Angels of Morning

I will never forget the ninth day of Maban. It started like other days: awake before dawn, washed, dressed, and out into the cool morning air within a  few minutes. There were places to be, things to be done.

Looking back on it, I should have known. Something seemed off that morning, as if the entire world had woken up on the wrong side of bed. Even the animals sensed it; I heard several cats hissing in the darkness as I walked to the bakery, a span of only a few blocks. Down the street I heard dogs barking. There were other signs.

The few people who were up at that time seemed less inclined to smile or look up as they traveled in the early hours. Several people passed along the narrow street as I walked, but all of them had hoods up against the misty fog and faces down, preoccupied with their own thoughts. I circled around the bakery – a large brick building, the only one fully illuminated at this hour on the street with torches – and pushed open the back door.

Despite being bright and warm inside, the two men in the kitchen were unusually silent as they went about their business. Another bad sign. The older of the two men, called Ivek, was a tall, heavy man in his late forties with a face like a rock. He looked up from the bread dough he was making in his thick hands and nodded in my direction but said nothing.

I took off my cloak and hung it on the small hook next to the door and replaced it with my white bakery apron. Novek, the younger man, was thin and balding, with wire spectacles that covered most of his small, dark eyes. He pushed a tray of rolls toward me and favored me with a sour glance. I smiled, grabbed a roll from the sheet, and stuff ed it in my mouth. His thin lips wrinkled in a tiny smile before it vanished again beneath his stern expression. I picked up two trays of bread and carried them into the front of the bakery, happy to get out of the unpleasant mood between the brothers.

It was darker and cooler in the front of the store. The brothers were always the first to arrive, beginning the baking process a full two marks before I came through the door. They rarely entered the front of the building where the display cases were. They left the setup for business to me, most days, and I stayed out of their way in the back except to pick up fresh loaves, sweet buns, and small cakes as the stock in front ran low. Like always, I admired the stridently cleaned stone floors and polished tables, making sure the bakery was clean and presentable, before I stored the freshly baked loaves on their wire racks.

I stood back to admire my handiwork and smiled to myself. One thing I prided myself on was being neat and tidy. Customers didn't like a shop that was dirty. And this shop was always busy once the doors opened. I liked to think it was in part because I kept the front of the bakery so clean. Ivek, always the pessimist, said no one really cared – they just wanted bread. But that was just his way. He wasn't exactly wrong; people in Ravenscroft had limited options for most goods unless they made the trip to Harbor or had a Traveler bring it to them. Many of the locals were farmers and couldn't afford the cost of a Traveler to get goods from the city, so among the town's available options, it was good to be the preferred destination. It didn't hurt business that the Temple was nearby, either. All of the priests and Travelers coming in and out of Ravenscroft passed by the bakery and a good many of them stopped, unable to resist the smell of fresh baked goods. I guessed that at least sixty percent of our business came from the Priests and their assistants, and the rest from the locals and the Travelers.

While I finished setting up the front of the store and lit the oil lamps, Novek brought in two trays of small, delicate cakes. I placed them gently in the display cases and pushed them forward. As Ivek made bread, Novek had begun making pastries. So far, they were the most popular item in the case, and we regularly ran out of them not long after sunrise every morning.

Finally, the daily preparations were complete, and I was ready to open for business. The sun was not yet peeking over the horizon, but the sky took on an increasing lighter appearance. Through the windows, I could see the shadowy outlines of the other buildings on the street and a few passersby who stopped to look in the windows of the bakery. I waved them inward, but they only nodded and moved on.