Embarrassment warred with an altogether different feeling as I realized Grandmother had apparently been watching from the window. Not that we’d been exactly discreet, standing directly in front of the curtainless door. Yet beneath my mortification lay another, far more pleasant realization: for one impossible moment…I hadwantedhim to kiss me, desperately so.
My heart beat so fiercely it almost hurt. I tried to suppress the dangerous longing before it could grow any stronger, grasping instead for the irritation simmering beneath it. Anger felt far safer than hope.
“It wasn’t your place to spy on us,” I snapped. “Please stop meddling in affairs that aren’t yours.”
The words left my mouth before I could check them. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spoken so sharply towards my grandmother. Regret struck almost immediately. Another reason emotions were burdens better left behind—they clouded judgment, loosened tongues, and wounded the very people one most wished to protect.
Grandmother’s playful smile faded, though not into hurt. Instead she regarded me quietly, with the same patient tenderness she had shown me ever since I was a little girl.
“I may tease you about Gabe,” she said softly, “but any matchmaking is only my way of encouraging you to trust what I already see growing inside you. I would never try to force your heart where it did not already wish to go.” She reached over and gently squeezed my hand. “The only thing standing in your way is fear.”
“I’m not—” The protest died before I could finish.
For the first time, I understood what she meant. I hadn’t spent these past years protecting myself from grief—I’d been insulating myself from everything. From hope, from joy, from love. From the possibility of losing those I cared about again.
In trying so desperately to avoid another broken heart, I had quietly accepted a life where my heart never truly beat at all.
Silence settled between us. Not the empty silence I had grown accustomed to over the years, but one filled with thoughts too large for words. Grandmother didn’t interrupt, she simply watched me with quiet patience, allowing the truth I’d spent years outrunning to slowly settle into my heart. I drew an unsteady breath, trying to gather the scattered pieces of myself.
Movement beside me caught my attention. Grandmotherhad been standing too long. She shifted her weight onto her cane and began lowering herself into a chair near the hearth, but her strength faltered halfway and she swayed.
Without thinking, I rushed forward and caught her arm to steady her. “Granny!”
I scarcely recognized the nickname I hadn’t used since before I began surrendering my emotions to the recipe book, when I had still been a little girl who followed her through the bakery with flour-covered hands and endless questions.
Through the tears glistening in her eyes, her face brightened with unmistakable joy. “You’re coming home, Cecelia. I’m so glad Gabe is helping you rediscover yourself in ways I couldn’t.”
It wasn’t until she looked at me with such quiet certainty that saw straight through every defense I’d so carefully built that I realized little pieces of the girl I’d once been had already begun finding their way back. I slipped an arm around her frail shoulders and carefully helped her settle into the chair.
“There’s concern in your eyes.” Grandmother’s weathered hand rose to brush dampness from beneath my lashes. Only then did I realize I was crying. “You’re worried for me.”
“Of course I am.” The answer came without thought.
I’d spent years caring for Grandmother because it was the right thing to do, but for the first time I could feel the fear behind that care—a crushing weight pressing so heavily againstmy chest I could scarcely breathe. This was why I’d been so willing to sign my emotions over to the magic…and yet even though it was painful, I couldn’t seem to regret the discomfort I was currently experiencing.
Grandmother smiled lovingly and patted my cheek. “I’m alright, dear. Just tired.”
I searched her face for her sincerity, desperate to determine whether she truly meant it. She looked well enough…at least for today. But I noticed things I had somehow overlooked before: the weariness lingering beneath her smile, the slight tremble in her hands, the deeper lines age had etched beside her eyes. Even exhausted, she was looking at me with the same boundless affection she always had.
She loves me. The realization came softly, stirring a memory I hadn’t allowed myself to remember. She loved me just as my parents had loved me…and how I’d loved them.
The recollection unlocked something deep within me—grief, longing, the ache of missing them. I’d believed those feelings had vanished when I sacrificed them to the recipe book. Now I understood they had never truly disappeared—magic had only buried them beneath silence. Even without feeling them, they had remained woven through every choice I’d made, quietly shaping the person I’d become without my ever realizing they were still there.
“Are you sure you’re alright…Granny?” No matter how desperately I tried to regain control, fear continued spilling into every wavering word. She had been doing so much better lately, her matchmaking antics giving her new purpose and new life.
But this brief moment of weakness reminded me of a truth I’d spent years refusing to face: her time was borrowed. One day it would run out, and when it did, she would leave me too…just as my parents had.
The thought stole the air from my lungs. I didn’t want to be alone when she left me.
The fear swelled until it seemed to crowd every corner of my heart. Somehow I'd allowed myself to become attached—to Granny, to Nutmeg…and most of all to Gabe, the one I was almost certain I would lose first. The full moon drew nearer with every passing day, signifying the moment the bakery would move and his curse would send him wandering.
And I wasn't ready to let him go.
“I can’t…” The words escaped as little more than a whisper. I couldn't lose them, not after finally remembering how deeply I loved.
Panic surged through me, searching desperately for escape. Unable to sit still another moment, I lurched to my feet. “I have to bake.”
The words came automatically, the same answer I’d given every difficult emotion for years. Yet even as I hurried towards the kitchen, I realized something had changed. For the first time, I knew baking wasn’t truly the solution—it was only the place I always ran when I was afraid.
