Cheese, Wind, and other hulabaloo

 Chapter Thirty-One: A Step Closer

The bakery had a golden glow the next morning, like it was trying to match the way I felt. The ovens were already hot by the time I arrived, and Eva had tied on her apron, sleeves rolled up, hair pinned a little neater than usual.

"You're early," she said, smiling but not surprised.

"You’re glowing."

"It’s the yeast," she said with a wink. "Come on. These loaves won’t shape themselves."

We worked side by side with an ease I hadn’t fully appreciated before. Her elbow bumped mine now and then, and neither of us moved away. There was something comfortable in the quiet between us—a silence full of flour and rising dough, of shared effort and something else starting to rise.

Halfway through kneading, she glanced at me. "So, Ry... do you think you’ll stay?"

The question startled me. Not because I hadn’t thought about it, but because she’d said it like it was okay to answer.

"I think I’m already staying."

She smiled, soft and knowing, then nudged a tray of rolls toward me. "Then we’ll make room for you."

Later, after the shelves were full and the last crumbs swept, we stepped outside for a break. The sky was overcast, the kind that makes the whole village feel like a snow globe waiting to be shaken. I leaned against the wall, Eva beside me, arms folded.

"You remember anything else?" she asked quietly.

"Bits. A dog. A red cap. My sister’s laugh, maybe. You?"

"Me? I’m not the one with the memory holes."

"No, but I mean... do you remember the first time we talked? Really talked?"

She thought about it. "You were standing in the bakery doorway, looking like you'd been hit by a truck full of stars."

I laughed. "And you said, 'You gonna buy something or just keep fogging up the glass?'"

"Classic me."

"Yeah," I said, and then, without thinking too hard, I reached for her hand.

She let me.

Her fingers were warm from work, callused in places mine had already memorized. We didn’t say anything after that. Just stood there like the moment was enough. And it was.

When we finally parted for the night, she looked back at me with a smile that wasn’t teasing or sharp.

"See you tomorrow, Ry."

"See you tomorrow, Eva."

I didn’t need a prophecy or a mysterious map or some glowing portal.

I just needed that.

A hand in mine.

And a tomorrow worth waiting for.

Chapter Thirty-Two: Mr. Tabby

It was one of those evenings where the sky couldn’t decide between gold and gray, so it wore both like a mismatched coat. After the bakery closed and Eva waved goodbye with a knowing smile, I decided to walk.

I didn’t have a destination in mind. Just the kind of wanderlust that sits in your ribs when the day’s been too full of sweetness and stillness. I passed the well, the old grain shed, and the schoolhouse with its faded paint and crooked bell tower. The roads here didn’t lead anywhere fast, but they led somewhere.

That somewhere turned out to be a narrow dirt lane I hadn’t walked before. It dipped behind a row of trees and opened into a grassy clearing where the wind played tag with dry leaves.

And there, curled up on the edge of the path, was a tabby cat. Old. Orange and white, with a crumpled ear and the kind of eyes that had seen too many seasons to be fooled.

I stopped cold.

"Mr. Tabby?"

The name slipped out like an old coat from the back of a closet.

The cat blinked at me. No reaction, really. Just a faint flick of his tail, like he recognized the name but wasn’t in the mood to confirm it.

Footsteps sounded behind me on the gravel. I turned as Mr. Barrens rounded the bend, whistling low and holding a small tin of sardines.

"There you are, you old bandit," he said, crouching down.

The cat stood, arthritic but proud, and walked toward him. Mr. Barrens opened the tin and placed it down gently.

"Why do you have Mr. Tabby?" I asked. My voice came out cracked and uncertain.

Mr. Barrens didn’t look up right away. He just let the cat eat.

"He found me," he finally said. "Or maybe I found him. I reckon that's the way of it sometimes."

I took a step closer. The wind tugged at my jacket, but I ignored it.

"He was mine. A long time ago. I think."

Mr. Barrens nodded. "He still is, in a way. Some things stay tied to us, even if the knots are hidden."

