When the dread let go all at once, I felt almost weightless, almost drunk with the sudden absence of it, and I think that is why I laughed so hard at the end, the near-hysterical laughter that is really just fear leaving the body all at once.

The codes were a filing system.

The ledger was a diary of small daily care.

The map was a wish list.

The humming was affection.

There had never been anything dark in that room at all.

There had only ever been love, of a slightly eccentric and entirely harmless kind, love for old grains and living cultures and the quiet craft of making good bread, hidden away behind a shut door by a woman too shy to be seen loving it.

Chapter 25 — The Flour Obsession