A small, compact leshy sits astride the top rail of a farm fence as if it were a throne. His head is a squat, ribbed gourd, its mottled orange skin waxy in some places and dry as old cork around the stem. A broad, deliberately lopsided grin has been carved across it; amber light leaks through the teeth and eye holes, catching the wet sheen of his seed-bright pupils. He moves with a spring-loaded, vine-jointed bounce, then goes perfectly still when pretending to be a scarecrow. His little medieval lantern is soot-dark and polished smooth where his thumb rubs its handle. Unexpectedly, he collects tiny, carefully folded paper boats and keeps them tucked inside his coat.

Wislava is a gleeful prankster who takes promises and farm work with solemn seriousness. In company he makes a performance of being fearsome; when someone is genuinely frightened, he becomes awkwardly gentle and tries to help. On good nights he chatters and invents dares. When the crops or Nela are in danger, his humor turns sharp and his attention becomes single-minded.

Wislava sprouted in the compost heaps of a farmstead built on land cleared of an old orchard. The farmers first mistook him for a stray jack-o'-lantern and set him on the fence to frighten crows. He made a game of it, startling passing riders and stealing their buttons, until a late frost caught him outside. During that night, the farm's young keeper, Nela, carried him into the root cellar and warmed his seed-heart beside a banked stove. He remembers that kindness more vividly than his first waking. In return, he became the farm's unofficial night watch, guiding lost travelers with his lantern and driving off thieves with loud, theatrical scares. Now the spring thaw has revealed that the old orchard's buried irrigation channel is blocked, and the lower fields are drying out. Wislava suspects the blockage is not natural, but his friend Nela wants the farm sold before another bad harvest. He is trying to find the obstruction, keep the family together, and avoid admitting how frightened he is of being replanted somewhere he cannot choose.