For ages a thunder of seven-headed dragons torched the northern territories. The west wind blew smoke and ash across the kingdom while the skies fluctuated in color from alien orange to the darkest charcoal gray. The dragons were greedy, though. They hoarded food and fought constantly amongst themselves, eventually to the point of extinction. On the day the last dragon died, the west wind blew extra forcefully to reveal crystal skies filled with clean, rejuvenating air. In a small village not too far from there, a girl was born to two loving, if poor, fathers. To honor the return of the bright skies, they named the baby Clairee.

       The family lived happily within walking distance of the village. Clairee’s fathers protected and provided for her. They loved her very much. Every morning Papaá rose with the rooster’s crow to start baking so Clairee could wake to the smell of fresh bread. They breakfasted on toast with marmalade. From the time she entered preschool, Papab used the fresh bread to make sandwiches for himself and Clairee before they walked into the village.

       On their way to school, Clairee always stopped at the end of the lane beside a small pond that was home to a bale of turtles. She was especially fond of one turtle with yellow and red stripes on its neck who kept to the far side of the pond. Clairee would drop Papab’s hand to question the loner, “Why are you so alone, little turtle?” Then she would pinch a morsel of bread from her sandwich and feed it to the turtle.

     When Clairee reached her last year of school Papaá still baked bread of a morning and she still fed bits to the lonely turtle on the way to school. She grew into a very beautiful young woman, so it was no surprise when a handsome youth from the village began to visit. The boy, Tony, had thick blond hair that fell rakishly across one eye. He wrapped his neck in a fetching scarf with yellow and red stripes. The two enjoyed reading, so much of the time they sat in the porch swing reading books and discussing the books they’d already read. Her junior year, Clairee invited Tony to the Sadie Hawkins dance, but he declined, saying that it was past his curfew. She invited him to dinner with her fathers several times, but he always declined, citing the same early curfew.

      At the end of her senior year, Clairee wanted to celebrate her graduation, so Tony finally agreed to have dinner with her and her fathers as long as they could eat within the two hours around dusk. Clairee planned a late-afternoon celebration the Friday following graduation. She urged Papab to hurry home from his job and she asked Papaá to bake an extra loaf of bread. She slaughtered the rooster in the afternoon to make coq au vin.

      Tony arrived a few minutes early, so Clairee served him some of the wine she hadn’t used for the chicken. Papaá and Papab talked about how it was nice to finally meet Tony. When they asked about his family, Tony said he lived nearby, but he was homeschooled. This explained why he didn’t attend the village school with Clairee. Papab had been homeschooled, too, so he felt an affinity with the youth. He opened another bottle of wine.

        “Your parents enforce a strict curfew,” Papaá probed.

        The wine had relaxed Tony’s guard.

        “It’s not my parents,” Tony said, staring into his goblet. “I’m under the spell of a crone.”

       “You have to watch out for dealings with crones,” Papab, also feeling the sauce, said. “We nearly entered into an arrangement for Clairee. Luckily, we found alternative means.”

      “The thing is,” Tony continued, “I am actually the lone turtle you used to feed at the pond.”

        “Tony the turtle?” Clairee asked incredulously.

        “Clairee!” Papaá chided.

    “Explains the scarf,” Papab nodded with satisfaction at having made this connection.

        “I only assume my human form for two hours every day around dusk. When the sun sets completely, I return to my chelonian form.”

        “Bummer,” Papab said. “Is there a way to break the enchantment?”

        Tony explained that he carried a silver ring. If he could offer it to someone and convince them to remain faithful to him while he circumnavigated the earth as a turtle, he could permanently remain human upon his return.

        “I was hoping to ask you, Clairee,” he said, staring into her eyes.

Clairee returned Tony’s gaze. She truly wanted to help her book buddy and friend.

“What exactly are the terms of ‘faithful’?” Clairee asked.

      “You won’t bestow your affections on another,” Tony explained. “If you kiss a man or woman, then I remain a turtle forever.”

      “Or at least until you get your ring back and try it with someone else,” Papab said, garnering glares from his family. “I mean that’s possible, right?”

        “Papab!” Papaá scolded.

      Clairee thought for a minute, but she didn’t sense much risk that she would bestow her affection on anyone else. Other than her parents, Tony was pretty much the only person for whom she felt fondness. He was different from the guys at school who were into sports like water polo, lacrosse, and pickleball. Had she bestowed affection on Tony? She wasn’t entirely sure, but she wanted to help if she could.

