#''hey hedgehog moss it's been a while; what's new?''

[hedgehog-moss]

When the world feels chaotic and unstable you can draw comfort and hope from one enduring certainty, and it is...

... that Pampérigouste escaped again.

She Found A Way, and so can you—the first tenet of llama philosophy.

@ Anon from last time, please don't insult my fence again, it is truly doing its best 😔 One of the crossbars snapped because of the snow. Or the wind. Or Pampe. But I launched an investigation and found the crime scene pretty soon, thanks to her footprints in the fresh snow. (Surrounded by a whole lot of Pandolf's excited pawprints.)

Pandolf & I walked around in the woods for some time looking for a replacement crossbar—as always, he wasn't quite sure what we were looking for but was very supportive and enthusiastic nonetheless.

We found a suitably long & straight branch.

Ta-dah! All patched up. (It's hard to tie knots with freezing hands so I warmed them up in Pandolf's neck fur at regular intervals. He thought he was being petted for being a good dog. He would have probably been even happier to realise he was being a good and useful dog, at the same time.)

I felt like I had earned my morning coffee, but just to be on the safe side, I went to check another crossbar that I've been keeping an eye on as a potential Escape Spot, because it's curved and therefore lower than the others—but there were no llama footprints there.

Then I saw Pampe start trotting towards a specific part of the fence, with this cheerful and resolute gait which is always very alarming. I went after her, and discovered that she'd led me straight to another broken crossbar, and she was politely waiting for me there.

She is so confident in her abilities that she's decided she can afford to give her adversary some helpful tips.

I had no trouble getting her back in her pasture btw, the Muesli Whistle still works very well (especially in winter when she's hungrier.) She didn't really want to go anywhere; her to-do list for today was 1. test every crossbar by applying pressure with her neck to locate a weak one, lower it then gracefully jump over it to practise her best talents; 2. acquire illegal hazel catkins from the tree near my house, thus making sure I can spot her from my window and see how talented she is; 3. make me say "Pampe!!!" in that annoyed tone that she evidently enjoys hearing; 4. wait for me to go get the usual muesli bribe before following me to the pasture.

And since the other animals always end up getting some muesli as well, it's clear that Pampe thinks of her escapes as a service to her community.

[rj-drive-in]

Strange Brew Department:

Happy Halloween! Happy Tricks! Happy Treats!

OCTOBER WINE © 2023 by Rick Hutchins

For October Wine, one must gather the ingredients one year in advance, because that’s how long it must ferment.

Wet orange maple leaves collected from the forest floor no later than the ides; pine cones that have yet to drop, along with a bed of needles for their repose; a cupped handful of wild blueberries picked at dawn; a handful of chestnuts no bigger than your thumbnail; the longest continuous strip of birch bark possible; a baker’s dozen of Honeysuckle flowers collected while trespassing; a pumpkin; a patch of moss; and, most importantly, seven Hedgehog Mushrooms, collected in the nude under the full moon.

Halloween night, as the Witching Hour approached, I gathered the ingredients on my kitchen counter and pulled out my grandmother’s yellow, crumbling recipe, sealed in its clear plastic sleeve (no fear– I also scanned it and backed it up to the cloud).

Normally I would use that nice vintner kit that I got from Amazon a couple of years ago, but this was to be something special. I used Gramma’s old fermenting bottle. It was the size of a large baby and made of thick green glass, with a finger handle and an ancient cork clamp lid.

Following the recipe to the last handwritten letter, I poured the mix into the mason jar, sealed it tight, and stored it away in a cabinet in the back of my garage.

An eventful year passed, and most of the events were not welcome. Few of them, but all of them, affected me personally.

As October rolled around again, many felt that the gallows humor and graveyard mischief of Halloween were inappropriate after all that had happened, but my appreciation of the holiday ran deeper than that.

Keisha caught up with me at the mall on Friday. “Hey, Hester,” she said, hugging me. “I’m having a little get together at my place on Halloween. Just a quiet thing, no costumes or anything. I hope you can be there.”

“I think I’ll just stay home,” I lied.

“Just a half dozen people or so. Some single boys.”

I laughed. “That’s okay.”

“Chips and hard cider.”

“Nah.”

“Still missing your gramma, huh?”

“Yeah. Always.”

