The bell above the bakery door chimed its familiar, cheerful note, sealing Marcus Finley inside a world of warmth, flour-dusted air, and his mother's anxious gaze.
"Finally," she sighed, wiping her hands on her apron.
"I thought you'd decided to take a nap out there. Close it properly, please."
The heavy iron bolt slid home with a solid thunk, locking out the damp and the dark. But it couldn't lock out what he had seen. The image burned onto the back of his eyelids: a pair of eyes, wide and wary as a cornered animal's, staring back at him from the shadows of the tailor's doorway.
Those eyes haunted him. He's just a street rat, his father would say. You give them a crumb, they'll be at the door forever.
"Marcus?" His mother's voice was softer now, laced with concern. "Everything alright? You're not coming down with a chill, are you?"
Her hand moved toward his forehead in the universal gesture of maternal worry and Marcus stepped back instinctively.
"No, Mother." He forced a smile, turning to face her. "I'm just… tired."
It was a lie. He wasn't tired. He was itchy in his own skin. The shop, usually a place of comforting routine, felt suddenly too warm, too bright, too full. Every surface gleamed with prosperity from the polished brass fixtures, the well oiled wood of the display cases and and neat rows of tomorrow's bread cooling on their racks. It was everything he'd been taught to value.
So why did it feel like a cage to him?
The yeasty scent of proofing dough, which normally made his mouth water, now felt cloying, almost obscene in its abundance. How many loaves would they bake tomorrow? Fifty? Sixty? And how many of those would go unsold, destined for the slop bucket or the day-old bin? How many would they throw away while that boy starved twenty feet from their door?
The memory hit him like a physical blow.
He'd seen that boy before. Not just a fleeting glimpse, but seen him. Last week, during the first real cold snap of the season, when the wind had teeth and rain turned to sleet.
Marcus had been running errands for his mother, his stomach full of warm porridge an pocket jingling with the coins she'd given him for supplies. He'd been hurrying through the market square, eager to complete his tasks and return to the warmth of his home. That's where he'd seen him.
The boy had been crouched beside old man Hemstark's fabric cart, his thin fingerd working at the knots that secured the wool blanket to the display. Not cutting. Just persuading it to fall. But Hemstark's guard dog had been faster than any child had a right to be, landing a kick so devasting it had echoed across the market square and sent the boy sprawling into the mud.
The boy didn't cry. He'd hit the ground hard enough to splash dirty water three feet in every direction. He just scrambled back, with those same animal-eyes flashing with a humiliation so profound it had made Marcus's own cheeks burn. The blanket had been torn from his grasp ofcourse, and Hermstark himself emerged from his stall like an avenging fury, all righteous indignation and flying spittle.
"You filthy little rat!" Hemstark's voice cracked like a whip across the square. "You think you can steal from me? From my stall?" He jabbed a finger toward the boy, his face blotches red with rage. "You darkies breed like vermin in the gutters and then crawl out here to rob honest men of their bread!"
The boy still hunched on his hands and knees, said nothing. His shoulders heaved, breath shallow, but his eyes remained fixed on the blanket clutched in Hemstark's thick hand.
"Nothing to say?" Hemstark sneered, spittle catching in his beard. "Ofcourse not. Little beasts like you don't talk. All you do is just take and take, and take!"
The crowd had watched with casual interest of spectators at a street performance, entertained but not involved, quick to judge but slow to act.
And Marcus? He didn't do anything. Said nothing. He'd just stood there like a stature while Hemstark's boot found the boy's ribs a second time, while the crowd muttered about thieves and street rats and the decline of proper order.
And for a moment, the boy's eyes met his across the square for one devastating moment. The boy rolled to his feet with liquid grace and melted back into the crowd, leaving nothing behind but a few drops of blood on the wet stones.
Marcus still held the two warm meat pies his mother had sent him to buy, as he watched the boy vanish from the crowd.
And then.
"Don't just stand there gathering dust," his father's voice boomed from the kitchen doorway, startling Marcus from his trance like state. Gerald Finley filled the frame like a force of nature, his massive forearms dusted with flour, his dark hair damp with sweat from the ovens. "The sourdough won't knead itself you know. And count the till while you at it. I want to know if we've made enough to pay the miller's extortionate bill this month."
The routine was a lifeline. Marcus grabbed a cloth and began wiping down the already-spotless countertops. Scrubbed the wood. Counted the coins. Stacked the chairs. Each motion was a prayer to normalcy. But his mind was a stuck gear, replaying the moment his hand had flicked the apple turnover into the rain.