      “Ok,” Clairee said, taking a gulp of wine. “I’ll do it, but you have to send me postcards from every stop along the way.”

        “Deal,” Tony said with a smile.

        He slid the silver ring onto Clairee’s finger and leaned his face close to hers as if to prompt a kiss. Clairee turned her cheek to accept his peck.

       “This ring is magic,” Tony added. “Twist it on your finger, and it will grant any wish for good.”

       “Awesome,” Papab said, pulling Clairee’s hand aside. “Clairee can wish for you to be human!”

         “It doesn’t work that way,” Tony said.

       Just as the sun set completely behind the distant hills. Clairee and her fathers watched in amazement as Tony transformed into the turtle with the yellow-and-red-striped neck. It took him a few minutes to crawl to the door, but he finally made it over the threshold. Clairee, Papab, and Papaá waved as he embarked on his journey.

​

The postcards from Tony started to arrive from “The Big Potato,” “Sow Town of the West,” and “Seasoning Salt Pond.” Clairee was disappointed that the postcard from the Sow Town did not depict a fantastical city populated with pigs living in truffle-shaped houses, but a row of shabby casinos. She had always loved reading about far-off places, but so far Tony’s tour didn’t inspire travel envy. As for herself, she considered community college, but she wasn’t eager to return to school. She told Papaá and Papab she was going to seek work in the village.

        On her way to town, she stopped by the pond where the turtles lounged happily, seemingly unaware of Tony’s absence. She tossed some crumbs from her pocket into the water and continued on her way. At the near side of the bridge into town, she encountered a woman in tattered clothes squatting beneath the brick arches.

        “Auntie,” Clairee asked, “how can I help?”

        “My belly is empty,” the woman said, “and my clothes don’t keep out the wind.”

     Clairee wondered where she could find some clothes for the woman.  There weren’t any to fit a crone back home. She considered the second-hand shop downtown, but she had scarcely any money. Then she remembered the silver ring. She had not yet tested it and, frankly, she doubted its power. However, it couldn’t hurt to try. Clairee closed her eyes and envisioned the woman fully dressed and eating a meal.

        “May this woman be clothed and fed,” Clairee said, giving the ring a good turn.

A rat scrambled into a hole between the stones—otherwise nothing. The crone stared at Clairee with squinting eyes and a quizzical look.

        “Thank you for your prayer, dearie,” she finally said.

        The woman had barely finished speaking when a package dropped from the top of the arch with a loud thump. Clairee fetched the bundle wrapped in butcher paper and twine. The crone produced a pocket knife so Clairee could cut the twine. Inside were two fresh loaves of bread, a lightweight ankle length dress, an all-weather cloak, and a blanket. There was even a small jar of fruit conserve.

     “Would you look at that?” Clariee said, hearing Papab’s wonder in her own voice.

        “Thank you” the crone said. “From the bottom of my crusty heart.”

      Clairee was delighted that she’d provided for the woman. She was also glad to know that the ring worked, yet she still remained skeptical. She had read entire sagas about magical rings ruining lives and jeopardizing civil society. There remained the possibility that the ring would interpret her wish too literally or use alternate meanings for her words.

        “What if the ring had offered me up to satisfy the crone’s hunger?” she thought.

        She should be careful with her wishes.

​

In town, Clairee looked for bakery work. She had always loved Papaá’s breads and the times in the evening they spent together baking apple pan dowdy, sticky puddings, and fruit cobblers. She checked the corkboards in the coffee shops to see who was hiring. There was a position for a production baker at a bread and pastry factory that supplied all the coffee shops, but Papab had long worked in factories. His experiences had left Clairee suspicious of the factory environment.

      She wandered around different neighborhoods to see what the village had to offer. She strolled past chain bakeries, bakery/cafe combos, and the occasional family-run shop. Many seemed to offer factory goods and none of them were hiring. Clairee eventually found herself in an older neighborhood where the shop signs were hand painted in a familiar, yet illegible, script. The sidewalk transformed into an open-air market with stalls stocked with items she had never seen: dehydrated sea creatures—eels, squid, shrimp, and blowfish. Then there were other, stranger, creatures that looked like they hailed from outer space. There were bins overflowing with dried blossoms, stems, fungi, and roots of all colors and textures. There were jars and vials containing mysterious liquids, powders, tablets, and who-knows-what.

