Chapter 10: Run It Again

Aino's POV

The Parting Loaf has to be baked by the one being parted, alone, the night before.

Ulla had put it on the Run Sheet as Item 13.9.

I baked three.

Of course I baked three.

The first came out too pale and would have crumbled on the first touch.

The second had a crust so hard that Nils would have needed a hatchet.

I stood at the lodge's second oven at midnight, flour to my elbows.

The third loaf was proofing under a cloth, and I listened to the lake.

It was the night of the twentieth.

The feast began at seven the next evening, and Item 14 was set for nine.

I had run the howl, the kitchen door and the compost.

I had not run the Round, because Soren Halme had declined it each time.

I had put each refusal in the log.

Since Item 31, I had stopped rehearsing to survive the rejection.

I had started rehearsing to leave.

The bakehouse door opened.

It was Hilkka, in her quilted vest, carrying a thermos and a folding stool.

"You'll want to sit," she said.

"I'm not sitting. It's got another twenty minutes."

"Then stand and talk to your grandmother."

She put the stool by the proofing rack and sat on it herself.

She unscrewed the thermos and poured coffee into the lid.

"I'm going to tell you something," she said, "and you're going to say nothing, because you're kneading."

"I'm not kneading."

"You're about to be."

I put my hands in the dough.

"The Naming," Hilkka said. "The year you dropped the loaf. I was in the back row. I laughed first."

I stopped.

"Before anyone. It rolled so straight, Aino."

"The whole hall was quiet and it was rolling, and I heard myself laugh. Then everyone laughed."

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