Baked Brread

Anna woke to the dark.

The back of her right shoulder burned terribly. Anna winced and rolled over, rubbing at it. The skin under her shift felt cold and numb.

“Stylus?” she called softly. No response.

Sitting up she rubbed her burning eyes. It was difficult to raise her right hand as her shoulder throbbed painfully. It felt as if she had slept longer this time, but still nowhere near enough. Sliding her hand through the scoop neck of the shift, she felt at her shoulder. The skin was impressed with the shape of the stylus. She had fallen asleep holding it in both hands. It must have migrated under her body during her sleep.

“Stylus?”

“I’m here.” His voice lacked the usual sarcastic bite, sounding distant instead.

Anna slid off the bed, worried. She found him laying on the floor at the foot bed half curled into a fetal position. His usual luminous shine had dimmed to a mild glow that left his skin periwinkle toned but cast no light.

“What’s wrong?”

“I seem to have found gravity again.”

“Huh?” Anna leaned over and reached for the spirit’s shoulder with her left hand. It passed through him as expected, but not easily. Instead there seemed to be a soft resistance, as if pushing through still water.

“I can feel you, sort of.”

“Gravity is overrated.”

“Can you levitate at all?”

“It takes more effort than staying down.”

“Can’t you just change back?”

“If I could, do you think I would be lying on the floor complaining about gravity?” He sat up slowly. “I feel nauseous.” He looked at her. “What are you feeling?”

“My right shoulder feels like someone hit it with a baseball bat. Moving my arm hurts, my skin there feels numb and cold to the touch.”

“New rule apparently. Sustained physical contact with the stylus can drain one’s life force-”

“-and transfer it to you.”

“Please let’s not finish each other's sentences again.”

“Yes, it really clashes with your uncaring villain vibe.”

Anna straightened, cradling her right elbow in her left hand to ease the pull on her aching shoulder. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No. It should wear off over time, like before.”

“May I ask, when I held the stylus tightly with both hands, did you feel anything?”

“May I not answer that?”

Anna frowned. “I’m just trying to be nice.”

“I don’t need your charity.”

“I get that you’ve suffered a lot, but you don’t need to take it out on me, or yourself, for that matter.”

“Can’t I just happily brood without getting a lecture?”

Anna drew a slow breath. Stepping over to the bedroom’s small window, she looked out. The eastern sky had begun to fade from black to grey, rain still pattering against the panes. Most of the town still slept, though a few chimneys were already puffing away.

“When you talk, can you make it so only I can hear you? I suspect today will be messy.”

‘Well, if I do that, who is going to be able to appreciate my biting sarcasm?’

His voice seemed to echo inside Anna’s head rather than reach her through her ears. “I’m surprised you’re being helpful again.”

‘What did I say about lectures?’

Anna pinched her fingers together and mimed zipping her lips.

‘Excellent. Stay just like that.’

Wordlessly exiting the bedroom, Anna made her way down the short hall of the bakery’s second floor. The door to Clayton’s room stood open. She poked her head inside and found him out cold, still fully dressed, sleeping off the previous night’s drunkenness. Clara had said she would spend the night in a chair beside him, but the chair was empty.

Sounds coming from the first floor indicated the bakery was already in motion.

Anna found Clara in the kitchen, stoking the fire.

The woman sped about, unassisted, doing everything one-handed. Not wanting to startle her, Anna remained silent until Clara noticed on her own.

“Good morning, Anna. I am surprised to see you up at this hour.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“I suspect you have a lot on your mind.”

“The witch hunters are going to find me soon.”

“Unfortunately so.”

Clara crossed the room, opening the lid on a large flour chest. Inside, dark beetles crawled over a moonscape of infested multigrain flour, the cargo Anna had hitched a ride with.

Clara reached into her apron’s joey pocket with her left hand and pulled out a small square of slate. She set it atop the kitchen’s center table, then produced a thick piece of chalk. Slowly, she formed wobbly letters across the slate, speaking each one softly as she wrote.