The old man stood and dusted off his knees. He looked at me, his eyes darker than I remembered.

"Your memories aren’t gone, Ry. They’re just sleeping. Sometimes, they wake up slow. Sometimes, they need a smell or a voice or an old friend."

The cat rubbed against my leg once, then returned to the sardines like we hadn’t shared anything at all. But something stirred inside me. A warmth. A flicker.

"Did you know me before? Before all this?"

Mr. Barrens smiled, small and sad. "I think you’ll know the answer to that soon enough."

He reached down, picked up the now-empty tin, and walked off down the path.

I stayed there with Mr. Tabby until the stars came out.

He didn’t purr, but he didn’t leave either. He just sat, occasionally glancing up like he was checking on me. That simple companionship did something I couldn’t name.

I knelt down and scratched behind his crumpled ear. The cat leaned into my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"You were there when I was little, weren’t you?" I whispered.

A memory surfaced: a tiny bedroom with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, and Mr. Tabby curled on the windowsill. I blinked fast.

It was fleeting, like breath on glass, but it was real. The past was knocking again.

Another memory tickled the edge of my thoughts—a pair of gentle hands lifting Mr. Tabby into a cardboard box. Someone saying, "He’ll take care of you now."

Who said it? My father? A nurse? It didn’t matter yet. What mattered was that something had broken loose.

The air chilled, and the breeze carried a hint of pine and distant wood smoke. I stood and stretched, glancing down the path Mr. Barrens had taken.

He was already gone.

But the cat stayed. As if waiting for me to be ready to take the next step.

I picked him up carefully and cradled him against my chest. He didn’t protest.

"Let’s go home, old friend."

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Return

When I woke the next morning, Mr. Tabby was curled at the foot of my bed, snoring like a broken accordion. I stared at him for a long time, half expecting him to vanish, like a piece of dream I hadn’t meant to keep. But he didn’t. He was warm and real and every bit the stubborn old soul I remembered.

After breakfast—toast, jam, and an apple that looked better than it tasted—I set out with Mr. Tabby trotting just behind me. The day was already warming, and the village buzzed with its usual calm chaos. Kids ran with sticks. A goat stood on someone's porch like he paid rent there. Nothing out of place, except everything was starting to feel just slightly more... familiar.

I wandered through the market, nodding to Mrs. Larrimore and buying a tiny pouch of cinnamon sticks from the herb booth. The smell alone brought something back, though I couldn’t say what. Mr. Tabby leapt onto a barrel and surveyed the area like he owned it.

"He remembers you," Eva said, appearing beside me with a loaf of crusty bread in her hands. "He hasn’t followed anyone in years."

"He used to follow me everywhere," I murmured. "When I was a kid. I think."

We walked together, slowly, past the rows of stalls and out toward the road that led past the church. Eva didn’t say much, just let me think. The silence between us was soft, unafraid.

As we reached the bend in the road, I looked at her. "What if I remembered something that didn’t make any sense? What if I remembered... being somewhere else? Like another world?"

She studied me, serious now. "Do you think you were?"

"I thought I was. For weeks. I thought I was in another realm, you know? Another planet or something. But now... now I’m not so sure."

"Do you want to believe you were?"

"I think I wanted it to make sense. I needed a reason for the blanks, for the weirdness."

She nodded. "Sometimes we invent stories to protect ourselves. To survive something we’re not ready to face."

Her words hit like warm tea after a long storm.

As we sat on the church steps, Mr. Tabby curled beside my foot, I realized the ache in my chest wasn’t confusion anymore. It was mourning. For something I hadn’t fully remembered but already missed.

A life. A family. Maybe even a goodbye I never got to say.

"What if I never remember all of it?" I asked.

Eva reached for my hand. "Then we start with what you do know."

I knew her hand was warm. I knew Mr. Tabby still purred when I scratched behind his ear. I knew the scent of cinnamon made me feel like I belonged.

