Apple Grams's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Apple Grams had packed her travel bag twenty years ago. This morning she finally lifted it, and half the village stood at her door. The bag was heavy with things she had never used. A rolled blanket. A tin cup. A map she had bought and never followed. She had baked bread in the Stone Village Bakehouse every dawn of her life, and every dawn she had promised herself, tomorrow. Now tomorrow was here. She set her boot on the threshold. A farmer's wife blocked her with two open hands. "Who bakes our bread if you go?" she asked. Behind her, a dozen faces crowded the stone step. An old man held up an empty basket. A child clung to her mother's skirt. They did not shout. They pleaded, and pleading was worse. Apple felt her heels sink back into the doorway. "I taught none of you the oven," she said. Her voice came out smaller than she wanted. The travel bag pulled at her shoulder. She had waited so long. She would not spend another year saying tomorrow. The crowd parted. Freddy pushed through, the mapmaker who kept her bakehouse running with her, patched vest dusted white. He drew roads for a living, roads that ran far past Jabberwood. On every loaf they sold he pressed a tiny map stamp, as if each bread should know there was a world beyond the village. He looked at the bag on her shoulder, then at the frightened faces. He did not tell her to stay. "Show me the oven," he said. "Once. Then go." Apple stared at him. "You'd learn it?" "I already smell it every morning," Freddy said. "I can learn the rest." She set the bag down inside the door. Not unpacked. Just set down. She led him to the bakehouse, and the crowd followed to watch. She showed him how she banked the coals to one side. How she tested heat with a flick of flour that browned in three counts. How the dough wanted a firm hand, then a gentle one. Freddy asked hard questions and wrote nothing down. He had a mapmaker's memory for the shape of things. By midday the first loaves came out golden. Freddy stamped each one with his little map. The farmer's wife bit into a warm crust and nodded. The village had its baker. Apple had her freedom. She lifted the travel bag again. This time no hands stopped her. Freddy walked her to the door. "You mark every loaf with a road to somewhere," she said. "Aren't you the one who should be leaving?" He smiled, but it pulled tight. "Someone has to hold the oven," he said. Apple stepped over the threshold and into the open lane. The bag rode easy on her back. Ahead the road bent past the last cottage and out of sight. She had never seen what lay beyond that bend. Today she would.