It had been an impulse. A stupid, reckless impulse. What if the boy had lunged for the door? What if he'd started begging every night? His father would have been furious. His mother, worried sick.
But the boy hadn't moved. He'd just… watched. And in that moment, Marcus hadn't seen a street rat. He'd seen a boy his own age, hollowed out by a hunger Marcus could only imagine. He'd seen himself, if his own world had been made of different, far crueler ingredients.
The guilt was a physical weight in his stomach, heavier than any stolen pastry.
Dinner was a quiet affair. A rich mutton stew with dumplings, a luxury many in the city couldn't afford. Marcus pushed a dumpling around his bowl, his appetite gone.
"Out with it," his father said, not looking up from his bread. The man could sense a troubled dough from across the room; his own son's mood was an open book.
"It's nothing," Marcus mumbled.
"It's not 'nothing' when you're wasting good food," his father replied, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Your mother worked hard on that."
His mother placed a gentle hand on his arm. "Did something happen at the market today?"
He couldn't tell them. He couldn't put the image of that boy's suffering into their warm, well-lit kitchen. It would feel like a betrayal. Of the boy? Or of his family? He wasn't sure.
"It's the boy," he finally whispered, staring into his stew. "The one who sleeps in the tailor's doorway sometimes."
His father's chewing slowed. His mother's hand stilled on his arm.
A long silence stretched, filled only by the crackle of the hearth.
"Ah," his father said, a world of meaning in the single syllable. He put down his spoon. "Marcus… son… the city is full of boys like that. Men, too. You can't…"
"I know," Marcus interrupted, the words sharper than he intended. "I know we can't help them all. But what if we could help just one?"
The question hung in the air, fragile and dangerous.
His parents exchanged a look—a silent, married conversation that lasted several heartbeats. His father's face, usually stern from a lifetime of predawn risings and hard labor, softened at the edges. His mother's eyes grew sad.
"The world is a hard place, Marcus," his mother said softly. "Harder than this kitchen. Sometimes, the kindest thing is to be hard in return. It's how we protect what we have, how we keep this—" she gestured around their warm kitchen, their full table, their safe haven "—from being taken away."
It was the right answer. The smart answer. The answer that had kept Finley's Finest in business for three generations and had put food on their table and clothes on their backs and a roof over their heads.
But as Marcus lay in bed later that night, staring at the moon-washed ceiling in his small room, it felt like the most wrong answer in the world. He could still see those eyes. He could still feel the weight of the uneaten dumpling in his stomach.
Outside his window, the rain had finally stopped. The silence felt expectant. Somewhere out there, a boy his own age was curled in a doorway, cold and hungry and alone. And here Marcus lay, warm and safe and fed, doing nothing.
An idea began to form, foolish and fragile, dangerous and necessary. It wasn't much. It wouldn't solve anything, not really. But it was something, it was a start.
Quiet as a shadow, he slipped out of bed. The floorboards were cold under his bare feet. Each step a small shock that reminded him he was really doing this, really abandoning the safety of his room for something that could go terribly wrong.
He crept downstairs, his heart hammering against his ribs. The bakery was dark, the ovens cold.
He didn't go for the day-old pastries in the slop bucket meant for the pigs. He went to the cooling rack, where tomorrow's bread waited in perfect tows. He chose one of the fresh, dark rye his father was famous for—the one with the crackling crust and the soft, sour heart that would sell for three copper bits each tomorrow.
He wrapped it in a clean cloth, his hands trembling.
He was a thief in his own home. His father's son, stealing his father's bread to feed his own conscience. It felt like blasphemy and righteousness in equal measure.
Cracking the back door open just enough to slide through, he slipped out whilst moving quickly and then placed the loaf in the empty spot where the rubbish bin stood during the day. A place the boy would see it.
Close enough he would know it was intentional. A place away from the door, so it wouldn't feel like a threat.
He then retreated back inside to his bed, the deed done, his heart racing, the cold of the night seeping into his bones. He'd crossed a line tonight. Broken the rules. He'd been soft in a world that demanded hardness.
And for the first time in weeks, the itchy, restless feeling was gone. Replaced by a terrified, hopeful peace.
He had no way of knowing if the boy would even find it.
But he had to believe that sometimes, protecting what you had meant sharing a piece of it.