3.
 In the modern town of Alders, such thoughts seem rather silly by daylight. People come and go in their cars these days, nodding to each other, and nobody ever talks about that kind of stuff, though everyone grows up knowing that the strangest things can happen in those long, low, green hills on the horizons. And every once in a while—when the mood is right, or the occasion is just so, like a rainy day and a long wait at the barbershop, or a kvetch with the town librarian, or a stop for coffee and Danish at the bakery—one of those topics will come up. People will look away, and nod, and get on with their business. It's best to let sleeping dogs (or ghosts) lie.
As is typical of New England this time of year, the great changing of the leaves has passed. The last warmth of Indian Summer has passed, like the arrowheads that are buried in the soil and will never fly again. Each year, the line of nocturnal freezing starts in Canada along the Nunavut latitudes. By definition, trees do not grow above the Arctic Circle, so there are no deciduous trees to change colors until the flying night frost reaches the heart of mighty Canada. Flying like a cloud, leaving its shadow grazing over yellowing fields and patchy snow, the ghostly frost line moves south. It crosses the border in stealth, sometimes under a full moon, in other years in the darkness. It moves south day by day, through the nights of October. From Vermont south into New York, and Pennsylvania, and eventually the Southern states, a glorious crown of blood-red and apple-yellow leaves covers thousands of square miles of forest. Within a week or so of being killed by the frost, leaves turn pear-brown and brittle, and drop into great waves on the rolling hills, stirred by oceans of unquiet breezes. The wind does not want to wave summer goodbye, but the cycle of living and dying is a cosmic law that exempts none. This year has been no exception. If you have a warm cabin or house, and a flickering fireplace and a good book to read, followed by a bed shadowed by a thick quilt and maybe someone beloved to warm feet together under the quilt, Alders is a pretty decent little place to spend the winter.
With the first night frosts, the great tree crowns glowed bright yellow and red in the autumn sunshine like stained glass. Now they have turned blackish red or dark brown and dropped to the cold ground in great piles that rustle as the wind of football season ruffles through them.
At night, when it is not raining or drizzling, the frigid air around Alders is filled with scents of wood or leaves burning, and chestnuts roasting on a backyard barbecue. Nothing fancy, mind you, just some fresh-picked chestnuts and an upside down trashcan lid and a box of ordinary kitchen matches, and there is this magic. On cold, dry nights, the sky above is black and full of stars.
People put the red and black Indian Summer corn on their doors, often in a wreath of rushes, much as the ancient English did to appease the gods of forests and fields. It is a time when people put pumpkins on their front lawns along with a million bagged leaves. In the olden times farmers would put their harvesting and threshing equipment away in the back of the barn because the season was over. The squirrels gathering a few last nuts and taking one last look from their hole in the tree would concur.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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