Bryn hated the quiet before Lantern Week. Lantern Week wasn’t about one person—it was the Crossroads’ way of keeping the lost from disappearing twice.

It wasn’t real quiet—not like the empty docks at low tide. The bakery still breathed and creaked and hissed. The oven still muttered. Somewhere out in the village, someone was always shouting for someone else.

But compared to market days, compared to harvest rush, Lantern Week felt… held.

People walked softer. Voices dropped. Even the kids who usually dashed through the square tugged at their coats instead of each other. Remembrance did that. It laid a thin hand over everything.

Inside the bakehouse, the proof that it was Lantern Week took up the entire long bench against the wall.

Names.

Not carved in stone, not written in some priest’s neat ledger. They were scrawled on slips of paper, on corners of old letters, on bits of flour-smeared parchment. Some were just a single word. Some were lists. Some were drawings—a little fish, a lantern, a crooked house—because not everyone trusted their writing.

Crumb stood at the bench, sorting them.

He had divided the slips into small piles and drawn a line of chalk on the table, just like the flour line Bryn still remembered too well. Only this time, the line didn’t separate methods. It separated promises.

“These,” Crumb said, tapping a left-hand pile, “are for the river Lantern Week. They’ll take the loaves out to the water. These”—he tapped the right—“are for home tables. They’ll sit under lanterns on mantels and windowsills. Different loaves. Different marks.”

“Same flour, though?” Bryn asked, shrugging out of his coat.

He’d run here faster than usual, the cold air burning his lungs. Lantern Week did that to him too. Something about all those stories lining the road made his feet move quicker.

“Same flour,” Crumb agreed. “Different… what did we say last time?” “Story,” Bryn muttered.

“Good.” Crumb hid a smile. “Apron. Warmth won’t keep itself in.”

Bryn tied his apron and came to stand beside him. “How many so far?” he asked, nodding at the piles.

“Thirty-seven for river,” Crumb said. “Twenty-one for home. And more will come. They always do when people remember, at the last minute, that the ones they’re missing will still be missing tomorrow.”

The words landed heavier than Bryn expected. He looked away, pretending to study the oven. The fire was already built low and steady, more embers than flame. Lantern loaves needed gentler heat.

Mila and Lorne came down a moment later, quieter than usual. Mila’s hair was in a tighter knot; Lorne’s braids were pinned closer to her head, as if they both felt the need to contain something.

“What are we on?” Mila asked, eyeing the slips. “The Bread of Names,” Crumb said simply.

Lorne’s mouth tightened like she was bracing for a gust of wind. “You’re putting Bryn on those?” she asked, one eyebrow up.

Bryn bristled. “I can write.”

“It’s not the writing I’m worried about,” she said. “It’s the part where you think three steps ahead of yourself and forget the ground you’re standing on.”

Crumb held up a hand before Bryn could retort.

“Bryn is good with numbers,” he said. “Names are numbers with weight. He’ll do fine. With help.” He nodded to the others. “We’re not assigning anyone to do this alone.”

He picked up one of the slips from the river pile and handed it to Bryn. On it, a careful hand had written: for Maman – light on the water. “No name,” Bryn said, frowning.

“‘Maman’ is a name,” Crumb said. “The one that mattered most.”

“But there could be dozens of Mamans out there,” Bryn objected. “How do we know which one this is?”

Crumb tapped the words “light on the water.” “We don’t,” he said. “Not the way you mean. We know the person who wrote this will know. They’ll see the mark we put on their loaf.

They’ll see where it sits in the pile. They’ll tell their own heart, ‘That one’s her.’ That’s enough.”

He slid a shallow basket forward.

“We’ll tie each slip to a strip of cloth,” he said. “Each strip goes with one loaf. When we mark the dough, we match it to the cloth. River loaves get longer strips; they’re easier to see in the dark. Home loaves get shorter ones.”

Bryn made a face. “We’re tying cloth to bread now?”