“She was a real sweethearted lady.”

“Best ever.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.” I smiled for her.

She hugged me again. “Okay, but the invitation is open if you change your mind. We’d love to have you.”

“Thank you. I’ll think it over.”

She continued on her way and I continued on mine.

I met Violet coming out of the supermarket with an armload of Halloween candy, just as I was going in.

“Hi, hon,” she said with a one-armed hug and a cheek kiss. “I guess you’re all ready for All Hallow’s Eve.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sexy Hippie costume.”

“Just my regular clothes,” I laughed.

“Same thing,” she said. “What are your plans?”

“Just home,” I lied.

“No date?”

I shook my head and she shook hers back at me teasingly. “You’ve got to move on eventually,” she said.

“And I will. But it was nice. I’ll let it linger a little.”

“Mmm,” she said. “I know what you mean. That’s why I never brush my teeth right after eating ice cream.”

I laughed. She was always coming up with crazy, but accurate, metaphors like that. “What about you two?” I asked.

“We’re staying the weekend at his sister’s place in Nashua. We still don’t want to take too many chances with the pandemic.”

“Good idea.”

“Well, I gotta run. Stay safe.”

She continued on her way and I continued on mine.

Piyali got me on Skype me that night from her parents’ house in New Jersey. She was still recovering from the injury to her face that she got at the beach over the Summer, and I’m pretty sure she had some kind of post-traumatic stress thing going on.

“Sorry I haven’t kept in touch,” she said.

“That’s okay. How have you been doing?”

“All right. Mom and Dad want me to stay for the Winter, so I might not be back in town until Spring.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

She nodded. “I’m getting some therapy. Dad offered to pay for plastic surgery. It’s cosmetic, so the insurance won’t cover it.”

“They’re hardly noticeable.”

She shrugged. “I just want them gone.”

“I understand,” I told her. “What are you doing for Halloween.”

“Staying in. Dad likes those old black-and-white monster movies.”

“Same here,” I lied. “Movies and popcorn.”

“Sounds good,” she said. “I should go now. Let’s talk again before Thanksgiving.”

She continued on her way and I continued on mine.

Halloween night came. I turned off the porch light and most of the indoor lights. I didn’t expect any Trick or Treaters this year, but I didn’t want to deal with any that might show up.

When I brought out the mason jar of October wine and popped it open, it smelled sweet and wet and a bit smoky, just like October should. I took a deep breath of the aroma, but resisted the temptation to try some and closed it back up, leaving it on the kitchen table. Instead, I put on the Turner Classic scary movie marathon in the background, with the sound turned low, and meditated in the darkness as the hours went by.

About 11oclock, I stretched and got up and got ready to leave. In my bedroom, I undressed and put on the short cotton nightgown, blue as a daisy, that Gramma gave me last year when she found out she was going to die. She bought it especially for this occasion and this was the first time I took it out.

I wore my car starter fob on a chain around my neck. I would have to carry my phone and the jug of October wine.

My carport is through a door off the kitchen, so I didn’t have to go outside yet. I used the remote garage door opener and drove out into the quiet streets. There would be few cars and fewer people about at this hour, but I really hoped I wouldn’t get pulled over. The air was chilly enough to raise goosebumps, and the stars in the clear sky were bright and crystalline, despite the suburban streetlamps. I liked the feel of my bare feet on the gas and brake. It was a fifteen-minute drive to Houghton’s Pond.

Blue Hill River Road posed the biggest risk for getting pulled over, but the only other parking lots were on the other side of the pond, which would have meant an hour’s walk through the dark woods before I even got to the right trail. Fortunately, I had no trouble. The parking lot between the picnic grounds and the ballfield was deserted and I sat there in my parked car for a minute, listening to the quiet, before getting out.

The yellow swing gate that blocked the trail to car traffic was right beside the parking lot and easy to find. I didn’t bother using the flashlight app on my phone to light my way, because the Google home page threw enough of a glow to see by in that deep darkness. I went around the gate and, after carefully picking my way barefooted through the weeds and rocks of the disused trail, I came to the edge of a crumbling asphalt road. This was the abandoned ruin of the original Route 128, which has sat here ghostly and mostly forgotten since it was replaced by the new highway system back in the 50s. Here the going got a little easier and I continued down that road for several minutes.

