The bread that came out of the oven was blue, as usual. It wasn’t always that way. The first time it happened, she’d assumed it was a mistake—wrong flour, wrong temperature, something simple. But the second time, and the third, she realized it wasn’t her. It was the house. Everything she baked here turned blue. Bread, cakes, even pastries. The texture was perfect, the taste unchanged, but the color remained stubbornly, unnaturally blue. At first, she tried to fix it. New ingredients. New oven. Nothing worked. Eventually, she stopped trying. People in the village came to expect it. Some even preferred it. “Unique,” they called it. “Charming.” She never told them the truth—that the color deepened when she thought about leaving. That it turned almost violet when she packed her bags. This morning, the bread was darker than ever. She stared at it for a long moment, then wrapped it carefully and set it aside. She didn’t need to test it again. She already knew. The house wasn’t just affecting the bread. It was reacting to her. She grabbed her coat, ignoring the familiar unease that crept through the walls as she moved toward the door. For the first time in months, she didn’t hesitate. Outside, the bus waited at the end of the road. The driver didn’t comment on the faint blue tint to her hands. He didn’t comment on the way the air seemed to shift behind her as she stepped on board. She took a seat without looking back. She waved as the bus pulled away, relieved she would never need to explain any of this.