He wags his tail.
Behind us, I hear the cabin door close, and the sound of it—soft, careful, like she’s trying not to disturb the silence—follows me all the way home.
Back in the workshop, I pick up the chisel I left on the bench last night and turn it over in my hands. The piece I’m working on—a dining table, cherry wood, commissioned by someone in Fairbanks—sits half-finished in the center of the room. I usually know exactly what a piece wants to be by this point. The grain tells me. The weight tells me.
This morning, I stand there, turning the chisel, thinking about wool socks and borrowed flannel and the way she saidJasperlike it was a word worth saying carefully.
Jasper puts his head on my boot.
“Don’t start,” I tell him.
His tail thumps once. Twice.
I pick up the chisel and get back to work, and I absolutely do not think about the woman in Edna’s cabin for the rest of the morning.
Mostly.
Chapter 3
Gabby
The morning light hits the bakery kitchen like a personal insult.
I’m standing in what I can only describe as a time capsule dedicated to kitchen suffering. Everything here is ancient—cast iron, cracked tile, an electric stove so old the burners have developed their own definitions about heat. The centerpiece of my pain is the oven. The actual oven. The one I have to use. The one I’m currently staring at with a hatred usually reserved for my ex-husband.
It’s a wood-fired cast iron beast that probably weighed eight hundred pounds when it was new and hasn’t seen maintenance since the Kennedy administration. There’s a metal plaque riveted to the front: Acme Bake Master, 1952. Below that, someone has taped a piece of masking tape to the iron. The handwriting is small and deliberate:
She runs hot on the right. Adjust or suffer the consequences. - E
I laugh. Actually laugh. Because the oven has been here longer than I’ve been alive and it’s already given me life advice.
The cabin kitchen is attached to the bakery by a narrow door that sticks, I’ve mapped every house settling noise at this point,and the bakery itself is basically two large rooms: the production kitchen where the oven lives, and the front café area with a long display counter. There’s a commercial fridge that runs about forty percent of the time, a sink with water pressure like a dying whale, and absolutely no climate control. The power cuts out if I run the fridge and the electric kettle simultaneously, which I learned at 5 a.m. when I was making coffee.
Also, there’s the well. Of course there’s a well.
I’d hoped—really hoped—that the water situation was a metaphor, something Edna’s lawyer had mentioned in the way people mention ghosts at a haunted house. But no. There is a literal well. It’s still being used. The pump outside the kitchen door is red and incredibly judgmental.
Let’s assess the damage. Let’s make a list, because lists help when my brain is doing that thing where it spirals like a ceiling fan hitting its highest setting.
One: The oven situation. I’ve baked in professional kitchens with $15,000 ovens that had digital temperature controls and even heat distribution. This one has a door made of industrial-grade iron and a slot for wood. It has moods. I can tell because Dotty mentioned Edna’s “special relationship” with it when I asked about supplies yesterday.
Two: The water situation. The pump requires aggressive enthusiasm, and the water comes out the color of a dirty penny before it clears. Which takes about two minutes. I have not yet successfully filled a pot without contemplating my life choices.
Three: The power situation. The cabin is wired like it’s being powered by a hamster on a wheel. A tired hamster.
Four: There’s no source of reliable ingredients or local suppliers listed anywhere. Just a ledger in Edna’s handwriting with dates and cryptic notes like “barley flour—ask Marnie” and “yeast – reorder Wednesdays.”
I have sixty days to make this work. Sixty days to turn this haunted appliance situation into a functional bakery that can sell enough to cover the mortgage. Sixty days or I lose the cabin, the bakery, and the exact amount of my dwindling savings I’ve burned through just getting here.
The anxiety sits behind my sternum. A knot that doesn’t loosen.
So, I do what I always do. I decide that if I’m going to catastrophically fail, I should at least do it thoroughly.
I find flour in a galley cupboard—good flour, King Arthur Baking Company, which gives me hope—and I start assembling the basic ingredients for a simple yeasted bread. It’s stupid. It’s definitely stupid. But my hands know how to do this part, and maybe if I show up and try, the oven will take pity on me.
The wood is stacked outside the kitchen door in a shed, split and weathered. I load it in like I know what I’m doing. I don’t. I close the door.
Then I wait for it to heat.