And wait.
And wait while my anxiety does that thing where it lists all the reasons I’m going to fail, which is worse than the waiting, so I start doing conversational math with myself instead.
If the oven won’t heat past 400 degrees, Gabby, then you’ll know immediately and you can move on to panicking about something else. If it heats normally, you’ll get to find out new and inventive ways the wood-fired situation can betray you. It’s truly a win-win situation, if you define win as “pain,” which, at this point, I do.
The oven hits 450 degrees. It might actually work.
I shape the dough—my hands remember the motions, the resistance, the feeling of gluten organizing itself into something that will hold air—and I score it with a knife. One diagonal slashacross the top. Simple. Proof-tested. Unlikely to spontaneously refuse to bake.
Then I put it in the oven and realize I’ve made a catastrophic error.
The oven's interior is smaller than I expected. And the heat is coming from the right exactly like the note said it would, which I'd accounted for, except I hadn't actually accounted for it. I'd read "runs hot on the right" and translated it into professional-baker language, meaning I'd positioned the loaf slightly left of center and told myself that was sufficient. It was not sufficient.
I stand there for probably fifteen minutes just staring at the oven door like I can will it into behaving through sheer force of personality. I cannot.
When the timer goes off, I pull the loaf out.
It is not a loaf. It is a science experiment gone wrong. It’s blackened on one side, pale and under-baked on the other, and it has a crack across the top that looks like the bread is actively angry about being here. The crust is so hard I can barely cut through it. The crumb structure is dense and slightly gummy in the center.
I set it on the cooling rack, and I stare at it.
Then I pick it up and throw it in the trash.
This is fine. This is totally fine. This is exactly where I expected to be on my first attempt with a haunted oven in the middle of nowhere. I’m only catastrophically behind already. The 60-day clock is ticking. The mortgage is waiting. Everything is completely under control.
My hands are shaking.
It’s not about the bread. It’s not even really about the oven. It’s about the absolute certainty that I’ve made a terrible mistake, that I’m too far outside my depth, that coming here was the act of a desperate woman with more conviction than sense. Which is fair. All of those things are true.
But I'm also the woman who packed her entire life into a storage unit and drove away without looking back. I’m the woman who learned to make pastry from a Michelin-starred chef who told me I had “decent hands and too many opinions.” I’m the woman who spent three years perfecting laminated dough while my marriage was falling apart right under my nose.
So, I take a breath—the tight one, the kind that doesn’t quite fill my lungs—and I make a list of what I need to figure out.
Marnie’s General Store is exactly what I expected: an explosion of contradictions that has somehow cohered into a place that has been in the same building since the Roosevelt administration, either one.
There are fishing supplies next to thermal socks next to what appears to be a comprehensive collection of bear spray. There’s a section dedicated entirely to flashlights. Another section is “Just Marnie’s Opinions About Which Granola Tastes Best,” which I appreciate in the way I appreciate aggressive honesty.
Marnie herself is a petite woman with silver-streaked hair cut in a practical bob. She's standing behind the counter reading a mystery novel with a dog-eared cover, pencil tucked behind her ear like she's ready to argue with it.
“You’re the pastry chef,” she says, not looking up from her book.
"I’m the woman who showed up at midnight, yes," I say. "Word travels fast."
She looks up then. Her eyes are sharp. “Edna's place has been waiting two years for someone to show up. Of course I know."
Marnie sets the book down and stands, and there’s something almost ceremonial about the movement. “What do you need?”
So, I tell her. I tell her about the oven situation. I tell her about the water and the power and the fact that I need supplies, but I don’t know what’s actually available here. I tell her that Edna’s supply ledger is cryptic and possibly written in code.
Marnie listens while rearranging some things behind the counter, and when I’m done, she nods like I’ve confirmed something she already suspected.
“Okay,” she says. “First. You’re going to need this.”
She hands me a headlamp.
“It’s already June,” I say. “Wouldn’t a headlamp be more useful in, like, October?”
“The power cuts out,” Marnie says. It’s not a question.