Maybe that was enough.

For now.

We sat there for a while, letting the village noises drift by. A bell rang faintly from the schoolhouse, and someone shouted about turnips. Life didn’t stop just because I was untangling mine.

"Do you think I came here for a reason?" I asked quietly.

Eva smiled gently. "I think you came here to heal."

The word sank deep, as if my bones had been waiting to hear it. Heal. Maybe I was still broken, but pieces were starting to come together again.

"I used to dream of flying," I said suddenly. "Of building wings and jumping off rooftops."

"Did you ever jump?"

"I think I did. Once. I fell into a haystack and got yelled at for an hour. But it felt like flying."

Eva laughed, and the sound wrapped around me like a favorite blanket.

"You’re braver than most," she said.

"Or just dumber," I replied, and she elbowed me lightly.

A cart passed by, and the driver nodded toward us. Everyone in this village saw me as one of their own now. I wasn’t just the strange outsider who asked too many questions. I was Ry. And that meant something.

I looked at Eva again. "Would it be alright if I stayed? Even if I never remember everything?"

"You already are," she said. "You're part of this place now. Memory or not."

I leaned back on the steps, watching the clouds roll past like lazy ships. Mr. Tabby snored beside me.

For once, I didn’t feel like I was waiting for something to happen. I was just here.

And that was okay.

Chapter Thirty-Four: Cheese, Wind, and Other Mysteries

The next morning, I was awoken by the sound of a cow mooing directly outside my window. Not a distant farm moo, mind you—this was a personal, right-up-in-your-ear kind of moo. Mr. Tabby leapt from my bed with a startled yowl, and I groaned, rolling over to see a pair of large, unblinking bovine eyes peering in at me.

"Mornin', Ry!" came a shout from below. It was Gus, the man who delivered eggs and unsolicited life advice. "Borrowed Miss Delia's cow for my new cheese experiment. She's very cooperative."

"She’s staring into my soul," I muttered, pulling the blanket over my head.

After dressing and coaxing Mr. Tabby out from under the bed (he had taken the cow personally), I headed down to the bakery where Eva greeted me with a flour-smudged grin.

"You missed the cheese-curd pancake trial," she said. "It went about as well as you'd expect."

"Did anyone survive?"

"No confirmed casualties, but there's a village dog who's been hiccupping since dawn."

We both laughed, and for the first time in a while, it felt good to laugh without a heavy thought trailing behind it.

That afternoon, I was assigned to the delivery route—me, a rickety bicycle with a squeaky front wheel, and three paper sacks full of buns and croissants. Simple enough, I thought.

Except halfway through the route, a freak gust of wind swept through the village square, scattering my pastries like sacred offerings to the sky gods. I chased a rogue danish into the apothecary, tripped over a sleeping cat, and somehow ended up with a bottle of foot salve in my pocket that I swore I didn’t take.

"New delivery method?" old Mr. Fenwick asked, as I handed him a slightly squashed baguette.

"A dance with nature," I replied solemnly.

Returning to the bakery, Eva took one look at me—flour-streaked, wind-tangled, and smelling faintly of lavender foot rub—and burst into a fit of giggles that brought actual tears to her eyes.

"This place is trying to kill me," I said.

"You mean Earth?"

I hesitated. There it was again. That weird tug in my brain.

"Is it, though?" I asked, half-joking. "I mean, really, what village has sword-fighting clubs, cheese-related casualties, and a church with a bell that tolls every time someone says the word 'marzipan' too loudly?"

She wiped her eyes, still laughing. "A very special one."

Later that evening, I found myself repairing a loose board on the porch when Mr. Barrens passed by, whistling an off-key tune.

"Heard you fought the wind and lost," he said.

"It was a tactical retreat."

He winked. "Well, you lived to bake another day."

As the sun dipped low and the sky turned that peculiar orange-purple blend it seemed to favor, I leaned back on the porch step, Mr. Tabby curled beside me. This place was bizarre, unpredictable, and possibly still Earth.

