Sweet Nothing

The Opaline Taffy Shop faces the winter harbour, shuttered for the season, its salt-frosted windows glowing amber in the early-morning light. You are Juniper Voss, and you have come here not to buy anything — but to take back the family recipe card your estranged aunt Hedda hid behind the counter three years ago when she locked you out. Hedda is here already, bent over her stocktaking in the back room, clipboard in hand, counting jars with the focused severity of a magistrate. You have perhaps twenty minutes before she surfaces, remembers you exist, and finds reasons to be unpleasant. The recipe card is somewhere in this shop — and Hedda must not be watching when you find it.