Love, Spells & Cinnamon Rolls

At six fourteen on the morning I opened my bakery, the croissants declared independence.

There were twelve of them. Eleven rose gently off their trays like golden, buttery balloons. The twelfth came straight at my face.

I ducked. It hit the wall behind me with an impressive splat.

“No,” I told the other eleven.

They continued toward the ceiling.

“Absolutely not.”

One rotated slowly over the prep table, as smug as a pastry could reasonably be.

I reached for my grandmother’s spellbook, which I had promised myself I would not open on my first day in Cloverhaven. The cover fell open to a page titled Minor Reversals and Other Embarrassments. Underneath, in my grandmother’s unmistakable handwriting, was a note.

If you’ve overdone the rising charm again, use a wooden spoon. Not another spell.

I looked up at the croissants.

“You know, she could have told me that before she died.”

The croissants seemed unmoved by my grief.

I climbed onto a chair, waved the spoon, and accidentally struck the light fixture. Glass rattled. I caught one pastry against my shoulder, another beneath my arm, and a third between two fingers. The remaining eight drifted beyond my reach.

The bell above the bakery door rang.

“We’re closed!” I shouted.

“Your sign says grand opening at seven,” a voice answered.

“Then we’re closed for another forty-six minutes.”

“I can count, Wren.”

That was Kit Alvarez, my apprentice, who had a key and a worrying ability to arrive precisely when something humiliating happened. He came around the corner wearing his apron, saw me standing on a chair with three pastries pressed to my chest, and stopped.

“Oh,” he said.

“Don’t.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Your face is saying something.”

“My face is asking whether I should get the net.”

I pointed my wooden spoon at him. “The bread net.”

“Every bakery should have one.”

Kit was twenty-two, cheerfully nonmagical, and far too delighted by my professional disasters. He also made the best espresso in three counties, which was why I tolerated him.

He fetched the long-handled fruit basket we used to display apples. Together we coaxed the pastries down one by one. The last croissant resisted until Kit opened the kitchen window, whereupon it made a spirited attempt at freedom and had to be caught against the screen.

“I thought you said no magic in the shop,” Kit said when we were finished.

“I said no public magic.”

“That sounds suspiciously like a loophole.”

“It is a very traditional distinction.”

“In Cloverhaven, it’s a very expensive distinction.”

He was right. Cloverhaven had forbidden public spellcasting after the Harvest Festival Disaster of 1957, when an enchantment intended to increase pumpkin yields caused every squash in town to grow teeth. Nobody had been seriously injured, but the schoolchildren had apparently refused to eat vegetables for years.

The law was older than my mother, older than our ovens, and, as far as I could tell, older than common sense.

I hadn’t opened the bakery to fight it. I had opened the bakery because I loved making things that warmed people’s hands. Because the first food I’d baked after my grandmother’s funeral had been cinnamon rolls, and for ten minutes the kitchen had smelled like the years before I lost her. Because a little storefront with peeling green paint was the only thing I could afford, and I wanted it badly enough to spend every dollar I owned.

The magic was supposed to stay in my own kitchen and out of everyone’s coffee.

Especially out of the coffee.

“What was the spell for?” Kit asked.

“A bit of extra lift.”

He examined the flattened croissant on the wall. “You got that.”

I threw a towel at him.

By six thirty, we had rearranged the display case. The cinnamon rolls shone beneath a glaze of cream cheese and orange zest. The lemon buns sat in neat rows. Our chalkboard promised Real Butter, Honest Sugar, No Unrequested Enchantments.

I was particularly proud of that last line.

The bakery was called Bellamy & Bun, which sounded more established than a woman with secondhand equipment, one apprentice, and a checking account that had begun to resemble a ghost story. I’d painted the name myself over the door. The letters weren’t quite even, but from the sidewalk they looked hopeful.

At six forty-two, the oven made a noise like a whale coughing.

“Please tell me that’s normal,” Kit said.

I checked the thermometer. The temperature had dropped forty degrees. I tapped the dial, opened the lower panel, and found a scorch mark on a wire I had paid a repairman to replace last week.

“It’s just having feelings,” I said.

Then the smoke alarm went off.

Kit backed out of the kitchen as though the oven might take offense at him personally. I shut off the gas, opened both doors, and dragged the smoking tray outside. The contents were not on fire, but the alarm apparently disagreed. It shrieked over the quiet main street with an enthusiasm more suitable for a collapsing bridge.

