Autumn Menu
The aroma of cinnamon, nutmeg, and maple fill the large kitchen in the bakery as Isla mixes them into warm butter. She inhales deeply of the sweet spicy scents. They’re warm, comforting scents that soothe her soul, as well as make her mouth water.
The aroma helps her to remember that she loves this job. She loves baking and making delicious treats that will bring a smile to someone else. She’s good at it too.
She huffs and sets the bowl down. Her hands tremble as she works the sweet dough beside the bowl of spices and sugar, and anger simmers in her veins. She glances up from the mound of soft pillowy dough she’s pressing it out into a rectangle.
This bakery has been her home away from home since she was sixteen. Longer than that really; ever since she was a little girl of four and her mama first brought her here to buy a cupcake. She’d been distraught after her older brother, Connor, and his best friend, Lance Barash, had trapped her inside an oak tree for hours, and mama thought it would be a nice treat to take her mind off what happened.
The boys had used Lance’s magic to grow a young red oak in her family’s back garden, and then used Connor’s magic to turn it into a club house. When Isla had gone outside to see what they were doing, they tricked her into going inside to see if it was big enough. After she was inside Connor tried to build a door but ended up closing the tree off with no way in or out.
She’d been terrified, trapped in the dark fragrant inside of that tree.
When Mama returned home from her trip to town, she saw the new tree and asked the boys about it. They got all squirrely about it, so she sent Papa out to investigate. He found her curled up in a ball crying her eyes out. He immediately scooped her up and handed her to Mama, who marched straight to the bakery.
The cupcake had been a delicious distraction, as had seeing her brother and his friend cutting down the tree with an ax and splitting it for firewood. They had to cut the tree, split the wood, and carry it to some of the more in need Fae in the village. She and Mama went to the bakery every day that they fulfilled their punishment.
Connor swears to this day that it was an accident, that it didn’t intend to lock her in that tree, but she isn’t sure she believes him. He and Lance were always causing mischief.
She still gets claustrophobic in tight spaces.
Lost in her memories, she pours the mixture of spices and maple syrup onto the dough. That was when she first fell in love with this place. Over the years she made a point of visiting at least a few times a week. The day she turned sixteen, she marched in and told Grant, the older man who owns the bakery with his wife, that she was going to start working for him.
To her relief he hadn’t laughed at her. Instead, he walked around the counter with an apron and a broom and told her to get to work. She’s worked every aspect of this business in the last fourteen years, and she’s always hoped that if Grant chose to sell, he would offer her first chance at it.
Today that dream came to a fires blasted end.
This morning Grant pulled her into his office, which was mostly her office at this point, and told her that he and Glori were moving to the Ean Kingdom. He said he was tired, and at four hundred he deserved to just lie on a beach and drink charengo wine all day if he wanted. She stood before him hands shaking – for a much different reason than they do now – and held her breath as he spoke.
“I want to buy it,” she blurted out.
Grant shook his head at her, a sad smile on his face. “You know Glori and I started this business three hundred and fifty years ago, not long after we fasted. I couldn’t have done this without her love and support.”
She nodded, waiting for him to agree that she could buy it.
“I’m not going to sell it to anyone who isn’t fasted, Isla.”
Her face fell, and her nose burned. “What? Why? This is my dream.”
“I know, I know it is. I just think it needs to be owned by a couple who will love and support each other through the ups and downs. There is too much stress in this business to not have that kind of support.”
“I…”
He assured her he would insist whoever bought the place allow her to stay on as a head baker, but unless she was getting fasted the bakery wouldn’t be hers.
She bolted out of his office and ran to the kitchen to start baking – her only comfort. Thankfully he didn’t follow.
She’s been in the kitchen for hours now. The bakery is open; she normally would have stepped out front at least once or twice to say hi to customers, but she can’t stomach it today. Let Grant and Glori handle the front. She’ll stay in the back and wallow in her pastry dough.
Sighing, she thinks about the autumn menu she wants to create. The weather is only just turning chilly, but she can’t wait for autumn to start. She’s excited for all the seasonal goodies that she loves to bake. Maybe, if she starts planning the menu, it will take her mind off the fact that her dream has been shattered.
Her eyes drift to the window over the sink, where she can see the leaves dancing in the breeze. Dariney, the small town in the Sefor kingdom where Isla has lived her entire life, is only now beginning to turn orange and red with the changing of the season. The splash of color makes her excitement for the season grow brighter. That excitement trickles over to the menu she’s mentally compiling, and the heartache she feels with each beat of her heart slows to a dull throb.
She finishes pouring the mixture of spices, butter, and syrup onto the pastry dough and begins to spread it out with her bare hands. It’s sticky and warm, but she enjoys the feeling of it sliding around under her fingers. Not to mention, spreading out the syrup with her fingers ensures it reaches the very edges of the dough. She is completely consumed with the process before her. So much so the world around her fades into the background
“You know, they make utensils for things like that. Keeps your hands from getting sticky.”
The voice behind her startles her to the point that she screams and whirls around – sticky, dripping hands raised up in front of her.
