Before I could register the motion, I crossed to the cupboard and began frantically flipping through the enchanted recipe book, searching for a confection that would demand the emotions weighing upon my heart. My hands trembled with every page turned.
I could feel Granny’s solemn gaze resting upon me as I worked, but I couldn’t bear to meet her eyes and see the sadness that would undoubtedly be reflected there.
My body already knew what to do before my thoughts had caught up. Flour. Butter. Sugar. Cinnamon. The recipe book lay open beneath my trembling fingers as naturally as though I’d performed this ritual yesterday instead of a hundred times before.
Bake. Give away the feeling. Become empty again.
The enchantment awakened, brushing gently through my heart, searching. Choosing. I felt it reach for the newest emotions first—ones still fresh and tender, the easiest to loosen. They lifted like delicate threads being drawn from a tapestry.
Instead of reaching for the fear I so desperately wanted gone, the magic found something else entirely—the quiet warmth that lingered whenever Gabe smiled at me across the kitchen.
No. The protest escaped before I understood it. Only days ago I would have surrendered such a feeling without hesitation. Now an irrational desperation surged through me to protect it. I still couldn’t name what it was, only that losing it suddenly felt unbearable.
The enchantment hesitated. Then, as though politely accepting my refusal, it obliged and obediently drifted onward, this time reaching for a memory: dawn spilled through my bedroom window as Gabe quietly sat beside me watching the sunrise, one of many precious mornings we’d spent together.
As the magic tightened its hold, the sunrise began to blur. The warmth disappeared first, then the brilliant gold softened into grey as the colors began dissolving like watercolor caught in the rain. Finally, the memory itself started slipping beyond my reach.
The magic discovered more treasure troves of memory—Gabe quietly lifting heavy sacks of grain before I could ask, the streak of flour across his cheek while we baked together. His careful fingers preserving a single leaf between the pages of his journal, evenings spent beside the hearth. The cheerful sound of his laughter, the soft furrow of his brow whenever he watched over Granny. The berry clearing, mapping trails through the forest. His hand reaching for mine, our almost kiss.
Each memory shimmered as though viewed through rippling water, slowly unraveling thread by thread. Panic swelled.No!Please…not those. I reached for them as though I might physically gather them back into myself before they disappeared forever. No matter what the cost, I refused to let the magic take Gabe.
I expected the enchantment to protest, but again it relented and turned elsewhere, as though obediently following instructions.
This time it reached for Nutmeg, enfolding me in more fragments of recollection, returning like warm sparks drifting through my thoughts—the day I discovered her sleeping among the glowing embers, sugar cubes mysteriously vanishing, her proud disguises as my pastries, the way she danced through clouds of flour whenever I baked, the comforting weight of her curled beside the oven after long days.
No, not her either.
Almost impatient now, the magic shifted its focus once more and reached deeper still, this time for…my breath caught.Granny.
Suddenly I was small again, tiny hands disappearing beneath oversized sleeves in the dress she had cut down for me from one of her own as I kneaded my very first loaf, Granny’s warm hands folding mine around the dough. The smell of fresh bread drifting through the bakery, stories beside the fire, being carried upstairs after I’d fallen asleep at the table. My father’s laughter, my mother’s embrace, the comforting sense of love and home.
“No!” The cry tore itself from somewhere deep within me.
The bowl slipped from my fingers and shattered across the floor. My knees gave way beneath me and I collapsed among scattered flour and broken pottery as sobs burst from my chest with a force that almost frightened me. Without my noticing it, the emotions I’d believed unnecessary had quietly returned, one memory at a time, until there was nothing left I was willing to surrender.
No magical spell swept away the pain. Instead, I felt Granny slowly lower herself beside me with the greatest of care, despite the effort it clearly cost her. Her frail hand rested upon my shoulder, warm and steady. She didn't speak, simply remained with me while years of buried grief finally found their voice.
The tears refused to stop, not because the magic had returned anything to me, but because for the first time in years I stopped fighting them.
Memory after memory crashed over me, not the emotions themselves, but their absence that I finally noticed. I should have missed Mother, I should have grieved Father, I should have remembered and mourned them. How had I lived for years without wondering why I never thought of them?
The realization hollowed me. I had believed I was escaping grief. Instead, I had abandoned the people I loved to silence it. And somehow…that loss hurt far more than grief ever could.
Granny encircled me with her frail arms, allowing me to mourn, to process what I’d lost. “I wish I’d never made that decision,” I choked. “I wanted to be free from the pain, but I didn’t realize what I was giving up.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Granny soothed. “You were a hurting, dear. I hated that the magic would allow you to make such a bargain, but I couldn’t stop it.”
“Yet now it’s too late,” I said. “I’ve given my heart away to the magic, and now I have nothing to offer you, Gabe, or anyone else.”
“It isnevertoo late,” Granny said fiercely. “Whether you can feel or not, your heart is filled with love.”
I blinked at her through my tears. “What do you mean?”
Granny shook her head. “I’ve been remiss in your education, my child. Love isn’t just an emotion—the excitement of being around someone or the affection you sense for a person. Feelings are important, but love is so much more. When you choose toput someone else’s needs ahead of your own, to care for that person like you would want to be cared for, you are acting out of true love.” She rested a tender hand against my tear-stained cheek. “You’ve shown me love all of your life. No matter what you are feeling, Cecelia, you are capable of deep love.”
I stared at her, my heart beating fast. My first instinct was to disagree. How could someone incapable of feeling love possibly possess it?
Yet as I searched my memories, moments quietly rose to the surface. Sitting beside Granny through long nights when illness robbed her of sleep. Mending her favorite apron before she even realized it had torn. Walking farther than I wished to gather the herbs that eased her coughing. Rising before dawn to bake her favorite cinnamon rolls simply because she smiled whenever she smelled them.
