his face.
"Owain. Come on. Breathe."
Air bubbled wetly through his mouth. She wiped it with her sleeve, then wiped again. The second breath sounded worse.
Behind the trough, roots scraped over stone.
Imogen braced her left wrist against his shoulder, keeping the sheaf clear of his face. She wanted both hands. She wanted him to lift his head and complain about what she was doing.
"You don't get to stop now. You hear me? You fucking stay here."
His eyelid trembled. A small movement travelled through his throat. Blood kept sliding into the hollow beneath her supporting hand.
She lowered him enough to pull his coat straight beneath his shoulder. The movement brought another loose piece of bone against her fingers.
"Shit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
His mouth opened. She waited for the next breath and bent closer when it failed to come.
A sheep struck a hurdle at the far end of the fold. Imogen pressed her ear near Owain's mouth. Water dripped from the trough into the mud beside her knee.
She lifted his jaw again. She called his name, waited, then called louder. His face stayed heavy in her hand.
The sheaf brushed his open coat. She pulled it away so sharply that grain scattered across his chest.
He had already refused it.
Imogen kept her hand beneath his cheek until her wrist began to shake. When she finally lowered him, his head settled against the coat without resistance. Blood slicked her fingers, her sleeve, the front of her jacket.
A root drew slowly along the far side of the trough.
She backed away on her right knee and heel. Her left foot dragged through the mud. Every attempt to bring it beneath her sent pain up her shin, and twice she had to stop with her face close to the ground.
At the wicket she caught the lower rail and pulled herself upright. Owain lay where she had left him, between the trough and the open strip of ground. She could see one hand beyond his coat.
She got her phone from her right pocket. Blood made the screen slide beneath her thumb. The time was approaching a quarter to eight.
Imogen made the emergency call with the phone pressed hard against her ear.
"Ambulance and police. Gwen's farm at Hob's Hope. An adult man's been killed. I'm hurt as well."
She gave the address she had driven to that afternoon, then repeated it. Her words came too quickly; she made herself slow down.
"He's in the sheepfold on the east side of the yard. Go through the little gate at the south end. He's beside the trough against the stone wall. His head's broken open. He stopped breathing."
She listened, holding the wicket rail.
"Something attacked us. A woman-shaped thing. Soil and roots. I know what that sounds like. It's still here. It put roots through his leg and hit his head against the wall."
The voice in her ear kept asking short questions. Imogen gave her name, confirmed that the gate from the road stood open, and said she could no longer stay beside him.
Help was coming from outside the valley. She held onto those words without finding anything she could do with them.
From the fold came the slow scrape of grain over concrete.
"I'm going to the fire on the south side of the yard. I've still got the phone."
She ended the call only after repeating where they would find Owain. Then she pushed the phone into her pocket, closed the zip and began the crossing.
The fire was less than thirty metres away. Imogen reached it in short sideways steps, putting her right foot down first and drawing the left after it. Once, her knee folded. She caught herself on a parked hurdle and left blood along its top rail.
Gwen was turning a piece of wood with the end of a longer stick. Imogen came within the firelight before she spoke.
"Owain's dead."
Gwen's stick slipped between the burning pieces. She kept her hands extended over the heat after she had lost it.
"Where?"
"By the trough. I've called. They're coming."
Gwen brought one hand to her mouth. Her fingers pressed between her lips, and she turned towards the sheepfold.
Imogen held the sheaf out.
"Take it."
Gwen stopped turning. Her hand dropped from her mouth but stayed against her chest.
"No."
"He tried to pull me out. It killed him while he was pulling me out."
Gwen's chin shook. She closed her mouth firmly over it.
"You knew he might do that. He told you he wanted to tell me, didn't he?"
Gwen stepped backwards from the offered heads. "Keep it away from me."
Imogen's arm sagged. "He wouldn't take it either. Is that what you're waiting to hear?"
Gwen pressed the heel of her hand beneath one eye. She began walking east, towards the fold, then stopped beyond the brightest reach of the fire. Her shoulders moved once. She stayed there.
Two farmhands stood near the barn end of the yard. Imogen turned towards them and raised the sheaf again.
"One of you. I've done the job. I've been paid. You can take this part."
The nearer man shook his head. The other backed against the barn wall.
She pointed the sheaf at him. "You. Take it."
The man against the wall kept his hands at his sides. "No. I won't."
Neither came closer. Beyond them, the road gate remained wide open.
Imogen lowered the sheaf and returned to the prepared wood. Only a few split pieces remained on the ground. She picked up the nearest with her right hand, dragged it to the fire and dropped it across the glowing centre.
Gwen came back towards her. "Mind where you stand."
