Page 79 of A Spoonful of Spells and Secrets

Outside, the bakery bell chimed as another customer stepped through the front door. Life called us back to work, but with the fulfillment I found in it, there was nowhere else either of us wished to be.

Three young women stepped inside, laughing together as they escaped the crisp morning air. The moment they saw me, they waved with easy familiarity before making their way towards the table beside the front window they had quietly claimed as their own months ago.

“Good morning, Cecelia!”

"Morning!" I called back, unable to keep myself from smiling. “The usual?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” I gathered the three different confections and placed them on a tray to heat them in the oven. As I waited for them to warm, I thought back to when I’d prepared them early that morning in anticipation of my friends’ arrival.

I realized I no longer needed to glance at a recipe. I knew each of their favorites by heart. One preferred blueberry oat muffins with extra cinnamon, another always requested lavender shortbread to accompany her tea. The third insisted my strawberry shortcake tasted best while still warm.

None of those recipes existed when the bakery wandered—I had created them myself. At first it had felt almost frightening to set aside the careful instructions I had followed my entire life. I measured and adjusted with hesitant hands, wondering if every change might somehow ruin the whole creation. Instead, I discovered that baking, much like living, sometimes asked not for perfect instructions, but for curiosity, patience, and the courage to try again.

Some recipes took half a dozen attempts before they tasted quite right. Others became favorites after the very first bite. I loved every one of them, as did Gabe, who sampled everything and provided ample encouragement.

The morning passed as so many mornings now did, with customers drifting in and out, unhurried. No enchanted sugar shimmered across the counter. No bargain waited between the pages of an ancient book. The only magic left was the ordinary sort—the kind found in fresh bread shared with strangers, tea poured for a friend, familiar laughter filling a room, and a place where people knew they would always be welcomed back.

I glanced through the front window towards the meadow beyond. The path leading to the bakery had become well worn now, bordered by wildflowers that faithfully returned every spring. Beyond it stretched the quiet valley that had gradually become home—not because magic had carried us there, but because we had chosen to stay.

Behind me, Gabe slipped his hand into mine. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

I looked around our little bakery: Granny humming softly as she crimped another pie crust, my friends laughing together over steaming cups of tea, Nutmeg conducting a thorough inspection of a customer’s basket with tremendous self-importance, and Gabe standing beside me with a streak of flour dusting the end of his nose.

Then I looked back towards the valley waiting beyond our door. “I almost forgot the moon will be full tonight,” I said.

He smiled. ”So it will.”

When it arrived later that evening the full moon would rise above the valley just as it always had. And when morning came, the bakery would remain in this same village. Home, I had learned, was never a place magic carried us. It was the place we chose to remain together.