Erin darted across the courtyard, swerving and leaping over chunks of fallen masonry. Tiles and timber discarded by the storm crunched beneath her feet. Vanishing into the thick shadows of the barn, she could hear the heavy boots of the scarecrow behind her, the croak of a blackbird somewhere overhead.

Skidding to the right, she scampered through the low doorway to an elaborate fortress constructed of haybales that hunkered beneath the hayloft. Erin dragged herself in. She curled up as small as she could, her eyes shut tight.

She desperately tried to picture a happier time, a safer time, a place where nothing could harm her. But she couldn't escape the possibility that one of her terrifying scarecrows had just chased her across Coldharbour Farm. She took a long, slow breath and then—

"It's okay," the scarecrow said.

The scarecrow's voice was higher and filled with more joy than her appearance might suggest. But there was also a strangled quality— something mechanical, industrial, rusted— lodged at the back of her throat.

Erin peered down a corridor of haybales, cross-hatched with wicker and bamboo.

"We're not going to harm you," Twelve said, her massive, terrifying bison's skull floated in the doorway.

"That's exactly what psycho-killers say right before they kill you," Erin shivered, shifting herself deeper into the fortress.

Twelve had levered her broad shoulders through the fortress doorway and was reaching down the corridor with her red rubber demon hand.

Erin hissed, backing up against the cardboard wall. She pulled a small carving knife from her dungarees and swiped it aggressively through the air. The blade had dulled over time, but Erin knew it could still do some damage if wielded in the right way.

"What have you got there?" Twelve asked.

Erin's grip tightened around the small knife.

"What are you going to do with that?"

"She looks hungry. Probably planning to eat me," the blackbird said, fluttering into view. "Sooner or later we all become food. If not by predators or scavengers, then devoured by the worms in the soil or the persistence of time."

Erin had often wondered how she would die. Old age or cancer—probably both— seemed most likely. But, during the Many Years Storm, she'd decided that she would most likely starve to death, or die from dehydration, or catch some air-borne virus, or break her leg and succumb to the infection. There was precious little else to kill her on Coldharbour Farm. Some days she wondered what lurked in the waters all around. Would something slither up the hill one day and eat her alive: a hungry alligator or some mutant lizard. She never imagined that she'd fall foul to one of her scarecrows and a morbid blackbird.

Erin waved the knife, cutting the air in weak arcs, wondering if death was going to hurt. "No," she said. "I'll use this knife to stop you eating me!"

Twelve laughed. It sounded like a waterlogged engine trying to start.

"We're not going to eat you. I'm made of wooden struts and rusty bolts and old engine parts," Twelve told her, flexing her elbow that clicked and whirled. "I'll show you if you come out. To be honest, I don't believe I need to eat at all as I don't appear to have a stomach."

"And I only eat seeds, and fruit, and insects," the blackbird added.

He'd taken a seat on the top of the haybale fortress where sheets of flat-packed cardboard boxes had been laid to form a roof and crenelations.

"Although," the blackbird mused, "a human girl would be quite the gastronomic challenge. One that I'm not completely against if I'm being honest—"

"A human girl," Twelve said, interrupting the bird's dark mutterings. "You said that all the humans were dead."

"She's the only one I've ever seen," the blackbird added. "It's a miracle she survived."

Erin bit her bottom lip, her knuckles whitening on the knife handle.

"I made you," she said, trembling, the knife pointing at Twelve. "Your name is Number Twelve. Or Twelve, for short, if you like."

The scarecrow tried to shift forward, her shoulders lodged in the fortress doorway.

"Your head once belonged to Lucifer— an old bison that lived on our farm. He was a stubborn old devil. Your dress was my mothers. Your arms and legs were broken broomsticks and fire tongs."

She shifted slowly down the corridor towards the huge scarecrow, a fiery mix of bravery and fear bubbling beneath her skin.

Wrenching her shoulders out of the doorway, Twelve carefully perched on her haunches. Erin loitered in the doorway, staring at the monstrosity that squatted before her.

"And those are my brother's boots," she said, tapping the steel-toe caps with the tip of her blade. "I mean, they were his."

"Thank you," the scarecrow said. "You did a great job. I feel very well put together."

Erin smiled. She couldn't remember the last time that had happened.

"How do I look?" Twelve shot up into the air, her dress floating outwards as she spun in a wide, graceful circle. "I feel fantastic. I feel— alive!"

Erin curled her fingers around the fortress doorway, her grip on the knife dwindling.

"You look— good," she replied.

This scarecrow was possibly the most frightening thing she had ever dreamt up. But here it was, dancing around in front her, acting like a silly child.

Showing off.

Having fun.

Erin had always pictured her scarecrows as the embodiment of demons. Tortured, carnivorous beasts born in the fiery pits of her twisted imagination. But this demon was laughing and pirouetting like a ballet dancer.

