We trudge into Skarmouth. I lead Dove at the moment to make certain she doesn’t turn a leg in a bit of uneven cobble. Finn leads the bicycle to make certain he can stare into Palsson’s shop without falling off a moving vehicle.
We both look mournfully in the bakery window as we pass, though I’d sworn to myself that I wouldn’t. Nothing says orphans like two kids breaking their necks looking at trays of November cakes and platters of shaped cookies and lovely soft loaves of bread still steaming the window they’re next to. Finn and I sigh at the same time and continue on our way to Fathom & Sons. I tie Dove out front and Finn tells his bicycle to stay. I’m not sure if the shop will be open or not; Elizabeth and Dory Maud might be at the booth by the cliff path instead.
But the door opens, and when we push inside, I’m surprised to find both Dory Maud and Elizabeth there, as well as a handsome blond man who is exclaiming over a stone grave pillow that Martin Devlin found in his field last year when he was digging for potatoes.
“— really put the head on this at burial!” he says.
Finn gives me a look. I eye the stranger. He’s a foreigner and in his thirties, maybe, but in the best possible way. I think the word for it is dashing or dapper or something like that. He holds a red flat cap in his hands.
“Ah, Puck,” says Dory Maud. “Puck Connolly.”
Finn and I exchange another look.
“Pleased to meet you,” I say to the stranger.
“Oh, but you haven’t met,” Dory Maud says. “Mr. Holly, this is Puck Connolly. Puck, this is Mr. George Holly.”
“Now I’m pleased to meet you,” I say crossly. “I was just dropping Finn off here and —” Elizabeth sidles up to me and places her claws in my skin.
“Just a moment! I need to steal her,” Elizabeth chirps. She whisks me into the back room and shoves closed the door behind us. So it is just us and four chairs and a table bigger than the floor and an audience of boxes filled with Dory Maud’s love letters to sailors. We are nose to nose and Elizabeth smells like a shipload of English roses. “Puck Connolly, you be your absolute level best to that man.”
“I was being nice.”
“No, you weren’t. I saw your face. I’m no fool! We need to encourage him. That American is richer than the Queen and we think he means to take a piece of Thisby back with him.”
I hope he’s taking the fertility statue. “What is it you’re trying to shove off on him?”
Elizabeth leans against the door to ensure no one interrupts. “Annie.”
“Annie!”
“If you’re going to repeat everything I say, I’ll give your tongue to him as well.”
“Does Annie know about this?”
“If only you had the brains to match your looks.” Elizabeth realizes she’s still holding my arm and releases me. “Now you go out there and be charming. As you can.”
I scowl and follow her back into the main room. All eyes turn toward me. Finn has somehow ended up holding the stone burial pillow.
“Done, ladies?” Dory Maud asks. I can’t think of the last time she’s used the word ladies to refer to something other than our chickens. “Mr. Holly was just expressing interest in you, Puck.”
Perhaps my alarm is written upon my face, because Holly adds quickly, “Sean Kendrick’s spoken of you.”
“You didn’t mention that before,” Dory Maud says, looking at me. “Puck, do you know what would be a wonderful thing, is if you took Mr. Holly and found him some breakfast.”
“Oh —” Holly and I protest at the same time.
“I have Dove outside,” I say.
Holly glances at me and says meaningfully, “And I was going to go watch the training.” I decide that I like him. It helps that he’s dapper, but the clever cinches it.
“Then you should take him by Palsson’s to get him one of the November cakes. Of course Annie knows how to make them as well, even better than Palsson’s,” Dory Maud says. “She was just saying that she’d like to make them for you, Mr. Holly, but of course there’s been no time. If you get them at Palsson’s, you can carry your breakfasts with you.”
Holly’s smile lights the room; Dory Maud and Elizabeth are both blown back fairly by the sheen of it.
“Will you let me buy you one of these things, Miss Connolly?” Holly asks. “And your brother, too?”
I think I may die from the stinging power of the knowing gaze Elizabeth wields. It is a gaze that says, I told you he was a rich American with money to spend. I glare at her and Dory Maud. “Certainly. And Dory, if you give me a bit of change, I’ll buy some extra … for Annie.”
We momentarily battle with our eyes, and then Dory Maud relents and gives me a few coins. And so it is two triumphant Connollys who lead George Holly from Fathom & Sons, Finn on one side and me on the other. Holly watches me untie Dove with great interest, and I watch him watching me with even greater interest. The way his eye travels along Dove — hock to stifle placement to topline to shoulder angle — tells me that he’s not just a casual tourist. I wonder how well he knows Sean.
“You know,” Finn says on the way back to Palsson’s, cheerful now that he’s getting food, “that Annie is blind, right?”
“Not entirely,” Holly corrects him. “Not entirely blind, I mean.”
“Is that what they told you!” Finn exclaims. I stare at them. Who is this person who can make Finn so loud so quickly?
“It is,” Holly says warmly. He inclines his head toward Finn and asks, “Now, what, exactly, is a November cake?”
He asks it with such genuine curiosity that of course Finn has to speak even more, describing the moist crumb, the nectar that seeps from the base of it, the icing that soaks into the cake before you can lick it off. It is probably the kindest thing I have ever seen in my life, George Holly asking my brother about baked goods. When Holly glances to me, I give him a sharp look, which I realize might not fall under being as charming as possible. But I’m not sure that clever, kind George Holly could possibly be played as easily as Dory Maud and Elizabeth think.
Together we stroll into Palsson’s. I try to maintain an air of dignity but it’s difficult to not be overcome by the odor that hangs in the air. It is all cinnamon and honey and yeast. Palsson’s is on a corner and made of windows and light. The walls are lined with unstained wooden shelves with open backs, so the sunlight comes unimpeded through the glass panes and makes big squares of gold across the floor. Every shelf towers with bread and cookies, cinnamon twists and November cakes, scones and biscuits. The only wall not so anointed is the back wall behind the counter, which is lined with sacks of flour waiting to become bread. I can smell even the flour, because there’s so much of it, and it’s sweet and palatable all on its own. Everything is golden and white and honey and nectar in here and I think that possibly I could live in this building and sleep among the flour sacks.
Palsson’s is crowded today, as always, with both customers and housewives who hold better conversations near someone else’s baking. George Holly gathers stares and whispers as he and Finn move among the shelves and then into the long line. He fits in perfectly, as blond as a November cake himself.