Stone Soup Magazine
— A swimmer embraces the ocean's depths, feeling the sandy bottom and salty breeze, drawn repeatedly back into the water's welcoming coolness.
— Domenic’s War: A Story of the Battle of Monte Cassino, by Curtis Parkinson; Tundra Books: Toronto, 2oo6; $9.95 At the mention of war, some of the first images that come...
— A racing greyhound named Cassie, inspired by a little girl's faith in her, wins her first race but ultimately chooses freedom over fame by escaping through a fence.
— A girl recounts thirteen years with her beloved Barbadian babysitter Juan, from their first meeting through the bittersweet day Juan stops working for the family.
— A folk healer summons a mystical owl to save a dying girl when traditional remedies fail, then quietly departs after her recovery.
— A grieving man revisits places he shared with a lost child, finding each location abandoned or changed, until a ray of light breaks through.
— A child walks to a tree swing in a pasture, falls asleep, and wakes to find autumn has arrived while they slept.
— Late geese flying south become a mourning choir whose honks lament autumn's end and winter's arrival, their voices mistaken for hunting hounds.
— An elderly woman in the 1850s recalls how witnessing a slave auction led her to become a conductor on the Underground Railroad, risking everything to help families escape.
— Autumn transforms from blazing red leaves and jack-o-lanterns to encroaching night, frost, and brittle mushrooms frozen like victims of Medusa's stare.