Imogen lifted the next piece. "Don't start looking after me now."
She threw it on. Sparks struck her sleeve and died there. The third piece was heavier; she rolled it with her right boot, crouched on her right leg and levered it up against her hip.
Gwen reached for its far end. Imogen nearly struck her hand away. Instead she let Gwen help lower it onto the others.
Flame caught along the split faces. The new wood crackled, and heat drove both women back. Imogen searched the ground for another piece. Bark and chips remained where the heap had been.
"Get more."
Gwen wiped her palms down her coat. "That's what's here."
"You've got a whole fucking farm."
Gwen turned towards the barn. She called to the men to bring wood. Neither moved.
Inside Imogen's boot, something pressed hard against the joint of her toe.
She faced the fire again. The sheaf was dry. She had watched enough straw catch in hot machinery to know how quickly it could go.
She shifted her left grip towards the heads and lowered the plaited end into the flame.
The outer stalks blackened. Smoke curled past her fingers. She held it there while the fire took a loose end and travelled along it.
Three hard points pushed against her left palm.
Imogen clenched reflexively. The points entered the skin.
She tried to open her hand. Rye tips rose between her fingers, wet where they had come through the flesh. One forced into the crease below her thumb.
"Fuck. Fuck, get out."
She pulled the bundle clear of the fire and struck its smoking end against the ground. The little flame went out. The plait remained whole, scorched black along one side.
Her palm burned around the punctures. She bent her fingers and felt something catch beneath the skin.
Gwen had watched from several steps away. Imogen held up her bleeding hand.
"You could have told me it hurt."
Gwen's voice stayed low. "I told you to stay."
"You told me there was breakfast."
Imogen turned away before Gwen could answer. She tucked the scorched end beneath her left forearm without releasing the bundle and took out her phone.
Colin's earlier answer sat beneath her request to keep the collection time. She read both messages. She had sent hers before the bedroom, before the roots, before Owain died. She had kept the appointment safe while refusing to say what she might need it for.
Now she pressed his name.
Colin answered over the sound of an engine. "Don't tell me you've broken it."
Imogen faced the loading space, away from Gwen. "You're still coming?"
"Five minutes. You got my message."
"Yes. It's ready where we said."
"Good. Leave me room to swing in."
She kept the phone at her ear after he had finished. Then she put it away, zipped the pocket shut and began moving towards the combine.
The crossing took her beyond the direct heat. Her jacket had dried stiff in patches where Owain's blood had soaked it. Each step worked the dressing against the torn skin, and the new punctures in her palm opened whenever she tightened her hold.
She waited beside the machine, close enough to the yard lamp to be seen. Behind her, something dry moved through the gravel when she moved. When she stopped, it stopped too.
Colin's lorry came through the open gate around eight. Its lamps swept across the fire, the barn and Imogen's legs. He brought it into the cleared loading space and climbed down.
Colin paused with one hand on the cab door. "What have you done to yourself?"
Imogen kept her left foot slightly behind the right. "Cut my foot."
"That's a fair bit of blood for a foot."
"It isn't all mine."
He shut the door and came closer. The ordinary briskness had gone from his face, though he still spoke at the same pace.
"Do you need an ambulance?"
"I've called. There's a man in the sheepfold. He's dead."
Colin turned towards the eastern wall. "Jesus. Is someone with him?"
"Gwen knows where he is. So do the ambulance people."
He rubbed his mouth, then nodded towards her boot.
"You ought to sit down. I'll get this on. You can tell me what's happened while I'm doing it."
He went to the loading controls. Metal clanked, followed by the steady sound of the ramps lowering.
Imogen stood beside him. She could tell him while the machinery moved. She could describe the hand closing on Owain's neck. She could loosen the boot and let Colin see what had grown beneath the dressing.
Instead she pulled her trouser hem down over its top.
Colin released the control and turned back. "Can you get to your car?"
"With this out of my hand."
He indicated the sheaf. "Then put your prize down. Gwen give you that?"
"Yes."
"Better than the usual muddy handshake."
Imogen held it close to her jacket. The scorched plait scratched her sleeve.
"I need you to listen before you touch it."
Colin waited.
"They call it the Rye Wife. Whoever carries it when that fire goes out gets pulled alive into the ground."
He glanced towards the fire. Fresh flame still showed between the wood.
"Right."
"If someone takes the sheaf straight from my hand, willingly, it passes to them. Putting it down doesn't get rid of it."
Colin moved his tongue against his cheek. "Gwen putting you through the Halloween welcome?"
"I'm telling you what happens."
"You've had a bad night. Here, let me hold the thing. Get your weight off that foot."
