The Bread Mother

What it looks like, and what it does

A stoneware crock with a cloth lid, bubbling quietly. A round loaf, scored with six short cuts in a ring. Six plates on the table and a seventh, turned face down. Flour on every surface.

Rises overnight in warmth. Bubbles when the household is gathered. Falls flat when someone is excluded.

What is known

The culture, called the Mother, has been fed by the Ostler family since 1722, a spoon of flour for each person under the roof.

Loaves are always scored with a mark for each eater. The marks are sometimes one too many. In 1991 the culture produced a mark for a son who had left to go to sea and had not been heard from. He came home that spring.

What it can do

• Bakes loaves scored for each eater at the table, present or absent
• Survives across generations without a break in the culture

Where it stops

• Dies if a spoon is omitted for a full week
• Will not rise for a household in which someone is being kept out on purpose

An encounter

Ostler scored her loaf and counted seven marks for a household of six. She asked each person at the table whether they had invited anyone. Nobody had. She laid a plate. The seventh slice was gone by morning, and the plate was clean.

Marian Ostler, baker, The Ostler farm, Higher Combe, The spring of 2009

What is established, and what is only said

• established: Records show 302 years of unbroken culture, kept by a single family line.
• rumor: That the culture has never once miscounted.
• interpretation: It may be keeping a headcount of the people the house is expecting, not the ones in it.

Still unresolved

A seventh mark first appeared in 2009 for a person no one in the household can name. The family has kept baking for them.

Where it has been recorded

• Higher Combe (confirmed) — Recorded by Marian Ostler, baker.

Connected entities

• Mother of Rooms — Both keep a place for those who are not in the house. Neither has ever been seen to be wrong about who is missing.
• The Dollhouse Nest — Both keep the family at its most gathered, and both have been found to be keeping one person more than the household knows.