Light of Heart (LGBT+) ✔

Spirits

The oven had sputtered for days, but when Felicia opened it that morning, it exploded in a cloud of glitter. The air in the kitchen was still cold, the windows icy with night frost that glistened in the dim light of the lamp that hung centrally from the ceiling and occasionally flickered, as if something moved behind the glass. She sneezed and blinked furiously. Her eyes teared up and she had to squeeze them shut while she tried to rub the glitters from her eyes with her pinkie. They were everywhere: in her hair, her nostrils, her clothes. She hadn't patted the glitter from her clothes yet, but she'd swear it was already under her fingernails.

Felicia sighed and hid her face in her hand. Why was it always the spirits in her oven that acted up? Why not those in her reading lamp, or the phone? That oven was her source of income and she couldn't just close the bakery for a day.

She shook her head and small clouds of glitter flew up. "You are some fickle beings, aren't you? Always being difficult in the morning. Not that I don't get you. I'd rather sleep too. But if I have to work at four in the morning, you do too. And you don't even need sleep." There was a time when getting up wasn't such a hardship, but now she had a broken kettle and spirits who didn't answer instead of warm coffee and hugs. Back then the spirits answered, too.

Felicia left a trail of glitter while she climbed the stairs to her room above the bakery. She tapped on the glass of the lamp that hung about a step away from the door and for a moment, the light blinded her, before it turned off again and then stabilised with an even, warm glow.

"Sorry, mate. Your colleagues are acting up again and I have to make a phone call. You can sleep again soon." The lamp buzzed.

The phone was a rectangular brown box with a copper horn to speak. Felicia pressed a big, round button on the side and the phone buzzed and spread a soft light through a few slits. Felicia didn't know their purpose. Did spirits need to breathe? Showing the spirit was awake?

"Connect me to the help desk from Spirit Talkers. Central Square, Darám." The phone buzzed again. The glow flickered off and back on.

"Hello, this is Spirit Talkers. How can we help you?" The voice on the line was calm and neutral, more cheerful than Felicia felt at this early hour. They clearly took service night and day seriously.

"You are speaking with Felicia, the bakery in the street with the fog lamps. My oven has just exploded in a cloud of glitter and I have to work today. Could you send someone as soon as possible?"

The person from the help desk hummed. "You are in luck. One of our Spirit Talkers is currently free. You can expect them in five minutes."

Felicia ended the conversation and the phone buzzed again and the glow winked and disappeared.

"Back to bed? I understand." She sighed. She'd better go downstairs and start working, so everything could go into the oven immediately when the spirits were cooperating again.

***

The five minutes were more like ten minutes and Felicia had just found her rhythm with kneading and decorating - some extra glitter in the baked goods wouldn't do any harm - when the lamp above the entrance of the bakery turned on. Felicia patted the flour and glitter from her hands and clothes and yelled: "The door is open!"

"You should really leave the beam blocked until you open the bakery," a drawling voice answered. "Or invest in a real copper lock." The tall stature in long gowns that walked in was both familiar and alien. They still looked the same, but the time they were in the bakery every morning seemed another life.

"Why are you here?" Felicia blurted.

"Have you already forgotten what my job is?" Fern laughed. Felicia hated how she could feel that laugh in her belly, as if nothing had changed.