The Night Baker

Chapter 1: The Dough That Weeps

The first time it happened, I thought I'd imagined it.

Kneading my 2 AM sourdough—the only time the bakery was cool enough for proper fermentation—I felt something wet splash my wrist. Not water. Not sweat.

The dough was crying.

Tiny salt tears welled from its surface as I worked. When I pulled apart the gluten strands, I heard whispers:

"Tell Martha the money's buried beneath the—"

The voice cut off as the oven timer dinged. The finished loaf smelled like my late grandfather's pipe tobacco.

Old Mrs. Wilkins bought it at dawn. She collapsed in the street two hours later, clutching her chest and screaming about her husband's wartime secret.

The coroner found her mouth full of unmelted salt.

Chapter 2: The Book of the Dead

Grandma's recipe book held answers in its margin notes:

"Monday's dough takes confessions"

"Add rosemary to mute the dead"

"NEVER bake during a new moon"

The last warning was underlined in what looked like blood.

Tonight was the darkest night of the month.

My hands moved anyway, mixing flour ground from the town's original mill. The dough came alive—thrashing like a dying thing. It took all my strength to wrestle it into the proofing basket.

At 3:33 AM, the unbaked loaf screamed.

The sound came from every oven in the shop.

Chapter 3: The Missing Ingredient

Sheriff Hayes stood in my flour-dusted doorway at noon, holding an evidence bag.

"Annie Wilkins choked on this," he said, shaking out a single silver key. "Said you'd know where it fits."

I did. The mill's old lockbox, hidden behind the waterwheel. Inside, I found polaroids of townsfolk from 1942—each with an X over their face.

Except one.

My grandmother at sixteen, standing beside a handsome baker. His hands were buried wrist-deep in a trough of dough.

The caption read: "First feeding. May God forgive us."

Chapter 4: The Original Recipe

The town archives revealed the truth:

During the Great Depression, the bakery kept Starvation Valley alive. No one questioned why only our bread nourished. Why the mill always had grain when fields lay barren.

Until the summer of '42, when Ezra McCready's boy vanished after buying a rye loaf.

They found him three days later—inside the bakery's brick oven. His stomach was full of unbaked dough that still pulsed when touched.

The mob hanged the baker.

Grandma took over the shop that night.

And the bread... never stopped.

Chapter 5: The Final Proof

Tonight's dough fights like a living thing. It sings in voices I recognize—Mrs. Wilkins, the McCready boy, the fisherman lost in the '93 flood.

Their memories rise with the yeast:

A mayor's affair

A doctor's mercy killing

My grandmother whispering to the mill's waterwheel at midnight

The sheriff pounds on my locked door. "Open up! Annie's body... it's gone from the morgue!"

I watch the oven's glow through tears. The scent of baking bread turns metallic.

Something taps rhythmically against the inside of the oven door.

Three slow raps.

Just like Grandma always did to test if the loaves were done.

Chapter 6: The Morning Batch

Dawn light stains the bakery pink as the first customers arrive.

Sheriff Hayes takes his usual croissant without meeting my eyes. The new waitress from the diner buys a brioche, giggling when it leaves flour fingerprints on her blouse.

No one comments on my bandaged hands.

Or asks why the "Daily Special" board now reads:

"Today's Secret Ingredient: TRUTH"

In the back room, the old millstone grinds by itself.

And deep in the oven—where no flame ever touches—something warm and soft begins to rise.