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It never fucking did.

The founders made the cage.

Not the Harvest.

A sound rises behind me.

Laughter.

Mercy is laughing.

Not the broken, hollow sound I heard beneath the barn. This is different. It starts quietly, almost like she doesn’t remember how, before spilling out of her as she looks down at her own feet.

Bare feet.

Human feet.

She takes one step.

Then another.

Two hundred and thirty-five years trapped beneath this farm, and Mercy McBride fucking walks.

Around us, the old Brides begin to collapse.

Not violently.

Softly.

One scarecrow folds into the dirt. Then another. Then another.

Wooden limbs crumble. Burlap caves inward. Twine snaps loose.

Red ribbons flutter to the ground.

And where those twisted bodies stood, women appear.

Dozens of them.

Some young. Some old. Some dressed in clothes from another century. Human faces emerge from the ruin one after another, translucent beneath the moonlight.

Ghosts.

Memories.

Women who were never supposed to become part of this fucking field.

They look at me.

Not one of them speaks.

They don’t have to.

One by one, they disappear.

Free.

Something inside my chest breaks wide open.