“We’re tying names to bread,” Crumb corrected. “The cloth just helps humans keep up.” He handed Bryn a bowl of thin cotton ribbons and a stub of charcoal.

“You’re on matching duty,” he said. “Every name, every symbol, every loaf passes under your hand before it goes near the oven. You’re the one who says, ‘Yes, this belongs here.’”

Bryn felt the weight of the simple strips in his palm. They were light, but the idea of being the last hands the names touched before the fire made his stomach twist.

“What if I get one wrong?” he asked, before he could swallow the question.

“Then we’ll fix it,” Crumb said. “We’re not priests who think ink is stronger than bread. But we’ll try not to.”

He winked once, quick and kind. “Besides, Lorne will bite your head off if you sloppily mark her dough.”

Lorne sniffed. “Only if the dough complains.” They started.

The dough for the Lantern loaves was different. Not as rich as the Harvest Loaves, not as plain as daily bread. There was a little more salt, “so it keeps its shape on cold water,” Crumb said, and a little more oil, “so it tears softer under shaking hands.”

They shaped them into simple rounds, slightly smaller than the hearth loaves, with smoother tops—the better to write on.

As each loaf was shaped, it moved to Bryn’s bench. He read the slip that came with it, tied the cloth to the tray, and handed it on to Lorne, who would score the mark on top.

“If there’s a symbol, copy that,” Crumb instructed. “If there’s a name, first letter. If there’s both, ask. Sometimes people want the ‘M’ for ‘Maman.’ Sometimes they want the lantern.

Don’t guess without asking.”

“How are we supposed to ask?” Bryn said. “They’re gone.”

“We ask the ones who are still here,” Crumb said. “When they come in. For now, we do our best. Some of these have already been talked through. Some are old orders. Same families, year after year.”

He smiled, but there was sadness under it.

“Names come back,” he said. “Even when the people don’t.”

As the morning crept toward full light, the front bell began to ring more often.

People didn’t come in laughing today. They came in holding something—papers, little keepsakes, lantern frames. Some walked like they’d been carrying this weight all year and only now had somewhere to set it down.

Mila took first shift at the counter. She had the softest voice. Lorne and Bryn stayed in the back, shaping and tying. Crumb floated between.

“Next?” Mila called gently when a brief gap opened.

An older man stepped up. His clothes were clean, but worn at the elbows. He held a folded piece of paper in both hands as if it might come apart.

“I, ah…” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t sure… how this works.”

“First time ordering Lantern bread?” Mila asked. At his nod, she smiled. “It’s all right. You’re not late. We still have room.”

She held out her hand, and he placed the paper in it.

Bryn, peeking through the gap in the partition, caught a glimpse of the writing. Three names. All the same family name. Different first names.

Mila read them softly. “One loaf or three?” she asked. The man stared at the counter.

“I thought…” He swallowed. “I thought one. For the table. But it feels wrong, putting them all in the same… I don’t know. The same circle.”

“Asking one loaf to carry too much?” Crumb suggested quietly from behind him.

The man clenched his jaw. “They went together,” he said. “One wagon. One road. It feels wrong to separate them. But it feels wrong to… crush them together, too. Like they have to share the same breath.”

Mila’s eyes stung. Bryn could see it even from where he stood. “Two loaves?” she offered. “One for the wagon, one for the road?”

The man’s shoulders dropped slightly, as if the idea loosened something. “That…” He hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. Two. I can pay for two.”

“And we’ll mark them so you’ll know which is which,” Crumb said. He picked up the paper and held it. “We’ll give you a spiral for the wagon. And three lines for the road. All on the same table.”

Bryn scribbled a quick note on a fresh slip: Wagon – spiral / Road – three lines and tied it to an empty space on his ribbon bowl.

When the first two Lantern loaves for that order came down his bench, he held them more carefully than he wanted to.

Numbers with weight, Crumb had said.

He read the three names again before he handed the dough to Lorne. Once, twice, three times.

