The instinct for trouble: I searched for a broken branch that meant a man had run through this way, the trampled snow of footprints, a bit of fabric snagged on a twig.

I saw something large and bright on the next hill across the valley. A pumpkin.

But it wasn’t on the ground; it was too high.

The pumpkin sat crookedly on a neck.

It was the head of a scarecrow. Plaid shirt stuffed with something, boots and jeans. Why would someone make a scarecrow in the middle of the woods and leave it on a hill? Go to all that trouble—and waste what looked to be warm clothes?

I climbed up the rise to where the scarecrow had been planted. Behind it, I saw the Pumpkin King’s trailer. This scarecrow wasn’t guarding any crops. Nothing had been planted in a while. The fields on the hilltop looked empty and black, furrows filled with snow. The trailer seemed abandoned, the siding ripped and shot with mold. The wheels weren’t just parked like my own trailer. These tires were flat—rotted.

But I knew he lived there.

I saw green ferns inside the trailer windows. The birdfeeder in the plane tree was full. I approached the cinder-block step and knocked quickly at the door. The birdfeeder, cut from an empty milk jug, wagged in the wind, heavy with seeds. I glanced over the seed that had spilled: red millet.

I picked up a handful from the snow. It might sprout someday, if it hadn’t been baked. A wind chime clattered: something else hanging in the tree, made from spoons.

I didn’t want to leave Grayson alone for too long. What if the Pumpkin King came back to that spot and I wasn’t there? I couldn’t remember exactly what he had said, where to meet. He wouldn’t know Grayson, wouldn’t trust him. I put the millet seed in my pocket—I would ask the Pumpkin King if the millet might grow; surely he wouldn’t begrudge me some birdseed, especially if I was giving him a grow light—then knocked again.

Through the door, its window curtained with a dish rag, I could see a slice of room. The Pumpkin King was messy. Dirty dishes in the sink, the stack teetering higher than the faucet. The curtains on the other side of the room had been torn down.

It was too messy.

There were broken dishes on the floor. Plants had been overturned, dirt speckled with fertilizer, mixing with the plate shards. Something was wrong.

I should text the Pumpkin King. I should have done that first.