The bakery was tiny, warm, and homely. Early-morning sunlight streamed in from the window and fell in bright slanting bars across the colourful rag-rugs hanging from the old, plastered walls. Copper tins and moulds sat stacked neatly on shelving behind the scarred old wooden table, which functioned as a counter and- judging by its current floury state- a breadmaking surface. On the windowsill, a battered old digital radio set played to itself, a quiet, melancholy tune wavering in and out beneath a gentle pall of static.
There was a sagging couch full of cushions across the room, next to a low doorway that led down two steps to an even tinier kitchen. The general effect was very much like the front room of somebody's house- unsurprising, given that this was exactly what it was.
The front door was nudged open, ringing a jangly carillon from a string of bells tied to the inside. Shouldering his way into the room backwards, protecting a heavy crate in his sunburned arms, came a tall, powerful, grizzle-haired man of about fifty. His name was Aaron Halifax, and something about his lined, no-nonsense face and craggy brows suggested that here was a man it was better to have as a friend than an enemy.
He rested the crate on the edge of the table. "Anyone up?"
As the proprietor of the tiny bakery jogged up the couple of steps from the kitchen to meet him, he grinned at her and delivered the same old line he delivered every Monday and Thursday morning- along with the crate- without fail.
"Something sure smells good in here."
Chell returned her part of the ritual- a smile and a covered crate of her own, tugged out from under the table. She liked Aaron a great deal. He had been her reliable friend and business associate for the greater part of the last four years, despite the fact that his business dwarfed (and to some extent, overlapped) her own.
"So that's... a dozen wholegrain, dozen white, dozen mixed," he said, peeking under the cover. "That's my girl. Gonna need some extra for Thursday, that okay? You helping out on Foxglove today?"
Chell nodded. She was floury to the elbows and there were white streaks in her pulled-back hair, the strands at the front gently frizzled from the oven. She started to unpack Aaron's crate, stacking sacks of flour and grain methodically on the tabletop, making space for a smaller assortment of groceries, vegetables, a bag of apples, bacon in greaseproof paper, a punnet of blueberries which she paused to investigate appreciatively.
"Thought you'd like 'em," said Aaron, grinning. "You know, my mom used to make one hell of a blueberry cake round this time of year. You ever thought of branching out?"
A quick shadow chased across Chell's face, a momentary darkness like a starling flicking across a sunny window. She pushed the blueberries aside, her mouth tightening a little. Aaron, busy navigating the narrow doorway with her covered crate balanced on his knee, didn't notice.
"Well, I better get hoofin'. Store won't open itself. See you later, Mystery Girl. Hey," he added, pausing, "you see that shooting star this morning? Came right down over the northeast fields just before dawn. Coulda knocked a vort's eye out- brightest thing you ever saw. Good omen, huh?"
Having successfully juggled door, bread, and crate, he let himself out in a jangle of bells, whistling as he went.
Chell stood still in her sunlit front room, her hands spread carefully amid the groceries on the floury tabletop. The radio was still playing on the windowsill; a classics station sending its signal all the way out from New Detroit on the rebuilt networks. Signal around here was poor, and the music tuned in and out under the ever-present snowy crackle, but she liked this song, which had probably been old by the time she'd been born- however long ago that had been.
