Previously at the Inn: Pumpkina and Sway woke up bailing on a pirate ship no one remembers boarding, in a storm that comes back every night, right on schedule. They threw a bottle overboard and told everyone they were fine. The whole story starts on Start the Story Here.
Everyone at the Come Write Inn remembers the bake-off.
One breath before the storm, there had been a warm room full of people, and every one of them was watching Pumpkina.
Twelve tables ran the length of the common room, and on every one a bake sat waiting under a glass cloche. Butter and burnt sugar hung in the air. The fire roared. Outside, a thin autumn drizzle had been falling since breakfast.
At the eleventh table, Sway’s meringue had collapsed. No one was mentioning it, least of all Sway.
Pumpkina’s table was the last one, by the spice cabinet.
On it sat one copper pot, one cake stand, and her grandmother’s brass measuring spoon, polished twice that morning and once more after that. Under the cloche was a pumpkin tea cake, soaked all the way through with her grandmother’s brew. Propped against the stand, in her own round hand, was her entry card.
Grandmother’s Spoon. Pumpkin, cinnamon, clove, a knuckle of ginger, one vanilla bean, and patience.
Her first real brew in seven years. This time she had baked it into the cake.
She had made it eleven times that week and thrown nine of them out. The tenth she ate alone in the kitchen at two in the morning, standing over the tin. Then she sat down on the kitchen floor for a while. The cake was that good.
Sway had left their own table to stand at her elbow, hands tucked into their sleeves, trying very hard not to help.
“Your meringue,” Pumpkina said.
“Resting,” said Sway.
“You’re humming,” Sway said, a moment later.
She stopped humming.
At the bar, the Barkeep rang the brass bell. “Hands off your bakes.”
Pumpkina’s hand drifted toward the spice cabinet. Hovered. Came back.
The judge worked his way down the row. He was a visiting judge, and no one could quite remember who had invited him. Grey coat. Very clean cuffs. Not a crumb on him anywhere.
He tapped a nine-layer honey cake and listened to it. He pressed Sway’s meringue with one finger, and it sighed. He reached Pumpkina last.
He lifted the cloche. He took a knife from his coat and cut one clean slice. Steam rose out of the crumb, though the cake had been out of the oven since noon.
The smell went down the row of tables. At the back, someone set down a fork. Someone else said, very softly, “Oh.” Then the whole common room went quiet, because every person in it was breathing in.
Pumpkina breathed in too.
It was cinnamon on a cold morning. It was her grandmother’s kitchen with the door propped open. It was seven years of making tea for no one but herself.
The judge tilted the slice to the light. He turned it over and looked at the bottom. He took a bite, and chewed for a long time.
“The crumb is perfect,” he said. “Moist all the way through.” He took a second bite, which judges never do. “Clove. A little ginger. Very little. That’s brave. Too much is overwhelming.” He set down his fork. “Did your grandmother make this?”
Her eyes filled. She didn’t mean them to. It happened the way steam happens: you only notice once it’s already in the air.
The judge watched one tear run all the way down her cheek and drop off her chin onto the plate.
“Ah,” he said. “There it is.”
He said it kindly. That was the worst part.
“Baking is a discipline, Miss Pumpkina. Composure is an ingredient.” He drew a small circle in the air, taking in her whole face. “This is behavior unbecoming a baker. I’m afraid I’ll have to mark you down for it.”
He took a pencil from his coat and wrote across the bottom of her entry card.
Lovely. Too emotional. 4.
At her elbow, Sway’s hands came out of their sleeves.
“Is that about the cake,” Pumpkina asked, “or about me?”
“Both,” said the judge.
Her breath caught halfway down.
She did not apologize. She took one full breath instead, which had taken her seven years to learn. Then she folded the card in half and tucked it into her apron pocket, beside the blackberry stain. For the rest of the day, she smiled.
She smiled at the winners, a pair of gnome twins with a nine-layer honey cake, who wept openly at their own trophy and lost no points for it. The judge shook both their hands. He had not shaken anyone else’s.
She smiled at the woman who patted her arm and said, “Chin up, love. There’s always next year.” Outside, the drizzle thickened into rain. No one thought anything of it.
By nightfall the party had spread into every corner of the Inn. Fiddles by the fire. Cake on every plate. Someone’s uncle asleep in the coats.
The Barkeep came through the crowd with a tray of empties on one hand. She didn’t stop. She didn’t look down. Her free hand brushed Pumpkina’s apron on the way past, and something small and round slid into the pocket beside the folded card.
If anyone saw, no one said a word.
Pumpkina didn’t notice. She was busy holding something in.
