- 48 -

Huntingburg: Summer, 2007
Abigail Hopf

I’m talking about the embers of summer in the shadows of the 
country, back when you could jump onto the gravel mountain in 
your backyard and scream king of the world, when no one but the 
cows saw how wrong you were. Those late August afternoons that 
slipped by like syrup —skin still sun-kissed, kids still laughing in 
their bus rows because school hadn’t yet sunk into their bones.

It was in the depths of that season that my father would pile 
planks of wood into the pit, breathing deeply as the heavy heat 
splintered into sweetcoolsummerrelief. The wood would crack and 
splinter along with it. We’d sit and watch as he tamed the flames, 
fire tongues lapping the air and softening into ghosts of smoke, 
turning from roaring beast to pup licking marshmallows golden 
brown. Over the hill and down the road, the neighbor kids would 
call out a chorus of one two that lingered in the fading light four 
five as we switched on our flashlights eight nine fireflies kissing 
our skin goodnight nine ten Ghosts in the Moonlight.

Sometimes, on those golden fire nights, a cousin would traipse 
through the corn fields and turn to us gleaming, the coyotes 
cackling in the dark shadow of the woods behind him. Them’s 
witches afoot, he’d say. Biding their time. Waiting for the fire to 
die so they can tip-tip-tiptoe into children’s rooms and tear their 
worlds apart. But in the ember glow, against the cow's lowing 
and the cricket's croaking and our parent's humming, his voice 
sounded like honey. Sinking into our skin with an inky headiness 
that had us closing our eyes to the diamond sky, dreams calling 
out for witchcraft, for firelight, for moments that slipped through 
your fingers like ghosts in the moonlight.