Chapter 14 The Curse in the Crumbs
Outside, the snow pressed against the windowpane and muted the kitchen in a hush.
Eliza leaned against the counter, covered in flour and satisfaction as Lachlan dried the last of the copper mixing bowls.
It was the kind of quiet that Eliza loved when she was with company, and she wished it would stretch on forever.
“It’s getting late,” Lachlan broke the silence. “We should take a page out of Puffcake’s book and get to bed. You’re going to have a big day tomorrow.”
Eliza followed his gaze over to Puffcake, who was sound asleep on a stack of recipe cards. She laughed, pulling out her phone and snapping a picture of him. “I’m definitely going to make a sticker out of this. Something with little floating Z’s above his head.”
Lachlan’s laugh echoed through the kitchen, causing Puffcake to stir.
“Careful,” she warned. “You wake the little sugar sprite, you’ll have to deal with his wrath.”
“What does that entail, exactly? Lighting my blanket on fire while I sleep?” Lachlan asked.
“Oh, worse,” she said with a mock sort of seriousness, “He’ll hex your coffee so it’s always decaf.”
Lachlan winced. “That’s horrible. I take it all back. I’ll start whispering from now on.”
“You go ahead,” she said, grinning as she pretended to shoo him off. “I promise I’ll be right behind you, just want to do a couple more things before bed.”
He lingered in the threshold, watching her for a beat too long. “Don’t stay up too late,” he said, voice gentle. “You’ll need that little sugar sprite’s magic tomorrow.”
She pretended not to notice the warmth in his tone. “Go brush your teeth like a responsible adult,” she teased.
He chuckled, shaking his head as he turned toward the hallway. His footsteps faded down the corridor.
Long after he was gone, she realized she was still smiling.
There was only one more recipe left. Eliza anxiously followed each of the instructions, her heart beating with a strange sort of anticipation.
The recipe was for gingerbread. Simple enough, she thought.
And she was eager to use the rolling pin Lachlan bought for her from the little shoppe in the village square.
As she scanned the page, she noted the handwriting had shifted again. The once elegant script had grown uneven, less uniform, and more frantic. Blotches of ink stained the page in pools of onyx, like water or tears had spotted the words.
She worked in silence, careful not to disturb Puffcake or Lachlan in the other room, but it was the recipe’s twist that made Eliza stop stirring.
Add a tear.
She froze. She could’ve easily shed one for everything that had happened these past six months. But something about being here, spending the week away from it all, really gave her the distance she needed. It had given her perspective, and maybe even a newfound sense of hope.
Still, she couldn’t stop the tears from forming as she thought about how she’d said goodbye to her nan too soon. She couldn’t stop her hands from shaking anytime she thought about Honeycomb and who was at the front taking orders this holiday season.
It should’ve been her.
A single, pearlescent dollop welled onto Eliza’s cheek. She caught it just in time as it slid down her face and into the dough. The moment it touched, the mixture shifted.
The recipe wasn’t very clear on what, exactly, she was supposed to be recreating.
She knew it was gingerbread, considering the classic nutmeg, cinnamon, and cardamom spices.
But there were no specific notes on which biscuit cutters to use, or any shapes at all.
Eliza took the liberty of cutting out ones shaped to look like a house, each one a small tribute to the magical cottage that kept her coming back year after year.
This place was full of memories, good and bad.
Old and new. Watching Isadora’s story unfold was bittersweet, and even though Eliza could assume how it ended, she wanted to keep baking to find out.
She felt a strange bond with the woman, like she was reading about her favorite heroine and hoping that they would find happiness in the end.
Once the gingerbread biscuits were done and cooled, Eliza took a bite, and the cottage flickered around her like the hazy edges of a dream. She knew the feeling too well. She was no longer in her own story. She was in Isadora’s.
And there she was: Isadora, hollow-eyed and wild-haired, kneading every ounce of anger into the pile of dough before her.
With every knead, her fury seemed to soften into something more like despair.
And from despair to hopelessness. Beside her on the counter was the letter from Ernest, unfolded and blotched with ink patches.
He’d left without a word. Only a letter left behind to account for all their years together, everything they’d suffered through. Everything was wrapped up with the words “sincerely” at the end.
The dough received the brunt of Isadora’s grief, her knuckles turning white under her grip as she worked it with force. There wasn’t a single trace of love in her baking now, only regret. Bitterness. Heartbreak rolled into spice and flour.
The scent flooded Eliza’s lungs, cinnamon, sugar, clove, and molasses, but it was laced with the heaviness of sorrow.
“No one will know how much this cost me, but they’ll feel it,” she whispered, tears brimming in her eyes. Her voice was broken and ragged, like she’d been crying for some time, and this was her only consolation—this kitchen.
“Let this place remember,” she said, speaking over the house as if she were cursing it. “Let this house carry the weight of what we had and the great loss. Sweet endings will never belong here.”
She laid the gingerbread mixture out, rolling it out with swift movements. The pin moved back and forth like a metronome, a steady rhythm as she pressed all of her grief into the dough.
With trembling hands, she reached for the cutters. It was an odd set, not the typical ones shaped like stars or stockings. They were strange and curved. Eliza couldn't quite make out what Isadora was making until they were on the baking sheet.
As soon as she put the cutouts in the oven, the house shifted, the air becoming more stout with magic.
Then, shooting from the oven like a cannon, came a familiar creature. Golden brown and still steaming.
Eliza blinked. She didn’t recognize him at first, but then she knew. There were undeniable pink and blue icing wings, batting experimentally, and two lavender gumdrop eyes.
A delicate snout huffed powdered sugar, and sparks flew, hitting the copper pots like a pinball, each of them gonging a loud ding.