The next order was simpler. A young woman with a baby on her hip and a toddler gripping her skirt. She mumbled a single name and pushed over a coin that looked too large for her hand.

“One loaf,” Mila confirmed gently. “River or table?”

“River,” the woman said. “He always said he wanted to see the world. I figure the river’s the closest I can give him now.”

Bryn tied that slip to a longer ribbon.

Somewhere between the fourth and the fourteenth order, his head began to ache.

Names blurred together. Letters crowded. His fingers cramped from knotting ribbon. Part of him

—the part that liked tallying crates and stacking odds—wanted to start sorting them into piles by letter, by length, by number of lines. Make them manageable. Make them neat.

He caught himself staring down at one slip longer than he should have. The handwriting was shaking, cramped. The name was short. Four letters. He felt something twist in his chest.

“Problem?” Lorne asked, reaching for the next dough round. “Just figuring out which mark to use,” he lied.

The slip didn’t say. It only had the name and a note: “She liked stars.”

He pictured a little girl. Or an old woman. Or anyone in between. The image refused to settle. “Star,” Lorne said. “Obviously.”

“Thank you, I never would have solved that riddle,” Bryn muttered.

“Draw four,” Crumb said, passing behind them. “One for each letter. Not perfect stars. Just points. Imperfect things are kinder to remember.”

Bryn let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and tied the ribbon. The morning wore on like that.

Names. Marks. Small details that cut deeper than any knife—“used to hum when she baked,” “never learned to swim,” “cheated at cards but always lost on purpose.”

Crumb read each slip before it went into the bowl. Sometimes he added a small note. Sometimes he just nodded and moved on. Once, he closed his eyes for a moment longer than usual and pressed the paper flat with his palm.

Bryn didn’t ask.

At one point, Bryn found himself with three loaves in front of him and five slips. He stared at them, trying to remember which story went with which.

Two were simple: a single name, a simple mark. The third was the problem. It came with a little sketch of a bird and a note: “For the one who left but never really left.”

He’d meant to pair it with a dough round and ask Crumb what mark he wanted. But in the rush of orders and the shuffle of hands, the loaf had been moved.

“Bryn?” Lorne said, reaching. “Loaves are going to overproof if you let them sit.”

“I know,” he said, sharper than he intended. He rubbed his forehead. “I just— I lost one.”

Crumb appeared at his elbow the way he always did when things threatened to tip. “Lost what?”

“This.” Bryn held up the bird slip. “I had a loaf for it and then… we shifted things and now I don’t know which one was supposed to be which.”

Crumb’s gaze ticked from the slip to the rows of waiting dough, then back. “All right,” he said calmly. “We’ll fix it.”

“How?” Bryn demanded. “They’re all rounds. They all look the same. If I pick one at random, it won’t be the one they were thinking of when they wrote this.”

“Were they here when they wrote it?” Crumb asked. Bryn frowned. “What?”

“Did they write this at our counter?” Crumb repeated. “Or at their table at home, under a lamp?” “At home, probably,” Bryn admitted.

“Then the loaf didn’t exist yet when they wrote it,” Crumb said. “You’re not matching it to a thing. You’re matching it to a promise.”

He gently took the slip from Bryn’s fingers and set it down where Bryn could see it. “Which tray were you filling when you picked this up?” he asked.

Bryn closed his eyes, running the morning back. “River. This corner.”

“Then we’ll put it on the next river loaf that passes through your hands,” Crumb said. “We’re not trying to match their handwriting to a lump of dough. We’re trying to not lose the thought.”

“It still feels wrong,” Bryn muttered.

Crumb nodded. “Good. That feeling will keep you careful. But don’t let it freeze you. Lantern bread can’t fix death. It can only say, ‘We remembered.’ If we’re honest when we make it, that’s enough.”

Bryn nodded reluctantly and tied the bird slip to the next river loaf that rolled past his station. He still felt the sting of almost losing it.

