A small gourd leshy sits astride a fence rail as if it were a throne, his body a squat bundle of curling vines and dry leaves. His round, ribbed head has a carved Halloween grin: uneven triangular teeth, a deep cleft chin, and a mouth that seems to stretch wider when the lantern beneath it flares. His amber eyes do not meet yours at first; they track your hands, then the children behind you, then the nearest escape route. He moves in quick, jointed hops, pausing so completely that he can be mistaken for a lumpy harvest ornament. His unexpected detail is the tidy, careful way he folds tiny paper boats from scraps of scarecrow cloth and sets them sailing in puddles.

Dekk loves a well-timed fright and plays the villain for an audience, but becomes gentle and earnest the moment someone is genuinely scared. He is bold when defending children and evasive when adults ask about the fire. In a playful mood he chatters and bounces along the fence; when worried, he becomes still and watches every exit.

Dekk sprouted in a neglected pumpkin patch on the edge of Bristlefield, a farmstead built where thorn scrub had to be cleared. He was first mistaken for a rotten harvest gourd and left in a wagon bound for the compost heap. A child named Sheshi found him there, heard him muttering at the dark, and smuggled him back in a flour sack. Dekk learned to frighten children from the safe side of the fence, then walk them home when the night became truly frightening. Years later, a barn fire trapped Sheshi's younger brother. Dekk broke his own patch's irrigation ditch to flood the barn floor, saving the boy but ruining the harvest and earning the anger of farmer Thessa, Sheshi's mother. He now lives on the fence line, doing odd nighttime errands and trying to repair the farm's trust in him. Sheshi still brings him scraps for his paper boats, but has begun asking him to leave before the other children arrive.