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summer. She could still see him sweating over the large axe as it rose and fell, see the shine on his bare shoulders, the determination on his handsome face.
    In the back, hiding in the shadows, there was a place where she kept her witch’s pharmacopoeia of dried herbs and plants in labeled pastel Tupperware all lined up on a wall of shelves. She used to spend hours in here while Jake was away teaching his students. Happy hours.
    She stared at the place, clutching the covered basket under her arm. Everything was dusty now.
    A half-finished pot sat forlornly on the dirty potter’s wheel, as if rebuking her for her negligence. She hadn’t been in here since Jake had died. She ran her fingers across the caked, dried clay. If she could only go back to the day, the hour, the very minute she’d first started that pot...Jake would still be alive. She shook her head.
    Suddenly, the old familiar urge to feel something taking shape beneath her fingers stole over her and a faint smile slipped out.
    It’s still there. It hadn’t left, as she’d feared it had; soon, she knew, she would go back to work. The shop that carried her creations was out of them. Jane wanted to know when she’d bring in some new things and Amanda could use the money waiting for her.
    She couldn’t put it off forever. Going into town. Getting on with her life.
    Closing and locking the door behind her, she began the long walk through the woods to Mabel’s trailer. She’d never owned a car and didn’t care to, though she could drive one and kept her license up to date. She had a small motor scooter Jake had gotten her last year for her birthday, but she preferred to walk when the weather was nice as it was today.
    She could magic herself there, but wanted to feel the earth under her feet, sun on her face. Trees waving above her. It helped her think. She loved crunching through the burnt-scarlet and dun-yellow leaves. Loved the woods.
    For a while, coming out of nowhere, Amadeus trailed her, hiding playfully behind skinny trees, and jumping out every once in a while, trying to scare her.
    “You want to play games, hey?” she teased, whispering a harmless spell, dissolving into invisibility. There’d be no side effects, unless she stayed away too long. She held her giggles in at Amadeus’s antics when he realized she was gone. He meowed pitifully and ran in dizzy circles. Searching.
    The witch’s cat was smart, though. She’d played this trick on him before. At first he froze, his whiskers moving, his ears perked, sniffing the air. He lunged, rubbing up against her, purring triumphantly. His claws kneaded her sharply in the legs through her skirts, pricking her just enough to make her break her silence.
    “You mean puss...that hurt.” It didn’t really, and he knew it, purring smugly in her arms when she snatched him up.
    Visible again, she twirled around slowly with him and the basket, raining kisses on his head until he protested loudly. Laughing, she put him down.
    At a safe distance, he stood indignant, tail straight up like a pipe cleaner, and glared at her with yellow eyes, meowing, telling her off. Still laughing, she watched him prance back into the forest.
    A snap of her fingers and he could be back in her arms. That really made him angry but she wouldn’t aggravate him so today. She had other things to do.
    She moved through the bushes and the trees, listening to the wind rustling the leaves together. She was warm in her brown, woolen dress belted at the waist, heavy leggings on underneath, a white shawl she’d crocheted with her own hands, and a soft hat low over her eyes. Her hair in a loose braid down her back.
    She was a little breathless by the time she came to Black Pond, so she rested a while under the immense weeping willow nearby. The pond was so peaceful, so lovely.
    Leaning against the willow’s rough bark, she sat in the grass and daydreamed, skimming her fingers lightly over the ground as the gentle wind played about her.