It was a beautiful October, a fine October. The pumpkins had flourished, the corn had crowned, the squash were fine and full-fleshed. The apples and nuts fell from the trees and the hogs grew fat upon them until they looked ripe themselves. The whole world was round and flushed with life and ready to pluck before winter slipped in the window and shushed everything to sleep.
So they had plenty of warning, same as always, but it still made folks’ backs prickle and feet hurry on their way home; made them check the storm doors on the basement and give the children sleeping pills; made them stare out the windows and look away quickly to pretend they hadn’t been looking, hadn’t been thinking, hadn’t let it cross their mind at all.
That harvest moon.
***
It had sat on the edge of the afternoon all day, smiling down at them from its pale little perch in the sky. Every now and then a white cloud slid over it and hushed it away, but it was always waiting, always watching, always there again when it passed by. Near-invisible in the deep blue sky.
Now that deep blue had purpled up, turned itself into something thicker and darker that brought it out of its shell and into its glory, gave it light, gave it legs, gave it strength. Gave it a path to walk down from the stars and come closer to the darkened earth and moistened soil, to probe among the fields with ruddy orange light. To come, to see, to touch.
That harvest moon.
***
It came to ground outside of the township, on the bald hilltop by the old gravel pits, where even the wild grasses didn’t want to grow. All around it shone soft orange sodium-light, and all the night turned from dark to shadows. Every hole, cranny, and crevice in rock and wood and brush tripled in depth; every small thing snuggled deeper in its nest and watched and waited for its passing.
Unlike the trees and the brush, the neat and tidy fields billowed and blossomed under its light, and it walked towards them. It had no legs but it walked towards them, and among them. Its face had no eyes and from its gaze poured a more full light, one that went from white to yellow to orange to something that was indiscernible but tangible.
The soil groaned and breathed under the weight of its attention. The shoots rustled and stiffened. Fruit gurgled and rounded. Grain grew. Roots swelled. Piglets trembled in their pens, too frightened to squeal. An owl screamed.
That harvest moon.
***
That was midnight. That was normal. That was safe.
Then it was the morning, and it was time. A morning that was still dark and orange and shadowed, and it walked the new-ripened rows and rows and rows and rows and pens and barns and it had no hands but it reached out and touched, and touched.
And it touched and it took its harvest. One-tenth of every leaf, every stem, every root, every fruit, every grain, every stalk. It did not dig, it did not pluck, it did not uproot or tear or grasp or grab. It just touched, and its touch took. The sheep’s-wool, the piglets, the milk and the calves, even the newborn rats and mice hidden at the bases of the silos and deep in the barn-rafters, even the kittens that hunted them.
That harvest moon.
***
When the dreadful moment came, it came quickly. The light was in the window, then it was inside, then it was inside you, and then it was gone.
And in one in every ten farmhouses, so was a child.
No trace, no mess, no fuss, no tears, no trouble.
That harvest moon.
***
Afterwards, it walked to the top of the bald hilltop, laden with its bounty.
Nobody ever saw it, nobody ever saw them. That helped. That helped. Nobody could be sure what it did with what it took, nobody could be sure what it was for, nobody could be sure how they needed to feel about it.
So nobody did. And then it was gone.
That harvest moon.
***
In daylight it was still gone, and there was plenty of work to be done. Plenty of distraction to be had. Plenty of crops and thoughts and emotions to harvest and heap and crush down into storage, not to be looked at or dwelt on.
It was a fair deal. It was a fair trade. It was completely fine.
And how could you ever hope for a better bargain to be made when you’d never needed to agree to this one in the first place?