The field outside my window goes on for miles, an endless wave of gold wheat that crashes against the shore of a barb-wired fence. It glows in the setting sun.

Cornflower blue sky. Sharp white clouds. Cool summer breeze. Honeyed sunset.

I count the crows gathering around my scarecrow, screaming their jagged songs into the darkening sky. There's seven... maybe nine. I've lost track.

The coarse rope knotted on my wrists tugs, shifting over tender skin as I press closer to the cool glass. My hot breath fogs it up, the whole image a blurred water color painting.

Heavy boots pound up the stairs, followed by a knock on my door - He doesn't wait for an answer, just walks in.

Austin stands into my room, hat clutched in his hands, hair matted to his skull with sweat - It's the same color as the field.

"Do you-" He stops, looks away, wringing his hat in a white-knuckled grip, "Do you really have to be tied up, Marry."

His words struggle free from his throat like they had to claw past the tightness of his jaw. My fingers itch to sooth the lines around his mouth, the stress in his eyes.

"Yes." I sound steady, sure. I'm a better lair than I thought.

The sun falls, darkness crawling into its place. The field is shifting in the growing wind, the sound like that of a rattle-snake. I hate rattle-snakes.

Austin steps into my space, his body like a furnace. I lean back against his stomach, the knobs of my spine pressing into the icy chill of his belt buckle. He runs a hand through my stringy black hair, setting his palm on my thin shoulder.

"We just won't go to sleep, Marry," His southern drawl cradles the words, my name like an old country lullaby, "we can stay up all night."

I scoff, a nasty sound dredged up from the twisting pile of black snakes in my stomach. Austin tenses, on edge. I twerk my wrist against the rope, gritting my teeth against the fresh wave of pain.

"I've tried that, and it didn't fucking work." His fingers draw away, mistaking my anger, placing the blame on himself, "Nothing fucking works."

The anger bleeds out, exhaustion flooding the emptiness in my bones. The delicate skin on my wrists gives way to the rope, a trickle of blood traveling the path of my arm.

"Every night I wake up under the same crooked tree." The wind picks up, the scarecrow tilting in the force of it, the birds taking flight, "I'm naked, and there are voices... yelling things. Terrible things."

It's fully dark out, night has fallen. My heart has crawled up up up, pounds away in my throat. The trickle of blood becomes a steady drip, a steady flow.

"And there's a hangman's noose on the tree, and-" My voice cuts off, like a scratched record, "and there's a shadow, hanging in the noose. It's a woman."

And I'm not in the attic anymore, Austin's warm body isn't pressed along my back anymore, the wind isn't trapped behind a glass anymore - I'm naked, alone, beneath the Hanging Tree.

A scream is trapped in my throat, my wrists free of the rope, bloody and mangled. No color, just black and white. Shadows circle the tree.

'Hang the witch!' 'You'll hang just like her!'

The woman, the ghost, sways in the wind. Crows circle above, seven, maybe nine. I dig my fingers into the dirt, claw at the soil to wake up. Wake up.

The mob gets closer, blocking out the fields of wheat. She's not in the noose anymore, the rope twisting towards me.

'Her blood flows in those veins, Witch. You'll hang for that.'

I look to my palms, covered in dirt and blood. Blood tied to the Witch, to the dead, to the shadows. I smear the rich dirt and thick blood down my chest, breathing to the ruthless chants of the phantoms.

'Hang her... Hang her... Hang her...'

I press my hand to the tree, a bright streak of red against the black bark. They're louder, closer. I press my head to the tree, and the scream trapped in my throat breaks free - It sounds like a hundred women, the bloody gargled screams of a hundred innocent women.

The chanting stops, silence stretching out in its place.

I'm alone, on a hill, under a tree.

The sun has just begun rising...

The fields are gold again.