Sugar sky's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Sugar sky had the recipes, the tins, and a lifetime of dreaming, but no place to bake. The seaside bakery they wanted lived only in a notebook, sketched in pencil across forty pages. In Brinetomb, empty shorefront lots went fast, and Sugar sky had missed three already. This morning they held a fourth listing in one hand and a leash in the other. The leash belonged to a kitten with dragonfly wings, who tugged toward the water and lifted an inch off the sand. "Not yet," Sugar sky said, and the kitten dropped back down. The listing showed a small house near the tideline. A treehouse address, oddly, the paper said the owner lived up in the woods. Sugar sky had one hour before another buyer arrived. They walked fast along the shore, boots wet, notebook pressed to their chest. They found it at the edge of the sand. A cottage stood on wooden stilts, its boards painted mint and pink, salt-worn but standing. A porch wrapped the front. Wide windows faced the sea. Sugar sky stopped and stared. An oven could fit behind those windows. Trays of bread would cool where the light came in. The kitten pulled again and flew up to the porch rail. It landed there and mewed, wings catching sun. A woman climbed down from a treehouse set back in the trees. She moved slow, one hand on the rope stair, a ring of keys hooked on her belt. She reached the sand and squinted at Sugar sky. "You the baker?" she asked. "The one who keeps calling?" "That's me." "Others called too." She jangled the keys. "One offered more." Sugar sky's stomach dropped. They opened the notebook and turned it around. Page after page of the bakery, drawn by hand. The counter. The shelves. The little sign above the door. "I don't have more money," Sugar sky said. "I have this. I've wanted it since I was a kid. I'll fill that porch with people every morning." The woman looked at the pages a long time. Then she looked at the kitten on her rail, purring now. She sighed. "My mother baked in a place like this," she said. "The other buyer wants to knock it down." She unhooked one key and held it out. "Don't knock it down." Sugar sky took the key. Their hand shook. The metal was warm from her belt. "It's yours," the woman said. "Sign tomorrow. Pay me what you can." She climbed back toward the trees. The kitten flew down and circled Sugar sky's legs. Sugar sky unlocked the pink door and stepped inside. The floor sloped. The walls smelled of damp and old paint. A whole corner leaned where a beam had cracked. The dream finally had a home, and the home was falling apart.