The sweet air of the temple district is what makes the bread taste so good, Mama says. The shafts of sunbeams that come through broken stained glass pick up a honeyed fragrance on their way down and warm our rising dough. The breeze that wheezes through chinks in crumbling stone walls stirs up ghosts of ancient incense and perfumes our airy loaves. The ovens that once burned the dead now bake our bread.

No one from the city will buy our bread but the others who live here outside its walls are eager for it. They pay us in found things, chipped pottery and handfuls of nails and worm-eaten wood and sacks of bones. They eat the bread in the street, tearing into the loaves with sharp teeth, pulling out the soft insides with long fingers.

I think the bread will make me strong. I practice in the courtyard when I’m not helping Mama. I run at the wall, dig toes into gaps, leap for the next handhold. My fingers seek out the tiniest holds, little ledges only deep enough for the first joint of my fingers. Every day I climb a little higher, but there’s always a point when my fingers give out and I drop back down.

Get more flour, Mama says, so I go. There aren’t any farms outside the city walls and the people inside won’t trade with us, but the grindstone still grinds and there is always grist for the mill. I bring home the sacks full of heavy flour and Mama goes to work.

Mama never stops baking. She kneads the dough with gaunt knuckles, dusted with flour up to her elbows. I haul the water up from the well and sometimes I knead next to her. It feels so nice when you make it right, when the dough is warm and baby-soft. I’m always cold these days but I dig my fingers into the dough and push and fold and push and fold. The grit of wall-dust from my hands gets slowly kneaded in, disappearing into the pillowy folds like a drowning man in the sea.

The city gates used to open. I barely remember it, but once they never shut. Then the sickness came and the buildings burned and people screamed in the night. Mama and I got sick, and by the time we got better, the gates were closed for good. Do they think of those of us they left behind? Do they wonder how we’re getting on? Do they mourn for us?

Every day I climb a little higher.

The customers are always at our door, hungry, long fingers, sharp teeth. I dole out the bread and take in the payments—broken chairs and baby clothes and sacks of bones. I tear the clothes into strips to weave into rope. I chop the chairs into wood for the fire. I put the sacks by the door to take to the mill.

Do the people in the city see how we thrive down here? How alive we are? Do they see how well I can climb now? The walls are very high and maybe they don’t look this way anymore, although at night I see their watch fires. I don’t think they forgot about us. Maybe they just got used to that door being shut. I’m sure it’s not that hard to open if you really wanted to.

Tend the ovens, Mama says, and I do. I shovel out the ashes and freshen the kindling. I fish out the loaves and set them out to cool. Mama’s busy so I rip one of them open, tear off a bite with my sharp teeth. It’s painfully hot and crunchy but it tastes so good, so fresh and sweet and filling. For a moment, it fills my belly. I’m always hungry these days.

I meet the customers at the door. They hand me old coins, dirty blankets, sacks of bones. I push the bread loaves at them. Eat, eat. They need their strength. The plague took so much out of us all.

When my duties are done, I go back to the courtyard to practice. I’m strong now. My fingers are long and they grip the wall like spiders.

Every day I climb a little higher.