Gramma had left me very specific instructions on what to do next, written on the back of the recipe for her October wine. I’ve scanned that too, but I’m not going to include any details of it here. Let it suffice to say that the passage to the hidden pathway that I needed to find would have been invisible in broad daylight, let alone the dead of night, but her step-by-step guide allowed me to slip unscratched through a wall of thorns, like an interpretive dancer maneuvering through a maze.

The trail on the the other side of the bushes was very narrow and I had to pick my way through carefully so as not to lose it. But it was only a matter of minutes before I broke through to the clearing that Gramma had described.

The clearing was circular, about to fit a Burger King and covered with an even bed of grass. Just as Gramma had said, it looked as well kept as a front lawn, even though nobody ever came this way. The trees that surrounded the clearing were Autumn bare, and I could see the cold white light of the rising Moon starting to peek through them to the East.

I pulled my nightgown off over my head, folded it up and lay it in the grass at the clearing’s edge. Switching my phone to airplane mode, I placed it on top of the nightgown. Then, holding the jug of October wine in my arms like a baby, I walked deeper into the clearing.

About a third of the way across, facing the hint of the rising Moon, I sat down cross legged with the jug in front of me. The grass was cool and moist with dew. It was just before midnight.

After several relaxing breaths, I unclamped the old cork and popped it out, raised the jug to my lips and took my first drink.

It was somewhat thicker than store wine and tasted like wet leaves and berries. It was also warm, and I could feel that warmth go down my throat and spread into my shoulders. I closed my eyes and sipped at it slowly.

When I opened my eyes again, the half disk of the last-quarter Moon had risen above the treetops and was casting shadows across the clearing almost to my knees. A soft breeze moved through the bare branches. It was cool on my skin but I still felt warm. I saw what looked like swarms of fireflies floating lazily in the dark woods, and they seemed to be flying in pairs. Perhaps they were the eyes of Halloween spirits.

Gramma had not told me what to expect, except for anything and everything. I smiled, feeling calm and warm, closed my eyes and took another sip.

When I opened my eyes again, the Moon was higher, lighting more of the clearing. Spread throughout the carpet of grass before me were a thousand mushrooms, some as tall as lilies, some as tall as corn, with slender stalks waving slowly back and forth. They were pale gray, almost white in the moonlight, except for red spots on their small umbrellas. The mushroom closest to me was being ridden by a small snail.

I sat watching the calm waves moving back and forth through the field of unusual growths until I fell in rhythm with them.

Then I closed my eyes and took another sip.

When I opened my eyes again, the Moon was higher and the shadows shorter. The mushrooms were gone, but their place was taken by scores of frogs. There were frogs of all types, from warted bullfrogs as big as footballs to small pebbled tree frogs that would fit in the palm of my hand. They were spread in front of me across the clearing in a great half circle, arranged in rows, like an amphibious parliament.

They sat still and staring at me, slowly blinking, their throats expanding and contracting. Occasionally a distinctive croak would arise from somewhere in the crowd to be answered elsewhere.

Nodding, I closed my eyes and took another sip.

When I opened my eyes again, the Moon was straight overhead and it was now full. This did not seem odd to me. I tilted my head back and looked up and realized that the Moon was also larger than it should be. Every time I blinked, it grew larger still and soon it nearly filled the sky, its edges obscured by the treetops around the clearing. It was so close that I could see the crisp details of mountains and valleys and craters as if I were looking straight down at them. There was the Sea of Tranquility. There was the Apollo lander and the American flag. There were Neil Armstrong’s footprints.

The surface of the Moon was now just inches above my head, almost as close as the cool grass under my bum. I had a brief moment of vertigo and suddenly I was kneeling in the lunar dust and the grassy field was above my head like a low ceiling. The astronauts’ footprints, in their stark clarity, were right in front of me and gray moondust clung to my knees and bare feet. I was afraid to exhale, not knowing if I’d be able to breathe in again.

I reached out to touch the footprint before me and stopped, not wanting to disturb its perfection. There was a moment of vertigo again and I was back in the clearing and the Moon was back in the sky, in its normal phase.

Closing my eyes, I took another sip.

