The Corn-Silk Gospel

The corn was a dry, rasping sea under a sky the colour of a fading bruise. Caleb walked the row between his family’s plot and the Millers', his boots crunching on the parched earth. It was the last week of August, and the air was thick with the dusty, sweet smell of dying stalks. In Haven's Reach, this was a sacred time. A time of gratitude. To Caleb, it just felt like an ending.

He ran a hand over a husk; it was brittle, like old paper. That was when he heard it. A faint whisper, like sand skittering across a floorboard. He stopped, glancing around. There was no one there. Just endless rows of corn, their tassels bent in the still, heavy air. He shook his head. The heat was getting to him.

He continued walking, the farmhouse a distant speck against the horizon. The whispering started again, louder this time. It wasn't the wind. The sound was articulate, a layered murmur of voices coming from the corn itself. He couldn't make out words, just the sibilant rise and fall of speech. He pressed his ear against a stalk, his heart thudding a nervous rhythm against his ribs. The whispers were clearer now, coming from inside the stalk, from the very fibres of the plant.

"He who walks alone hears what isn't there." The Elder's voice, deep and resonant, boomed from the end of the row. Caleb jumped back from the corn stalk, his face flushing.

The Elder stood there, a tall, imposing figure in his simple black coat, his face a roadmap of wrinkles. He held a scythe in one hand, its blade gleaming. He wasn't looking at Caleb, but at the corn, his expression one of reverence.

"The soil provides for those who honour it," the Elder continued, his gaze sweeping over the fields. "And it demands tribute. The Reaping is a holy day, Caleb. A day for thanks, not for idle wandering and listening to the devil's breath in the leaves."

"I heard something," Caleb mumbled, knowing how it sounded.

"You heard the wind in a dry field," the Elder corrected him, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Your family has a debt to this community. To this soil. Do not add blasphemy to it. Go home. Prepare yourself. The harvest moon waits for no one."

The Elder turned and walked away, his scythe resting on his shoulder. Caleb watched him go, the whispers from the corn starting up again as soon as the man was out of earshot, more insistent now, more urgent.

The Tired Soil

He found Clara by the creek, washing clay from a set of ceramic bowls, her face serious with concentration. They were for the Reaping feast. Everything was for the Reaping. They used to play here as kids, building dams and catching minnows. Now, she barely looked at him.

"They're talking," he said without preamble. "The corn stalks. They're whispering."

Clara didn't stop her work. She dipped a bowl into the cold, clear water and scrubbed it with a cloth. "You shouldn't say things like that, Caleb. Not today."

"I'm not making it up. It's real. It's like… like a hundred people talking at once, just under the sound of the wind." He took a step closer. "Don't you feel it? Something's different this year. The air is… tight."

She finally looked at him, her grey eyes troubled. "What's different is you. You're always looking for shadows where there's only sun. The Reaping is a blessing. It's the day we repay the soil for its bounty."

"By giving it the first bushel from every plot?" Caleb scoffed. "It's just a tradition, Clara."

"It is our covenant!" she snapped, her voice sharp. She placed a finished bowl on the grass with a sharp click. "The Elder says the first settlers would have starved if they hadn't made the pact. The soil gave, and they gave back. We honour that pact. We honour the soil. That's why we thrive."

"We thrive because we have an irrigation system and crop rotation," he muttered.

"Go home, Caleb." Her voice was soft again, but distant. "Pray. Cleanse your mind. Don't let your father's doubt become a sickness in you too."

He left her there, the rejection a familiar, bitter taste in his mouth. His father had questioned the Elder once, years ago, had suggested they sell some of their surplus crop to the town over the ridge instead of tilling it all back into the Reaping plot as tribute. He'd been shamed, his family given the smallest, driest plot of land as penance. The debt was never paid.

He took the long way home, through the heart of the cornfields. He had to know if he was going crazy. He stopped in the centre of the vast expanse, the stalks towering over him on all sides. He closed his eyes and just listened.

The whispers were there. A constant, dry rustle of voices. He focused, trying to pick one out from the cacophony. He tried to hear a word, any word.

*Tired… so tired…*

The voice was clear, a woman's, right beside his ear. He flinched, his eyes flying open. Nothing.

*Grain… always the grain…*

A man's voice this time, rough and low.

He stumbled back, his breath catching in his throat. It was real. He wasn't imagining it. He put his hands out, touching the stalks on either side of him. As his skin made contact, the whispers flooded his mind, a dozen, a hundred voices speaking at once, but this time, they formed a single, coherent thought, a unified message of profound and ancient hunger.

The chorus of voices rose to a crescendo in his head, a clear, cold, and terrifying sentence that echoed the Elder's words but twisted their meaning into a horrifying new shape.

It said: *The soil is tired of grain. The soil demands tribute.*