I will not lie, I was a rambunctious child. I’d ruined pastries, burned tarts, sold moldy rolls to old ladies. I’d stolen a new rabbit coat just to get caught with it. I’d skipped chapel and chipped my tooth on the holy cup. I’d joyridden on neighbors’ stallions and climbed to the top of the schoolhouse with an old pirate’s spyglass just to see what I could see. I back-talked, spat in public streets. I left the house at all hours and spent my nights with the cows in the pasture up under the big bright moon. Harmless stuff, really, if you want to know the truth about it.

But I had another thing working against me too, and that was my durn horrible luck. For instance, I’d been thrown off no less than six horses, even broke my arm once. I’d contracted whooping cough and pleurisy and hay fever and summer chills and winter fever. I got myself thrown out of school for pushing my teacher down the stairs, but I swear to you it was an accident. I tripped, I did, stumbled right over my own two feet and there was Miss Halloran right in front of me, and I reached out to get a hold of something and down she went. She didn’t hardly turn her ankle—it was only three steps down to the grass—but it was enough to get me tossed. Then there was the time Mr. Disley the Potter’s wagon tipped and all his oxen got free and his entire stock got smashed and shattered, not a single pot left intact. You don’t even want to hear about that one. Rest assured I was innocent entirely. Rest assured not a single person in the village—even my own mom—believed me.

It’s embarrassing, all that bad fortune, when your daddy is a famous Parsnit player, renowned for his lucky blood. Why didn’t I get that lucky blood, huh? If I had Pop’s heart like Mom was always telling me (that’s what she said when I did something wrong or got in trouble: “I hoped you’d have my heart at the bottom of it all, Buddy. But nope, you got your daddy’s heart. You’re your pop’s child, through and through”), why didn’t I get his lucky blood too? Everything I put my hand to wound up a disaster. So you can understand why perhaps I didn’t see much benefit in being good, since it got fouled up every time anyway.

But set the bakery on fire?

That I did not do, I swear to you on a stack of holy books, cross my heart. I did not. It just happened.

See, it was early morning and I couldn’t sleep.

Mom should have been up already, tending the oven, getting the fires going so they’d be good and hot for the bread. But when I tiptoed into Mom’s bedroom, she looked so calm, so peaceful, like she was relaxed for once, not mad or sad or worried about anything. It was like she was smiling almost, and it had been ages since I’d seen her smile. I had seen her up late nights, near to dawn light, cooking up something in the bakery. Whenever I asked her about it, she just said, “Working on a new recipe. Something that will really change stuff for you and me, Buddy.” And then she’d put her head down and get back to work. I knew Mom was tired, wore out to the bone. I figured maybe I could get the fires going for her, let her sleep a little bit longer. Everybody knows half an hour’s extra shut-eye in the morning is about the best thing there is, especially for a person who works as hard as Mom.