When I opened my eyes again, the Moon was behind me, the shadows of the trees stretching out in front of me. A wide dirt path, almost a road, had opened up in the forest straight ahead on the other side of the clearing. Far off in the distance, at the end of that road, a thousand miles away, was a light, and silhouetted in that light was somebody walking away. He seemed familiar, but he never turned around and soon disappeared down that relentless road.

I blinked and the path was gone.

Closing my eyes, I took another sip.

When I opened my eyes again, the Moon had almost set, leaving only traces of moonbeams peeking through the woods in back of me. The clearing was very dark now, but I soon became aware that there were other people present, moving quietly at the treeline. They were all separate, spread apart, just shadows in the darkness.

There were three of them, all unaware of me and each other. Each time I blinked, they were in different positions in the field, but seemed to be gradually, randomly, coming nearer to the place where I was sitting.

After a while, I began to make out details. They were all girls, all as naked as I was. One was brown with black curls; one was pale, with red hair and freckles; one was olive with glossy hair to her waist. It was Keisha, Violet, and Piyali.

They continued to drift slowly closer, each in her own world, until they stood in a row in front of me, staring silently at their own feet.

It was hard to find my voice. I felt like I hadn’t spoken in a hundred years. Finally, I managed to say, “What’s the matter?”

I blinked again and the clearing was empty.

With a heavy heart, I took another sip.

When I opened my eyes again, the Moon was gone and the clearing was black, the only light coming from the starry sky above. It took a very long time for my vision to adjust. Eventually, I knew that there was another human figure standing under the trees on the other side of the field. Again, it was a woman, and, again, she was as naked as I was. But this was an old woman. An ancient woman.

This was my Gramma.

She started walking slowly toward me and with each step the years melted away and the stars grew brighter. By the time she reached me, she was young, as young as I was, and I could see her clearly. She sat down cross legged in front of me so that our knees were touching and the jug of October wine sat in the tangle of our ankles.

She tilted her head at me with an odd smile and then lifted up the jug and took a long drink. She seemed to savor it for a moment, and then handed it over to me. I took a sip, but she shook her head with a wry twist to her mouth, so I took a longer drink. I placed it back down between us, feeling a little dizzy.

“It’s very good,” she said.

“I followed your recipe to the letter.”

“Next time you won’t have to.”

She took my hands and placed them on top of the jug, then placed her hands on top of mine, and squeezed firmly. For a long time, she just smiled at me and stared into my eyes with a look of adoration that broke and healed my heart.

“Gramma,” I said.

“Yes, Hester.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“You do know what to do.”

“Tell me. What?”

“You don’t need me to tell you what to do,” she said. “You know what to do.”

My eyes suddenly filled with tears and when I wiped them clear, she was gone. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes and took a long last drink.

When I opened my eyes again, the Eastern sky was just barely turning blue. I got to my feet a bit stiffly and stretched out all the kinks with a groan. I replaced the cork in the mason jar of October wine, noting that there was still more than half left. Plenty left over for next year. Plenty for me to continue this old and new tradition.

Picking up my nightgown and phone, I slipped back into the narrow pathway in the forest, retracing my steps to the road and the parking lot and my car and my life. I was ready to continue on my way, knowing that all the other ways, of both the living and the dead, were mine as well.

[starhairspinel]

So, rodents, generally pretty cute, right? Mice, squirrels, hedgehogs, I like 'em, but rats on the other hand, those evil disease ridden trash hoppers can go jump off a cliff for all I care. Now I know what you're thinking "But Spinel, aren't mice and rats basically the same thing?" and to that I say "You're wrong, you idiot!", why? Well it's kinda interesting, rats and mice have alot differences like mice are smaller with relatively bigger ears and longer tails and they also poop twice as frequently as rats- but that's beside the point.

You know what, let me just- lemme tell you about the worst mission I ever had, it involved rats, and spoiler alert it's awful and I hated it.

