Janice Leadingham
1. THE DISPATCHThe Hare Moon
“The women in our family never die.”
Your grandmother tells you this.
The moon is still up when she wakes you and by it, you see her hold one crooked finger to her lips. She winks and you’re proud to be her secret keeper. At the door she slides on her boots and grabs her picking basket and you walk out with her to the apples. She didn’t fetch her coat or yours either and the wind has shifted and crisped, snapping at your skinny arms and whipping your nightgowns around your legs. She laughs and you laugh too, loud and high and you think maybe the sound of it will carry out to the mountains and wake everyone you left in their beds.
The worms are drawn out by the full moon and this is the best phase to pick the fruit. The unripe are hard and small, an unyielding peel – a trap for milk teeth. When it’s time, the flesh turns softer. Does the stem give in to your gentle twist? Gently lift and pull. Careful now, we don’t want to bruise.
The apples in the pot bubble and roast, slow. This is when she tells you. Her thin hands, the bones and veins popping out like they’re fighting for space, cover yours, guiding the wooden spoon.
“The women in our family never die.”
Together, you stir in the spices. The air smells like pine cones and caramel and everything is warm.
She says, “When it’s time, we turn into hares and visit our families. We fly through the brambles and are never caught. We don’t worry about brushing our teeth or washing behind our ears. We gnaw on sugarcane in the sun and apples by the moon.”
She points to the thick hair above her lip as proof. Whiskers. She wiggles her nose like a TV witch and cackles when you ask, “Really?”.
That cackle, you got that from her.
And the pointy elbows.
Your craving for lemons with salt.
The long black hair – under quick glances, the tangles of it you leave behind in the shower transfigure into small bugs with too many legs.
Nevertheless, she leaves when you’re older and far away and you’ve forgotten what she told you. The orchards are sold and all that remains for you are the blossoms pressed into Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase, and the recipe taped to your fridge.
(Only to be made when the mountains appear to be dusted with spice.)
5 pounds of apples, different kinds, prepared (you know what I mean)
2 ¼ cups light brown sugar
1 ½ teaspoons each of cinnamon, nutmeg, & cloves (Too Much for some)
You trace her pencil marks as fine as eyelashes with your finger and you make a wish. Your mouth curves around the letters she shaped. Your lips part the ‘c’ and meet at the ‘m’ of cinnamon. You push those syllables off the tips of your teeth with your tongue and they taste like paper and dust. The words, out loud, fall through the air with no one else to catch them.
You toss the skins aside and slice through the crisp flesh. You save the cores for the birds, the seeds to tell the future.
You didn’t start early enough in the day and you toil until everyone but the hares and the foxes are good and asleep. The fruit and the sugar go in to the pot and roast, slow. You add the spices and stir and think of bubbling cauldrons. In the dark of the kitchen, alone but never really, you laugh.
It’s done when the moon begins to fall to the ground. You start with a spoon and then you’re scooping it into your mouth with your hands. You swallow her ghost and it tastes crisp and sweet and still you are not full. The weight of this loss sits in your gut as an ever hunger. In the moon shine of the window you see your grandmother – no it’s your mother – no it’s you - hunched over, chest caved in, apple butter on your chin.
When it’s time, the flesh turns softer.
You reach to wipe your mouth clean and with your fingertips, above your lip, you find whiskers.
2. BUREAU INVENTORYThe Smith-Waite tarot deck
Merricat (kitten)
Tums
Pens in a Dollywood mug
Laptop
Perilous stacks of books
3 partially used notebooks
Slightly cracked lamp (haunted)
A flower press
A toy mouse (Merricat’s)
3. BIOGRAPHYJanice Leadingham is a Portland, Oregon-based writer and tarot reader from somewhere-near-Dollywood, Tennessee. Right now, she is probably reading Shirley Jackson. A descendant of three of the accused Salem witches, when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said, "A witch." You can find more of her work in HAD and The Ghastling. She is @TheHagSoup on Twitter, @hag_soup on Instagram, and hagsoup.com.