Hope fluttered unexpectedly in my chest.
“I've never thought to invite one before, and usually people don't ask.”
My budding hope promptly tripped over itself. Had she wished I hadn’t invited myself along? Now that I considered it, she had been rather insistent on foraging alone.
“You seem…disappointed?” Her observation sounded more like a question.
“I do?”
“You sighed twice.” She made the observation matter-of-factly, as though she were measuring ingredients rather than noticing the strange restless emotion that was beginning to stir my chest. “You don’t have to accompany me if you don’t wish to.”
“I want to spend time with you.” The truth of my statement seemed to enfold us within the pine-scented air. Heat engulfed my cheeks, but I didn’t look away.
She made no reaction to my words—no sign of happiness, or even flirtation—merely stared at me, a hint of brightness filling her doe-like brown eyes…though it might have been my imagination. How could someone simultaneously be so observant and so impossible to read?
After a moment, she nodded once, seeming satisfied with that answer, and returned her attention to the trail. “I’m glad.”
That seemed…promising? I couldn’t tell. She appeared blissfully unaware that she’d just turned my thoughts into hopeless knots.
We rounded another bend where the trees grew farther apart, revealing glimpses of silver mist drifting between towering pines. Cecelia paused only long enough to make a small notation on her map before continuing.
“How long have you enjoyed maps?” That seemed a safe enough topic for an outing that may or may not be a courtship excursion.
For the first time her eyes brightened slightly, as though I’d finally found the one thing that affected her. She smoothed one corner of the parchment where a raindrop had begun to curl the edge, her gaze drifting over the careful lines she’d drawn. “Because eventually, all places disappear. The bakery moves every full moon.”
She said it as though explaining the weather, but the way her fingertip rested lightly against the winding path ahead conveyed another emotion entirely opposite of indifference.
“By next month this trail won’t belong to me anymore, so I draw it before I lose it.”
The simple words settled over me with surprising weight.
I thought of the countless forests I’d crossed, the villages I barely remembered, the mountains whose names I’d forgotten, the rivers I'd promised myself I'd visit again…and most of all, the homes I’d never had.
I’d spent years trying not to become attached to places because the curse would always carry me away. Instead, she’d spent years becoming attached to them anyway before preserving them—not because she expected to return, butbecause they had mattered. Without realizing it, she’d found a way to keep every place she’d ever loved.
I instinctively reached into my cloak pocket to touch the leaf journal I always kept with me, the sole record of all the places I’d been to all these years, the mementos I’d gathered offering the only record of where my wanderings had once taken me.
I glanced towards her again. She was studying the map with complete contentment, utterly unaware that she’d just shifted something inside me. For the first time in years, I didn’t feel quite so lost.
CHAPTER 7
Cecelia
Storms possessed their own unique beauty, an observation I was fairly certain—like my perception of emotions—fell outside the realm of normalcy. I often wandered outdoors in the rain, whether gathering ingredients that could only be foraged during a storm or capturing precious moments between bakery hours and caring for Grandmother to spend with my maps, committing every detail to memory to record later so I could discover before the bakery shifted to its next location.
While others found storms gloomy or frightening, I marveled at the way rain painted the world in hues of silver and grey. I loved watching the landscape transform beneath an overcast sky, seeing how raindrops altered familiar scenery and revealed secrets that could only be discovered during a storm.
My ember sprite avoided both cold and wet weather with dramatic determination, so I normally ventured out alone. The rain felt entirely different while walking beside Gabe. Raindrops dripped from the leafy canopy overhead, while silver mist hovered between the moss-covered trunks like a cocoon. Theair carried the fresh scent of wet earth, pine, and evergreen, while water gathered in trembling patterns on the leaves before tumbling softly to the forest floor.
Our footsteps were soft and muted against the damp undergrowth as we walked side by side.Silence settled comfortably around us, broken only by the gentle patters of rain, the occasional rustle of branches overhead, and the quiet brush of our cloaks whenever we drifted a little too close together, each sound its own conversation.
The forest seemed to enfold us within its own secluded world, hidden away from everything beyond the trees, the sort of atmosphere I might have described as cozy or peaceful, should I be able to feel either emotion. Instead I observed it objectively, the way I might note a landmark upon a map.
Though the scenery grew increasingly beautiful the deeper we ventured into the woods, Gabe appeared far less interested in our surroundings than I was. More than once I caught him glancing in my direction before quickly looking away the moment our eyes met.
No matter how often I noticed, his gaze inevitably wandered back, as though he couldn’t help himself. I puzzled over the behavior before realizing I was was doing precisely the same thing.
Every new village brought unfamiliar customers into the bakery, and over the years I’d learned to study people almost instinctively. With emotions playing no role in my first appraisal of a person, I had become rather skilled at understanding them…or at least their needs. Perhaps I was simply assessing Gabe the same way I would any other customer.