But for now, it was home.

And the cheese experiment? Gus reported that it achieved "maximum tang." Whatever that meant.

I made a mental note to never ask.

Because frankly, I didn’t want to know.

That night, I opened the little cloth-covered journal Eva had given me and lit the stubby candle by my bedside. Mr. Tabby curled beside it like a tiny bodyguard.

Entry #11 - Cheese Wind Day

Dear Journal (and maybe God, if you're flipping through tonight),

Today was ridiculous. The cow, the airborne pastries, the hiccuping dog—if I'm not actually on another world, someone at least scripted this day with a very quirky pen.

But truthfully? I feel okay. More than okay. I laughed today. A real laugh, one that came from the kind of place that doesn’t laugh often. Eva made me feel like a person again, not just a confused wanderer with a foggy past and an odd name. And even if the bakery is one step away from becoming a magical accident site, I think I like it that way.

I'm thankful. For this village. For Eva. For Mr. Tabby, who snored through the cheese trials like a champ. For mornings that start with cows and end with warm bread and good company. I don't know what tomorrow brings, but tonight, I feel... rooted. Almost like I'm growing into whoever I used to be, or maybe someone entirely new.

P.S. to God: Please make sure Mr. Tabby lives a long, long time. Like... Methuselah long. Just in cat years. Thanks.

Ry

Chapter Thirty-Five: Hiccups, Helmets, and Heroics

It all started with a hiccup. Not mine, mind you. This particular bout of sonic violence came from the village dog, Sir Woofsalot (named by the mayor's daughter, age six, who had insisted he receive knighthood after he saved her sandwich from a passing goose). Sir Woofsalot had apparently developed an ongoing case of the hiccups thanks to Gus's cheese-curd pancake trials. The poor dog hiccupped so loud he startled himself every ten seconds, launching into barks, then hiccups again. It was a loop of chaos.

"We're gonna have to build him a soundproof doghouse," I mumbled, watching him yelp and hiccup simultaneously outside the bakery.

Eva wiped flour from her forehead. "Or put him in the bell tower. At least that way, we can tell the time by his hiccup chimes."

This comment sent us both into a giggle fit that only escalated when Gus burst through the back door wearing a homemade cheese-themed helmet. It looked like someone had lovingly glued slices of cheddar to a colander.

"Good citizens!" he cried. "The wind may have bested us yesterday, but today, I bring you a revolution in headwear!"

"Do you smell burning?" Eva asked, sniffing the air.

"Only the scent of invention!"

Later, as I swept up croissant crumbs, a crash from the alley behind the bakery caught my attention. Rushing out, I found young Toby—who insisted on being called "Shadowblade the Silent"—attempting to scale the bakery wall in full cardboard armor.

"What in the world...?"

He grinned, helmet askew. "Training for dragon day. Mr. Vex says we might be facing two paper-mâché wyverns this year. Bigger than last year!"

I blinked. "Dragon day?"

"Annual festival. We fight dragons. Eat pie. Sometimes both at once. You should join!"

"Of course you do," I muttered, stepping aside as he scaled a trash bin and leapt off, yelling something about critical hits.

By the time the bakery closed, my face hurt from smiling. Every customer had a story, a quirk, or a plan to defeat cheese-related demons or airborne baked goods. It was exhausting. It was hilarious. And it was oddly comforting.

That night, I sat at my window, watching Mr. Tabby attempt to swipe a moth with the seriousness of a tiger on the hunt. I opened my journal.

Entry #12 - Dragon Day Approacheth

Dear Journal,

Today was... cheese helmets, dog hiccups, and tiny warriors. I have never felt more like I was in a fever dream. But here's the thing: I liked it.

There’s something about this place that makes nonsense feel sacred. Maybe this is Earth. Maybe it's just a little corner of it that forgot how to be boring.

And if it means I have to wear a cheese helmet to belong?

Well, I might just try one on tomorrow.

Ry