I released a soft sigh and found myself nodding. “Very well,” I conceded. “Please wait for me outside the bakery. I need to check on my grandmother before we leave.”
His smile widened fully for perhaps the first time since we’d met, bright enough to soften the solemn sharpness of his features into something unexpectedly handsome. Relief andexcitement flickered openly across his face before he quickly attempted—and failed—to compose himself again.
Yet a noticeable spring entered his step as he headed for the front door. I found myself staring after him several moments too long before remembering my purpose.
Shaking my head firmly, I turned back towards the kettle still resting near the hearth, steam no longer curling from the spout. I tested the water temperature gently with the back of my hand. Pleasantly warm now, just the way Grandmother preferred it.
I arranged a tray with tea and the few remaining lemon scones. Gabe must have enjoyed them more than he’d initially admitted; only two remained upon the plate. My lips twitched upward faintly.
Nutmeg followed close behind as I carried the tray, sniffing curiously at its contents before apparently deciding that she would have better success with Gabe and flitting back to the kitchen. I carefully balanced it before quietly knocking on Grandmother’s door. When no answer came, I eased it open a crack and peered inside to see whether she had fallen asleep again.
Instead, I found her sitting upright against her pillows looking more awake than she had in days. Somehow she had managed to scoot herself into a half-seated position, blankets pooled around her waist while she watched the doorway with unmistakable expectation, as though she had been patiently awaiting my arrival.
“I heard voices from the kitchen,” she said by way of greeting. “Do we have a guest?”
“My apologies, did we wake you?”
She effortlessly sidestepped my obvious attempt to avoid the question. “Only my curiosity…especially as one of those voices sounded rather deep and distinctlymale.” A mischievous glint lit her eyes, lending an unexpected healthy glow to her otherwise pale features.
Heat immediately rose into my cheeks. “It was merely…a customer taking refuge from the rain.”
“One whom you also invited to tea?” Leave it to Grandmother to have no qualms about asking such deeply personal questions.
“He requested an enchanted confection,” I explained briskly. “We’re going into the forest together to foragebriarthorn berries, the final ingredient to bake an enchanted berry tart.”
Foraging was such an everyday occurrence I hoped the matter would be settled. I turned quickly towards the door, intending to escape before the conversation wandered somewhere even more dangerous. Unfortunately, my pace proved no match for Grandmother’s curiosity.
“Is he handsome?”
I stopped so abruptly I nearly sloshed tea over the edge of the tray. I hastily set it down on the nightstand. “Is he…” I sputtered. “Why would that possibly matter?”
She watched me with utterly unrepentant delight brightening her wrinkled countenance. “It certainly makes the task easier.”
I gaped at her in disbelief. “Are you encouraging me to fancy acustomer?” Grandmother not only knew about my adamant disinterest in romance, but had always been deeply concerned with propriety.
“We can serve them and admire them from afar,” she replied innocently. “Back in my youth, I flirted shamelessly with many handsome young men who came seeking magical desserts.”
Her expression softened into something wistful and distant, as though memory itself had briefly carried her somewhere warm and long ago forgotten.
I frowned suspiciously down at the teapot on the tray. There was definitely something in the tea today. I sighed. “First Nutmeg, now you. Truly, it’s as though neither of you know me at all if you think I’m suddenly courting a stranger.”
Grandmother’s amusement faded slightly at that, though gentleness remained in her gaze. “And what if you chose to?”
The question unsettled me far more than it should have. The complications of falling in love already seemed impossibly troublesome under ordinary circumstances. Attempting such a thing while scarcely capable of feeling emotions sounded even more disastrous. Friendships would already be painful enough to lose once the bakery inevitably moved on beneath the next full moon. Romance seemed objectively worse.
I wasn’t entirely certain even the strongest spells could fully erase the devastation of losing someone beloved. Though the grief surrounding my parents’ deaths had long since been dulled and scattered amongst countless enchanted recipes, I still possessed factual memory enough to know the experience had once been deeply unpleasant. Not something I would willingly choose to endure again.
“I simply don’t see the appeal,” I said at last, focusing carefully on pouring her tea. “People leave, the bakery moves on. Feelings only complicate things unnecessarily. And since my ability to feel shrinks with each day, love is impossible.”
She tilted her head thoughtfully but didn’t respond. ThoughI cared for Grandmother as much as I was able, I knew ours was not the same effortless closeness shared between many grandmothers and granddaughters. Still, sometimes I found myself marveling at how different our relationship had become compared to when I first arrived at the bakery all those yearsago…back when I’d still possessed every emotion in painful abundance.
Prior to living here, Grandmother had existed more as a story than a person. The bakery only occasionally transported within traveling distance of our tiny village, and during those rare visits she would appear like some wandering fairytale figure before vanishing again beneath the next full moon. With each visit, she appeared markedly older than the last time I’d seen her—her steps slower, her hair more heavily streaked with silver, more frequent sitting to catch her breath.
My mother often looked quietly pained whenever Grandmother’s name arose in conversation so I learned early not to ask questions. At the time, I thought her sorrow strange; I didn’t yet understand how deeply emotions could wound a person…not until the epidemic came.
Even now the memory remained fractured and dreamlike in places. I remembered waking one night drenched in sweat while moonlight swam hazily across the ceiling above me. My thoughts drifted in and out beneath the fever’s crushing weight while my parents moved constantly through the tiny cottage.
Cool cloths against my forehead. The bitter taste of precious medicine. My mother’s trembling hands trying to coax me to drink water. My father feeding another log into the hearth long after midnight. Their whispered conversation when they thought I slept.