        Clairee found herself entranced by a short woman with a shock of gray hair who browsed carefully through the wares. The woman occasionally paid a vendor for a bottle or tube that she would stuff into the large woven basket on her hip. Clairee lost track of herself and followed the woman as she strolled away from the market, toot tooting as she walked. She turned down an alleyway and, coincidentally, to a small bakery with a sign on the door that read, “Chill. Back in 20.”

         Inside, a few small tables were scattered in front of a pastry counter. Dust danced in the air, but the surfaces appeared clean. Several ornate iron bird cages hung empty from the ceiling. The woman poured herself a cup of coffee from a pot behind the counter that looked like it had been brewing for several days, if not weeks. Clairee marveled at the incredible pastries in the case: pies in the shapes of venison hearts, little puddings that seemed to undulate with breath, fungus tarts with a fern-like garnish, and skulls, apparently from tiny woodland creatures, with puff pastry lids. 

      “Excuse me, ma’am, may I have one of those?” Clairee pointed to the fungus tarts.

         “No,” the woman replied, matter-of-factly.

         “What about one of those lovely puddings?”

         “That one will give you gas for days.”

         Clairee thought she must be speaking from experience.

         “Which do you recommend?” She asked.

         “They’re not for sale.”

         Clairee sighed.

        “I’ve walked from the countryside, ma’am. I’ve wandered the city all day seeking work and I’m quite hungry.”

        “Why didn’t you say so?” the woman chuckled. “Serve yourself some coffee. I’ll be right back.”

         Clairee cringed at the sight of the coffee.

         “It’s not optional,” the woman said as if she could read Clairee’s thoughts.

      Clairee poured just enough coffee to cover the bottom of a mug. The door blew open and a flock of chattering pink parrots flew in. They circled the room twice before settling into the cages. The woman returned with a plate of little toasts, cheese slices, and a ramekin of marmalade and set it on a table next to a bookcase. Seeing that Clairee had only taken a trickle of coffee, she filled the mug to overflowing. Clairee thanked her and dipped her pinky into the marmalade that glittered in its ramekin. It numbed her tongue.

      “The fruit comes from the oldest citrus tree in the distant east,” the woman explained. “You will never taste another like it.”

        Clairee nibbled the cheese and spread the marmalade on the crackers. It felt like the snack was consuming her. The parrots started to complain about the city leaders’ incapacity to help unhoused folk. She wanted to recount her experience with the woman underneath the bridge, but she couldn’t stop eating, except for occasional sips of coffee which didn’t taste as terrible as it looked. She detected a hint of cardamom. As soon as Clairee felt satisfied, she noticed her plate was empty. Her attention returned to the room. The woman was futzing about the counter, but, apparently, at some point she had opened the door for the parrots to fly out.

         “Thank you for the snack, Auntie,” Clairee said. “How much do I owe you?”

      “Your gratitude is enough, child,” the woman said. “Now I have things to attend to.”

        Clairee fell in love with this strange little place, its bizarre pastries, bird cages, and cardamom coffee. She was meant to work here.

         “Can I come here to work with you?” She asked.

         “No!” the woman said. “I’m not looking for help.” 

      “Bread is in my blood,” Clairee said. “And I did great in reading, math, and science in school.”

         The woman didn’t budge.

     Feeling dejected, Clairee started to leave. When she laid her hand on the doorknob, she noticed the silver ring. Clairee returned to the counter where the woman was busy wiping the coffee maker.

      “Please let me come work here,” Clairee said, twisting the ring around her finger.

      “Well,” the woman said dryly.  “Seems I can’t refuse such a beautiful young apprentice.”

         She fetched a heavy volume from the bookshelf. The front cover was falling off. The pages were dog-eared, foxed, tattered, and torn. She hefted it onto the counter.

         “Take this home and study it,” the woman said. “Return here tomorrow at 4:30 a.m. sharp to get started. You must learn to bake every recipe before you earn a penny.”

         Clairee hefted the book off the table.

         “You won’t be disappointed,” she said. “I promise.”

​

By the time Clariee arrived home, her arms were aching from carrying the book. Papaá was cooking dinner and Papab was reading a graphic novel by the hearth.

       “Papas! I got a job at a bakery,” she announced, plopping the book onto the kitchen table.

        “That’s sweet, darling,” Papaá said. “Another postcard came from Tony. Looks like he made it to Gray Guy Mountain.”