Puffcake.
He was smaller, no larger than the size of a danish, and somehow more adolescent, as if magical gingerbread creatures could grow over time.
But it was unmistakably him, Eliza’s cantankerous, fire-breathing cracker companion.
Brought to life eighty years ago, not out of joy or a magical whimsy, but out of heartbreak.
Had Puffcake found his way back here due to sensing Eliza’s own heartbreak?
Isadora leaned over the counter. The sorrow in her eyes softened for a moment as she beheld the little creature.
At last, he settled down in front of Isadora on the island.
“There you are,” she said in greeting, reaching forward to boop him on the nose.
He hissed in his usual cranky tone, and Isadora laughed sadly.
“Even my own creations dislike my company.” She blinked away her tears and tried again, stroking his spine. “Tell me you’ll stay, won’t you? You can’t fix a broken heart, but surely you’ll keep me company.”
Puffcake curled into her hand in answer. Something in Eliza’s heart silently broke, not only for Isadora, but for Puffcake, too.
Where was his lifelong companion now?
Then, she stood straighter, with authority. Her voice lowered, every syllable ringing out with the ancient weight of old magic. She spoke words that simultaneously created and changed everything.
“Let love not last here if mine cannot.”
The spell rippled outward, sinking into every icing-piped rafter, every gingerbread wall, every sugar-spun flower and peppermint windowpane.
The house rumbled once, as if taking in its first—or final—breath.
Love hadn’t just died within these walls; it had festered. What once had been a sanctuary for connection was now only a sad, withering memory; a graveyard for devotion.
And love, like the man who left her, would never return to this cottage.
“Eliza?” Someone was calling for her. It sounded far off in the distance, like she could run to it if only she could open her eyes from the spell she was under. She didn’t want to go so soon. She wanted to sit with Isadora in her grief, even if she couldn’t see or feel Eliza there.
“Eliza?” Her name came again. Closer now.
Someone was shaking her awake. The cottage around her swirled back into fractured pieces, first starting with sound, then light, and then, finally, feeling. Pine and sugar hovered nearby.
Lachlan was over the top of her, one hand braced underneath the base of her neck.
The other was steadying her waist, his face drawn tight with worry.
Beside him, Puffcake nudged at her arm, his caramel-colored scales glinting in the overhead light.
The dragon’s little lavender eyes were glossy with concern.
She blinked the rest of the way awake. The cool tiles were hard against her back, and there was a terrible throbbing in her head.
“Wh-what happened?” she croaked out.
“You fainted,” Lachlan explained. “Puffcake woke me up.”
She turned her head to the tiny familiar. “You did?”
Puffcake’s gingerbread tail gave a proud thump-thump-thump in response.
Eliza reached out and scratched behind his ears, smiling brightly. “My little hero.” Her comment only made Puffcake’s chest puff wider.
Lachlan helped ease Eliza upright, steadying her. “Careful,” he whispered, his voice gentle and almost tender. He drew his fingertips along her temple, checking for any damages. “No bleeding. That’s good.” He shone his mobile light in her eyes. “Follow my fingers, Snow.”
She squinted, the brightness causing her head to pulse in angry protest. “I can’t follow anything with how bright this light is in my eyes,” she winced.
“Try for me,” he whispered.
His hand tumbled slightly as they moved from side to side, testing her vision. She followed. Eliza tried to focus, but all she could think about was the closeness of him—the sharp evergreen clinging to his skin, the warmth of his breath. It wrapped around her like a spell.
He lowered the mobile. “Are you good?”
Eliza giggled. “I’m fine, Lachlan. A little dizzy, but fine. Just a little bump, that’s all.”
He studied her face, not seeming convinced. His eyes lingered on hers, gazing into them deeply. “You have the most brilliant eyes.”
Eliza’s breath caught in her chest. “Thank you.”
He looked down at her lips. Her heart sputtered out of control in its usual manner around him. Puffcake nudged her cheek, breaking her away from the moment.
“I think he’s trying to tell me it’s time for bed,” Eliza yawned.
Lachlan carefully scooped her up and carried her up the creaky staircase.
His arms were strong, and she felt the muscle beneath his shirt as it strained against her weight.
As he crossed the threshold and into the bedroom, the door behind them swung shut and shuddered closed with a soft click.
Lachlan turned at the sound, his brows furrowing.
He gently set her down on the bed before crossing the room to inspect the door. He fumbled around with the handle, but it didn’t budge. He just looked at it like it had personally insulted him.
He ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t sleep around on the first date,” Lachlan said, his tone half-embarrassed, half-flustered.
“I don’t know if this would be considered a date,” Eliza said.
“Isn’t, like, this whole week considered that, whether we want it to be or not?” Lachlan pointed out.
“Touché,” she smiled widely before nodding to the bed. “But really, we’d just be sleeping in the same room. Not ... well, you know.”
“I know,” he said quickly, sitting on the edge of the mattress.
He made it a point to keep as much distance from her as possible, his shoulders tense.
“I just was a bit much yesterday when we were decorating the tree,” he confessed.
His eyes found hers in the darkness, and they were softer now. “I respect you, Eliza.”
Her throat tightened at the sincerity of his words. The warmth of his voice pulsed through the air like magic.
“Stay with me,” she whispered.
He hesitated only a moment before joining her underneath the quilt. His breath was warm against the base of her neck, and she purred in delight as he ran his fingers lightly over her hair, continuously brushing the blonde strands away from her face. Her eyes fluttered shut.
She knew the choice wasn’t really theirs to make, considering the house had already decided their fate. But the words were hers.
Entirely hers.