Later, he nearly did worse.

Just before midday, when the line in the shop reached all the way to the door, a man in a black coat came in.

He moved differently than the others. Not hesitating at the threshold, not fumbling for coins, not smoothing crumpled papers. He walked straight to the counter, placed three small, perfectly folded pieces of paper on it in a neat row, and said in a voice that carried more than it should have in the gentle room:

“I’ll need three Lantern loaves. River. Same marks as last year.” Mila blinked. “Of course, Master Harrow. Did you want—”

“Same marks,” he repeated. “I wrote them exactly as before. Change nothing.” Crumb appeared at Mila’s shoulder as if summoned.

“Morning, Harrow,” he said. “You’re early.”

Harrow’s mouth twitched. “I didn’t sleep,” he said. “Figured I might as well start the day with honest heat.”

He had the look of someone who had learned to hold himself tightly enough that nothing escaped. Not tears. Not laughter. Not the kind of rage that burned out records and friendships. His eyes were sharp and tired.

Crumb took one of the folded papers and opened it.

Bryn couldn’t see the name, but he saw the mark: a small circle with a line through it. Simple. Unremarkable.

“Same as before,” Harrow said. “I don’t want their names changing just because the year did.” Crumb nodded. “We’ll keep them.”

Harrow placed a small leather pouch on the counter. It clinked heavier than three loaves needed. “For the bread,” he said. “And for anyone who comes in behind me who can’t pay.

Quietly.”

Mila’s eyes flicked to Crumb. He inclined his head slightly.

“We’ll be good stewards of their names,” he said. “And your coin.”

Harrow nodded once and left. When the door closed behind him, the bell seemed too loud. Crumb handed the slips to Bryn himself.

“These three go together,” he said. “Same marks. Same tray. Don’t split them up.” Bryn swallowed. “Got it.”

He set them carefully aside, away from the jumble of other names, and waited for three river loaves to match. When they came, he tied each ribbon with extra care, fingers slow.

But slow and careful wasn’t his natural way. Somewhere between that order and the next dozen, his old habits crept in.

He started stacking slips in a row, tying two at once, glancing ahead at the board.

“We’re going to run out of river space if we don’t move some of these to table,” he muttered. “We won’t,” Lorne said. “Crumb knows the oven’s mind.”

“The oven doesn’t have to carry all these names in his head,” Bryn shot back. “Neither do you,” she said. “You just have to carry the one in your hand.”

He knew she was right. He also knew he was getting tired. The mistake came in the simplest possible way.

Two loaves. Two slips. One marked with a lantern sketch. One marked with a single letter.

He was thinking about Harrow’s overfull pouch and the way the room had listened when Crumb promised to be a good steward. He was thinking about the bird he’d nearly lost. He was thinking about how the oven would need checking in three minutes.

He tied the lantern slip to the loaf meant for the letter, and the letter to the one meant for the lantern.

He didn’t realize it until much later.

By then, the loaves had been proofed, marked by Lorne’s quick, precise knife, and slid into the oven. By the time the connection clicked—some small part of his mind muttering, No, that lantern was for a river table, not a home one—they were already browning.

He felt it like he’d swallowed a stone.

“Crumb,” he said, throat dry. “I… I think I swapped two.”

Crumb looked up from the oven, where he’d been checking another batch. “Which?” he asked.

Bryn pointed with a shaking finger. “Those two. Lantern and ‘J.’ One was supposed to be river, one table. I… tied them wrong.”

Crumb didn’t swear. He didn’t roll his eyes. He just took a long, slow breath. “All right,” he said. “We’ll fix it.”

“How?” Bryn’s voice came out rough. “They’re already—”

“In,” Crumb finished for him. “Yes. So the marks will be wrong for whoever thought they were getting each one.” He closed the oven door carefully, as if something fragile inside might hear. “We can’t unbake them. But we can tell the truth.”