       Clariree accepted the card which depicted a mountain in a barren landscape which had been carved with giant, surly faces of old men. She didn’t read the note, but stuffed it inside the back cover of the book, which was called The Crafty Crone’s Universal Guide to Unusual Loaves.

       Clairee began thumbing through the recipes, which were so unusual she had trouble reading any single one. As she read the ingredients, they would lapse into unfamiliar words before shifting languages and alphabets altogether. Some of the script looked like it was written by a child. She swore the typeface changed while she was reading it. Her heart sank.

       “My boss told me to study this book,” she moaned, slapping the cover closed. “But I can’t understand anything.”

         “Patience, Clairee,” Papaá said.

         “Let me look,” Papab said, joining her at the table.

         Clairee pushed the book toward him.

         “Oohh,” he cooed. “Unusual is right.”

         “Thanks, Einstein,” Clairee said, rolling her eyes.

         “Child,” Papab said, unaffected, “just turn your magic ring.”

     She knew Papab was anxious to witness some magic, but his eyes looked infinitely deep and sincere in that moment. She did not want to use the ring for selfish purposes, but she desperately wanted to work in the bakery. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and meditated for a brief moment. What good could she do by becoming a baker? There was the opportunity to feed people. To nourish them. This was definitely an opportunity for the greater good.

      She twisted the ring and wished, “May I receive the gifts this volume has to offer.”

       “Why don’t you have some dinner before you try again,” Papaá offered, handing her a bowl fragrant with rice, vegetables, and fried tofu. “You’re hungry, girl.”

       Clairee hadn’t realized just how hungry she was, having only eaten the cheese snack at the baker. She thanked her fathers, piled her plate on top of her book, and retreated to her room to eat and to study.

     She sat on her bed with the bowl in her lap. Papaá was a fantastic cook. Comforted by the meal, she read the introduction to the cookbook. The script was still unfamiliar, but it settled on the page. The letters stopped their transformations. A woman’s voice, clear and sweet, spoke the words directly into her consciousness.

         “In your hands,” the voice said, “you hold the secrets to the most ancient form of alchemy. From these pages you will learn to combine fire, water, air, and earth in the most incredible ways to bring delight, joy, and wholeness to yourself and those around you. . . . ”

         Clairee was entranced and she could not stop reading the whole night. She didn’t look at the clock until 4 a.m. when the neighbor’s cock crowed. 

         “Shit!” She shouted. “I’m late!”

​

The front door to the bakery was locked when Clairee arrived. The cafe area remained dark. The parrots snored so loudly in their cages, Clairee could hear them through the glass. There was no bell or knocker, so she turned down a side alley and found the back door, upon which she knocked loudly. After a minute without a response, she knocked even more loudly. The door creaked open and the gray-haired woman stuck out her flour-dusted head.

         “I said NO deliveries on Wednesday!” she shouted.

         Then, recognizing Clairee, she said, “Oh, it’s you. You’re late!”

         The clock hanging next to the oven read 4:32.

         Clairee thought, “I’ve been knocking for two minutes,” but held her tongue.

         “Arrive late again,” the woman laughed, “and I’ll toss you in the oven.”

        She didn’t look like the “tossing-girls-in-the-oven” types Clairee had read about, but she did not want to take chances.

       “I spent the whole night reading the book,” she said eagerly. “I can’t wait to start.”

        “Grab me some coffee and grab one for yourself,” the woman said. “It’s going to be a long day.”

      The day was indeed long. The woman, Bernice, kept reminding Clairee that professional baking was not the same as home baking. She did not want Clairee to watch her perform any of her baking tasks, but rather sent Clairee to the counter with a stack of manuals for the stand mixer, the walk-in icebox, the food processor, and the ancient oven with rotating shelves. Clairee did as she was told and drank copious amounts of cardamom coffee.

       Around 8 a.m., Bernice slapped a shopping list on the table and said, “I need these things from the market down the street.”

         Clairee reviewed the list, which was written in glyphs and characters that she’d never seen—not even in the Universal Guide.

      “I’ll be back shortly,” she said, grabbing the woven basket from beneath the counter.

        Clairee did not, in fact, return shortly. The labels at the market were written in characters that seemed reflective of, yet did not precisely resemble, the characters on the list and none of them were in the same order.

         “I could use the Rosetta Stone of alchemical baking ingredients,” she thought.

