Most folks don’t remember the witches anymore. My grandbaby ain’t never heard a witchsong, ain’t never seen a ring of mushrooms in the field she plays in. I think this land is too much noise and not enough space for witches to be out and about nowadays. The corner store where I bought penny candy as a girl is a Safeway now, and the old main road is nothing more than a driveway where my family lives.

Some things haven’t changed though. No matter how hard the contractors and exterminators tried to beat it back, our land still grows like wildfire. There’s something in the earth here, something in the orange clay that teaches things not to be fearful. My sunflowers stretch up to the sky, as though they could really touch it if they try hard enough. Coyotes still howl at the moon, and when my son Jack gets his rifle, they just run cackling into the woods.

The witches are still here, just in quieter ways. They’re here in the strange smoke that rises from the woods at night, smelling like rosemary and lavender and moonshine. They’re here in Chelmsford church, still standing stubbornly sixty years and two wars later. It’s the only building that remains from when I had my maiden name, like a taunt that you can only change so much. They’re here in my garden, where the roses come back sweeter than ever each year, even though I don’t deadhead them like you’re supposed to.

The world may just keep on changing. I hear they plan on putting in a second gas station, down by Arnon Chapel. By the time my grandbaby is old enough to hear stories about the witches, there may not be any left to tell about.

I don’t think so, though. Witches have put down roots here, made themselves as much a part of the landscape as poplar trees and ragweed. Time can keep right on slipping past, and they’ll still be out in the woods, biding their time, singing up secrets from the earth. You never know what’s going to crawl out of the caves, what’s going to cry under the moon. And in those night hours, those dark blurry places made of starlight and dew, moss and bat cries, godsong and dreambreath, that’s where you’ll find them. That’s where you’ll see the wild things.