She held it through the second fiddle tune and the third. She held it while Sway brought her a cup of tea she didn’t drink. She held it while the rain came down so hard the fiddler gave up and simply listened.
It pressed up under her ribs, hot and rising.
Then she hiccuped.
And on the hearth a kettle no one had filled began to sing, and the room smelled of salt, and every candle leaned the same way, and the floor tilted under her feet, and Sway’s hand found her wrist, and then...
Two empty stools by the spice cabinet, turning slowly.
The kettle stopped. The rain stopped. Every sound in the Inn stopped but one, a single drip.
Below the spinning barstool, where Pumpkina had been sitting, there was a small puddle of water.
The Barkeep mopped the puddle herself. Then she set two places at the bar and left them there.
Professor Hoot, the resident clockwork owl, entered the incident into the tavern minutes. Because Professor Hoot entered everything into the minutes.
Night one. Rain ceased at 11:52 precisely. Kettle unaccounted for. Two absent.
Night two. Places set regardless. Two absent.
Night three. Two still absent.
On the fourth evening, Wren Everwilling ducked in at the loading door for her usual, as she had every week for eleven years. She took her mug from the Barkeep without looking, already turning back toward the yard.
Then she stopped. She was looking at the two stools.
“Where’s Pumpkina?” Wren said. “And Sway. Sway still owes me the end of a story about a goat.”
The Barkeep told her. It didn’t take long. There wasn’t much to tell.
Wren was already turning for the yard. “Where’d they go? I’ll hitch the cart. I can be anywhere by morning. Happy to.”
“I don’t know where they went,” said the Barkeep. “No one does.”
Wren stood there with her mug in her hand, her weight on her back foot, and nowhere at all to go. No one at the Inn had ever seen her do that before. It looked like it hurt.
Then, in the kitchen, the sink burped.
It was not a small burp. It was long and low and deeply unmannerly, a drain clearing its throat before an announcement. Every head turned. The pipes knocked twice. Something went glonk.
The Barkeep got there first. In the bottom of the sink, in a puddle of grey water, sat a bottle. Corked. Crusted white with salt.
She looked at the drain for a long moment, and did not say what she was thinking.
She carried the bottle to the bar in both hands. Grumm came off his stool so fast he lost his seat and most of his cider. Up in the rafters, Hoot lowered his brass lids to reading height.
The Barkeep worked the cork free, unrolled the card, and read it aloud.
“Dear everyone at the Inn. We’re fine. Don’t worry. Back soon. Love, P.“
The whole room let out its breath.
“There’s more,” said the Barkeep. “P.S. There are hammocks.“
“That’s Sway,” said six people at once.
“Well,” said Grumm, “the hammock will need a name.”
It went to a vote, because at the Come Write Inn everything eventually goes to a vote. Brother Swingstone got one. The Little Heresy got one. Mister Captain Hammock, Sir got two, mostly because Grumm kept saying “Sir“ in a very deep voice until people gave in. Gerald got one vote.
Hoot entered it in the minutes. Motion carried. Gerald has been informed.
“We’re fine,” Wren said slowly. “That’s what I always say.” She sounded surprised.
Grumm climbed up onto his stool and snapped his fingers for silence.
“This one’s called Fine,” he said.
She says she’s fine.
In pencil.
On the back of a card.
In a bottle.
That came up a sink.
He let that sit.
I have written a lot of poems, friends.
I know what fine looks like.
Fine is a word with its hand over its mouth.
Fine
is the word
you write
when you can’t write the other one.
Then he sat down and ate an apple. For a while no one said anything. Folks were busy with their own feels.
Wren drank her coffee standing, as always, by the loading door. One boot angled at the yard. She stayed there until closing.
When the last chair was up on the last table, the Barkeep turned the card over.
On the front, in Pumpkina’s round hand, was a recipe. Grandmother’s Spoon. Pumpkin, cinnamon, clove, a knuckle of ginger, one vanilla bean, and patience. Across the bottom, in neat red pencil: Lovely. Too emotional. 4.
On one side, too emotional. On the other side, fine.
The Barkeep propped it against the till, Pumpkina’s letter facing out. Then she picked up a glass that was already clean, and began to polish it, keeping an eye on something very far away.
Last week, you named the hammock. It is officially Mister Captain Hammock, Sir, with half the vote. Gerald got one, in the comments, and it counts. Gerald has been informed.
Who does that judge think he is? What did the Barkeep slip into Pumpkina’s pocket, and how did she know to do it? Will Wren ever find somewhere to drive?
And most importantly: what on earth will Grumm rhyme with “hammock”?
Votes close Friday at midnight. The winner arrives with Chapter 3.
Checking the sink,
RJ