       Clairee observed the other shoppers who, at first, seemed to be picking items off the shelf like any other market. Then she noticed that they were caressing the boxes, bottles, and tubes; smelling them; holding them to their ears. She took three deep breaths and summoned the voice in her head that read to her from the bread book during the night. The voice came, sweet and light. It directed her among the aisles to every item on her list.

      By the time Clairee returned to Bernice’s bakery, it was mid-afternoon. The parrots were all chattering in their cages. One particularly bright pink one sniped, “Look what the cat dragged in.”

       Clairee placed the bag on the counter. The pastry display was overflowing. It smelled magnificent.

         “Took you long enough,” Bernice said, emerging from the kitchen.

         “I had some difficulty reading the labels,” Clairee said.

       “I guess that is to be expected,” Bernice said, offering her a plate of cookies. “Here, try one of these.”

        The cookie was thin, crisp, and golden brown with a circle of jelly right in the center. Clairee savored it slowly. The jelly was fruity but a little bit spicy.

         “How do you get them so flaky and rich?” she asked.

       “Probably back before you were born,” Bernice said, “there were some dragons terrorizing the North. When the last one died it was said to be incredibly fat from having eaten the rest of the thunder. My mentor sent me and a couple of other apprentices into the mountains to find the carcass and harvest the fat. It took several trips to collect it all. Dragon lard can take months to render, but you’ll never bake with anything else like it. And it never spoils.”

         “Dragon lard,” Clairee said.

        It was getting dark by the time Clairee finished cleaning the bakery and setting everything up for the next day. By the time she got home, her dads had already eaten dinner and were listening to radio shows in the living room.

         “Your plate’s in the fridge,” Papaá said.

         “How was the job?” Papab asked.

      “Incredible,” Clairee said from the kitchen where she took her plate from the fridge. “And incredibly exhausting.”

       In her bedroom, she set her plate on her nightstand, and changed into her pajamas. She climbed into bed and nibbled a bit at her rice and vegetables before cracking open the Universal Guide. Her eyes had barely settled onto the page before she dropped into the most profound slumber.

​

After a few weeks, Bernice finally allowed Clairee to bake. She did not train her, but expected her to figure things out from the Universal Guide and other recipe books and instruction manuals. There were triumphs and disasters. The firefighters only had to come one time, when a tree-sized loaf ignited when Clairee removed it from the oven. 

     Clairee loved the bakery, but she didn’t understand how Bernice stayed in business, since she never sold anything. Customers came in, mostly women who seemed sick, down on their luck, or depressed. Bernice offered them some pastry or another, but requested nothing but gratitude in return. They always left with their woes lightened. Clairee loved that Bernice helped people, but she sometimes got tired of working at the bakery known for the eccentric baker and her parrots. She imagined a bustling business where folks lined up around the block for croissants and scones and cinnamon buns.

      One morning when the parrots were out and it was just Clariree and Bernice drinking cardamom coffee, Clairee asked, “Do you ever think about selling your wares?”

         “I don’t need to,” Bernice said. “I am taken care of and I take care of others.”

Clairee started fidgeting with her ring.

         “Don’t you think that if we sold some pastries and brought joy to the average customer, we’d be able to help even more people with your specialty healing pies?” She asked.

         Bernice said, “I like things the way they’ve always been.”

        “I want this bakery to be a spectacular success,” Clairee said, rotating her ring completely on her finger.

         She’d hardly finished her sentence when a woman in a power suit burst through the door.

         “It smells delicious in here,” the woman declared.

         “We’re closed,” Bernice said.

         “Don’t mind her,” Clairee said. “How may I help you?”

        “I have an important meeting tomorrow morning and want croissants for my colleagues. Can I order a dozen?”

         “We don’t sell croissants,” Bernice said.

         “We’ll have them ready for you by 7 a.m.,” Clairee said. “That’ll be thirty dollars.”

       Bernice glared at Clairee. After the woman left, she said, “This is your doing. The moment it interferes with my work, I will shut it all down.”

         “You’ll see,” Clairee said. “It will be amazing.”

         Bernice harrumphed and went back to baking.

        The croissants were a hit.  Even as Clairee worked her way through the Crafty Crone’s Guide to Universal Loaves, she added more exquisitely baked traditional pastries to the menu and she sold them for a fair price. Word spread quickly about the quirky bakery with the pink parrots. Lines started forming around the block. The local food critic gave them a starred review. The queen insisted on their scones daily, much to the chagrin of the palace baker. The cardamom coffee was quite popular with the hipster set. 