So like, it's a perfectly normal day in the 80s, yeah? Birds chirping, I'm listening to the hottest new singles, brushing my plastic doll's hair, that kinda stuff, everything was perfectly good, great even! And then Rose waltzed in like "Hey Spinel, we got a mission for you in Empire city!" You know Empire City, right? Whatever happens in Empire City never sleeps? Anyway- I, being blissfully unaware of what this mission would entail, was like "Oh yeah totally! What's it about?", I was expecting something like a- like a chase around the city, get to do some cool spy stuff around the city, go to the mall in cool sunglasses and do parkour on buildings. Then Rose said "Oh you're going with Amethyst on this one and Garnet said there's this corrupted gem in the sewer system of the city!" and already I was like "Ew...?" because the sewers was not what I was expecting to go into while on a mission in Empire-Freaking-City, but I GUESS it would've been cool to meet some humanoid turtles who fight crime and eat pizza, sadly that didn't happen because it would've been better than what DID happen.

Anyway I went on the mission with Amethyst, she shapeshifted into an owl and I turned into a mouse, we flew over the city which admittedly was pretty awesome to see especially at night, nothing really did sleep there as the phrase would suggest, sure, great. We went into a local park that was closed because, you know, it was nighttime, and Amethyst was like "Nah dude I ain't going in there." and I was like "????? What????" and that's where things went downhill from there.

UGGGGGHHHHH okay, so I went into the sewer, as a mouse, Amethyst held onto my tail so I wouldn't get lost in there, take a guess how well that felt, and I had a rat encounter. Y'know, rats are much more terrifying when you've shapeshifted into a mouse but these rats were... Slightly more evil, just- just slightly more evil than usual. The place reaked, I thought that was just the smell of a regular sewer since I haven't been to a proper one before but nah, it was worse, so much worse. Remembering it now the rats seemed a little... Starved, like they haven't eaten any proper food in a while, I mean, they don't eat proper food in general because they're trash demons but what I mean is, they haven't eaten enough. Alot of them were staring at me before I heard one of them squeak to the others, though it clearly wasn't a regular rat squeak, imagine if a rat was chocking on a salt shaker lid but isn't gagging or doing anything to get it out and it's perfectly fine with it, that's what it sounded like. The other rats ran over to that rat and I followed them in hopes that maybe they can lead me to the corrupted gem I was supposed to get, like maybe the gem became some kind of rat king and I had to have this one on one cage fight because they thought I was a threat to their throne or I needed to prove myself or something but... All it lead me to was some moss, like, just moss on the wall of the catacombs, easy to say I was confused and disappointed. Then the rats started eating the moss, which was weird, I didn't know rats even ate anything like moss, I thought maybe I should join in and disguise myself among them and I was gonna take a bite before I noticed something, this wasn't anything like regular moss.

I prodded at the thing and it was just all icky and gross, definitely not moss, and it made me think, maybe this stuff is from the corrupted gem we- I mean, I was supposed to capture since Amethyst was apparently too lazy to come with me, I noticed how when the rats ate it, it would leave a light before regrowing almost instantly. I clawed at the not moss and I found a gemstone in it, bingo, I take out the gem and the would wall of moss poofed, the rats paused and looked at me, dead silence as I held the gem in my little mouse paws, and thEN THEY HAD THE GULL TO CHASE AFTER AND MURDER ME.

I BARELY got out of there with my life intact and Amethyst and I flew the heck out of there when the rats stormed out of the sewer with the sound of raging rubber ducks getting their revenge for letting them get lost in the dusty old shelves for too long. Needless to say, was traumatized I washed myself on the beach for a whole week just so I can feel clean.

I'm still mad at Rose and Amethyst for it.

[rj-drive-in]

Strange Brew Department:

Happy Halloween! It's the most wonderful tiiime of the year....

OCTOBER WINE © 2023 by Rick Hutchins

For October Wine, one must gather the ingredients one year in advance, because that’s how long it must ferment.

Wet orange maple leaves collected from the forest floor no later than the ides; pine cones that have yet to drop, along with a bed of needles for their repose; a cupped handful of wild blueberries picked at dawn; a handful of chestnuts no bigger than your thumbnail; the longest continuous strip of birch bark possible; a baker’s dozen of Honeysuckle flowers collected while trespassing; a pumpkin; a patch of moss; and, most importantly, seven Hedgehog Mushrooms, collected in the nude under the full moon.

Halloween night, as the Witching Hour approached, I gathered the ingredients on my kitchen counter and pulled out my grandmother’s yellow, crumbling recipe, sealed in its clear plastic sleeve (no fear– I also scanned it and backed it up to the cloud).

