Periwinkle's Arc

Chapter 10 of 17

Morning proved what she feared. Periwinkle lit the bakery oven and baked her first batch. Then she ran to the far clearing to light the second oven. By the time she reached it, the bakery fire had burned low. She ran back. The far oven cooled while she was gone. Two ovens, two clearings, one pair of feet. She could not keep both hot. The cypress would go short again, and half the lost would come to cold racks. She stood between the two houses at midday, out of breath. Dough sat waiting in both places. Neither oven held enough heat to bake it. She had made the shortage worse by splitting herself in two. She pressed her hands to her knees and made herself think. She could not run faster. She needed help she could not give herself. So she did the thing she had never done. She asked. She walked back to the far clearing, stood in the doorway, and spoke to the empty room. "I cannot tend both fires," she said. "I need hands that are not mine." The air changed first. The warmth in the room deepened. Then the winged woman stood by the far oven, tall and calm. White robes fell to the floor. Long pale hair hung past broad, luminous wings. She had shaped this forest before, left ovens where Periwinkle had nothing. Now she looked at Periwinkle with steady eyes and did not scold her for asking. "You swore to keep the oven lit," the woman said. "You did not swear to do it alone." She reached out one hand toward the cold hearth. The wood inside caught without a spark. The fire rose full and steady and did not sink. Periwinkle stepped closer and felt the heat hold. It did not fade the way a normal fire fades. It stayed. "This one will not go cold," the woman said. "Bake here in the morning. Bake at your door through the day. The fire keeps itself while you are gone." Periwinkle understood. She no longer had to run between two dying fires. One oven would tend itself. She could give the cypress its full basket at dawn and still stand at her own door all day. The forest was split between two fires, and now she could feed both. "Why give me this?" Periwinkle asked. "Because the lost are many," the woman said, "and you are only one." She folded her wings and was gone. Periwinkle filled the self-keeping oven and baked until the racks were full. She carried a heavy basket to the cypress and set down every loaf the bears and travelers needed. Then she ran to her door and baked through the afternoon. That night both racks stood empty and no one had gone hungry. But the far oven now burned on its own, and she did not know how far this gift would carry, or how many more mouths would come to test it.