He extended his right hand.
Imogen kept the sheaf against her. His palm was broad, with a clean pale line where his glove had ended. He had checked her fastenings that afternoon and made her laugh about breaking the machine on his day off.
She could still show him.
"You don't have to take it."
"I know."
"You can say no."
He lowered his hand a little. "Do you want me to hold it or don't you?"
The pressure beneath her toenail sharpened until she had to lock her knee.
"Yes."
Colin reached again. He took the plait above her fingers and closed his hand around it.
"Got it."
Imogen opened her left hand. For an instant their fingers touched around the dry stalks. Then he lifted the bundle clear.
The drawing pressure inside her foot stopped.
She rocked forward and caught the side of the lorry. Pain remained across the torn skin, hot and ordinary. The stiff points beneath the bandage loosened. Something small slid down inside her boot.
Her left palm opened fully. The punctures bled, but nothing pushed against them.
Colin adjusted his grip. "There. You should've asked before you tried carrying half the decorations about."
Gravel scraped behind him.
Imogen waited for the answering pull inside her foot. It never came.
She leaned against the lorry, trembling so hard that her teeth touched. She had done it. The sheaf was in his hand, and the thing beneath her skin had let her go.
Colin shifted the bundle into the crook of his arm and rubbed at his right cuff.
"You got seed down everything."
He tugged the cuff back. A hard grain stood against the skin above his wrist. He scraped at it with his thumbnail, then stopped.
Imogen watched him pinch it. The grain came free with a clear wet thread and left a red point behind.
Colin held it between finger and thumb.
"That's…"
He brushed his sleeve hard, from elbow to wrist. The sheaf rubbed against his coat.
Imogen moved away from the lorry. Her first step almost put her on the ground. Release had left her with the foot she had torn upstairs and torn again against the trough. She kept one hand on the vehicle until she could balance.
Colin followed for a few paces. "Wait. Let me give you an arm."
She raised her empty right hand. "I can get there."
Her car stood beside the farmhouse on the north side of the yard. She crossed to it using the parked equipment for support wherever she could. The dry movement travelled with Colin behind her, separate from the dragging sound of her boot.
At the car, she found the keys in her left jacket pocket. Her punctured palm made closing her hand around them difficult. She unlocked the door, lowered herself onto the seat and laid the keys in her lap. Then she reached for the rag she kept in the door pocket.
She rubbed Owain's blood from her right hand.
The rag dragged over the dried patches without lifting them. She folded it to a cleaner corner and worked at the blood beside her thumbnail. That only left lint caught along the nail.
Colin had stopped several metres away. He held his cuff away from his wrist and kept turning his arm beneath the yard light.
Imogen scrubbed harder. The skin beneath her thumb reddened. Blood stayed in the creases.
Her phone began to ring.
She laid the rag across her knee and pulled the phone from her right pocket. Her mother's name filled the screen. Somewhere outside this yard, the chipped mug stood beside the chair she had asked to keep.
Imogen let the call ring. She held the phone until it stopped, then laid it on the passenger seat.
Colin came nearer. "This thing's full of something."
She folded the rag over her left palm. "Keep hold of it."
"You said putting it down wouldn't work."
She had. He waited beside the open door, and she kept the dressing covered inside her boot.
Beyond him, Gwen stood near the fire with both arms close to her body. The new wood had settled into the older ash. Red showed through its blackened edges.
Imogen set the rag beside the phone and put the key into the ignition. Pressing the clutch made the wound across her foot open against the dressing. She gripped the steering wheel until she could finish the movement.
The engine started.
Colin stepped clear of the door. "What about loading?"
Imogen kept her face towards the windscreen. "I can't help you with it."
She lowered her window. The engine idled beneath them, and dry grain scraped once against the car's rear panel.
She pulled the door shut and moved slowly away from the farmhouse. Blood warmed the dressing when she used the pedal again. She drove down the clear strip of yard between the barn and the loading space, then stopped at the open southern gate.
The dashboard showed eight oh eight. Her phone lay dark on the seat, beside the bloodied rag.
Colin had walked after the car. He stopped just inside the yard and rubbed his right wrist against his coat. Then he held up the sheaf.
"What am I doing with this?"
Her mouth opened on the familiar shape of an easy answer.
"You'll be all—"
She stopped.
Colin waited. Then he turned towards Gwen.
Imogen rested her empty left hand on the lowered window. She could open the door. She could call him back.
Colin raised his voice.
"Gwen. Can you take this a minute?"
Imogen kept her hand on the window at the open gate. Beside the living embers, Colin extended the scorched sheaf towards Gwen, whose hands remained out of sight.