Cecily Norwood wanted a bakery, and her kitchen fit only one loaf. She stood at the counter of the rented bungalow before dawn, sleeves pushed up, six pans of dough crowding a stove built for a single dish. She had moved to Clovermire a month ago to build a place where the whole town gathered for warm bread each morning. But she couldn't sell what she couldn't bake in numbers. So she pushed the oven past its limits. She slid the first tray in. The rest waited on every flat surface she owned. The dining table held two pans. The windowsill held another. She had timed each batch on the leather planner she once used for meetings she no longer attended. Now its pages tracked flour and rising times. The oven ran hot and slow. She opened the door to check the crust, and heat rolled over the crowded room. The loaves near the window had already collapsed. They had risen too long while the first batch baked. She pressed a finger to one. It sank and stayed sunk. Six loaves, and only two came out whole. Cecily set the good loaves on the rack and stared at the ruined ones. The problem was clear. One oven could not bake a bakery's worth. Testing recipes here told her nothing about batches. She would fail on opening day the same way, only in front of paying customers. She wiped her hands and walked outside. Morning light caught the ivy that wrapped the little house, thick and green over every wall. Beyond the fence, the town was waking. She heard shutters open somewhere down the lane. She needed a real kitchen, or a real oven, and soon. Cecily went back in and pulled out the planner. She flipped past crossed-out meetings to a blank page. She wrote one word at the top: OVEN. Under it she listed what she knew. The market ran a stall in town. Vendors there rented space by the day. A stall meant a bigger setup, or at least a bigger burner and more room to test. She looked at the two whole loaves. They were good. The crust cracked right when she tapped it. The trouble had never been the bread. The trouble was the room. Cecily wrapped the two good loaves in a cloth. She would carry them to the market stall and ask what it cost to rent space with a working oven. If the vendors liked her bread, she'd have a place to bake in real numbers. She locked the ivy-covered door behind her and started down the lane, loaves under her arm. Her heels sank into the soft dirt. She didn't slow. The cramped kitchen had given her an answer, even if it wasn't the one she wanted. She couldn't grow inside these walls. She had to find room somewhere else, and the market was where she'd start.

Cecily reached the market with her two loaves warm under her arm. She had come to rent a stall with a working oven and start baking in real numbers. But she stopped at the far edge, where a busy corner caught the morning crowd. A vendor already stood there, selling from a rustic stall hung with dried herbs and rows of small jars. People clustered around it, laughing, tasting. Cecily's stomach dropped. That corner was the spot she wanted. A round woman in a flower-print apron worked the counter. She pressed a spoonful of jam into a stranger's hand, then pointed him toward a neighbor two stalls down. She ran the whole rhythm of the place. Cecily walked up and waited. The woman looked at the loaves, then at Cecily's muddy heels. "You're the one in the ivy house," she said. "I'm Dotty. New here, and already carrying bread like you mean business." "I need a stall with an oven," Cecily said. "I hoped for this corner." Dotty laughed, warm and quick. "This corner's mine, dear. Has been for years." She saw Cecily's face fall and softened. "There's an open spot behind the well. Cheap. But nobody wanders back there before noon." Cecily knew what that meant. A hidden stall would draw no morning crowd. Her bread would sit and cool, unsold. She had traded one dead room for another. She almost turned to go. Then Dotty broke off a piece of the loaf without asking. She chewed, stopped, chewed again. "Oh," she said. "That crust." She held the bread up like proof. "You made this? In that little house?" "In one bad oven," Cecily said. "That's why I came." Dotty set the bread down and looked at her stall, then at Cecily. "My jam sells all morning. But folks want something to spread it on." She wiped her hands on her apron. "Share my counter. You bring loaves, I bring the crowd. We split the corner." Cecily stared. "You'd give up half your best spot?" "I'd fill it," Dotty said. "A stall with jam and no bread is half a stall." A plump striped chipmunk darted along the counter's edge and snatched a crumb. Dotty shooed it off, grinning. "Even he agrees." Cecily set her loaves on the counter. The morning crowd was already there, close enough to smell the bread. "I don't have an oven yet," she said. "Only the one at home." Dotty's smile stayed, but her eyes sharpened. "Then you'd best find a bigger one fast. Two loaves won't feed this crowd past sunrise." Cecily looked at the people pressing in, then at her two thin loaves. She had won the corner. Now she needed the bread to fill it, and her broken oven couldn't do that. The problem had only moved, and grown teeth.