Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 45319 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45319 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
“So what happened?” I asked, impatient with the tangent she’d gone off on. “Where did she go?”
“Nobody knows, but she left a batch of her famous butter rolls in the oven to burn and didn’t take a thing with her,” Mom said. “Not a single piece of clothing—not even her purse or a sweater. She just vanished in the middle of a regular, ordinary day and she was never seen again.” She sighed and got a sad look in her eyes. “It’s a shame I didn’t get some of her recipes before she went—she made the most mouthwatering pastries. I remember looking forward to her lemon cream tarts and her apple hand pies all year.”
So that was all I knew about my Great Aunt Gertrude until I got the mysterious card in the mail. The minute I read it, I wished I could call my Mom—but she and my Dad were long gone by then. Dad died of lung cancer—he never could quit smoking—and my Mom just kind of faded away a year afterwards. They’d always been extremely close and though it didn’t make any medical sense, I had the strong feeling that she’d died of a broken heart. That was the kind of love I was looking for…but I had never found it.
I have a younger brother, as I think I mentioned before, but we aren’t close and there was nobody else to call. I sat there reading and re-reading the card and finally I said aloud,
“I’d help if I could, but she didn’t even leave me an address or a phone number!”
At that point, it was like an invisible finger tipped in fire began drawing in the empty air in front of me. I stared in shock as it formed a door…a door which opened onto a beautiful Fall landscape even though it was blazing hot summer outside my own front door.
The minute I walked through the doorway—because of course I did—I was greeted by a little old lady with sparkling blue eyes, much like my own, and pure white hair done up in a fashionable twist at the back of her head.
“Oh, there you are!” she exclaimed, holding both hands out to me. “I’m so glad you agreed to come help!”
It was my Great Aunt Gertrude, of course. She had also received a magical invitation to Hidden Hollow, much like the one she’d sent to me. And since she wasn’t happy in her marriage to Great Uncle Lou, “All that man wanted was food and sex and someone to clean up after him! I was tired of being his maid and his cook and his whore and not getting paid in anything but insults and complaints!” she said—she stepped through the doorway just as I had and found herself in Hidden Hollow.
Great Aunt Gertrude explained to me that only humans who have magic or Creatures—who are magic by their natures—are able to live within the magical bubble that protects the town. I protested, of course, that I had no magic at all.
“Nonsense!” she said briskly, frowning at me. “I’ve been watching you for ages—you never burn anything and everything you bake comes out perfectly. Doesn’t it?”
“Er, well…I guess so,” I admitted. I had never given this much thought before. It wasn’t like I baked for a living back then, though I had always had a passion for it. I had a business degree and I was working at an accounting firm—a job that was duller than dirt but paid my bills and kept a roof over my head.
“Your bread dough always rises, your croissants are perfectly laminated, your pie dough is flakey, your biscuits are fluffy, and your cookies are just the right texture—a little crispy on the edges and chewy and gooey in the middle,” Great Aunt Gertrude continued. “Right?”
“Right,” I agreed. “But I don’t see how being good at baking means I have magic.”
“It means you’re a Kitchen Witch!” my Great Aunt exclaimed. “Just like I am—just like our ancestors before us.”
“I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. “My mom wasn’t particularly good at baking or cooking. She hated making dinner—we got pizza and Chinese take-out more than any other kid I knew growing up.”
My Great Aunt waved her hand impatiently.
“It skips a generation sometimes. I’m just glad you happened to get the talent, my dear, because I’m tired of working and I need someone to leave my bakery to.”
“Your bakery?” I said blankly. “What bakery?”
“Why, The Lost Lamb, of course. I named it after myself, in a way,” she said. “Since I was kind of like a poor lost lamb when I got here. I was called by the magic of Hidden Hollow just like I called you, but there was no family here to greet me when I came.”
“Then who called you?” I asked, frowning.