Bryn winced. “You’re going to tell them I messed up?”

“I’m going to tell them we messed up,” Crumb said. “Because I set you on this bench without giving you a rest.” He looked at Bryn. “Can you face them when they come in?”

The idea of looking into a grieving person’s eyes and confessing he’d attached their lantern to the wrong loaf made Bryn’s hands go cold.

“I…” He swallowed. “If I say no, you’ll still do it without me.”

“Yes,” Crumb said. “But I’d rather you came. You’re not a priest or a wall. You’re a person. People make mistakes. If we hide that from Lantern Week, we’re liars.”

Bryn stared at the oven door, heat radiating against his chest. “Fine,” he whispered. “I’ll come.”

When the loaves came out, the mistake was obvious.

The lantern loaf stood out among the simple lettered tops. The “J” looked almost plain next to the cluster of more decorated river bread.

Crumb set them aside, separate from the rest.

An hour later, the woman who had ordered the lantern loaf arrived.

She was younger than Bryn expected, hair half-braided, fingers stained with ink. She clutched an empty lantern frame in one hand and looked like she hadn’t slept any more than Harrow had.

“I’m here for…” She trailed off as her eyes fell on the waiting trays. She spotted the lantern-marked loaf immediately. “That one.”

Crumb didn’t move to hand it to her.

“Before we give you anything,” he said gently, “we need to tell you that we made a mistake.” Bryn stood beside him, palms sweating.

“A mistake?” the woman repeated, fingers curling tighter around the lantern.

“I swapped the marks,” Bryn blurted. “Your lantern was meant for the river. I tied it to a table loaf. Someone else’s table loaf got your place in the river batch.”

The woman blinked. Her cheeks went pale.

“So… what does that mean?” she asked. “Is my mother supposed to sit on someone’s mantle now?” She tried to make it a joke, but her voice wobbled.

“No,” Crumb said. “It means the loaf we’re about to hand you was made with her in mind, but the mark on it may not match what you were picturing.”

He picked up the lantern loaf and turned it gently so she could see.

“This one was under your name when it went into the oven,” he said. “This one sat where the river heat hits gentlest. This one is the one we were thinking of when we prayed for you this morning.”

“Prayed?” she asked, startled.

“Some of us pray with words,” Crumb said. “Some with knives and dough. Either way, we were thinking of you and her.” He nodded toward the other loaf. “That ‘J’ was made with another name in mind. We can’t swap them now without lying to ourselves.”

The woman stared at the bread, at the mark.

“I wanted the lantern because she always said she’d come back as a flame and annoy me,” she whispered. “I thought… if it was on the river, it would be like she was finally getting to go somewhere.”

“She will,” Crumb said. “With this loaf or without it. The river doesn’t check the tops for symbols before it carries prayers.”

Bryn flinched at the word prayers. It seemed too holy for his clumsy hands.

“We can bake another with a lantern,” Lorne said quietly from behind them. “The oven’s still warm.”

The woman shook her head. “No. No, that… that’s not right either. I don’t want you to burn more flour on my account.”

Bryn felt something large and unwieldy twist inside him.

“It’s not just flour,” he burst out. “It’s—names. I… I was supposed to hold it. I dropped it. I’m sorry.”

He expected anger. Or tears. Or a lecture.

Instead, the woman looked at him with a strange gentleness. “You’re what, sixteen?” she asked.

“Eighteen,” he said, stung.

“Eighteen,” she amended. “And you’re carrying more names in your head this morning than most people do in a year. If my mother scolds anyone, it’ll be me, for thinking I could trap her in a drawing.”

She took the lantern loaf from Crumb’s hands. Her fingers traced the mark. “You said this one was made with us in mind,” she said.

“Yes,” Crumb said.

“Then it’s hers,” the woman said firmly. “Lantern or no. I’ll know. She’ll know.” She managed a small, crooked smile. “Maybe she’ll enjoy the joke.”