The first customer arrived carrying a bicycle helmet.

“Are you open?” she asked.

“Spiritually,” I said.

She peered at the smoke curling through the doorway. “Should I come back?”

“I would.”

She rode away.

I stood on the sidewalk with a ruined tray in my hands and wondered if this was how people developed a sensible career in insurance.

A dark red fire engine rolled to a stop across the street.

“Kit,” I said calmly, “why is the fire department here?”

“Because the alarm called them?”

“The alarm can’t call anyone. I bought it at a hardware store.”

“There’s a monitored unit over the entrance. It came with the building.”

I looked up. There it was, a little white box I had assumed was a decorative insult.

Two firefighters climbed out. One was a woman with a wide smile and a braid tucked into her collar. The other was a man in his early thirties with dark hair, broad shoulders, and the expression of someone who had learned early not to trust strangers with electrical appliances.

He took in the smoking tray, the open doors, and the alarm, which was still performing its one-note concert.

“Morning,” he said.

“Debatable,” I replied.

His gaze moved to the sign above my head.

“Bellamy & Bun?”

“That’s the one.”

“Miles Finch. Cloverhaven Fire and Rescue.” He held out a hand, then seemed to realize I was carrying a tray and lowered it. “Is everyone out?”

“Everyone except the croissants.”

His eyes flicked to mine.

I decided not to explain.

The woman behind him hid a smile. “I’ll check the rear rooms.”

Miles nodded, then turned back to me. “Were you cooking when the alarm activated?”

“I was attempting to.”

“Any open flame?”

“No.”

“Any injuries?”

“Only to my dignity.”

He looked as though he considered dignity an acceptable casualty, provided no one was actively bleeding. It was annoying how attractive he was while doing that.

“Show me the oven,” he said.

Inside, Kit was fanning the air with a menu. The alarm had finally stopped. Miles knelt in front of the lower panel and inspected the wire without touching it.

“You can’t use this until it’s repaired.”

“I had it repaired last week.”

“Then I wouldn’t use the same repairman.”

I folded my arms. “I have eighty-seven cinnamon rolls to sell this morning.”

“The cinnamon rolls are already baked.”

“I also have a business to keep alive tomorrow.”

He stood. Up close, his face was less stern than it had looked outside. There were little lines beside his eyes, as if he had once laughed often and was trying to remember how.

“Tomorrow is easier if the building is still standing,” he said.

That was a deeply irritatingly reasonable point.

Kit made a small choking noise behind us. I chose not to investigate.

Miles turned toward the window. “Do you have an electrician who can come today?”

“Possibly.”

“Call them. I’ll leave the oven tagged out until they inspect it.”

“Is that an order?”

“It’s a safety requirement.”

“You could have made it sound less like an order.”

For the first time, he almost smiled.

“Please don’t set your bakery on fire, Ms. Bellamy.”

I stared at him.

“That,” I said, “was somehow worse.”

His colleague returned from the storeroom and confirmed everything else was clear. They started toward the door. I followed them, part of me relieved and another part strangely unwilling to let Miles Finch disappear into his fire engine without learning a single thing about him beyond his talent for being right.

At the threshold he paused in front of our display case.

“Those are cinnamon rolls?”

“Unless they flew away while I wasn’t looking.”

Kit made another choking noise.

Miles ignored it. “My grandmother used to put orange zest in the icing.”

“Mine too.”

I opened the case and placed one in a paper bag. When he reached for his wallet, I shook my head.

“On the house. Payment for keeping my bakery from becoming a cautionary tale.”

He hesitated. “I can’t take a gift for doing my job.”

“Then it’s a sample. You can come back and leave an honest review.”

He took the bag. “I can do honest.”

Something in the simple way he said it made my heart give a ridiculous little hop.

Outside, the first proper line of customers was forming. The fire engine pulled away; my bakery was still standing; and the morning, against all available evidence, might yet be saved.

Then Kit opened the storeroom door.

“Wren?” he called.

“What?”

“You need to see this.”

He stood beside the crate of apples the orchard had delivered yesterday. Every apple had gone black, though their skins were unbroken. A thread of pale frost crept across the crate’s wooden edge.

It was September. The ovens were off. The storeroom was warm.

I touched the frost with one finger.

It did not melt.