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[banesberry-anomoly]

Son of Dionysus

[dotshiiki]

FIC: Fantastic Breads (Jacob/Queenie)

Jacob Kowalski doesn't know how he ever lived before the bakery. It feels like the turning point in his life, a clear line that separates the grey fog of yesterday from the colourful delight that is today.

Although perhaps, technically speaking, the real turning point was when some stranger dropping a suitcase full of silver—honest-to-god solid silver eggs, of all things—at his feet with the note to use them as collateral for his bakery. Jacob never did learn who his mysterious benefactor was, nor how they knew about his secret ambition to start a bakery. He figures it must have been someone at the bank, though it's hard to imagine any of those fuddy-duddy sticks in the mud believing in his extravagant dreams of fresh bread and cleverly-designed pastries. The only dream New York County Bank seems to understand involves cold, hard cash. 

Then again, perhaps that's why his backer did it in secret.

Either way, once the bakery became real, so did the world around him. +++ Jacob doesn't know where he gets his ideas from. They must come to him in dreams—he always wakes up knowing that he has been to some vivid, amazing land in his sleep, only if you asked him, he wouldn't be able to report a single detail of it. But when he mixes and shapes his dough, the outlines form perfectly between his fingers: creatures unlike anything in this world, but that have leapt fully-formed from his hands without conscious thought. He makes chrust—a well-aerated crisp cake—that grow from a beaked head like a massive eagle, albeit one with magnificent multi-winged plumage that no real eagle could hope to possess. He cloaks his grandmother’s kołacz with a dough so light and flaky that it hinted at something ethereal, a pastry that might wink out of sight if you just blinked. A traditional babka becomes a muskrat curled up around a shiny centrepiece (with some less-traditional culinary treasures baked into the loaf that nonetheless delight his customers, who return to rave about the sweet surprises they found within). Unlike ordinary muskrats, though, his bread-rodent has a long pecan snout peeking out under its beady chocolate-button eyes. His customers love them, from the monkey-like dumplings swing from a rack on a high shelf by their long, doughy arms, to the tiny gingerbread cookies coloured by fruit preserves that adorn the counter, batting their light, almond-flake wings. They praise his creativity and call him a genius. Jacob downplays it every time. He doesn't know where inspiration for his doughy creations are coming from after all—accepting the compliments would be like taking credit for the extra sales he gets on a rainy day from people wanting to step in to stay dry for a bit. Not that he needs the traffic to stay afloat: Jacob Kowalski's Fantastic Breads was a hit with the neighbourhood from its opening day. +++ He doesn't see the woman come in through the door, but Jacob figures her entrance was just lost in the crowd of schoolchildren who just left. When he looks up from his last customer, she is standing, with a coy smile on her face, by a tray of roly-poly buns that glow pink and orange with cherry glaze and sit in contented laziness like rhinos at a watering hole. For some reason, Jacob thinks of England, of his time in the forces when he was marching in London before Buckingham Palace and Queen Elizabeth. He can't think why that memory's floated into his head. Like all his other pre-bakery memories, it's dim and fuzzy, and the only word that really sticks in his head as he looks at this blond bombshell is queen. Jacob opens his mouth to greet her with the usual customer spiel, except his jaw has already dropped and what comes out is a jumbled, 'Whacangetf'youtday?' He can feel his face heating up and he clears his throat awkwardly. But rather than turning away with a titter, the woman actually beams at him. Her eyes meet his and there is a glint of familiarity in them, as though they know each other from somewhere. Except that can't be right. His life before the bakery may seem like a fog, but he can't that he'd forget encountering a woman like this. 'The Erumpents buns?' The term she uses is new but familiar at the same time, like a long-forgotten name. It fits the plump, round loaves that are heavily infused with spices, down to the cinnamon stick, a whimsical addition of sugary magic. For a moment he imagines he smells a sweet, musky scent as well, that puts him in mind of springtime and mating animals (oh god, don't think about that now, he tells himself). Jacob shakes his head quickly, trying to clear it. The woman looks crestfallen and he realises she thinks he is refusing her. 'Oh no, no, I don't mean—er, here.' He quickly selects a loaf—Erumpent, that name’s gonna stick now—and wraps it up in paper for her. 'I like that name. I oughta change my labels.' He indicates the rather drab name of 'cherry spice rolls' marked on the tray. The woman smiles again as her hands close around the Erumpent bun. 'No, don't,' she says. 'I just—the idea just popped into my head.' She frowns like this isn't quite right, and Jacob wonders if she's like him, just a little, the way ideas appear from some mysterious provenance. He likes thinking that they might have something in common. 'That's how I got the ideas for all these guys, you know.' Jacob spreads his arms to indicate the array of creature-shaped buns and pastries. 'Everyone asks me where I got the inspiration, but I can't ever rightly say, you know?' 'They're fantastic,' says the woman. Her eyes twinkle and Jacob imagines that names for all the other bread-creatures are swirling around in her head as if her dreams and his have connected somehow and she holds the key to the world of his own imagination. 'What would you call these?' he asks, pointing to the basket of krowki he lays out for the kids—a fudge-y milk toffee that he’d initially thought to shape into little cows in honour of their Polish name, only the four-legged creature his fingers moulded ended up with a scaled mane and tentacles over its muzzle. (The fudge holds the detail beautifully, he has to admit.) She opens her mouth to answer, but cocks her head to one side before she lets the words out. 'Graphorns,' she says, another fanciful but befitting name, and once Jacob hears it, it’s as if his toffees have never been called anything else. He wants to take her to every one of his shelves and have her name them each in turn. The chimes above the bakery door remind him that he has more customers to attend to. 'Can I get you anything else?' he asks. He tries to shroud the reluctance in his voice with politeness. She shakes her head, but there’s a sparkle in her eyes that suggests she can sense his urge to pick her brains, or just listen to her mesmerising voice christening his imagined beasts. (He has a feeling he’ll be hearing that voice narrate his dreams tonight.) 'Thank you, Jacob,' she says, which stuns him for a second—she knows his name; she must know him then—until he remembers that he has his name-tag on. 'You're welcome …' 'Queenie,' she says. 'Come again, Queenie.' She smiles. 'I will.' The doors chime again as she walks out, clutching the bread to her heart as though it is a precious gift rather than an ordinary loaf purchased from your average bakery. Then again, Jacob thinks, his bakery is anything but average. It's nice that someone else seems to get that, too. The bakery was the major turning point in his life. But Jacob thinks that maybe, just maybe, he is on the cusp of a second one. 

Yes, I’m still working on my PJO stuff! And I meant to have a chapter of TGF up last weekend, but I was running late to catch my train and then I forgot to load that WIP into my USB to bring with me on holiday, but this little document was, and so I dusted it off.