Cecily Norwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Cecily Norwood wanted a bakery, and her kitchen fit only one loaf. She stood at the counter of the rented bungalow before dawn, sleeves pushed up, six pans of dough crowding a stove built for a single dish. She had moved to Clovermire a month ago to build a place where the whole town gathered for warm bread each morning. But she couldn't sell what she couldn't bake in numbers. So she pushed the oven past its limits. She slid the first tray in. The rest waited on every flat surface she owned. The dining table held two pans. The windowsill held another. She had timed each batch on the leather planner she once used for meetings she no longer attended. Now its pages tracked flour and rising times. The oven ran hot and slow. She opened the door to check the crust, and heat rolled over the crowded room. The loaves near the window had already collapsed. They had risen too long while the first batch baked. She pressed a finger to one. It sank and stayed sunk. Six loaves, and only two came out whole. Cecily set the good loaves on the rack and stared at the ruined ones. The problem was clear. One oven could not bake a bakery's worth. Testing recipes here told her nothing about batches. She would fail on opening day the same way, only in front of paying customers. She wiped her hands and walked outside. Morning light caught the ivy that wrapped the little house, thick and green over every wall. Beyond the fence, the town was waking. She heard shutters open somewhere down the lane. She needed a real kitchen, or a real oven, and soon. Cecily went back in and pulled out the planner. She flipped past crossed-out meetings to a blank page. She wrote one word at the top: OVEN. Under it she listed what she knew. The market ran a stall in town. Vendors there rented space by the day. A stall meant a bigger setup, or at least a bigger burner and more room to test. She looked at the two whole loaves. They were good. The crust cracked right when she tapped it. The trouble had never been the bread. The trouble was the room. Cecily wrapped the two good loaves in a cloth. She would carry them to the market stall and ask what it cost to rent space with a working oven. If the vendors liked her bread, she'd have a place to bake in real numbers. She locked the ivy-covered door behind her and started down the lane, loaves under her arm. Her heels sank into the soft dirt. She didn't slow. The cramped kitchen had given her an answer, even if it wasn't the one she wanted. She couldn't grow inside these walls. She had to find room somewhere else, and the market was where she'd start.