Fellow author Ruth Sard wrote a story for the Blog Hop this time around. Since she currently doesn’t have her own site, I’m hosting it for her this time around.
Enjoy!
Harvest
‘Twas the night before . . . getting lucky.
Or so Amy hoped.
She was so tired of being the ‘odd’ person in town.
Loneliness had driven her to reading her Grandmother’s notebook, her last link with family.
Ignoring the storm-flattened fence (a repair job she promised herself for next month), Amy surveyed her small pumpkin bed with satisfaction. All pumpkins picked and sold, the bed tidied, and prepped for winter, except for the most important one. It held a single pumpkin, the best of her crop.
She had almost entered it in the ‘best carving pumpkin’ contest, sure of a winner, but no. ‘Always keep the best,’ Gran had written, so Amy had. It was fire-singed and coppery golden-red, not as huge as some, or as symmetrical, but it had character. It was slightly warty in places, its stem swirled like a dancer at a wedding, with a definite face side, and a splotch of sunburn like crazy hair. Not the prettiest maybe, but odd, just like her.
Gran had known her gardening, so Amy had kept the best.
It was time to follow the advice in her Gran’s tattered notebook again. She settled into the ancient loveseat her Gran had garden-watched from for twenty years.
‘To find True Love,’ the entry began.
Sunfall, and she kissed the pumpkin once.
Forty years her grandparents had lived content.
Midnight, and she kissed the pumpkin twice.
She hoped the magic to find true love still worked.
Sunrise, and thrice-kissed.
Amy hoped.
Nothing.
Just like magic.
‘Oh well’, she told herself. ‘That’s life.’ She tried to stifle unreasonable disappointment and rested her head against the pumpkin.
Something poked her arm, quite firmly.
Amy hoped, squinted around early sun at the dog’s nose nearly touching hers, and sighed.
Not quite what she’d had in mind. She gave the Labrador a friendly pat and shoo, and it trotted back over the remaining fence.
“Kissing pumpkins?” asked an amusement-quivered voice. It was Mrs Halveston’s recently returned son, letting out his dog for an early morning widdle and listening to birdsong while sensible people were dreaming of coffee.
Amy noted he was holding a hot chocolate.
They looked at each other over the flattened fence.
“Glad its not kissing frogs.” He paused a beat, hoping.
His dog insouciantly christened a skewed post along the old borderline without breaking a beat on fence patrol.
Amy nodded. “Always suspected the frogs got the raw end of the deal.”
He chortled.
She looked down at the notebook.
‘To find True Love, first find a true friend you can be foolish in front of without shame.’
Amy smiled slowly.
Looked like she might not the only odd person in town any longer.
A true friend first –
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Be sure to read the other stories in the Blog Hop:
Knot Quite Yet by Barbara Lund
Game Over by Angelica Medlin
Harvest by Ruth Sard <— you are here
Deceptive Decryption by James Husum
I loved the twists in the typical tropes! That was wonderful!