I want to ask if she did this ceremony. If she was here with Dad. Or if this is something Grandma’s making up the same way she fakes her heart attacks.
But I force myself to stay quiet while Grandma opens the top desk drawer, hits something inside, and exposes a secret compartment beneath the drawer organizer.
“Behold,” she whispers reverently. “The original family recipe.”
She removes a piece of paper that looks older than dirt, and I don’t think that’s just the flickering candlelight. The handwriting is old. Thepaper is nearly transparent. Smudges suggest it’s had ingredients spilled on it over the years.
“Maybe enough with the candles now?” Mom blurts. “That’s the only copy.”
“As the family secret has been exposed, we now fall into darkness.” Grandma blows out her candle.
Mom quickly extinguishes hers, then pinches mine out too.
“Amanda,” Grandma says in the darkness, “this recipe has been a family secret for generations.Generations.It is now your duty to continue in the tradition, to share this recipe withno one, not even your ridiculous—”
Mom clears her throat.
“To include anyone to whom you’ve been married for fewer than fifteen years,” Grandma amends, “and to use it to make the world’s best gingerbread, from now until retirement.”
“But—”
“There is no one else, Amanda. It must be you, or this town will fall apart. This is not just gingerbread. This is the glue that holds Tinsel together. The core of everything that makes our community run. It is our origin, and it is our future. Come. Come take the recipe, and continue the work of our family.”
For the love of New York pizza. The only thing about our family uniting this town is that they all wish we’d stop fighting with the Silvers. “Grandma,I can’t bake.”
“The recipe will fix you.”
“Vicki,” Mom says, sounding just as frustrated and sad as I feel.
“It fixed me. It will fix my granddaughter.”
Grandma couldn’t bake?
“When I married your grandfather, I couldn’t operate a stove. I once served him spaghetti with raw hamburger and burnt noodles.Burnt noodles.But this recipe—once I was given this recipe, everything changed.”
“Grandma—”
“The first batch of gingerbread I made with this recipe was perfect. So was the next batch. And the next. With this recipe stored in my heart and in my brain, I have never—never—ruined a batch of gingerbread. And I once set fire to a chicken casserole inside my oven. This recipe works. It’s magic. It worked for me, and it will work for you.”
“Even if it does—” I try, but she interrupts me again.
“Then I get to retire in peace and you find that thisiswhat you’re meant to do. Just like I did.”
Stab stab stab. Guilt guilt guilt.
“Okay,” I blurt. “Okay. I’ll make the gingerbread.”
Dammit.
Not okay.
Not okay.
What happens if the recipeismagic?
What if Idobake good gingerbread with it?
How is this different from the coded recipe on the wall by the mixer?
