Many thanks to Lydia Lukidis, Kaitlyn Sanchez, and Alyssa Reynoso-Morris for hosting the #FallWritingFrenzy contest. (You can read more about it HERE.) I had so much fun creating several short fall-themed pieces, and I hope you enjoy reading the one I selected as my entry:

🎃 JACKITY-CLACK 🎃

by Susan Gray Foster

As the harvest moon rose into the dusky sky on a long-ago evening, a girl lost in the old cornfield happened upon a pumpkin-headed scarecrow called Jackity-Clack. The scarecrow waved at her with twiggy fingers, and winked at her with candlelit eyes, and charmed her with his carved-out grin. And he begged her to set him free.

What harm could it do?

The girl stood on tiptoes, reaching, but when she at last stretched high enough to unhook Jack from his post, he tumbled down and collapsed into pieces—a pile of stick limbs no longer attached to his jack-o-lantern head.

Dear me. The girl leaned down to help poor old Jack.

But—oh!—the sticks leapt up and scurried away. And Jackity-Clack’s grinning jack-o-lantern mouth laughed and laughed as his pumpkin-head rolled away and disappeared into the darkness.

Sometimes, on a crisp autumn night, when the moon glows orange in an inky sky, you might be startled by the creaking clatter of stick limbs strolling through the cornfield. And if you listen closely, you’ll hear the echoing laughter of Jackity-Clack.