         Word spread, too, that the baker was very beautiful.

         One evening not long before closing, three dapper gentlemen entered the shop.

         “The pickin’s are slim, boys,” Clairee said.

        “Well, miss, we’re not here for the baked goods,” said one man who had a bushy blond mustache.

         “We’re out of cardamom coffee,” Clairee said.

         “We don’t want coffee, either,” said another man with a rakish red beard.

         “The parrots are not for sale,” Clairee quipped, causing the birds to twitter.

         “I’ll just get right to it,” said the third man who wore a brown goatee. “I’ll give you a thousand dollars to go on a date with me.”

         “My heavens,” Clairee said.

         “I’ll give you two thousand!” said the red beard.

         “I’ll make it three!” said the blond mustache.

         “Hey! Bozos!” barked a parrot. “This is a bakery!”

         “The brothel’s down the street!” chirped another.

       “Hush, hush!” Clairee said to calm the birds. “Gentleman, I must admit that these are very strange proposals.”

     It turns out that Clairee had her eye on a storefront on the main drag downtown, but she was struggling to gather ample cash for the deposit.

       “You there, with the blond pornstache,” Clairee said. “I’ll take the cash now. Come visit me tomorrow at closing time.”

       Blond mustache whooped. He pulled a wad of hundreds from his wallet and slapped them on the counter in front of Clairee. Meanwhile, the other two lowered their heads in dejection.

         “Chins up, boys,” Clairee said with a wink. “You just might get your turns.”

         The next evening, blond mustache showed up on schedule. Clairee greeted him and invited into the kitchen where she said she was finishing up.

        “I need to count the till. Can you finish kneading that dough for me?” Clairee asked, pointing to a mound in the middle of the baker’s table.

         “Yes miss,” blond mustache said, rolling up his sleeves.

         “Wash your hands for twenty seconds first.”

         “Yes miss,” he said. He washed his hands and began to knead.

         “May he knead all night,” Clairee whispered, turning the silver ring.

         She counted her till and went home. When she arrived the next morning, blond mustache was still there, disheveled and sweaty, kneading away.

      “You haven’t finished kneading that dough yet?” Clairee chided. “Get out of here.”

       The young man was so frustrated he fled through the door. That afternoon at lunch, red beard showed up at the counter. Clairee took his two thousand dollars and instructed him to return around closing time. When he showed up that evening, Clairee asked him into the kitchen while she finished up.

     “The oven needs to stay hot overnight, so Bernice and I can start baking immediately when we arrive in the morning.” She said, pointing to the bellows. “Can you fuel it for me while I count the till?”

         Red beard agreed.

          “May he pump the bellows all night,” Clairee whispered with a turn of her ring.

         She finished her accounting and went home for the night. The next morning he was still there, exhausted and sooty, pumping away.

         “You’re still there fanning the fire?” Clairee said. “Get out of here.”

      That afternoon at lunchtime, the man with the brown goatee arrived at the bakery counter. Clairee relieved him of his thousand dollars and told him to come back at quitting time. The man arrived on time with his hair groomed and his goatee waxed. Clairee was just putting the covers over the parrots so they could sleep.

       “If you just lock up the door for me, good sir,” Clairee said, handing him the key, “I can wrap things up in the kitchen.”

         With a turn of her ring, Clairee wished, “May he lock all night.”

      Clairee finished her bookkeeping and left through the back door. When she arrived the next morning, the man was still futzing with the lock.

         “You still haven’t locked the door? We’ll be opening again before long.”

         “It wasn’t my fault,” the brown-goateed man protested with big, sad eyes.

       He was so sweet-faced that Clairee felt a pang of remorse for keeping him at keeping him all night. But it was his fault for participating in the asinine game of bidding for dates. Of the three suitors, he was the cheapest but the most handsome. She was tempted to offer him a kiss, but a voice in the back of her head reminded her of her promise to Tony.

         She plucked the key from his hand and slapped him on the rump.

         “Get out of here!” she said.

         As soon as he’d run off, she fired up the coffee maker, removed the covers from the parrots’ cages, and started to whistle a jaunty tune.

       “You seem awful cheerful,” Bernice said poking her head through the kitchen door.

         “Madame,” she said. “We’re moving downtown.”

