Albert yanked an old brass chain, and a dusty bulb came to life overhead.
Rose stood with her mouth agape.
Beyond the door was a tiny wood-panelled room the size of a short closet, crowded with medieval treasures. A painting of a thin, moustached man wearing a long robe the colour of an eggplant – on the frame was written HIERONYMUS BLISS, FIRST MAGICK BAKER in old English lettering that was almost impossible to read. An engraving of an aproned woman serving a piping hot pie to a king at a long banquet table: ARTEMISIA BLISS, WOMAN BAKER, HONOURED BY CHARLES II. A sepia-toned photograph of a man and woman holding hands outside a bakery, alongside a newspaper clipping from 1847: “Bliss Bakers Arrive on Lower East Side, Feed Immigrants.” The four of them stood, huddled in the storeroom, peering at the ancient artefacts by candlelight. “Your mother and I call this room the library, even though there’s only one book in it. The book is more important than all the books in all the libraries in this whole country, combined. So this is a library.”
Even Ty was impressed. “Bet you’re glad you became a Bliss, huh, Pop?”
Albert nodded. When he married Purdy, Albert had taken her name instead of the other way round. “Who wants to cling to a name like Albert Hogswaddle,” he’d said, “when you could become Albert Bliss?”
Albert sat the Bliss Cookery Booke on a dusty pedestal in the middle of the little storeroom, and they all huddled around, barely fitting inside the room. “The book stays here. No one opens it, no one moves it. Rose, I am giving you the key to this room.” He slid it on to a string, knotted it, and handed it over. Rose wondered briefly how her mother had known they’d need an extra key. But then she shrugged it away: Her mother just knew things. It was part of her magic.
Rose took the key from his outstretched palm and hung it round her neck. She burned with excitement.
“But you are not to open this door unless there is a fire,” Albert said, the ever-present smile suddenly gone from his face. “In which case you should try to save the book. I repeat: Do not open this door. There will be NO magic.”
All the excitement flew out of Rose, and she deflated like a popped balloon. No magic? Why?
“Tick tock, people!” shouted Mayor Hammer from inside the Hummer. “The flu is spreading even as we speak!”
Albert huffed and puffed in the background as he hauled six leather suitcases from the house to the driveway and loaded them into the Hummer. One was filled with clothes, the other five loaded down with jars of Madagascar cinnamon and dried fairy wings, with special black sugars from a forest in Croatia and trapped doctors’ whispers, with dozens of things mundane and mysterious.
Purdy gathered Rose and her siblings together in one big clump in the driveway. “Rose and Ty, you’ll help Chip in the kitchen.”
Ty groaned. “Why do I have to help? That’s Rose’s territory.”
Purdy patted Ty sympathetically on his beautiful, tawny cheek. “I know you can do it, Thyme.” She went on, looking at Sage. “Sage, you’ll stay with your sister Rose. I mean, help her.”
“Of course! I will be very helpful,” Sage said, winking devilishly at Rose and everyone else.
Rose rolled her eyes. Sage’s idea of helping usually involved whining and trying to burp the alphabet.
Albert finished loading the suitcases. “Mrs Carlson will be coming this afternoon and staying all week to watch Leigh. Be nice to her and do as she says.”
“But she yells in her Scottish accent and it hurts my ears!” said Sage. “And she falls asleep all the time while she’s tanning or watching TV. And she smells weird.”
“That’s not being nice, pal,” said Albert, getting in and buckling his seatbelt. “But… you’re not wrong. Rose, just keep an extra eye on Leigh, in case Mrs Carlson falls asleep.”
Purdy smiled wide, even though two fat tears were rolling down her cheeks. “We love you all!” she said.
“Wait!” Leigh screamed. “Picture!”
Purdy laughed. “All right. Mayor Hammer, would you mind taking a family picture?”
Mayor Hammer sighed loudly in a way that meant that she minded very much, but still, she grabbed the Polaroid camera from Leigh’s outstretched hands, pointed it in the direction of the Bliss clan, and clicked the shutter.
Then Purdy and Albert hopped into the back seat and shut the door behind them. The Hummer lumbered down the street, three fake police cars filing after it.
Rose turned to Ty. She wanted to say something like, “I’m happy we’re going to be spending some time together this week.” But Ty was already strolling down the driveway towards the street.
“My vacation officially starts –” he said, pushing a button on his watch – “now!”So much for Ty spending time in the bakery. Rose sighed. Her brothers never paid any attention to her, not even now.
Sage had already resumed jumping on the trampoline.
Leigh tugged on Rose’s shirt. “Rosie Posie! An emergency!” she shrieked.
“What, Leigh?”
“A slug! I stepped on a slug!” Leigh lifted her sneaker to reveal a gooey corpse.
Rose undid the Velcro straps on Leigh’s shoes, which used to be white, but were now the colour of a puddle, and wiped the sole on the grass until the dead slug came loose.
Leigh stared at the creature with her big black eyes. Everyone always said that Leigh looked like a miniature version of Rose – black hair, black fringe, black eyes, tiny nose – only cuter. There was something about the roundness of her little face that Rose’s lacked, and not just because she was older.
“Should we have a funeral for him?” Leigh asked.
“The slug?” Rose asked.
Leigh nodded solemnly and thrust the Polaroid picture into Rose’s hand: Purdy and Albert smiled widely, their arms wrapped round handsome Ty, hysterical Sage, adorable Leigh. Rose stood off to the side, but you wouldn’t know it was Rose because only her shoulder had made it into the photo.
Rose shoved the picture back at Leigh and began another week of the same old thankless routine.
TO ROSE, THE prospect of helping Chip was far more terrifying than finding a slug.
Chip, who had been Purdy’s kitchen helper since before Rose could remember, was already at the bakery, staring through the kitchen window, past the slug and past the swing and past the hedges, past Calamity Falls. He was bald and tanned and looked like he had just walked off a photo shoot for the cover of a bodybuilding magazine.
The one conversation Rose had ever had with Chip involved the silver metal ID tags he wore on a chain round his neck.
“Were you in the army, Chip?” she’d asked.
“The marines,” he’d grunted.
“Then why are you working as a helper in a bakery?” she’d asked.
He squatted down so that his face was square with hers. He breathed noisily, staring her in the eye. “I like to bake,” he’d whispered.
Rose pictured what the week ahead would be like – having to bake alongside the hulking bulk of Chip’s chiselled torso, and having to use the recipes in the boring old Betty Crocker cookbook, which Albert and Purdy had given to Chip before they left.
“Here, Chip – use these recipes.”
He’d snorted. “What about your special cookbook?”
“This one is easier to read,” Purdy had said, handing him the paperback book with an ordinary cherry pie on the