Bliss. Kathryn Littlewood

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СКАЧАТЬ up like Florence the florist – with nothing to do but sleep in a chair in the middle of the day, waiting for something strange and exciting to happen, knowing that it never would.

      But leaving town would mean leaving the bakery. And then she would never get to know where her mother stored all those magical blue mason jars. She’d never learn how to mix a bit of northern wind into icing so that it would thaw the frozen heart of a loveless person. She’d never figure out how to fine-tune the reaction among frog’s eyes, molten magma and baking soda – which, her mother had told her, could mend broken bones almost immediately.

      “And what about you, Rosemary?” Florence said as she wrapped the poppies in brown paper. “Anything exciting happening? Any boys?”

      “I’m too busy babysitting Sage,” Rose said a little too forcefully.

      It was true that she didn’t have any time to go on dates with boys, but even if she did, she probably wouldn’t anyway. A date seemed strange and a little unappealing, like sushi. She would like very much to stand with Devin Stetson at the top of Sparrow Hill and look down at the expanse of Calamity Falls, the autumn wind blowing through their hair, rustling the leaves. But that wasn’t a date.

      Still, he was the reason she’d taken a shower before she left this morning, combed the knots out of her shoulder-length black hair, and put on her favourite pair of jeans and a blue shirt with just the right amount of lace (very little). She knew she wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t stunning, either. Rose was sure that if there was any greatness in her at all, it lurked somewhere inside her and not on her face.

      Her mother seemed to agree. “You’re not like other girls,” she’d once said. “You’re so good at maths!”

      As Rose wondered why she couldn’t be both – the kind of girl who was good at maths and pretty – she and Sage left the shop, poppies in hand.

      3. Poplar’s Open-air Market. 2 lbs pippin apples

      A short burst of ferocious pedalling carried them over the train tracks to Poplar’s Open-air Market, which was so crowded in the early morning that the lanes between the rows of fruit and vegetable stands were like a parkway during a traffic jam.

      “I need apples!” yelled Rose, waving one hand in the air.

      “Aisle three!” a man yelled from behind a table stacked higher than his head with peaches.

      Sage stopped the flow of traffic by picking up two giant butternut squashes and lifting them like dumb-bells.

      “Why are you doing that?”

      “I’m getting strong – like Ty,” he puffed, his face turning beetroot red. “Ty and I are going to be pro athletes. There’s no way I’m going to stay here and bake for the rest of my life.”

      Rose grabbed the butternut squashes from Sage’s outstretched arms and put them back where they belonged. “But we help people,” Rose whispered to Sage. “We’re like good baker wizards.”

      “If we’re wizards, then where are our wands and our owls and magic hats? And where is our arch-nemesis?” Sage said. “Face it, Sis – we’re just bakers. While you’re stuck here making cakes, me and Ty will be modelling sneakers in France.”

      Sage pedalled off and Rose was left holding the apples, her arms trembling under the weight.

      4. Mr Kline’s Key Shop. You know what to do.

      In a rusty shack on the outskirts of town, Rose handed Mr Kline the delicate whisk-shaped key. He examined it through glasses as thick as English muffins.

      The key shop was windowless, and everything in it was covered in a fine layer of grey dust, like Mr Kline had just come back from a very long vacation. Rose breathed in through her mouth. The air tasted like metal.

      “This’ll take me at least an hour,” he said. “You’ll have to come back.”

      Sage let out a ridiculously loud groan, but Rose was happy. Kline’s just happened to sit at the base of Sparrow Hill, and Stetson’s just happened to sit at the top.

      “Hey, buddy,” she said. “Let’s walk up Sparrow Hill.”

      “No way!” Sage said. “That hill is way too high and it’s way too hot. I’m gonna see if they have any new jelly bean flavours at Calamity Confections.”

      “Come on,” said Rose, catching him by the shoulder. “It’ll be nice. We can stand on the fence at the lookout point and find our house. And I’ll buy you a doughnut.”

      “Fine. But,” he said, raising one finger high above his head, “I get to pick the doughnut!”

      5. Stetson’s Doughnuts and Automotive Repair

      Rose was panting by the time they reached the top of the hill. Stetson’s was an unimpressive concrete hut adorned with the parts of old cars. Pansies grew out of tyres on the ground, and a DOUGHNUTS sign hung from an old fender fixed above the doorframe.

      Rose trembled as she scooped her black hair, now goopy with sweat, away from her forehead. She was the kind of girl who was unafraid of spiders, dirt bikes, or burning her fingers in a hot oven – and she’d had plenty of encounters with each. But walking into the same room as a boy she liked? Now that was frightening.

      Just as she gathered the courage to walk down the drive and enter the store, Devin Stetson breezed by on his moped, blond fringe flapping in the wind, and sped down the hill. Apparently his father had given him the morning off.

      Rose’s stomach turned. It was the same sensation as when you fly higher than you should on a swing and you can feel your stomach a beat behind, flopping around inside you like a fish on the deck of a boat.

      As she watched him go, she could swear he turned for a second and glanced back at her.

      Sage had already ambled up to the lookout point and climbed to the second rail of the fence. “Whoa. Rose. Look.”

      Rose shook herself and jogged over to see what Sage was talking about: a caravan of police cars was driving along the winding road that cut through town. Calamity Falls looked like a painting from the top of Sparrow Hill, and the cars looked like a blue and white knife slashing through it.

      “Where are they going?” asked Sage, uncharacteristically quiet.

      “Oh boy,” Rose said, squinting. “I think they’re going to the bakery.”

      “MAYBE TY WAS arrested,” said Rose.

      She and Sage threw their bikes down in the Bliss bakery backyard and ran towards the back door. Three police cruisers formed a fence outside the house, and a white Hummer with tinted windows squatted in the driveway like a fat pit bull.

      Through the open driver’s-side window of the Hummer, Rose and Sage could see a man wearing a crisp police uniform and sunglasses. He was speaking into a walkie-talkie. “They’re still in there,” he was saying. “I know them – they won’t come out empty-handed.”

      Rose stepped on a breeze block СКАЧАТЬ