Normally I would use that nice vintner kit that I got from Amazon a couple of years ago, but this was to be something special. I used Gramma’s old fermenting bottle. It was the size of a large baby and made of thick green glass, with a finger handle and an ancient cork clamp lid.

Following the recipe to the last handwritten letter, I poured the mix into the mason jar, sealed it tight, and stored it away in a cabinet in the back of my garage.

An eventful year passed, and most of the events were not welcome. Few of them, but all of them, affected me personally.

As October rolled around again, many felt that the gallows humor and graveyard mischief of Halloween were inappropriate after all that had happened, but my appreciation of the holiday ran deeper than that.

Keisha caught up with me at the mall on Friday. “Hey, Hester,” she said, hugging me. “I’m having a little get together at my place on Halloween. Just a quiet thing, no costumes or anything. I hope you can be there.”

“I think I’ll just stay home,” I lied.

“Just a half dozen people or so. Some single boys.”

I laughed. “That’s okay.”

“Chips and hard cider.”

“Nah.”

“Still missing your gramma, huh?”

“Yeah. Always.”

“She was a real sweethearted lady.”

“Best ever.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.” I smiled for her.

She hugged me again. “Okay, but the invitation is open if you change your mind. We’d love to have you.”

“Thank you. I’ll think it over.”

She continued on her way and I continued on mine.

I met Violet coming out of the supermarket with an armload of Halloween candy, just as I was going in.

“Hi, hon,” she said with a one-armed hug and a cheek kiss. “I guess you’re all ready for All Hallow’s Eve.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sexy Hippie costume.”

“Just my regular clothes,” I laughed.

“Same thing,” she said. “What are your plans?”

“Just home,” I lied.

“No date?”

I shook my head and she shook hers back at me teasingly. “You’ve got to move on eventually,” she said.

“And I will. But it was nice. I’ll let it linger a little.”

“Mmm,” she said. “I know what you mean. That’s why I never brush my teeth right after eating ice cream.”

I laughed. She was always coming up with crazy, but accurate, metaphors like that. “What about you two?” I asked.

“We’re staying the weekend at his sister’s place in Nashua. We still don’t want to take too many chances with the pandemic.”

“Good idea.”

“Well, I gotta run. Stay safe.”

She continued on her way and I continued on mine.

Piyali got me on Skype me that night from her parents’ house in New Jersey. She was still recovering from the injury to her face that she got at the beach over the Summer, and I’m pretty sure she had some kind of post-traumatic stress thing going on.

“Sorry I haven’t kept in touch,” she said.

“That’s okay. How have you been doing?”

“All right. Mom and Dad want me to stay for the Winter, so I might not be back in town until Spring.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

She nodded. “I’m getting some therapy. Dad offered to pay for plastic surgery. It’s cosmetic, so the insurance won’t cover it.”

“They’re hardly noticeable.”

She shrugged. “I just want them gone.”

“I understand,” I told her. “What are you doing for Halloween.”

“Staying in. Dad likes those old black-and-white monster movies.”

“Same here,” I lied. “Movies and popcorn.”

“Sounds good,” she said. “I should go now. Let’s talk again before Thanksgiving.”

She continued on her way and I continued on mine.

Halloween night came. I turned off the porch light and most of the indoor lights. I didn’t expect any Trick or Treaters this year, but I didn’t want to deal with any that might show up.

When I brought out the mason jar of October wine and popped it open, it smelled sweet and wet and a bit smoky, just like October should. I took a deep breath of the aroma, but resisted the temptation to try some and closed it back up, leaving it on the kitchen table. Instead, I put on the Turner Classic scary movie marathon in the background, with the sound turned low, and meditated in the darkness as the hours went by.

About 11oclock, I stretched and got up and got ready to leave. In my bedroom, I undressed and put on the short cotton nightgown, blue as a daisy, that Gramma gave me last year when she found out she was going to die. She bought it especially for this occasion and this was the first time I took it out.

I wore my car starter fob on a chain around my neck. I would have to carry my phone and the jug of October wine.

My carport is through a door off the kitchen, so I didn’t have to go outside yet. I used the remote garage door opener and drove out into the quiet streets. There would be few cars and fewer people about at this hour, but I really hoped I wouldn’t get pulled over. The air was chilly enough to raise goosebumps, and the stars in the clear sky were bright and crystalline, despite the suburban streetlamps. I liked the feel of my bare feet on the gas and brake. It was a fifteen-minute drive to Houghton’s Pond.

