The Baker Who Swallowed Winter

How it begins

Rosa Keene swallowed winter while checking whether a snowflake tasted of smoke. The valley had been complaining about the chimney all week, and she was trying to be helpful.

One moment frost covered the bakery window. The next, the hills turned green. Snow slid off the roof and vanished before it reached the ground. Rosa's breath came out in a white cloud large enough to obscure the cake counter.

She put down the tray.

The oven went cold.

Outside, somebody cheered. The grocer opened his shutters. Children ran into the square without coats. By noon, the mayor had called it a seasonal improvement and ordered bunting from storage. Nobody asked why the baker was wearing three scarves beside an unlit stove.

Mateo Voss arrived carrying a branch from his orchard. Its buds had opened too soon. He set it between the bread baskets.

'This is bad,' he said.

Rosa nodded. An icicle had formed on her teaspoon.

'How bad?'

He looked at her mouth.

'I think I ate it,' she said.

Mateo took a chair without being invited. Orchard keepers understood the value of sitting down before discussing things a person could not immediately fix.

'All of it?'

'It was a very small snowflake.'

A wind moved beneath Rosa's ribs. She felt the valley's frozen ponds, its sleeping seeds, the deep quiet under the roots. She had always called winter the difficult season. Now, carrying it inside her, she could feel how much work it did while everyone accused it of doing nothing.

The first spring flowers were already drooping in the square. Mateo turned the branch so she could see the tender buds.

'We need to put it back before the trees spend everything they saved.'

Rosa covered her mouth as another cloud escaped. Somewhere in her chest, a pond cracked.

'I'm afraid,' she said, 'it may have started waking up.'