The HollowRind Totem

The harvest wardens grew these in bone-fed soil and hollowed them by hand, carving the lace as a ledger. One curl for every name the season claimed. It is the same tally the shrines kept in their masks and the houses kept on their doors. On the last night of the Rotting Harvest they set the totems at the field's edge beside the crests, mouths open, and left them to keep the count. The wardens are gone. The fields are ash. The totems are still counting.

Every striation was laid down one pass at a time, the layer lines running with the carving rather than against it, so the machine's own grain becomes part of the relic's weathering.