“Hair, hair, hair,” hummed the Baker, and leaned out of the kitchen, snatching a fistful of what looked like black candy floss out of the mess. She held it up and beamed. “You never know when you’re going to need black cotton candy. Shouldn’t eat the stuff, though. It’ll dye your tongue black for a week.” She stuck out her own tongue, which was currently a cheery shade of blue, before beginning to apply the filmy black material to the top of Sumi’s head. When it was on, she picked up a roll of parchment paper and draped it delicately over the body. “She’s almost ready to go into the oven. Let’s hope this works.”

“What happens if it doesn’t?” asked Rini.

The Baker sighed. “We try something else, I suppose.”

“Her skeleton will be fine,” said Christopher. “I don’t know whether you can bake the ghost of somebody’s boring side, but the skeleton won’t care unless that oven is way too hot.”

“I’m not into cremating my cookies,” said the Baker.

“There you go,” said Christopher. “No worries.”

The Baker laughed. “All right, I like you people. Someone come and help me lift her into the oven.”

The cake, cereal, and chocolate had added so much weight to the skeleton that it took Cora and Kade working in concert to help the Baker shift the baking sheet into the oven. The heat that flowed out when she opened the door was intense enough to make them shy back, the small hairs on their arms crisping as they drew closer.

“In she goes,” said the Baker, and slid the tray—and Sumi—smoothly inside. The door swung closed behind her.

“Now what?” asked Cora.

“Now we wait,” said the Baker. “We wait, and we hope.”

12. The Baker’s Story

12
THE BAKER’S STORY

THEY SAT ON A broken gingerbread wall, feet dangling, sipping glasses of cool, surprisingly unmodified milk. It was sweet in the way milk was always sweet, but it wasn’t malted, or chocolatey, or anything else that would have made it fit better into the world. Cora gave the Baker a curious look.

“Where did you get the milk?” she asked.

“It grows on trees,” said the Baker serenely.

Cora stared.

“No, really,” said the Baker. “In these big white fruits that look sort of like eggs. One of the previous bakers came up with that. I just enjoy it.” She took another sip of her milk. “Ah. Refreshing and bizarre.”

“Are you religious?” asked Christopher.

The Baker turned to blink at him. “Excuse me?”

“Your…” He waved a hand around his head. “I know that’s a religious thing a lot of the time. Are you religious?”

“My family is,” she said. “I think maybe I will be someday, but mostly I wear the hijab because I enjoy not having to worry about my hair getting in the cake batter.”