Dermatis Klara drew the rounded loaf of bread from the oven, sliding it out on a long, flat wooden paddle. The scent of yeast and wheat spread through the mill cottage, and her mouth filled with moisture as her stomach twisted painfully. She was past hunger. Still, the fire salamanders writhing and playing in the flames made her smile, and she thanked them before she pushed the iron door shut, letting the cottage fall into cool shadows. Even as hungry as she was, Klara knew the bread was too hot to eat just yet. She set the loaf on a windowsill and covered it with a towel of red-and-white checked cotton, faded and often patched. Turning to the burlap bag of flour, she saw again what she’d seen before she’d baked this single loaf: not enough to bake another loaf, not even a small one. Oh, there were bags of grain in storage, safely locked away from prying dormice—but with her beloved Hermann dead from a fever and Otto, her dear boy, conscripted and later killed (so she’d been informed by official, dispassionate letter) in the Märzrevolution, that horrible revolution of 1848, the mill was as silent as the Water Elementals in the river.
