Zinnia Chatterwick's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Zinnia Chatterwick had three weeks left to make her shop the heart of Phloxara, and her only stock smelled like scorched breakfast. She lined up the candles every morning. Every morning the shop smelled like burnt cereal. Customers stepped in, wrinkled their noses, and stepped right back out. Nobody stayed. A shop nobody stayed in could not become the town's gathering place, and that was the one thing Zinnia wanted more than air. She glanced at the snow globe on the counter. She did not shake it. She looked at it and got back to work. She had sold three candles last week. That counted as a good week. She had stopped doing the math on the rest. The bell rang. Cosmo Fenn came in, an older man in a pressed pink shirt, holding a plate of cardamom rolls. He left baked goods on neighbors' stoops before anyone woke, but he had never once lingered anywhere. His nose twitched at the burnt-cereal smell. Zinnia braced for him to leave. "I brought too many rolls," Cosmo said. "I bake when I'm nervous." Zinnia pounced. She could sell anyone anything if she talked long enough. She grabbed a candle and started her pitch. Cosmo raised one hand and stopped her. "The candle is wrong," he said. "But the shape is good." He set his plate down and picked up a fat candle from the shelf. Its wax showed tiny gargoyles clutching teacups. He held it to his nose and closed his eyes. "Soil," he said. "Honeysuckle. Fresh grass." Zinnia froze. "That one smells like burnt cereal. They all do." "Not this one." He handed it to her. She smelled it. Warm dirt after rain. Sweet flowers. Cut grass. She checked the shelf and found four more gargoyle candles pushed to the back, forgotten behind the reeking ones. A traveling cart had dropped off a mixed box weeks ago. She had never sorted it. Zinnia lit the gargoyle candle. The smell spread through the room. Cosmo did not leave. He sat down. He ate a roll. "Stay," Zinnia said. "Please. Just sit." He stayed an hour. He hummed low while he ate, and the room felt bigger for it. Two women passed the window, smelled honeysuckle through the open door, and came inside. They sat too. Zinnia poured no pitch. She just talked, and for once people talked back. By evening she had sold all five good candles. The burnt-cereal ones still filled the shelves, dozens of them, useless. She had five candles that made people stay and a shop full of ones that drove them out. She cornered Cosmo at the door. "Where did that cart come from? The one with these?" "The seed trader," he said. "She wanders. She's hard to catch." Zinnia looked at her nearly empty good shelf, then her full bad one. Five candles would not fill a gathering place. She needed the cart, and the cart never stayed still.