Free When Autumn Leaves: A Novel by Amy S. Foster Page B

would just settle on her. So far, that particular approach hadn’t worked.

    Last year, Stella had recalled her grandmother’s Equinox spell, and she realized that she felt exactly the way Dolores McDonald had described herself all those years ago: disconnected, somehow, like her life was happening to someone else. Lightning had worked for Dolores; it would work for Stella.
    Looking at Pearl’s book these thirty-odd years after she’d first seen lightning collected, Stella ran her fingers over her grandmother’s words and almost heard Pearl’s lively cadence in her head. She closed her eyes and smelled, faintly, Pearl’s scent of mint and lavender, as though her grandmother had just walked by and was sitting in another room. She felt her grandmother close, her spirit watching and guiding her through the steps.
    Stella’s cellar was a small space, but far more organized than the rest of her house. Between the washer and dryer were two tall bookshelves. One held the results of hours of canning, everything from jams and jellies to peaches and cherries. On the other set of shelves were rows and rows of small glass bottles, carefully labeled, full of roots, herbs, and flowers she always kept on hand, even though she seldom used them for anyone other than herself. Now, she found she needed many of them, and she said a silent prayer of thanks to Pearl, who had taught her this very thing by example.
    Stella, who could feel the storm drawing nearer, began mixing the ingredients with her mortar and pestle feverishly. It was a curious combination, everything from goldenseal and blue cohosh to ginseng. She mashed it all together, Lucy and Ethel watching with obvious boredom. She then went to a small cabinet in which she stored extra bottles. She moved them around noisily until she found the one that matched Pearl’s description of what was required. It stood about ten inches tall, with a fat, round neck: an old milk bottle.
    After bulldozing up her narrow stairs and dumping these things on her kitchen counter, Stella flew to the backyard. There were a few ingredients that she needed fresh, and she had all of these growing in her small garden. With a small pair of cutting scissors she took early spring cuttings of elder flowers, marigolds, chamomile, and rose hips. Stella looked up to the sky and noted the gathering clouds. The air smelled musky and sweet and there was the metallic taste on her tongue again, but much stronger. The storm was moving in more quickly than she had thought.
    Back inside she added the ingredients to the granite bowl and began to pound them together. She spat in it twice, and added water gradually. With a funnel she poured it into the bottle. That part of the preparation accomplished, she moved outside. Birds called to one another, and Stella hoped it wasn’t some kind of animal warning system. She tried to dismiss the thought from her head. It wasn’t like she knew exactly what she was doing.
    For her circle, she would use a flowerbed that she had been planning on turning into a pumpkin patch. Mentally she calculated the diameter; the space was just big enough for her to throw the circle. She began to dig smack in the center. The hole had to be large enough to fit the bottle completely, so that not even the neck was visible.
    In her dirt-covered frenzy, Stella suddenly began to laugh. If anyone could see her now, digging frantically at nine o’clock in the morning, still in her nightgown, her hair unbrushed—even Lucy and Ethel were eying her like a crazy person. Stella gently covered the bottle with earth so that it stood upright without any chance of moving, the open neck visible only when she stood directly above it.
    Stella took a moment to glance at Pearl’s book where she’d left it on a little wrought iron table. She took a large wooden bowl filled with salt and an old walking stick about half her height. Walking clockwise, she outlined the perimeter of the circle with the salt. She had