Blue Hill River Road posed the biggest risk for getting pulled over, but the only other parking lots were on the other side of the pond, which would have meant an hour’s walk through the dark woods before I even got to the right trail. Fortunately, I had no trouble. The parking lot between the picnic grounds and the ballfield was deserted and I sat there in my parked car for a minute, listening to the quiet, before getting out.

The yellow swing gate that blocked the trail to car traffic was right beside the parking lot and easy to find. I didn’t bother using the flashlight app on my phone to light my way, because the Google home page threw enough of a glow to see by in that deep darkness. I went around the gate and, after carefully picking my way barefooted through the weeds and rocks of the disused trail, I came to the edge of a crumbling asphalt road. This was the abandoned ruin of the original Route 128, which has sat here ghostly and mostly forgotten since it was replaced by the new highway system back in the 50s. Here the going got a little easier and I continued down that road for several minutes.

Gramma had left me very specific instructions on what to do next, written on the back of the recipe for her October wine. I’ve scanned that too, but I’m not going to include any details of it here. Let it suffice to say that the passage to the hidden pathway that I needed to find would have been invisible in broad daylight, let alone the dead of night, but her step-by-step guide allowed me to slip unscratched through a wall of thorns, like an interpretive dancer maneuvering through a maze.

The trail on the the other side of the bushes was very narrow and I had to pick my way through carefully so as not to lose it. But it was only a matter of minutes before I broke through to the clearing that Gramma had described.

The clearing was circular, about to fit a Burger King and covered with an even bed of grass. Just as Gramma had said, it looked as well kept as a front lawn, even though nobody ever came this way. The trees that surrounded the clearing were Autumn bare, and I could see the cold white light of the rising Moon starting to peek through them to the East.

I pulled my nightgown off over my head, folded it up and lay it in the grass at the clearing’s edge. Switching my phone to airplane mode, I placed it on top of the nightgown. Then, holding the jug of October wine in my arms like a baby, I walked deeper into the clearing.

About a third of the way across, facing the hint of the rising Moon, I sat down cross legged with the jug in front of me. The grass was cool and moist with dew. It was just before midnight.

After several relaxing breaths, I unclamped the old cork and popped it out, raised the jug to my lips and took my first drink.

It was somewhat thicker than store wine and tasted like wet leaves and berries. It was also warm, and I could feel that warmth go down my throat and spread into my shoulders. I closed my eyes and sipped at it slowly.

When I opened my eyes again, the half disk of the last-quarter Moon had risen above the treetops and was casting shadows across the clearing almost to my knees. A soft breeze moved through the bare branches. It was cool on my skin but I still felt warm. I saw what looked like swarms of fireflies floating lazily in the dark woods, and they seemed to be flying in pairs. Perhaps they were the eyes of Halloween spirits.

Gramma had not told me what to expect, except for anything and everything. I smiled, feeling calm and warm, closed my eyes and took another sip.

When I opened my eyes again, the Moon was higher, lighting more of the clearing. Spread throughout the carpet of grass before me were a thousand mushrooms, some as tall as lilies, some as tall as corn, with slender stalks waving slowly back and forth. They were pale gray, almost white in the moonlight, except for red spots on their small umbrellas. The mushroom closest to me was being ridden by a small snail.

I sat watching the calm waves moving back and forth through the field of unusual growths until I fell in rhythm with them.

Then I closed my eyes and took another sip.

When I opened my eyes again, the Moon was higher and the shadows shorter. The mushrooms were gone, but their place was taken by scores of frogs. There were frogs of all types, from warted bullfrogs as big as footballs to small pebbled tree frogs that would fit in the palm of my hand. They were spread in front of me across the clearing in a great half circle, arranged in rows, like an amphibious parliament.

They sat still and staring at me, slowly blinking, their throats expanding and contracting. Occasionally a distinctive croak would arise from somewhere in the crowd to be answered elsewhere.

Nodding, I closed my eyes and took another sip.

