Follow The Black Cat

Pint-sized panther paw pats Pink Ladies; prizes plummet: piloerection
Apple orchard tizzy
Salem's look-alike swats premature grounders with her tail
Eastern grey squirrel bounces across golden brown leaves
Omen crouches, clicking her teeth
Placing each paw carefully on mid-autumn's blanket
Whoooosh
Indian Ladder Farm gates swing wide
Distant murmuring, chatterbox children
Approaching underfoot crunching, rolling wagon's creaking moan
Tenderage handclaps— twig SNAPS
9-lifer skedaddles, curling up in an old Maple trunk hollow
Plop, plonk; apple pickers rattle baskets
Off-target Evercrisps thud, roll, settling next to windfalls
Mulch made boozy, new grounders make potent comrades
Wafting intoxication triggers wiggles; in-limbed licorace's nose
Trailing human feet, twin emeralds GLINT
Jean jacket moms hand out plastic bags; tiny hands stretch
Thwack-Thwack-Thwack
One flaps away atop a hard-to-reach branch
Bat out of hell, shadow floof BOLTS

Toppling a half-filled bushel of Fortunes; luck not on her side
Pomary phantom missteps, intruding a yellowjacket jazz fest
Bruised Honeycrisp corpses, shell-shocked apples
Acoustic harmonics—droning bees—Sting—
Murrrrooooow!
Flattened and flying, midnight's liquid escape
ZigZagging
Cross grove fanatically
Zooming past a tractor: heyday hayrides haunting harvest
Yowling zipliner compliments circling cawing crows
Jet set, her adrenaline
Misty morning mover
More ghastly than ghosts
Earth's squish to paw push, a fur-blurred streak
Sheba, Evel Knievel, on the brink of a stunt
Approaching farm storefront
She's a shadow split—
WIDE OPEN

Soaring over wooden crates adjacent purple-potted mums
Ebon scores a solid landing
Sitting for a spell, she licks her paws yoga style
Red pull carts, Indian corn, squash, leaning corstalk bundles
Chalkboard signage, entranceway teaser
Storeside patch: pick-your-own pumpkins
Cheek to gourd rubbing, Noir acknowledges
Maple syrup blended with timber
Fried dough coated with cinnamon
Wafting caramel with a hint of oak
Bamboo wind chimes encouraging cascading leaves
Hand-held treats offered by a stranger
Appease the mix: she eats and dodges, resuming her tricks
Darting silhouette rounds a bend

Sprinting playfully past Biergarten, a coterie of cackling women
Past a couple of barrel-burn zombie bros warming their hands
Onyx moves with purpose
Animal exhibit specific: lingering molasses fused with manure
Mid-jog pause, paw in air
Creatures chanting—
Baaa, gobble gobble, mooo, and neigh
Hsssssssss, she replies
Silence follows
She's broken the incantation
Magical theory even Potter can't explain
Barn threshold
Caretaker sweeps cobwebs with a sturdy broom
Nodding to familiar now at her feet
Twirling guardian's ankle before entering the grange
Spook-driven high priestess returns to hearth
Slinking, dilated eyes darting side to side
Forward pressed ears, high tail hook
She heeds hay bale mewling
Abaft: three Libra-born gems await
Obsidian settles, nursing her young
Nurturing free-roaming spirits
A roosting barn owl purrs; charcoal concurs
Blinking ever so s l o w l y
Priming pint-sized plantation panthers