Cecily Norwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Cecily reached the market with her two loaves warm under her arm. She had come to rent a stall with a working oven and start baking in real numbers. But she stopped at the far edge, where a busy corner caught the morning crowd. A vendor already stood there, selling from a rustic stall hung with dried herbs and rows of small jars. People clustered around it, laughing, tasting. Cecily's stomach dropped. That corner was the spot she wanted. A round woman in a flower-print apron worked the counter. She pressed a spoonful of jam into a stranger's hand, then pointed him toward a neighbor two stalls down. She ran the whole rhythm of the place. Cecily walked up and waited. The woman looked at the loaves, then at Cecily's muddy heels. "You're the one in the ivy house," she said. "I'm Dotty. New here, and already carrying bread like you mean business." "I need a stall with an oven," Cecily said. "I hoped for this corner." Dotty laughed, warm and quick. "This corner's mine, dear. Has been for years." She saw Cecily's face fall and softened. "There's an open spot behind the well. Cheap. But nobody wanders back there before noon." Cecily knew what that meant. A hidden stall would draw no morning crowd. Her bread would sit and cool, unsold. She had traded one dead room for another. She almost turned to go. Then Dotty broke off a piece of the loaf without asking. She chewed, stopped, chewed again. "Oh," she said. "That crust." She held the bread up like proof. "You made this? In that little house?" "In one bad oven," Cecily said. "That's why I came." Dotty set the bread down and looked at her stall, then at Cecily. "My jam sells all morning. But folks want something to spread it on." She wiped her hands on her apron. "Share my counter. You bring loaves, I bring the crowd. We split the corner." Cecily stared. "You'd give up half your best spot?" "I'd fill it," Dotty said. "A stall with jam and no bread is half a stall." A plump striped chipmunk darted along the counter's edge and snatched a crumb. Dotty shooed it off, grinning. "Even he agrees." Cecily set her loaves on the counter. The morning crowd was already there, close enough to smell the bread. "I don't have an oven yet," she said. "Only the one at home." Dotty's smile stayed, but her eyes sharpened. "Then you'd best find a bigger one fast. Two loaves won't feed this crowd past sunrise." Cecily looked at the people pressing in, then at her two thin loaves. She had won the corner. Now she needed the bread to fill it, and her broken oven couldn't do that. The problem had only moved, and grown teeth.