“B. R. R. E. A. D.”

‘Br-read? She means bread, right?’

“You misspelled it,” Anna corrected gently.

“Did I?”

The letters lingered for a while, inviting a moment’s doubt until they started to glow a faint, warm yellow color. The slate emitted a puff of glowing chalk dust that faded in an instant, leaving behind a clean surface and the gentle scent of baking bread.

From the open chest on the floor a stream of multigrain flour rose, several cups’ worth, strung out long and slender like a pasta noodle, leaving behind the beetles and other impurities. It snaked across the room, approaching the center table. A similarly shaped yet shorter stream of water, maybe a cup’s worth, rose from the open pitcher atop the table, joining a long chain of salt grains, perhaps a teaspoon. The last ingredient was some light brown slurry from an open crock in the corner of the room, its stream less than the water but more than the salt.

Simple ingredients for simple magic.

The four coalesced into a perfect grey-brown sphere that floated above the slate for a while, hovering there as if spooling for a long computation, before suddenly distorting into a brick-shaped loaf of bread. Poorly leavened, it landed with an unceremonious thud atop the slate. Anna’s eyes narrowed at the familiar squat loaf, its crust traversed by cracks and marked with scorch marks from a nonexistent baking.

“I did not,” Clara answered proudly.

One loaf. All that for one loaf? Not particularly magical. Well, not in the sense she was expecting. It seemed far too basic. Anna picked up the loaf. The crust was quite hard. She gave it a squeeze. “It’s like it’s old already.” Anything like this back home would have been thrown out.

‘Brrrread.’

“I am afraid so,” Clara replied, repeating the process to produce another bread brick. She wrote slowly, meticulously, not speaking this time until finished. “But it is safe, edible, and filling. And that is what we need.”

Once another brick materialized and landed with a thud, she moved it aside and began writing again. “I use infested flour that otherwise would be discarded. The merchants are happy to sell it for a few coppers. Some just donate it.”

“How many loaves do you produce each day?”

“About twenty. Any more would raise suspicion. I vary the amount daily so it is less obvious. It is important that no one realizes this.”

Anna watched in silence for a while. “Can you write anything else?”

“A few things. They are enough.”

Anna’s gaze fell to the place where Clara’s right hand should have been. Her stomach tightened. “Who taught you?”

“A noble boy. I was a young girl. He taught me and a few others in secret. Bread was the first word he showed me. When we were discovered we were given a good switching and told never to write again.”

She moved the finished brick aside to join the others, repeating the process again. “Years later, a young man passed through here. He could read and write. He was quite charming. When his crimes were revealed, anyone he spent any significant time with had their right hand removed.”

“Just like that?!”

“Yes.”

“I had to teach myself how to write it again with my left. It took a long time to recover the gift.”

“What-” Anna started to say, but the little bell over the bakery’s front door tinkled.

“Excuse me.” Clara gathered up three loaves, setting them carefully on her right forearm, balancing them against her body. She then exited the kitchen for the bakery’s front room through a plain wooden door. Anna followed to the door, listening through it.

“Good morning. How are you and the children today?” asked Clara’s voice.

“Running around as usual,” replied an elderly woman. “The weather has been strange. It usually does not rain like this in September.”

“Three day-old loaves today?”

“Yes please, dear.” The voice paused. “I am afraid I cannot pay today. … I-I can bring you some eggs when the hens lay again. They find the weather disagreeable.”

“The ladies are getting on in years. They deserve a holiday.”

“T-thank you.”

“Oh, I may be going out of town for a while. Looking after a friend. Will you be all right in my absence?”

“The children and I will make do. We always do, somehow. Thank you, Clara. You take such good care of everyone.”

The little bell chimed again.

Anna stepped back from the door. Clara came in, closed it behind her, then silently resumed writing on the slate.

“Who’s your friend?” Anna asked.

“A smart girl. In a spot of trouble. She needs to know that she has someone who is looking out for her.”

The little bell chimed.