“Surprisingly sound,” Kiela said. “I thought it would be full of mice or badgers by now, but the only unwanted residents I’ve met so far have been spiders.”
“You want to keep at least a few to catch the spring flies.”
“Um, thanks? I will?” She didn’t say that Caz despised spiders, due to the number of times the library spiders had tried to spin webs between his leaves.
“Once you’re all settled in, I’d love to stop by and see the old place,” Eadie hinted.
Kiela tensed. She hadn’t thought about the possibility of other neighbors stopping by her home . . . but then, if she intended to turn it into a shop, she supposed she was going to have to get used to the idea of welcoming customers. Oh my, she hadn’t thought about that aspect of her plan. If it was to succeed, she was going to have to interact with any number of people. She swallowed and hoped that Eadie couldn’t tell that her hands had started to lightly shake. “That would be very nice,” she said. “Once I’m all set up.”
And then she fled inside the bakery.
She exhaled once she was safely within. The scents of bread and cinnamon curled around her, and it was impossible to feel anxious. Being in the bakery felt like sitting by the nicest fireplace in the nicest reading room of the library. It was warm and welcoming, like the baker herself.
Bryn smiled broadly at Kiela. “It’s the cinnamon rolls that drew you back so soon, isn’t it? Either that or my sunny personality, but I vote cinnamon rolls—no one can resist the allure of butter, sugar, and cinnamon.”
Now that Kiela was here, her idea didn’t feel quite so grand and sparkling. Who was she to start a business, especially one with a possibly slightly (or very) forbidden side? She didn’t know anything about jam or shops or this island or people or really anything but her section of the library. Who was she to think she could transform her parents’ home into a store and welcome in neighbors—strangers—and sell to them? Her throat felt clogged as she searched for the words that she’d been so sure would be easy to say.
“Hmm, if it were cinnamon rolls, you’d look happier to be here,” Bryn said. “Is something wrong? Is it the cottage? An issue with your roof, your stove, your water? Once, after a storm, I had holes in my roof—I live above the bakery—holes as big as my fist and so much rain came through that I expected to find a fish in my bed. Reinforced the roof since then, of course. You have leaks? If so, you’ll want to get them patched up before the next storm.”
Kiela shook her head and wondered why all the words had fled her. She hadn’t had any problem talking to the baker when she’d been asking for seeds and such, but now, with so much more at stake . . . It had seemed such a shiny, lovely idea before, but what if Bryn thought it was nonsense? What if there was no jam in her bakery simply because she didn’t like jam? What if no one on Caltrey liked jam? What if Caz was right that this was all a terrible idea? Instead of speaking, Kiela pulled the jar of raspberry jam out of her basket and held it out.
“Ah, lovely!” Bryn took the jar, removed the cloth from the top, and sniffed. “Raspberry! You have raspberries? My crop has been measly for the last three years.”
“They grew, left wild . . .”Stop being ridiculous,she told herself.Pull yourself together, Kiela.“I had an idea, to start a shop, to sell jams and . . . little remedies, to help with plants and such . . . But mostly jam. There are a lot of berry bushes behind the house, and I have a recipe . . .” She felt her cheeks blushing red and wished she’d practiced this on her walk into town. Why was it so difficult to ask for help?
While Kiela was stammering all of this, Bryn was already busy smearing a spread of the jam onto one of her pastries. “Eadie!” she hollered through the window. “Come and try this!”
Eadie trotted up to the window, and Bryn handed her the pastry.
The centaur bit into the pastry, her eyes closed, and she let out a little moan.
Bryn turned back to Kiela. “If you have more, I’ll buy it.”
Kiela felt her knees wobble, and she let out a little laugh. She sank into the nearest stool. “Yes, that’s . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’d like to open a jam shop. I have berries and jars, but I lack a supply of sugar, as well as wax to seal the jars. I was hoping, in exchange for a cut of my product, that you could provide the sugar and wax.” She took another breath, encouraged by what she saw in Bryn’s eyes. “I came here to ask if you’d like to be business partners.”
Slathering another pastry with jam, Bryn handed it out the window to the boy with horns. He stuffed it in his mouth in one bite. “Chewbeforeyou swallow,” she told him. To Kiela, she said, “You just met me. I could be a terrible business partner. You don’t even know a single one of my flaws.”
Jam on his cheek, the boy piped up. “You’re bossy. And you talk a lot.”
“Hush, you,” Bryn said. Then: “He’s right. Admittedly, Eadie can talk circles around me”—from outside, Eadie called, “I heard that and agree!”—“but I do like to talk. When I was a kid, I heard a story about a hermit who held so many words inside that eventually he burst from the pressure of all the unsaid thoughts. Years later, they found his bones scattered and thousands of words burned into the stone walls of his cave. Ever since, I’ve been afraid to hold too many words inside.”
“That . . . is not actually possible.” Kiela might not be a trained sorcerer, but she knew that wasn’t how magic worked. “Accidents can happen when you work magic, but you can’t just have magic happen accidentally—spells have to be cast, with very specific words and ingredients. It has to be done deliberately.”
Bryn gave a little snort, halfway between disbelief and interest. “No one deliberately causes the magic storms, and yet they happen, loudly, often.”
“Yes, but magic storms are caused by the buildup of improperly balanced spell residue,” Kiela said, unable to keep herself from sounding like one of the scholars who visited the library. “And they don’t recoil on the sorcerer.” She forced herself to stop talking.I shouldn’t be revealing I know so much about magic.
Unbothered by Kiela spewing out magical knowledge, Bryn shrugged. “Facts didn’t matter at the time. I was five. The story stuck, as well as the one about the fish that ate a boat.”
“Okay, that one could be true.” All sorts of creatures lived in the sea. Those books were on the second floor of the east wing. Kiela’s specialty was natural sciences, but her collection didn’t include the ocean, except for where it impacted the land. She’d once gotten into a nearly heated argument with the librarian on the second floor about those volumes that could have been shelved in either section. A scholar had shushed them. It had been quite embarrassing.
“I am a mess of nerves on a boat, which is an inconvenient phobia when you live on an island. You should have seen me when I first arrived. Kissed the ground and got a mouth full of sand. That was the main reason why I set up my bakery—knew I’d never make it as a fisherman. Also, I love to bake.”
Kiela took a steadying breath. “Would you love to bake with jam?”
Bryn grinned. “I haven’t scared you off yet?”
She shook her head. An assertive business partner who talked a lot sounded ideal to her; less need for Kiela to fill the silence. And selling jam had nothing to do with boats. She didn’t see what the problem was. “You get fifty percent.”
