The bell above the bakery door gave its usual metallic sigh as it closed behind Miriam. She was already peeling off her shawl, the soft linen damp with a thin sheen of dew. A lace of flour danced in the air, catching the morning light like snowfall, though no one remarked on,it had been like that every morning for as long as anyone in Denbridge could remember.

At the counter, Lena was elbow deep in dough, her dark curls pinned high with two mismatched hair sticks and a pencil. She looked up only briefly.

"Yer late, again," she muttered, not unkindly, but loud enough for the boy sweeping in the back to stifle a laugh.

"I'm never late. I'm simply not early like you and the saints," Miriam replied, brushing a bit of flour off the hem of her dress and slipping behind the counter. She tied her apron with a practiced motion, then leaned over to inspect the rising loaves. "That one's sulking," she said, pointing to a loaf with a sullen dip in its center.

"Heard your neighbor's rooster died," Lena said as she returned to kneading. "Maybe your bread misses the morning drama."

Miriam gave a little shrug. "It was a mean bird. The kind that looked like it knew too much."

"It knew you never liked it, that's for sure."

The bell chimed again, twice in a row-once for the door, and then once more as it shut too fast, bringing in a gust of cold wind and a man wrapped in a sea-weathered coat. He walked like he didn't belong to the street outside, nor the one before that. He had a salt-kissed beard and boots that had seen too many harbors, and he carried with him a satchel that clinked faintly.

Lena glanced up. "If it isn't the wandering prophet of the harbor," she said.

"I come bearing coins and rumors," the man said with a grin. "You got bread for both?"

Miriam tried not to look interested. Everyone knew Elias, though not very well. He'd been in Denbridge for nearly a year now, which was long enough for rumors to stick to him like barnacles. Some said he was a cartographer fallen from favor; others whispered about smuggling, though he never seemed to have anything worth smuggling. He spoke little of where he came from, but always had something to say about where others might be going.

"I heard the north trail's been cleared. Storm didn't break the path as bad as they thought," Elias said, accepting a crusty heel of sourdough with a nod of thanks.

"Good news for folk who like to walk in circles," Lena said.

"I'll take circles over standing still," he replied. "Anyway, Miss Runnel says her cat's gone missing. Third one this season. That's news."

Miriam turned slightly. "That woman's cats don't go missing. They escape."

They all chuckled, but the warmth didn't fully reach Elias's eyes.

Behind them, Thom who was barely sixteen and always sweeping things that didn't need sweeping-was now nudging at the door with his broom, pretending to be heroic. "Maybe the cats are forming a militia. Tired of the quiet life. Planning to take the bakery next."

"They'd be cleverer than the magistrate's lot," Lena murmured, to no one in particular.

By the window, the golden light was catching on the ivy outside, which hung in long curls against the brick like hair left to dry. Denbridge was a town of two colors-green and stone-and in summer, even the chimneys tried to sprout moss.

Outside, a cart rolled past slowly, carrying crates of books-Mr. Hayworth's stock from the coast, returned too early by readers who had either finished too fast or never started. In the distance, bells from the chapel rang out, slow and uneven, calling no one in particular but being heard by all.

"Have you ever loved someone you weren't supposed to?" Thom asked suddenly, then reddened as everyone turned to stare at him.

Lena raised an eyebrow. "Is this about Cilla again?"

"No!" He swept harder. "Maybe. She said my poetry was derivative."

"That's because you wrote her a letter that rhymed 'love' with 'dove,'" Miriam said. "And then 'glove.' Twice."

"It was heartfelt!"

Elias chuckled and stood. "Boy, no woman ever ran off with a man for writing like a weathered hymn. Try laughter. Or silence. Silence works better than most words."

"I'll try writing her a poem with no words, then," Thom said solemnly.

"Smart lad," Elias said, walking to the door. He paused before opening it. "Bread's good today. Best it's been since spring."

Then he left, his boots crunching against gravel.

Miriam turned back to the loaves, but the silence he left behind clung to the air. Outside, the sky was bleeding violet into pale blue, and the harbor wind was shifting again, sending gulls inland and shaking the trees. There was something in it-something just out of reach, like a name on the edge of the tongue, or a dream after waking.

But for now, there were loaves to turn and jokes to endure, and a town full of half-spoken things.