Page 3 of Bread by the Grim (Ghostlight Falls #4)

Grim

B etween shifting midmorning and the bakery being a mess, I end up shutting the bakery down for a few days.

My business neighbors are incredibly generous.

Several come by once I’ve returned to normal to help me clean up the mess and set up the glass display cases again.

With their help, it only takes a few days to get the bakery back to normal.

Ghostlight Falls has its faults—the fire department definitely ranks among them—but I've never lived anywhere with kinder neighbors. Most people here are more than happy to help out a neighbor no matter what your species—even if you’re like me and don’t know exactly what species it is.

Still, we're operating at half our normal capacity with Bernice gone. I am basically useless after midnight and can't pick up the slack. Replacing a morning pastry chef is not an easy thing, and the ad I put in the Ghostlight Falls Review gets me no serious leads.

I’m hoping for an adult, maybe a mom with kids or a retiree, but I get a few kids who can’t or won’t get up that early and this strange shadow guy who might have been perfect except everything he said had a strangely sexual connotation to it.

After the third time he made a joke about being alone and “surrounded by these holes” all the time, I decided that he was not the guy for the shop (or for anything really).

Bernice isn’t old, but she’s definitely not young, and it may take her a long time to heal—even after her ankle gets back to normal.

The real fear that she won’t be coming back to the shop takes up a place in the back of my mind, but I resolve to hold her job for her as long as it takes for her to make a decision.

I expect to wait months before she brings it up, but less than two weeks go by before she sends me a text asking me to come by her house after dinner.

I’ve been by her home almost every other afternoon since they let her go home—checking on her and bringing her sweets from the bakery—but this day feels different.

“Grim, I know I said I was planning on coming back to work, but–” Bernice pauses.

She’s sitting in an over-sized recliner with her foot propped up.

“I think it’s time I retire. This ankle will heal, but I’m not young like you.

It’s always going to be a bother now that I’ve hurt it.

My daughter’s been after me for a while to move closer to her, and I think it’s time. ”

I nod. “You should have called me sooner, Bernice. I’d have helped you pack.”

She tsks and shakes her head. “I don’t have much, and my church group was able to get most of it done. So tell me about the bakery. How’s the ad? You get any applicants yet?”

“A few, but nothing’s panned out so far,” I say, trying to think of something that will sound optimistic. “But you know how the summer is a big time for families to move to Fort Pines. I’m sure we’ll get someone in soon who can–”

She rolls her eyes. “Grim, don’t bullshit me.” She reaches for her purse and digs around until she finds a plain piece of white paper. “What would you do without me?” she says, mostly to herself as she unfolds it and smooths out the wrinkles before handing it to me.

On the paper are two things–a name and a number:

Phil

555-556-5435

“I have a cousin who has a kid that just graduated from culinary school, and they’re just doing what kids do–drifting around, not doing much, certainly not making enough money to pay those loans back.

Anyway, I called my cousin up and told her about your predicament, and the long and short of it is her kid, Phil, will be here tomorrow. ”

A college grad drifting around not wanting to work?

He sounds like a spoiled brat. Instantly my mind fills with images of the kids I’ve interviewed over the past few days.

No one was willing to wake up early enough to even start the coffee for me, let alone replace Bernice.

No one wanted to work weekends or turn on ovens or even touch dough.

It’s not likely this kid will be much different.

“Thanks, Bernice, but that seems like a lot to come all the way out here for. What if Phil doesn’t like Ghostlight Falls or isn’t into pastry? What if—” I want to fire him, I almost say but stop myself.

“Don’t you worry about all that. I’ve got a place set up for Phil while you two decide if it’s the right fit.”

She reaches out and pats the closest thing to her with her giant furry hand—my knee. “Don’t you worry about this, Grim. This will all work out. I promise.”

I clear my throat. I’m sure it will. Eventually.

Or I’ll just have to restructure Grim’s.

I could always change from a breakfast/lunch place to a lunch/dinner place.

