Sarah Guppy

The Rings

Illustrated by Alankrita Amaya

Morag knew she’d meet him again somehow when she re-found the ring buried in her sock drawer. There it is, the silver and glass gleaming in her palm reminding her of the love declared and lost long ago on mid summer’s night within the Lochbuie Stone Circle. Her souvenir and gift shop Cornucopia along Tobermory …

---

Past Relations

Illustrated by Hong Rui Choo

7.35a.m. Cold hard winter rain hits the West Bronx pavements, pummelling the roads and sidewalks with merciless precision. Forecasts say more rain over the weekend so that the nearby lake in New York’s Botanical Gardens threatens to rise, disrupting remaining wild birds that haven’t already flown off to milder shores. Detective Inspector Linda Schwartzski listens …

---

Sweet Ps

Illustrated by Hong Rui Choo

As a life long gardener Patrick knows there’s something freakish about the summer he’s living through right now, 2013. Why isn’t it reaching headline news he fumes quietly, laying fresh fruit, vegetables and flowers in front of the Edingthorpe village shop as he he’s done for twenty five years. He’s quietly horrified by the lack …

---

Forever In Blue Jeans

Illustrated by Hong Rui Choo

The white wedding cake has little pink roses on it. It is a multi tiered creation with three storeys and thick icing and it took Robert McLeod, my father, and his assistant weeks to make it as they had to order the special marzipan decorations from down south in England, land of the Sassenachs. It …

---

The Convalescent

Illustrated by Hong Rui Choo

Hendrika Boer sits up feverishly in bed; aware of soft blue light filling the small fisherman’s cottage. Auburn hair pokes out beneath her white cotton convalescing cap. At first it looked as if it was some unearthly light emanating from the nearby old gilded clock. A family heirloom dating from the eighteenth century; it was …

---