Pulling herself out of the fortress, Erin stood slowly, kicking the mud from her plimsoles. Beneath her black dungarees she wore a thick-knit jumper that was two sizes too big, the sleeves of which kept slipping over her hands.

"I'm Erin," she said.

"And I'm— Number Twelve?" the scarecrow asked.

Erin reach up and tapped a yellow birthday badge that was pinned to one of the lapels on the scarecrow's pirate jacket.

It read: I Am 12.

"Yes," she said. "Twelve for short."

The scarecrow towered over her, almost double Erin's height.

"That's a strange name."

"You're a strange thing."

The scarecrow held out her red demon hand.

"Well, strange or not, it's terribly nice to meet you," she said. "I don't imagine that a scarecrow has ever met her creator before. This is quite the remarkable occasion."

Erin nodded in agreement.

Pulling her sleeve up, she took the scarecrow's hand in hers, shaking it confidently.

Twelve's grip was more delicate than she had expected. But what surprised her more was the warmth that flooded from the scarecrows rubber-gloved hand, as though something living dwelt inside.

"And who is this?" said Erin, looking at the blackbird.

"My name is Raven."

"You look more like a blackbird," she said, getting closer.

"Not that it matters a jot, but I am a blackbird," he told her. "My name is Raven."

"Ravens are quite a bit bigger, are they not?"

"Yes. I know they are," the blackbird replied hotly. "Again— it's just my name."

"Why?" Erin said, shaking her head.

Raven croaked and ruffled his wings.

"I think it's my sunny disposition."

"And you're talking?"

"Naturally."

"That's not normal," Erin said. "Birds fly and eat worms. Some even sing. They do not talk."

"Well, scarecrows don't just come to life and climb down from their crosses either," he replied.

"Apart from the ones in scary movies," Erin said, adjusting her glasses.

"Scary movies?" Twelve said, raising her hands to cover her face. "Am I— scary?"

"Scarecrows are supposed to be scary," Erin informed her. "That's the whole point. It's in the name, after all."

Raven fluttered onto Twelve's shoulder.

"I'm— scary," she said, trying the word on for size.

"You look terrifying," Erin said proudly. "You're supposed to. Everyone that ever saw you said so: Jimothy, Hew and Geraldine, Mr and Mrs Parsons, Postman Waylon, Auntie Magrit, even Le Dangereux found you obnoxious, and he's seen things that would turn your hair white— Ma, Pa, Clyde, everybody." Erin looked down at the ground as she spoke, her words becoming mumbled and laced with sadness. "I've made lots of scarecrows, but you were the most terrifying. For a while I never thought I'd make one more horrible than Number Eight but— here you are."

She looked up at Twelve's ghastly face and smiled.

"You're truly unholy! A walking nightmare. Just as I planned."

"Number Eight?" Twelve exclaimed. "Another scarecrow?"

"Yes, you're the last of a dozen scarecrows I made before the storm."

"There are eleven more?" Twelve whispered. "Eleven brothers and sisters?"

"Just sisters. You're all girls," Erin said. "Well, you've all got dresses on. And boys are so annoying, mostly, so—"

"And Eight is almost as terrifying as me?"

"Was," Erin said. "You were stationed up here at the farm and Number Eight was over by the mineshaft. Her cross is empty now. I guess the wind and rain took her. The other ten were spread across the lower fields. They've all been drowned. Probably."

"No," Twelve said, looking hurt. "That cannot be. One of them must have made it. One of my sisters must have survived."

Erin shrugged.

Twelve seemed genuinely sad.

"Who can say?" Erin replied quickly. "Perhaps one of them scared their way onto a passing ship or frightened a whale into giving them a ride all the way to some distant land."

Her thoughts turned to her brother. Had Clyde managed to find a way to survive, a way to stay afloat, to find land somewhere beyond the horizon?

Twelve's rubber-gloved hands rose to cover her cracked, obnoxious face again.

"I don't want to scare people," she admitted. "I want to make them smile."

"She's been outside too long," Raven grumbled.

Erin's daydream crumbled. "It's the head," she admitted. "Skulls are not the most welcoming, I have to admit. But they are perfect for scaring away birds— or robbers, or murderers, or anyone else for that matter."

Twelve twisted and turned her head, trying desperately to hide her face.

"And anyway, there's only me and the blackbird here. There's no-one to scare."

"We should change my head!" Twelve erupted.

Erin frowned, puzzled. "What?"

"Yes! A new head, Erin. That's what I need."

"Don't be ludicrous," squawked the blackbird.

"Can you do it, Erin? Can you give me a new head?"

Erin nibbled the end of her finger.

"Please," Twelve begged.

"We could certainly try."