When I opened my eyes again, the Moon was straight overhead and it was now full. This did not seem odd to me. I tilted my head back and looked up and realized that the Moon was also larger than it should be. Every time I blinked, it grew larger still and soon it nearly filled the sky, its edges obscured by the treetops around the clearing. It was so close that I could see the crisp details of mountains and valleys and craters as if I were looking straight down at them. There was the Sea of Tranquility. There was the Apollo lander and the American flag. There were Neil Armstrong’s footprints.

The surface of the Moon was now just inches above my head, almost as close as the cool grass under my bum. I had a brief moment of vertigo and suddenly I was kneeling in the lunar dust and the grassy field was above my head like a low ceiling. The astronauts’ footprints, in their stark clarity, were right in front of me and gray moondust clung to my knees and bare feet. I was afraid to exhale, not knowing if I’d be able to breathe in again.

I reached out to touch the footprint before me and stopped, not wanting to disturb its perfection. There was a moment of vertigo again and I was back in the clearing and the Moon was back in the sky, in its normal phase.

Closing my eyes, I took another sip.

When I opened my eyes again, the Moon was behind me, the shadows of the trees stretching out in front of me. A wide dirt path, almost a road, had opened up in the forest straight ahead on the other side of the clearing. Far off in the distance, at the end of that road, a thousand miles away, was a light, and silhouetted in that light was somebody walking away. He seemed familiar, but he never turned around and soon disappeared down that relentless road.

I blinked and the path was gone.

Closing my eyes, I took another sip.

When I opened my eyes again, the Moon had almost set, leaving only traces of moonbeams peeking through the woods in back of me. The clearing was very dark now, but I soon became aware that there were other people present, moving quietly at the treeline. They were all separate, spread apart, just shadows in the darkness.

There were three of them, all unaware of me and each other. Each time I blinked, they were in different positions in the field, but seemed to be gradually, randomly, coming nearer to the place where I was sitting.

After a while, I began to make out details. They were all girls, all as naked as I was. One was brown with black curls; one was pale, with red hair and freckles; one was olive with glossy hair to her waist. It was Keisha, Violet, and Piyali.

They continued to drift slowly closer, each in her own world, until they stood in a row in front of me, staring silently at their own feet.

It was hard to find my voice. I felt like I hadn’t spoken in a hundred years. Finally, I managed to say, “What’s the matter?”

I blinked again and the clearing was empty.

With a heavy heart, I took another sip.

When I opened my eyes again, the Moon was gone and the clearing was black, the only light coming from the starry sky above. It took a very long time for my vision to adjust. Eventually, I knew that there was another human figure standing under the trees on the other side of the field. Again, it was a woman, and, again, she was as naked as I was. But this was an old woman. An ancient woman.

This was my Gramma.

She started walking slowly toward me and with each step the years melted away and the stars grew brighter. By the time she reached me, she was young, as young as I was, and I could see her clearly. She sat down cross legged in front of me so that our knees were touching and the jug of October wine sat in the tangle of our ankles.

She tilted her head at me with an odd smile and then lifted up the jug and took a long drink. She seemed to savor it for a moment, and then handed it over to me. I took a sip, but she shook her head with a wry twist to her mouth, so I took a longer drink. I placed it back down between us, feeling a little dizzy.

“It’s very good,” she said.

“I followed your recipe to the letter.”

“Next time you won’t have to.”

She took my hands and placed them on top of the jug, then placed her hands on top of mine, and squeezed firmly. For a long time, she just smiled at me and stared into my eyes with a look of adoration that broke and healed my heart.

“Gramma,” I said.

“Yes, Hester.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“You do know what to do.”

“Tell me. What?”

“You don’t need me to tell you what to do,” she said. “You know what to do.”

My eyes suddenly filled with tears and when I wiped them clear, she was gone. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes and took a long last drink.

When I opened my eyes again, the Eastern sky was just barely turning blue. I got to my feet a bit stiffly and stretched out all the kinks with a groan. I replaced the cork in the mason jar of October wine, noting that there was still more than half left. Plenty left over for next year. Plenty for me to continue this old and new tradition.

Picking up my nightgown and phone, I slipped back into the narrow pathway in the forest, retracing my steps to the road and the parking lot and my car and my life. I was ready to continue on my way, knowing that all the other ways, of both the living and the dead, were mine as well.