Devonne Brown

Stella felt like she walked to the door of an open plane. She was terrified of heights, two miles was a long way to fall. Her walk was short today, less than fifty feet, and she didn’t have to take it, not really. Maybe she wouldn’t. She could turn around. Her friends that surrounded her supported her. They were dressed in pink for the occasion, so was she but that didn’t matter. 

Her world would change if she walked. A slow motion fall like in the movies. 

She had to walk it alone. No one held her arm by her side. 

“Do  you want us to walk by your side?” asked Nadine, the leader of the three damsels?

 She dressed in a shade darker pink than Stella and held a bouquet of blood red dripping begonias and blue chicory. The chicory she had surreptitiously picked by the sides of many country roads, so had Inez, and Bertha. The backyard bouquets were better than anything store bought.

Stella carried iron weed. Deep, vibrant purple against her pale pink dress. She’d found it in the cow pasture, up on the hill behind the barn. It was her favorite flower in the world. It marked the end of summer. It marked the end of a lot of things she thought. It was too elegant to put another flower with it; some ferns around it were fine. She’d read in an old medicine book that “the fern rendered the bearer invisible.” She wished for invisibility then.

There was a broom that had to be jumped, and a corn husk for a handfast. No preacher, a friend had been ordained, and her world would change if she walked. It was a proper witch’s ceremony. Friday the 13th. The moon was full. She’d planned it and everyone had thought it perfect. The woods were lovely, dark, and deep. Soft lanterns lit the way.

The banjos played the opening of Tocatta in D minor.

She took her first step and felt the world move beneath her. One step at a time. Slow motion. Her entourage followed in step. She wasn’t invisible and the world changed.