Periwinkle's Arc

Chapter 9 of 17

The cypress fed the lost now, and so did the bakery. Two feeding spots, one oven. Periwinkle stood at her counter before dawn and did the math. The cypress needed a full basket each morning. Her door needed loaves all day. Her oven baked a dozen an hour, no more. She stacked what she had and saw the gap. She could fill the cypress or fill her door. Not both. By midday it broke. She left the cypress basket short. The bears ate, but two travelers came hungry, and she had no loaf for them. She sent them to the stream and ran back to her oven, already behind. The dough sat waiting. The fire could only do so much. She pressed her hands flat on the wood and made herself think. One oven could not be in two places. So she needed a second place with its own fire. She remembered the winged woman's gift. A lit oven had appeared once in an empty building, arranged for her when she had nothing. The woman could shape the forest for travelers. Periwinkle had never asked her for anything since the oath. She wiped her hands and walked to the cypress, then past it, deeper than her feet had gone before. In a clearing she had never seen, a house stood waiting. White walls caught the light. Golden trim ran along the door and windows. Soft clouds curled at its base, and the windows glowed warm from inside. Periwinkle climbed the pale steps and pushed the door. Heat met her face. An oven sat lit against the far wall, ready, the same kind of gift the woman had left her at the start. She understood. The woman had answered before she asked. One oven near the bakery. One here, near the cypress and the bears. Two fires, two clearings, the forest split between them. Periwinkle carried her waiting dough inside. She fed the new oven and baked until the racks filled. Then she took a basket to the cypress. The big bear rose. She set down loaves, full measure this time, and the bears ate their share. When the winged horse brought travelers at dusk, warm bread waited for every hand. That night both ovens cooled with empty racks. She had fed the cypress and the door and no one had gone without. But the new house sat far from the old bakery, and she could not tend two fires at once with two feet and one pair of hands. She had solved the shortage and made herself two homes to keep. Tomorrow one oven would burn while the other sat cold, and she still could not be in both.