Chapter 15 #2
But this brief moment of weakness reminded me of a truth I’d spent years refusing to face: her time was borrowed. One day it would run out, and when it did, she would leave me too…just as my parents had.
The thought stole the air from my lungs. I didn’t want to be alone when she left me.
The fear swelled until it seemed to crowd every corner of my heart.
Somehow I'd allowed myself to become attached—to Granny, to Nutmeg…
and most of all to Gabe, the one I was almost certain I would lose first. The full moon drew nearer with every passing day, signifying the moment the bakery would move and his curse would send him wandering.
And I wasn't ready to let him go.
“I can’t…” The words escaped as little more than a whisper. I couldn't lose them, not after finally remembering how deeply I loved.
Panic surged through me, searching desperately for escape. Unable to sit still another moment, I lurched to my feet. “I have to bake.”
The words came automatically, the same answer I’d given every difficult emotion for years. Yet even as I hurried towards the kitchen, I realized something had changed. For the first time, I knew baking wasn’t truly the solution—it was only the place I always ran when I was afraid.
Before I could register the motion, I crossed to the cupboard and began frantically flipping through the enchanted recipe book, searching for a confection that would demand the emotions weighing upon my heart. My hands trembled with every page turned.
I could feel Granny’s solemn gaze resting upon me as I worked, but I couldn’t bear to meet her eyes and see the sadness that would undoubtedly be reflected there.
My body already knew what to do before my thoughts had caught up. Flour. Butter. Sugar. Cinnamon. The recipe book lay open beneath my trembling fingers as naturally as though I’d performed this ritual yesterday instead of a hundred times before.
Bake. Give away the feeling. Become empty again.
The enchantment awakened, brushing gently through my heart, searching. Choosing. I felt it reach for the newest emotions first—ones still fresh and tender, the easiest to loosen. They lifted like delicate threads being drawn from a tapestry.
Instead of reaching for the fear I so desperately wanted gone, the magic found something else entirely—the quiet warmth that lingered whenever Gabe smiled at me across the kitchen.
No. The protest escaped before I understood it. Only days ago I would have surrendered such a feeling without hesitation. Now an irrational desperation surged through me to protect it. I still couldn’t name what it was, only that losing it suddenly felt unbearable.
The enchantment hesitated. Then, as though politely accepting my refusal, it obliged and obediently drifted onward, this time reaching for a memory: dawn spilled through my bedroom window as Gabe quietly sat beside me watching the sunrise, one of many precious mornings we’d spent together.
As the magic tightened its hold, the sunrise began to blur. The warmth disappeared first, then the brilliant gold softened into grey as the colors began dissolving like watercolor caught in the rain. Finally, the memory itself started slipping beyond my reach.
The magic discovered more treasure troves of memory—Gabe quietly lifting heavy sacks of grain before I could ask, the streak of flour across his cheek while we baked together.
His careful fingers preserving a single leaf between the pages of his journal, evenings spent beside the hearth.
The cheerful sound of his laughter, the soft furrow of his brow whenever he watched over Granny.
The berry clearing, mapping trails through the forest. His hand reaching for mine, our almost kiss.
Each memory shimmered as though viewed through rippling water, slowly unraveling thread by thread.
Panic swelled. No! Please…not those. I reached for them as though I might physically gather them back into myself before they disappeared forever.
No matter what the cost, I refused to let the magic take Gabe.
I expected the enchantment to protest, but again it relented and turned elsewhere, as though obediently following instructions.
This time it reached for Nutmeg, enfolding me in more fragments of recollection, returning like warm sparks drifting through my thoughts—the day I discovered her sleeping among the glowing embers, sugar cubes mysteriously vanishing, her proud disguises as my pastries, the way she danced through clouds of flour whenever I baked, the comforting weight of her curled beside the oven after long days.
No, not her either.
Almost impatient now, the magic shifted its focus once more and reached deeper still, this time for…my breath caught. Granny.
Suddenly I was small again, tiny hands disappearing beneath oversized sleeves in the dress she had cut down for me from one of her own as I kneaded my very first loaf, Granny’s warm hands folding mine around the dough.
The smell of fresh bread drifting through the bakery, stories beside the fire, being carried upstairs after I’d fallen asleep at the table.
My father’s laughter, my mother’s embrace, the comforting sense of love and home.
“No!” The cry tore itself from somewhere deep within me.