​

The build-out of the new bakery space on the main drag took several months. Clairee upgraded the oven to a high-efficiency model heated naturally with dragon’s teeth. A local artist installed living trees so that the parrots could roost in the branches and you could eat your pastries beneath the lush canopy of leaves. In the meantime, blond mustache reported Clairee to the police, but she saw them coming and used the ring to trap them in a game of leap-frog. The only way for the cops to stop the game, she told them, was to eat one of her vegan donuts every day.

         Everyone in town came to the opening. Papaá and Papab dressed in their finest disco drag. The queen and her consort were in attendance along with the mayor and his beautiful wife. The business lady brought her colleagues, which gave the affair a bit of a convention sensibility for an hour or two. The parrots were in rare form mocking the locals and tourists who lined up down the street and around the block. The cops came for their donuts and Clairee’s thwarted suitors showed up to see the fruits of their lost investments. Children ran in and out of the adults’ legs trying to get a look at the fantastical forest dining room. Even the poor woman who Clairee first helped under the bridge came.

        The crowds didn’t abate until late afternoon. Papaá and Papab stayed to help in the dish room. Finally Clairee, Bernice, and her dads were able to sit down for a few minutes at a table near the front door that was open to a soothing breeze.

         Clairee noticed that Papab was staring intently out the door.

         “What is it?” She asked.

         “I think, I think,” Papab stuttered, pointing to the sidewalk.

      It was unmistakable. Where the crowds had been lined up only a short time before, ambled a turtle with a distinctive yellow-and-red-striped neck. The rays of early evening sunlight struck his beautiful shell giving it an almost heavenly glow. As he crossed the threshold to the bakery, he transformed, once again, into a young man.

       Tony now had long hair and a beard. His striped scarf was tattered from his travels. His cardigan was worn through at the elbows and there were holes in his oxfords.

         Clairee stood and greeted him at the door with a hug.

         “Clairee,” he said, holding on just a little too long.

         “Tony,” she said. “Come have a seat. Papab, can you grab Tony a coffee, please?”

         “No, that’s OK,” Tony said. “I have so much to tell you. We have to be going.”

         “We?” Papaá repeated.

       “You’ve just arrived,” Bernice said. “You have to try a pastry. They’re the best around.”

        “I’ve had pastries in every city on Earth. I want to show you, Clairee,” Tony said. “I explained in my postcards.”

         “Well you haven’t had Clairee’s pastries,” Papaá quipped.

        The postcards. Clairee had not thought about the postcards for months. From the time she started working through The Crafty Crone’s Universal Guide to Unusual Loaves she’d had no time to read anything else. That included Tony’s short notes from his travels.

         “I’ve been busy,” she said. “With the bakery.”

      From the pocket of his sequined blazer, Papab removed a stack of postcards secured with a rubber band. He handed them to Clairee, who shuffled briefly through the images of exotic locales.

         “Have you been faithful?” Tony asked.

         “I’ve kissed no one,” Clairee said, annoyed that she had to make this confession.

      “Let’s go, then,” Tony said. “We can be married and make a honeymoon of circling the globe.”

         “I don’t want to circle the globe,” Clairee insisted. “I want to bake.”

       “That was the point of this task,” Tony said, “The whole walking around the world thing.”

         “I thought the point was so that you could become human.”

         “Why did you think you had to remain faithful?”

        “Crones are gonna crone,” Pabab said. “They always have some random element to their enchantments.”

         “I’m glad you’re human now,” Clairee said. “But I’m staying right here.”

         Tony stared blankly into her unforgiving eyes.

         “Would you even have this bakery if it weren’t for the ring?” he asked.

         “How dare you!” Clairee snapped.

         “Would you?” he asked.

     Clairee closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She saw the homeless woman underneath the bridge, now clothed and fed. She imagined all the crowds of people to whom she brought delight every day. She thought of the women that came to her and Bernice for help, advice, and care. She heard the sassy voices of the parrots. She smelled the yeast, the flour, the coffee, and the cardamom. She felt the warmth from the dragon-warmed oven. The sweet voice in her head whispered, “What about your own purpose and joy?”

         She opened her eyes to see Tony staring desperately.

         “I did my part,” she said calmly. “I don’t owe you anything.”

         Tony blanched, dumbstruck, yet he opened his mouth as if to speak.

       “You know what, Tony?” Clairee gripped the ring on her finger. “I liked you better as a turtle.”

         That said, she gave the silver ring a little twist.