Читать книгу Bliss - Kathryn Littlewood - Страница 5

IT WAS THE summer Rosemary Bliss turned ten that she saw her mother fold a lightning bolt into a bowl of batter and learned – beyond the shadow of a doubt – that her parents made magic in the Bliss bakery.

It was the month the youngest Calhoun child, six-year-old Kenny, had wandered into an open relay room at the train station, touched the wrong knob, and nearly been electrocuted. The charge hadn’t killed him outright. It was just powerful enough to make his hair stand on end and to land him in the hospital.

When Rose’s mother, Purdy, heard about Kenny’s coma, she closed the bakery, saying, “This is no time for cookies,” and then she set to work in the kitchen. She couldn’t be drawn away for food or sleep. Nights passed and still she worked. Rose’s father, Albert, watched Rose’s siblings, while Rose begged her mother to help in the kitchen. But Rose was sent to do errands instead – to town for extra flour or dark chocolate or Tahitian vanilla.

Finally, late Sunday evening, as the fiercest storm they’d had all summer lashed Calamity Falls with thunder, lightning and heavy rain that pounded the roof like handfuls of flung gravel, Purdy made an announcement: “It’s time.”

“We can’t leave the children,” Albert said. “Not in a storm like this one.”

Purdy nodded sharply. “Then I guess we have no choice but to bring them all along.” She turned and shouted upstairs, “Field trip, everyone!”

Rose hiccupped with excitement as her father packed her and her brothers and baby sister into the family’s minivan, along with a large mason jar made out of worn blue glass.

Wind and rain rocked the van on its wheels and almost pushed it off the road, but Albert gritted his teeth and pressed on to the barren top of Bald Man’s Peak.

He parked. “Are you sure you should be doing this?” he asked his wife.

She loosened the lid on the mason jar. “Kenny is too young. I have to at least try.” And then she kicked open the door and rushed out into the rain.

Rose watched her mother stagger forward into the teeth of the storm, right into the centre of the clearing. She pulled the lid off and raised the jar high over her head.

That was when the lightning came.

With a blood-stopping crack the first bolt tore the sky in two and came down right in the jar. The entire plateau lit up, and Rose’s mother was suddenly burning bright as though she were made of light.

“Mama!” Rose cried and surged towards the door, but Albert held her back.

“It’s not ready yet!” he said. There was another crack of lightning, and another—

Afterwards Rose didn’t know whether she had been blinded by the light or by her tears.

“Mama!” she whimpered.

And then the van door was opening again, and her mother slid back into the car. She was soaking wet and smelled like a burning toaster, but other than that, she looked unharmed. Rose stared into the jar and saw hundreds of crackling veins of blue light flickering about.

“Get us home pronto,” Purdy said. “This is the final ingredient.”

Back at home, the kids were sent to bed, but Rose stayed awake in secret and watched her mother work.

Purdy stood over a metal mixing bowl filled with a smooth white batter. She carefully positioned the mason jar over the bowl and opened the lid. Little flickers of blue light poured out of the jar and zigzagged into the batter like snakes, turning the whole thing a glowing greenish colour.

Purdy turned the batter with a spoon and whispered, “Electro Correcto.” Then she poured it into a loaf pan and put it in the oven. She closed the door and, without glancing over her shoulder, said, “You should be in bed, Rosemary Bliss.”

Rose didn’t sleep very well that night. Her dreams were filled with lightning, with her mother glowing an electric orange and wagging a finger at her to go to bed.

In the morning, Purdy put the loaf on a plate, added a drizzle of white frosting from a pastry bag, and called to Albert, “Let’s go!” She crooked a finger at Rose. “You too.”

Then Rose, Purdy and Albert went to the hospital room where Kenny lay.

Rose didn’t think he looked so bad from the outside – a little quieter than normal, a little bluer than anyone should be – but there were grim-looking machines hooked up to him, and his pulse was a weak beeping in the tiny room.

Kenny’s mother looked up, saw Mrs Bliss, and burst into tears. “It’s too late for cakes, Purdy!” she said, but Rose’s mother just eased a crumb between his lips.

Nothing happened for the longest time.

And then there was the faintest gulp.

She slid a bigger chunk into his mouth. This time, his tongue moved and there was a louder gulp. Then she pushed a whole mouthful in, and his jaw seemed to work of its own accord. He chewed and swallowed, and before his eyes opened, said, “You got any milk?”

After that moment, Rose knew that the rumours were true: the baked goods from the Follow Your Bliss Bakery actually were magical. And her mother and father, despite living in a small town, owning a minivan and sometimes wearing bumbags, were kitchen magicians.

And Rose couldn’t help but ponder: Am I going to become a kitchen magician too?