Though the competition in Ghostlight Falls is fierce.

There are so many places like Ratcliff’s, the fancy restaurant by the falls, that I could never compete with.

“It will. But what can I do for you, Bernice? How are you getting to your daughter’s house? ”

She smiles and leans back in her chair and starts to tell me all her plans. I don’t say much. I just sit back and listen and try to be happy for her.

Later that night, I find the piece of paper with Phil’s number in my pants pocket as I undress before bed.

I should probably call him and see if he needs me to arrange for a shuttle or something.

Sasquatch travel, even in this day and age, can be tricky.

Ghostlight Falls is better at having options for larger cryptids than most. The city buses can all accommodate most of the largest known cryptids, but shuttles out to the airport might be more difficult to come by.

I set the paper carefully on the nightstand next to my bed before I strip down and promise myself to shoot him a text as soon as the sun releases me.

I lay out my clothes on the bed for the next day, then move to the corner of the room next to Sam’s tank. He swims around oblivious to me and the rest of the world.

Here at night, the building is so still and quiet. The walls are so thick, you can’t even hear the sounds of the annual frog orgy down by the Wonder Hole that seems to last longer and longer each year.

In fact, the only sound in the room is the soft, quiet bubbling of Sam’s water filter.

I’d love a cat or dog—anything really—to break up the quiet at night, but it’s not safe.

I’m only partially coherent when I shift, and I can’t stand the thought of accidentally hurting something or someone if the spell doesn’t work.

I turn out the light and head to the closet where I lock myself in, whisper the words of the spell, and blackout as the last syllable crosses my lips.

The hours between midnight and dawn are nothing to me when the spell works.

It’s like being put under for surgery—a more abrupt sleep of sorts where everything shuts off and I can hear and see nothing.

I know locking myself in a closet above a bakery is dangerous, but it’s truly the only way I know how to control the gremlin—the part of me that’s feral and wild.

The part that’s too quick to anger and rage.

I manage to keep it locked away well enough—mostly.

Bernice’s accident was a slip but a necessary slip.

The earliest morning light seeps in through the tiny weird window in the closet, pulling me from my frozen state. I’m tempted to just lay on the floor for a few extra minutes and stare at the ceiling in the gray morning light, but a small series of thuds catches my attention.

There are three in a row, a pause, and then three more.

I sit completely still, holding my breath and listening again.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Is that someone…knocking?

I start to worry that I forgot to flip the closed sign and some random tourist thinks we’re open.

The ones who will show up this early just for coffee are insane and not to be trifled with.

It took me weeks to deal with the aftermath of some witch who cursed the bakery with sticky dough when we ran out of coffee my first month in town, and I’m not about to deal with that again (though I do have some pretty solid antispell charms in place).

I skip my usual dressing ritual and pull on my pants as quickly as I can, racing down the back stairs as the thuds grow louder and louder.

From the back of the shop, I can see no one out front, but that means nothing.

Some of the local trolls living under the waterfall bridge can barely reach most doors.

I hurry through the shop, catching my knee against the counter, and unlock the front door only to find myself facing a woman.

A regular human woman.

Well, regular would be the wrong word. She’s stunning—even in sweatpants and an old college shirt, her hair curls around her face, framing it like a halo of light. I can’t stop staring at her. It’s like an angel has appeared on my doorstep.

Her hand is mid-knock as I yank the door open. Her perfect pink lips form an O of surprise as her knuckles continue through with the movement, hitting my chest hard. She pulls her hand back in surprise.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” she says, rubbing the spot she just knocked and then turning red. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be groping strangers. I’m sorry. I just—I’m looking for Grim.”

“I’m Grim.” As usual, it comes out louder and gruffer than I intended it to. The woman turns even redder.

“Hi,” she says, holding out her hand for me to shake. It’s then that I notice several suitcases behind her. One in particular starts to hiss. “Bernice sent me. I’m Phillipa. I’m your new pastry chef.”