Periwinkle's Arc

Chapter 3 of 17

The bread cooled on the table, and Periwinkle knew she could not just leave. She had used a stranger's oven, a stranger's fire, a stranger's clean table. If the owner walked in now, she would look like a thief. She needed to make things right before that happened. She looked around the warm room for something she could give in return. She had nothing but her flour, her bowl, and the loaves themselves. Her coin purse was empty. Her tools were plain. She stood in a bakery of gilded trim and glowing windows, and she owned none of it. Then she looked at the bread again. It was the one thing here that was truly hers. Periwinkle chose the finest loaf. Its crust had cracked gold, and it still held warmth. She set it on the clean table where anyone would see it. Then she thought better of a bare loaf. She wanted the owner to understand. She found a scrap of paper by the wall and a stub of charcoal from the oven's edge. She wrote in careful letters. "I had no fire of my own. I baked here and could not repay you. Please take this bread. I am sorry. Periwinkle." She weighed the note down with the loaf. But a note felt too small for what she had taken. She swept the flour from the floor. She wiped the table clean. She stacked the peel and the bowls the way she had found them. She banked the coals so the fire would not die. If she could not pay, she would leave the place better than she had entered it. When she straightened, she felt watched. She turned. In the doorway stood the winged woman from the slope. Her wings brushed the frame. She said nothing. She looked at the loaf, then the note, then Periwinkle. Periwinkle's throat went tight. "I know it isn't mine," she said. "I had no other oven. I left you the best loaf. I cleaned everything." The winged woman crossed the room. She lifted the loaf and broke it. Steam rose. She tasted it and closed her eyes. Then she smiled, and the room seemed brighter for it. "You did not steal," she said. "You paid the only fair price. Bread for bread, care for care." She pressed the broken loaf back into Periwinkle's hands. "This oven has fed travelers for a long time. But it has no baker anymore." Periwinkle held the warm bread and understood. She was not being turned away. She was being offered something. "Then who bakes here now?" she asked. The winged woman walked to the door. "That is for you to decide," she said. "But a bakery on the road is not the same as a bakery hidden for the lost." She stepped into the light and was gone. Periwinkle stood alone with her loaf. She had kept her freedom. Now she had a new choice to make.