Full Moon in November

It was a full beaver moon this past weekend and the night landscape was gorgeous -- and eerie. It was a dark silvery light, like a kind of parallel universe glimpsed only at times like these.

I often write about November. It's a transition time, before the holidays and Winter Solstice, yet beyond the brilliance and abundance of October and the harvest. I see brown fields, bare trees, and a pause between seasons.

One of my first stories, "The Goat Woman", was all about that November sense of time and mortality. This led me back to 1986, when this story was published. Twenty years ago. Guess I thought life would be different, somehow, twenty years hence.

Here are bits and pieces of that story. It's still one of my favorites.

"She awoke with the fire in her bones. Her Granny had called such pains, miseries. But Natty knew she suffered more than a misery. The devil himself poked at her spine. Every morning he tested to see if she were ripe, ready for the stewpot."...

"Outside, the morning sun crept over the brown weeds in her yard. She counted the twenty-five paces it now took her to reach the barn. She slid the door to the right and stepped into the cool, dark cavern. She closed her eyes, as she did each morning, and slipped back forty years."...

"A low bleat broke into her daydream. She opened her eyes. Gerta, the last of her French Alpine-Toggenburg cross, called. The doe pointed her long ears at Natty and tilted her head as if to say, Well now, old woman."...

"....hard to figure, said Natty. You came back alive, but Tom was dead. Cut down by his own heart right in the middle of sugaring season. Thin year that was."...

"Will Dove shook his head. 'I saw a goat. A big silver goat, mind you, running with the deer on Bridgewater Mountain. I had it in my sights, mind you. She looked just like that big doe of yours. Never saw anything like it, a goat running with deer...'."

"The Count had been Tom's idea. Natty never liked it, but she understood. So even with Tom dead she did the Count, year by year. She tucked the book under her arm and went to the barn, repeating Tom's charge:

"Count the hay. Count the goats. Count the grain. Count the goats. Count one winter's worth."...

"Your November light cuts right to the bone."...

"For supper she cooked a soup of onions, oatmeal, carrots and dried beans. She wished she had a piece of bread to sop up the broth, but things like fresh bread belonged to the days when Tom was alive."...

" ....she opened the fire and laid on chunks of maple. She washed with warm water from the bucket. She stroked her feet, legs, arms and face. She put on clean longjohns and fresh socks. She tucked dried fruit and nuts into the pouches of Tom's hunting coat. She combed her white hair and pulled on the purple hat. She checked herself for gloves, scarf, extra socks. Before she left, she blew out the lamps.

"Outside her breath showed in little white gusts. The full Beaver Moon had risen, bathing her yard with silver light."...

"Gerta bounced like a kid. She kicked her heels sideways and tugged at Natty's sleeve. Now, old woman, she seemed to say.

"Natty leaned on her walking stick, a smooth piece of hornbeam Tom had cut for her years ago. Under the light of the full moon, she pushed off and slowly followed Gerta past the maples and through the overgrown orchard. Ahead she saw the silver line where a well-trodden deer track led up Bridgewater Mountain.

"She was certain Gerta knew the way."