Chapter 14 #2
Her brow furrowed in faint puzzlement. “Of course.“ It was as though I’d asked whether she’d baked the bread cooling upon the windowsill. She unfolded another well-marked parchment. “I’ve recorded every place the bakery has ever settled.“
I leaned closer, eager for this unexpected window into Cecelia’s past. My gaze wandered over rivers, forests, villages, coastlines, and distant mountain ranges. Each map was lovingly drawn by hand and intricately detailed.
Some of the maps were drawn in shaky lines, with a few careful notes written in cramped handwriting. I guessed these were her early childish efforts. Glancing over the maps, I could trace her growth as the sketches became more skilled and detailed.
Tiny notes filled the margins, highlighting wildflowers, berry patches, interesting trees, bird nests, and even places where the morning light was especially beautiful.
It felt less like looking at geography and more like paging through someone’s memories…
much like the leaves I’d pressed into my journal over the years.
She dipped her pen into the ink. “Can you show me everywhere you’ve wandered?“
I almost laughed. “I’ve wandered everywhere.“
“Then everywhere is where we’ll start.“ Her answer was so matter-of-fact that I found myself smiling.
I reached for the weathered journal tucked inside my satchel that held the path my wandering had taken. The leather cover had long ago wrinkled from years of travel, while the pages had grown thick with preserved leaves, flower petals, and other fragments from places I’d long since left behind.
I slowly turned through them until one particular leaf caught my attention—a narrow silver-green frond pressed flat against the page, its edges beginning to curl with age.
“I found this in a valley surrounded by white cliffs,” I said.
“A creek cut through the center, and every evening the mist settled over the fields until the entire place seemed to vanish beneath it.”
The memory had stayed with me more clearly than most. For three nights I’d camped beside the river, delaying my departure for as long as the curse allowed. It had been one of the few places where I’d briefly imagined what it might feel like to remain.
Her deep brown eyes brightened, causing my heart to trip over itself. Without a word, she disappeared into another stack of maps, emerging with another that she eagerly unrolled across the table. “I’ve lived there as well.”
“Truly?”
She nodded and pointed towards the eastern edge of the valley, where she’d drawn a tiny symbol beside the river. In the margin, her neat handwriting read: the mist gathers here at sunset until the valley seems to disappear from the world.
I stared at the words, then back at her. “That was my favorite part.”
A quiet pleasure warmed her expression. “Mine too.”
We shared a smile. The simple connection stirred an unreasonable amount of happiness inside me, as though we’d somehow shared the memory despite experiencing it separately.
My gaze drifted towards the date written neatly in the corner of her map. I quickly compared it to the notation beneath the preserved frond. My breath caught. “We were there during the same autumn.”
Her wide gaze went back and forth between the two dates. “Only a few weeks apart.”
For a moment we simply stared at one another, both seeming to imagine how narrowly our paths had missed crossing.
Though we hadn’t yet met, for a brief season we had wandered the same valley, listened to the same creek, and breathed the same mountain air.
Had either of us walked only a little farther, our paths might have crossed long before the bakery ever appeared in my life.
Heart beating with renewed excitement, I pointed farther north. “What about a small village beside a lake? The houses had blue roofs, and there was an enormous willow near the shore.”
Another map appeared, this one retrieved with greater haste, her movements carrying an eagerness she seemed unaware of. “I’ve lived there too.”
I leaned farther across the table. “What year?”
She checked the corner of the parchment. “Four years ago.”
“I passed through there three years ago.”
I hastily named another place. Then another. Each time, Cecelia quietly produced a corresponding map, and with every one she shared another small piece of her history I found myself wanting to learn in far greater detail.
“I remember that forest.”
“I baked there one autumn.”
“The bakery remained beside that coast for nearly a month.”
My finger traced the scattered locations—forests, mountain villages, coastlines, rolling hills. At first glance none appeared connected. Then Cecelia began marking them upon fresh parchment, drawing lines between each point.
The web gradually spread beneath her hand. Amongst our stories and almost-shared memories, a pattern began to reveal itself.
