The Ugly Baker - E-book - ePub

The town of Grasshopper, Ohio is not known for a whole lot in 1995. Maybe its odd characters, its ethereal setting of forested undulations, and its beloved Just Like Uptown bakery. The bakery is a staple in the daily lives of its denizens, from Mr. Eliza Snobe who works by the cemetery, and Doyle who can't muster up the courage to ask out the schoolteacher, and Sky Flanders whose background is as much a mystery as Uncle Talbot's buried treasure.
Cheerfully icing cakes in the front window is the bakery owner, Dinah Safford. All the goods on display are baked by Hilary. He's nothing to anyone but a suggestion behind a slatted backroom doorway, a twinge of a shadow in twilight hours. And what is Dinah Safford to Hilary? Are they siblings, cousins, or merely friends with a long history? A few Grasshoppers refuse to believe Hilary is real. Hilary does exist in three clearly-defined worlds: his kitchen, his attic room at his parents' creaky old mansion, and the faraway fantasy realm of St.
Goslington's. This is the home of Hilary's imaginary best friend, Mortimer, a fairytale prince with fairytale magic. Hilary has grown up hearing all about St. Goslington's and the five Sainted Realms, a land of silver-feathered swans, busy gnomes and mysterious dryads, a magical castle that once housed the most famous resident of St. Goslington's, and, nearby, the evil Sir Gravecrow who wants nothing but to be the next duke of the Wish Fairies.
Content in his life, surrounded by Mortimer's stories and his own shelves of books, Hilary can't foresee that much will change. He can't foresee that he'll soon be involved in a violent fight for the Wish Fairies' duchy. Next door to Hilary is dark and shuttered Honey Plum House. Long ago, before Hilary hid himself away, the remaining members of the Lipot family scattered. The surprise return of the youngest, Ren Lipot, stirs up Grasshopper gossip and Hilary's curiosity.
Encouraged by Ren's benevolence, Hilary offers to fix a few items to make Honey Plum House livable. Ren's friendliness makes Hilary wish he were different, prettier and more interesting, better at speaking and not so bulky and clumsy. After living more than a decade sequestered from people outside his family, Hilary's confidence is broken and his innocence is a hindrance. Ren, as a child, had caught a glimpse of a teenaged Hilary, but he was nothing at all like the quiet, burly man he grew up to be.
Back at his grandparents' in order to plan his sister's wedding, with her kitschy idea of bringing glamor to that backwater house, he is drawn into the tangles and old myths of Grasshopper, and right back to romantic wonderings about the alluring hermit just across the lilac hedge. The longer he stays around, the more he wants to know about the baker, the more he wants to be with the baker, and the more it seems that Hilary wants to be with him.
As Hilary's adoration for Ren generates changes, havoc ensues in his relationship with Mortimer. But it isn't just ugly jealousy. It's a shift in the entire energy that permeates Mortimer's home of St. Goslington's, and maybe even Mortimer himself. Hilary crosses the line between his world and Mortimer's, finding himself the centerpiece of an unfinished tale involving a magical box, nefarious elves, and a determined fairy queen's desire to find a suitable candidate for the duchy.
Action between the two worlds narrows and narrows and squeezes Hilary. Soon, it seems that even citizens of Grasshopper are part of another world. Only through the application of his own internal magic, exposed and defined as he falls in love, can Hilary find a way to protect Ren and Mortimer from nebulous but villainous intentions.