“If anything ever happens to me Annii, you need to keep the bakery going. Timothie isn’t good with customers. Ma and Pa deserve their retirement. They adopted me to keep it going. There is no one else.”
“But I am a Cob! Not a Baker! The bakery has been in your family for generations.”
“It won’t matter, my family chose me and we share no blood. I choose you. Your cousins may help you if it feels like it is too big to take on by yourself. Blood doesn’t have to define family.”
“This entire conversation is crazy because nothing is ever going to happen to you.”
The vase with freshly picked spring flowers was on freshly carved and polished shelf the helpers from Savela’s Shelter had built for the bakery. The new bowls from Marnewyn held berries from the Fenflower farm. The new cupboards were stocked full of all the bakery needs. The place was clean, neat, and ready to welcome customers.
Annii had worried at first no one would come, fear driving them away. But the first day the bakery was open had the place packed with customers and she could hardly keep up with the orders and demands. Once she finally locked the door at the close of the day she dropped into a chair exhausted.
Gossip was one of the largest reasons she felt people had showed up but she wouldn’t say much besides what the Chief Watcher Grimbriar had announced.
“Citizens of Bree, this is an official proclamation of the Watch. The outlaw Wolfshead and his band have committed crimes against your fellows. They have abducted at least three people, including His Honor Judge Oakley and the local baker Owena Baker. As well as...Briony... a woman of the Alley. And they have committed murder and assault and theft. I have placed bounties of twenty silver on any that join his cause, preferably alive. People of Bree, this man is a liar and fraud, if you join with him you are outlawed. There is a bounty of 100 silver on the men and women that have committed crimes in his name and four hundred silver for Wolfshead himself."
Annii didn't cry. She had done enough of that in the past few day instead with a determined glint in her eyes she stood to start the next days baking preparations. It took her much longer than it did Owena but she threw herself into the task.
“When you come home Owena, things will be in order for you.” She muttered and went to work for the next days sale of breads and sweets.
