Page 21 of The Baker’s Shadow

“You think you’ll hurt it.”

“I know I will.”

I let my hand drop. The loss of contact feels like a physical ache, and I hate that. Hate that I want more. Hate that my body is leaning toward him even as my brain is screaming to pull back.

“So what now?” I ask.

“Now we stick to the plan.” He helps me to my feet, his hands on my elbows, steadying me. “I’m your cousin. I came to help with the bakery. The baby is Dan’s. A last gift before he died.”

“And at night?”

“I sleep downstairs. You sleep upstairs. We keep our distance.”

“For how long?”

“Until the baby comes and I figure out if it’s more human or not and if it might kill you.”

The words should scare me. Instead, they settle into my chest like a promise.

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” I turn toward the stairs leading to my apartment. My legs feel like jelly, but they hold. “You can take the couch in the back office. There’s a bathroom down the hall. Don’t touch the starter in the walk-in. It’s older than both of us and temperamental as hell.”

“Kaia.”

I stop. Don’t turn around.

“I meant what I said,” he tells me. “I won’t let you die.”

“I know.”

I climb the stairs slowly, one hand on the railing, one hand on my stomach. Behind me, I hear him move into the bakery, hear the soft creak of the office door opening.

When I reach my apartment, I close the door and lean against it, pressing my forehead to the wood.

Through the window, I can see Main Street. The streetlights are coming on, casting pools of yellow light across the pavement. A few people are still out. Mrs. Chen locking up the hardware store. The teenager from the coffee shop skateboarding home.

My town. The place I’ve lived for five years.

The place I’m realizing I never really knew.

I think about the walk back from the alley. The buildings I passed without thinking. The old town hall with its cornerstone that reads 1647, which is impossible. This region wasn’t settled by Europeans until the 1700s. I’ve walked past that building a thousand times and never questioned it. Never wondered why the date was wrong, or why no one ever seemed to notice.

And the historical society. That cramped little building on Harborview that guards its archives like state secrets. Dan tried to research the bakery’s history once, wanted to know what stood here before. They turned him away. Said the records were fragile, restricted, not available for public viewing.

He’d laughed about it. Said small towns were always protective of their history.

Now I wonder what they’re really protecting.

I press my palm against the window glass. It’s cold against my skin. Down the street, I can see the edge of town where the pavement ends and the marsh begins. The Hollow. That place everyone knows about. That no one goes to. That no one questions.

I’ve lived here and never once asked why.

I never wondered why a town this small has an old quarter with street signs in a language that isn't English, isn't Spanish, isn't anything I recognize. Never questioned why certain shops only open after sunset, or why the farmer’s market has vendors selling things I can’t name, herbs with no tags, roots that smell like low tide and dark places.

The Hollow has always been there. Everyone knows that. No one goes there. No one questions why.