Crumb exhaled softly, some tension leaving his shoulders. “Thank you,” he said.

“Just… don’t lose any more,” the woman added, giving Bryn a look that was more teasing than accusing.

“I won’t,” he said, meaning it with a fervor that surprised him. After she left, Bryn sagged against the counter.

“I don’t like this,” he muttered. “Names. Stories. Feels like handling glass.” “That’s because it is,” Crumb said. “But you’re learning how not to drop as many.” Bryn snorted weakly. “Is this what you feel like all the time?”

“On Lantern Week?” Crumb said. “More or less. The rest of the year, people bring us their hunger. This week, they bring us their dead. Different kind of careful.”

They went back to work.

All afternoon, Bryn moved slower.

Not clumsy slow. Deliberate slow. He read each slip out loud under his breath before he tied it. Sometimes twice. Once, when he caught himself moving too quickly, he forced himself to stop completely and look at the name until it stopped being letters and resolved into a person-shaped space in his mind.

Mila passed him at one point and arched an eyebrow.

“Who are you and what have you done with Bryn?” she whispered. “Shut up,” he muttered. “I’m busy not dropping ghosts.”

By the time dusk fell, the last of the Lantern loaves had gone out the door.

River ones went in stacked baskets, carried by groups who would walk down together, lanterns unlit at their sides. Table loaves went out under arms and in careful cradles, heading for mantels and window sills where small lights would burn beside them.

The bakery, for once, grew quiet before the rest of the village.

Crumb banked the fire low. Mila and Lorne wiped the benches. Bryn stood in the doorway, staring at the road.

Lanterns.

At first, only a few appeared—pinpricks of gold on the edge of town, carried by early families. Then more. And more.

As Lantern Week began in earnest, Bryn watched a slow river of light move down toward the real river, winding between houses and along the main road. From here, it looked like someone had poured a string of embers out of the oven and let them flow.

“Somewhere in there,” Crumb said beside him, “is the loaf you nearly lost.” “And the ones I didn’t,” Bryn said quietly.

“And the ones you’ll carry better next year,” Crumb added.

Bryn flexed his empty hands. They still ached from tying, from weighing, from holding more than dough.

“Feels like I’ve been working all day just to… let go of things I never had,” he muttered.

“That’s Lantern Week,” Crumb said. “We borrow names for a while. Brush them with flour. Give them back.”

“Doesn’t feel like enough,” Bryn said.

“It isn’t,” Crumb agreed. “But that doesn’t mean it’s nothing.”

They stood there for a while, saying nothing more, watching the lights move.

At one point, a girl ran past with a lantern swinging wildly at her side, laughing in that too-loud way kids did when they were trying not to be afraid. Behind her, an older woman walked slower, carrying a loaf in both hands like a small, round anchor.

Bryn watched her hands, the steady way she gripped it.

He wondered which mark was on top. Lantern. Letter. Bird. Wagon. Road. Maman. He would never know.

But he knew he’d touched it.

That he’d read the name it carried.

That somewhere, on some table or on the dark skin of the river, bread he’d helped shape would sit beside a light and be, for one night, more than food.

Later, when they closed the shutters and banked the oven, he lay awake in his narrow bed in the garret and heard the faint sound of singing drifting up from the river.

Names. Dozens of them. Hundreds. He didn’t try to count.

Instead, he whispered under his breath the only one that came to him—not from a slip, not from a ledger. One he’d never written on a ribbon.

He let it sit on his tongue for a moment, then push out into the dark.

“Lio,” he whispered. The older brother who’d taken him to the docks and taught him how to tell good rope from rotten. The one who’d not come back from a storm when Bryn was fourteen.

No slip. No mark. No loaf. Just a name.

Still, for the first time, he wondered what kind of bread he’d make for him if he ever found the courage to write it down.

Sleep came slower that night.

But when it did, it smelled faintly of warm crust and river mist, and of names that, for now, were held a little more carefully than they had been the week before