Eventually only one ingredient remained. “I’ll finish it from here,” I said softly, and Gabe immediately stepped back.
For the first time since baking my earliest enchanted confections, I hesitated. The tart sat assembled before me, its crust golden and delicate, the freshly gathered berries nestled amongst the filling. All that remained was the price the magic required.
It had been years since I possessed anything substantial to lose. Most emotions had already been claimed by previous recipes, leaving behind little more than the practical fragments necessary to continue living. The past few days had changed that, creating feelings so different from the apathetic numbness I’d grown accustomed to. And suddenly I wanted more than anything to keep them, uncomfortable as they could be.
But that wasn’t part of the deal I’d made. As I placed my hands over the tart, I felt the familiar awakening of magic. I closed my eyes and waited. The kitchen seemed to quiet around me as the magic stirred. The spell reached inward, searching through my heart for whatever emotion best suited its purpose. It moved through old corners long since emptied, through faded remnants of feelings I scarcely remembered having.
Then it found what it sought. For a brief, luminous moment, the feeling was illuminated so clearly I could finally see it. Not the romance Grandmother so desperately hoped for me, not even attraction. Instead it was something quieter:
The anticipation I felt when I heard the bakery bell and wondered if it might be Gabe. The comfort of his footsteps beside mine through the forest. The curiosity that made me want to learn what secrets filled the pages of his notebook. The strange desire for tomorrow to come so I might see him again.
Connection. The simple yearning for someone to stay. The hope for something more.
For the first time in years, I understood exactly what emotion lived within my heart…and the magic intended to take it.No. The thought emerged before I could stop it.Not this one, please not this one.
I had no explanation for my hesitation when I’d willingly surrendered every emotion that had come before—the painful ones, the frightening ones. Even the joyful ones. Yet this felt different. It didn’t hurt the way grief did. The ache it created wasstrangely pleasant, filled with possibilities I hadn't yet explored and questions I didn't yet know how to answer…a feeling I yearned to explore further to discover where it might lead.
For the first time since entering into my bargain with the bakery’s magic, I found myself wondering whether the price had truly been worth paying.
At my pleading the magic hesitated. Never before had a spell paused once it had chosen its price. For a fleeting moment, I felt it searching elsewhere, probing through the remaining corners of my heart as though considering alternatives. But the only one it could find…my breath caught at the realization: my passion for maps.
I imagined opening my journal and finding the familiar excitement gone—the anticipation of exploring a new landscape, the satisfaction of sketching a winding trail, the quiet wonder of discovering some hidden corner of the world that had never before appeared on one of my pages.
I couldn't lose that…which meant all I had left to give was this feeling—the strange, impossible hope that tomorrow might bring another conversation, another outing, another opportunity to discover where this unfamiliar path might lead.
For years I had convinced myself I was content, that emotions complicated life unnecessarily, that numbness was easier, safer. Yet now that the magic had illuminated what remained, I found myself confronted by a glimpse of a life I might have lived had I never surrendered so much of myself.
A life filled with friendships and companionship, a future filled with possibilities.
The tart sat unfinished before me. I felt the spell wavering, waiting. For the first time since our contract, the magic was asking me to choose. I’d already made my decision—Grandmother needed her medicines, and the bakery survived because of enchantment. This was the bargain I had willinglyentered into all those years ago, a promise made long before Gabe ever wandered into my forest.
I slowly closed my eyes. “Do it,” I whispered.
The hesitation vanished as the spell seized the emotion. For one precious moment before it disappeared, I allowed myself to fully experience it.
The warmth of laughter in the berry hollow. The comfort of walking beside someone who didn't feel like a customer. The way my heart seemed to lift when the bakery door opened and it was him. The simple desire to see him again tomorrow.
Then the feeling unraveled, like a trail disappearing beneath freshly fallen snow. I tried desperately to cling to it, but the emotion slipped through my fingers no matter how tightly I held on.
And then it was gone. The absence struck harder than I expected. Not painful, simply empty. As though a room I had only just discovered within myself had been locked once more.
The bargain had been fulfilled.
“It was only a feeling,” I murmured as I kneaded the last remnants of it into the dough. Yet that knowledge did little to lessen the loss as I finished the tart mechanically.
The dough was rolled and fitted into the pan before I carefully arranged the enchanted berries inside. Their crimson color glistened beneath a drizzle of wild honey and a dusting of moon-sugar that sparkled like frost. After weaving the top crust into an intricate lattice, I brushed it with cream and scattered a final pinch of enchanted sugar across the surface before sliding the tart into the warmth of the hearth.
Only then did I allow myself to look up. I found Gabe watching me, not with curiosity, but with an emotion I’d come to recognize as concern. “Are you alright?” he asked.
I stilled, my heart giving an instinctive thud before settling back into familiar calm. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“It’s just…” He hesitated, as though uncertain whether he should continue. “You seem different.”
I frowned slightly. “In what way?”
His brow furrowed. “You looked happier earlier, but now….” His voice softened. “Now you seem farther away.”
I stared at him. The accusation made very little sense. I was behaving exactly as I always had. Wasn't I? I mentally ran through my checklist: courteous words, prompt service, obligatory smile. What else could a customer expect?
