Wagon nearly full, Patience lugged it to their last stop, the bakery. On their way they passed by the butcher shop. Anax’s eye trained upon the cuts of meat hanging in the window. Noting the absence of any people nearby, Anax murmured to talk.

“That is something I’ll miss,” he sighed.

“Meat?”

“Yes. Meat and eating in general.”

“You don’t need to eat?” Upon realization, Patience had a difficult time imagining how Anax could eat in this state anyway. He had no teeth aside from the eight pointing out over her chest.

“I get all the energy I need from you. So you may feel slightly hungrier than normal, but we are very efficient in our second lives and don’t require much excess on your part.”

“Oh. That’s convenient I suppose,” remarked Patience.

“I can still taste things though,” said Anax.

“H-how?”

“I can taste things my vapor touches if I will it. Don’t rightly know how it works. It’s just how it is.”

“Well, I can buy some beef later on in the season. I have to clean out our smoking shed first.”

Patience swore she heard a soft trill of delight at the back of her neck. A long while had passed since her last meal of red meat. It did sound enticing at the moment. Breaking temptation, she veered away from the butcher’s and hustled to the bakery, the wagon clamoring behind her.

The warm scent of yeast mingled with wood smoke from the oven in the back welcomed Patience as she entered the bakery. There were a handful of people going about placing bread into their baskets. Patience tugged Anax’s skull a little further down her face. She quickly grabbed two loaves for herself and went to pay. Her heart dropped when the face behind the counter beamed back at her.

“Patience! Long time no see!” giggled the cheery heart-shaped face.

“Hi, Serafina,” Patience uttered through a grimace forced into the vague shape of a smile. She was not counting on this cherubic blonde to be working this early in the season. Normally her mother would mind the register until after the spring festival, when people would come out to see one of the spring maidens. Still even then, Serafina would only work the later shifts in the day so as not to have to wake early. Then at the end of summer, the girl would go back into her vocational hibernation.

“I almost didn’t recognize you there!” she twittered.

Patience wished she had not.

“How have you been?” Serafina pushed a stray golden lock behind her ear and flashed a saccharine smile.

“Oh you know, just getting ready for spring,” grunted Patience. She firmly put a few coins on the counter, hoping to pay and leave already.

“Is your headdress a part of those plans?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Patience patting the money on the smooth wooden surface.

An elderly woman behind Patience chimed, “How is your mother doing? I heard she came down with a fever a couple days ago.”

“The fever broke last night. Thank you for asking, Mrs. Malkin!”

“Have you started preparing for the spring festival yet?” chirped another matron. Beneath the skull, Patience felt her head grow hot. She was starting to lose her patience.

“Oh I have, Mrs. Townsend! We raised just enough over the winter! I’m going in for my final fitting next week at the seamstress’s!”

“That’s wonderful! I can’t wait to see how you look!” the woman simpered.

Patience’s eyes rolled in the shade of Anax’s temples. She cleared her throat.

Serafina finally noticed the payment on the counter and made change for Patience without any acknowledgement of the delay in service.

“Here you go, Patience!” Serafina dropped two coins into Patience’s open palm. “I hope you’ll come to the spring festival this year!”

“Maybe!” Patience forced her voice higher than normal to match Serafina’s. She gathered the bread to her chest and promptly left the store. The loaves landed with soft thuds into her wagon.

“What was that about?” asked Anax while they walked down a secluded street.

“Ugh. Serafina’s known me since we were kids. We’ve never been close but I went to school with her so we know of each other well enough.”

“And the hostility?”

Patience inhaled deeply, preparing to vent, “She just irritates me. A lot. Serafina’s the baker’s daughter, but she doesn’t have any real interest in the bakery, she just tends the till whenever she wants or when she’s forced to. 

"She’s never had to work a hard day in her life and people—strangers shower her with affection. Like the dress for example. She’s been one of the main maidens in the spring festival for years now and last year her dress ripped when she tripped on her way down from a parade wagon. A bunch of people in town began donating money to her for a new one.”

“She has an agreeable personality. People are drawn to that,” Anax noted.

“Well it’s not agreeable to me. She can stay afloat by just being her stupid self doing nothing,” huffed Patience. The wagon paused on a stubborn cobblestone and was promptly jerked violently into motion again. The girl sighed, “and here I am, making things work by myself. I’m an outsider. Few seek my company. Few want anything to do with me.”

“You have me now,” said Anax. Patience grumbled, unwilling to admit she did enjoy having Anax’s company. To be able to speak to another daily was something she sorely missed.

They passed a closed gate of a lot. Noises of machinery and metal rang from behind the fence. Patience missed the time when it was quiet and serene there, when it had once belonged to her father. It was his atelier, and it had cemented him among Keaton’s society of business owners. For Patience, it was more than just a place of business.

Years ago her father would walk her to school in the mornings before opening his studio. When class let out, Patience would then spend the afternoon by her father’s side, completing essays and equations while he did his work. Breaks came in even intervals, freeing the pair to roam town to mingle with people, and attain snacks. Then once it neared suppertime, the two would set off back home. This lot contained much of Patience’s childhood.

When her father decided to retire, he sold his studio and parcel to a mechanic and brought all of his equipment to set up shop at home in their yard, only taking the rare commission or project of personal friends. It made sense; the long trip into town demanded much from his aging body. But when he left Keaton, he took the Firmins’ presence along with him. Patience, bereft of her social crutch, would have hardly gone into town if school were not compulsory. The family grew more distant from the townsfolk, only keeping in touch with a rare few. Their absence left a vacuum in Keaton, one that was then filled by gossip.

As she reached the end of the fence, Patience stood on tiptoes in an attempt to see over into the lot. However, the hedges that had grown in the years of her father’s absence blocked her sight. They were so little once.