Lily Sweetie's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Lily pushed open the shop door. Dust rose in a gray cloud. Soot streaked the walls. Broken glass littered the floor. She stood in her new coat with pastries stitched in gold, and she had no clean place to serve a single customer. She could not sell sweets in a ruin. She rolled up her sleeves and swept. She scrubbed one window until her arms ached. It barely helped. The roof still sagged. The counter was cracked and black. By noon she sat down on the front step and put her face in her hands. "That's a lot of frowning for someone with a whole shop." A boy stood over her, grinning. A leather vest hung on his thin shoulders. Tools stuck out of every pocket. He had a hammer in one hand and a smear of grease across his nose. "Tobin Brightwick. Apprentice. I fix things. Word is you need a lot fixed." Lily looked at the sagging roof, then at the boy. "I can't pay much yet." "Then pay me in pie." Tobin was already climbing the porch rail. He knocked a beam with his hammer and listened. "This one's rotten. So's that one. But the walls are good. Give me a week." "A week?" Lily stood. "I need to sell now. People will forget me in a week." Tobin scratched his head. He looked across the square. Then he pointed. "See that place? The one with all the books?" Lily turned. A little shop sat nearby, warm and neat. Ivy trimmed the roof. Books filled the bright windows. A striped awning hung over the door. "The owner reads all day and never gets a soul inside," Tobin said. "Ask to borrow a corner. You bake, they sell books. Everybody wins." Lily hesitated. Then she smoothed her coat and walked over. She knocked. The shopkeeper listened to her plan, then to her offer of free sweets each morning. The shopkeeper smiled and swung the door wide. By afternoon, Lily had a clean table in the corner of the bookshop. She baked in her own big stove across the square and carried trays over warm. She set down her finest work in the center: a pie topped with glossy rainbow candy, swirled and glittering. Customers drifted in for books and stayed for the pie. Coins clinked into her jar. Across the square, Tobin's hammer rang all day. He waved from the shop roof. "Told you! Now save me a slice!" Lily grinned and cut him one. She had a place to serve, a crowd, and a builder at work. But she glanced at the coins in her jar and did the math. Tobin's repairs would cost more than she had. And a borrowed corner was still borrowed. She had bought herself time. Now she had to fill the jar before the shop was done.