In The Hour of Mercury, on The Day of Astaroth, the Moon a Crescent:

I barely slept the last night, I was too excited. When the alarm on my phone started bleeting its annoying jingle I bolted up from my bed. My eyelids were heavy. It was still dark out the window, the trees barely visible in deep navy blue haze.

I clicked on the lamp on my nightstand, hopped up, and struggled into my shirt and jeans. Artie, ever my faithful familiar, rose up and yawned her fanged mouth, stretching straight the center of her fluffy black spine. She slipped off the bed and wandered into the forest of bookshelves which sectioned off my bedroom from the rest of the living room.

The coffee machine on the work table still glowed red and sizzled as I wrenched the pre-heated pot and poured out the steaming black sludge which smelled subtly of hazelnut. As I mulled the warm mug in my hands, sat back in my arm chair, and gazed out the window into the woods. The trees beside the patio shivered their raspy naked claws, the autumn leaves had started to fall.

'This is it! Lo, this is it!' I chanted in my skull, boldly attempting to sip my coffee and nimbly avoiding a scorched tongue. 'Today's the day.'

I looked at my phone and saw the clock read 5:50 AM. Fifteen minutes to sunrise. It was time.

I grabbed the shears, clutched the necklace that lay above my breast to confirm that the amulet was still there, and walked out to my car. The grey fog hung heavy and ominous over the lake, the trees, and the hill leading out into the neighborhood. The ground was still wet and mucky. It had rained the night before and I could see my breath in the morning air. It was like a sacred moment, out of time.

I got in the car, buckled my seatbelt, and turned the ignition. The engine winced its pained braying. 'Ugh. Fuck.' I hoped this didn't wake the neighbors.

Moments later I had wound my way across the topsy-turvy hills that dipped and climbed like a roller coaster track which led to our secluded place by the lake.

I shot past the mailboxes, and then the vast tunnel of branches, and then past the wide open fields of lollygagging oreo cows. The sky was now a pale blue slathered in splotches of pink and orange clouds, like some epic landscape on a fantasy book cover.

I took a deep breath. Here is where the challenge would begin. I stopped beneath the long hill near the road leading to Puffer's Pond and drove up towards the cafe, outside which lay the prize I had staked.

A lone police car sat idling beside the driveway leading in.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me! You have got to be fucking kidding me!" I cursed through my teeth behind the safety of my windshield.

Without stopping I kept driving through into a sidestreet and circled back around towards my neighborhood.

Of course there were lots of elder trees, similar to the specimen I sought, hanging like vines across the road with their blade-shaped crimson and bronze withered leaves, but all too ripe and none suitable. My heart leapt, there was only 10 minutes left to sunrise! I kept driving and driving, winding back towards my cabin where I feared my best efforts would crumble into defeat.

I followed the path home, casting my gaze upon the passenger side's window in shifts seeking some serendipitous deliverance.

And after a few minutes, there it was! By a lonesome dirt path leading out into the woods off the side of the road stood a row of young green elder trees, Their skinny branches lined with thin leaves which looked like something out of the Jurassic. The black warts all over the bark were unmistakable.

I parked the car on the pavement, fearing that if I pulled into the path my tires would be stuck in the mucky soil. I got out, wrenched the shears out of the back seat, and approached the saplings.

I looked up and down the proud young tree that stood out to me. A sense of deep reluctance came over me when I thought about the young tree itself. With its limb struck off, it might suffer a substantial stunt in its growth through the rest of its life. I tried my best to find the substantial branch which looked both the straightest for my purposes and the most vestigial, for the sapling's sake.

Then the golden rays of the sun showered my face through the gaps between the skinny pine trees. It was time.

I took a deep breath, stood upright with good posture, and held out the shears in my right hand.

I spoke the orison of the wand, or at least something close enough in the moment. "Lord Frimost, you are wise and powerful, lend to this wand your purity! Lord Frimost, offer to it your wisdom and your power!"

I held the shears out, positioning the wood perfectly between the blades, and clamped down as hard and swiftly as I could, cutting down through most of the branch. I gingerly struggled with my hands to break loose the last sinew of the bark.

Then I carefully tossed the long branch across the backseat of my car and drove home.