My breath caught. “The curse has been following the bakery.” The realization settled over me with startling certainty. Every place I’d wandered, every direction I’d felt compelled to travel, every inexplicable detour and road that hadn’t made any sense…none of them had been random.
All this time, something had been quietly guiding me towards the bakery and the book it harbored, towards…her.
My gaze drifted over the maps spread before us, lingering on each location that now held precious significance, as if we’d known each other for years, long before we’d actually met.
The valley where we’d listened to the same creek only weeks apart, the lakeshore whose shoreline we’d each wandered, the vast mountain regions, the forests where we’d admired the same towering trees without ever knowing the other was nearby.
How many times had our lives nearly touched? How often had we unknowingly shared the same sunrise, breathed the same pine-scented air, stood beneath the same stars?
When the bakery finally vanished again and my curse eventually pulled me away, perhaps it wouldn’t truly be goodbye—if it had always been leading me towards the bakery, perhaps one day it would guide me back to her.
Hope bloomed so strongly it left me breathless. Unable to help myself, I glanced towards Cecelia, curious whether this strange thread connecting our pasts meant anything to her.
At first glance she wore her usual thoughtful expression as she studied the lines she’d drawn across the maps.
But I’d spent enough mornings watching her now to recognize the differences others might miss.
The corners of her mouth had softened, her shoulders no longer carried quite so much tension, and her fingers lingered over the overlapping paths with unmistakable care.
She appeared almost…pleased. The realization warmed me far more than discovering the pattern itself. For perhaps the first time since we’d met, this connection belonged equally to both of us.
Cecelia frowned thoughtfully. “If we understand the pattern, perhaps we can predict where the curse intends to take you next.” She began sketching more lines, an adorable eagerness filling each movement.
Despite everything weighing upon my heart, I couldn’t help smiling. “You truly believe every mystery can be solved with a map.”
She blinked, looking genuinely surprised. “Can it not?”
I laughed. “I sincerely hope you’re right.”
Her answering smile appeared so naturally that I wasn’t certain she even realized she’d given it. For one dangerous moment, I entirely forgot about the folded recipe hidden in my pocket; I quietly pushed it deeper.
Cecelia didn’t notice, too occupied studying the web of lines she’d drawn one last time before carefully rolling the maps shut.
A glint filled her eyes as she looked up.
“Studying these maps made me realize how little I’ve been able to explore of this forest. There is so much more to see before the next full moon. ”
“It’s undoubtedly difficult to explore when magically connected to a hunter prone to wander.”
The corner of her mouth lifted slightly, giving me hope she hadn’t viewed my presence as an inconvenience.
She glanced towards the window, where the early afternoon sunlight filtered through the trees beyond the bakery. Her fingers rested thoughtfully upon the nearest map. “I haven't explored this direction yet. Shall we do so now?”
The quiet excitement in her eyes made refusing impossible…not that I was reluctant to spend time exploring with her. “Lead the way.”
For nearly an hour we wandered wherever the maps led us, though it soon became apparent our twisting path was really wherever Cecelia’s curiosity carried us.
I happily let her take the lead, eager to see the forest through her eyes—what captured her attention, what filled her with wonder, and what destination, if any, she hoped to find.
She rarely chose the easiest path. If an unfamiliar trail curved away from the one we’d been following, she immediately wanted to discover where it led.
If birdsong drifted through a stand of aspens she’d never explored before, she quietly altered our course without hesitation.
I began to suspect she wasn’t truly mapping the forest—she was collecting its stories.
Occasionally, she paused to sketch an unusual tree or jot a quick note in the margin of her map before continuing onward. She moved with quiet confidence through the woods, stopping only long enough to orient herself before choosing another direction.
Watching her was oddly reassuring. For years now every path I’d walked had felt uncertain, forever at the mercy of a curse that refused to tell me where it was leading. Yet with Cecelia beside me, I never once wondered whether we were lost.
The trail eventually narrowed until it disappeared beneath thick clumps of fern. Cecelia slowed, studying the undergrowth before giving a small, thoughtful nod. “There’s something here. The trees are growing around something.” She pointed towards the tangled greenery.