Kiela remembered the way to the grocer’s: up two streets, and then a right at the fountain, which was now dry. She remembered how much she used to love the statue of the mermaid at the center of the fountain. As a child, she’d felt as if the smiling mermaid were inviting her into the heart of town. Now, though, one of the mermaid’s arms had broken off, and she gazed out at the harbor with an expression that Kiela thought was more wistful than welcoming.
Staring at the fountain, she heard the faint sound of a harp. Someone, somewhere, was playing a complex tumble of notes that ran as pure as the fountain used to.
Following the harp music, she passed the dry fountain, expecting to find the grocer’s just around the corner, but in place of the shop she remembered with its wilty lettuce and oversalted lentil loaves, Kiela found a bakery. More accurately, she smelled it.
Unlike the rest of the village, which was a shabby shadow of what it should have been, the bakery was glorious. Scents of fresh bread and honey and cinnamon poured out of its open door and windows, and the islanders . . .
Everyone was here.
Or at least everyone who wasn’t working on the sea or on their farm or orchard. It looked to be mostly older islanders deep into their retirement, with faces worn from wind, sun, and time. And if she were being honest, it was less than a dozen people, but itfeltlike everyone. Six times the number of people she’d wanted to see.
I could come back later . . .
No.You’re already here.Buy what you need, and then you can leave.
Taking a deep breath, she approached the bakery. Outside on the cobblestones, tables with mismatched chairs were clustered in front of an open door and a wide window with a counter. One woman with crevasse-deep wrinkles and black-and-white-streaked hair had a lap harp on her knees. Like one of the librarians who’d worked on the fifth floor, she had two sets of arms. Very useful for shelving books and, apparently, just as useful for playing the cross-strung harp. She was plucking at the two sets of strings, creating both melody and harmony, an old sailor’s song that Kiela vaguely recognized. The falling notes of the harmony were the waves crashing on the sand, while the melody sang of the sailor’s love for the sea.
An elderly centaur woman was beside her, seated with her horse hindquarters on a broad bench. She wore a wide red dress and a matching red hat with a brim. Visible through the gaps in the dress, her horse body blended seamlessly with her human torso, black horse hair matching equally dark skin. Her woman’s head sported black hair that narrowed into a vertical strip running down her spine, exactly like a mane on a horse’s neck. She was drinking tea from a misshapen mug, blowing on it before she sipped. She lowered her drink when she saw Kiela and stared openly. She nudged her companion, who paused her harp-playing to stare too.
Kiela stared back.
She’d never seen the multi-armed harpist before, but the centaur lady looked familiar. Kiela couldn’t say how she knew her. All her memories of Caltrey focused on her parents.I must have known other villagers, though. Maybe her?
Several other men and women, mostly retired fisherfolk and farmers, were seated at tables, eating their breakfasts and chatting about the weather, the tea, their neighbors, and the sea. On the ground, an older bald man with silver scales instead of skin was playing a game with black and white stones with a boy who had tiny goat horns poking out of his hair.
All of them stopped and stared as Kiela approached the bakery. Without the harp music, the loudest sounds were the caws of seagulls, the clang of the buoy bells in the harbor, and the whispers of the strangers who wouldn’t stop staring at her.
This was a terrible idea.She should have come at a different time. Or not come at all. Or searched harder for the grocer’s. She wondered what had happened to the man and woman who had run the local grocery store. As she recalled, they weren’t the nicest people, but they did sell the essentials. Had they moved their shop elsewhere?I should look for it.But the wonderful smell kept her rooted in place. It was exactly like the delicious cinnamon bun that Larran had left for her.
“I’m . . . ah . . . looking to buy some provisions?” Kiela’s voice came out far too shaky and high, curling up at the end as if she was asking permission.
A woman bustled out of the bakery. She had an apron tied around her waist and a smudge of flour on her cheek. Like the boy playing on the ground, her body was covered in soft tawny fur, and she had dainty antlers poking out of her hair, though hers were more deerlike than goat. The baker flicked a dish towel at her other customers. “Hey, you lot, quit staring, you’re making her uncomfortable. Can’t you see she’s about ready to flee? Where are your manners? Haven’t you ever seen a new customer before?”
“Nope,” the boy with goat horns—son? Nephew? No relation?—said.
The baker smiled broadly at Kiela. “Welcome to Caltrey and to the best—”
“And only,” the harpist chimed in. Balancing her harp on her knee with one hand, she held up her teacup with one of her other three hands, and the centaur clinked the cup with her mug. They chortled like two old friends with a hundred in-jokes.
The baker ignored both of them. “—bakery on the entire island.” Throwing her arms open wide, she said, “I’m the owner and head baker, Bryn, and your first cinnamon bun is on the house!”
“I ate one for breakfast,” Kiela said. “It was the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted.”
Bryn beamed at her. “Ah, I like her already. Anyone with a taste for sugar and cinnamon is automatically someone I want to know.”
Gesturing with her tea, the centaur woman cried, “Ooh, I know her!”
“You think you know everyone,” her many-armed friend said.
“She’s the little girl up the hill, the one who always had her nose in a book. Binna Orobidan’s girl!” She whooped like she’d won a prize by identifying her. To Kiela, she said, “You look just like your mother.”
Kiela startled at the sound of her mother’s name. She knew she should have expected it—there were bound to be people on Caltrey who remembered her, and Kiela knew she did look similar, with the same sky-blue skin and jewel-blue hair. Same eye shape too. Her father’s nose, or so people had said. But still, it felt like lightning through her heart. “You knew my mother?”
“Binna and that dreamer husband of hers left for the south. City-bound.” The centaur flapped her hand as if this was utter foolishness. “Whatever happened to them? Are they here too?”
“I’m sorry, but no,” Kiela said. “They died.”
“Ah, what a pity. My condolences.”
