Bread for the Hungry Name

rigger Warning: Mentions of food insecurity and past family abandonment (non-graphic).

Nia had learned to live with hunger the way some people lived with tinnitus: a constant, thin ringing inside the body. Sometimes it was a real ache under her ribs, a hollow that made her hands shake when she tried to count coins. Sometimes it was a different kind of emptiness, one that sat behind her sternum like a locked room.

Tonight it was both.

She stood under the awning of a closed laundromat on Boundary Street, watching Brisbane rain turn the pavement into a mirror. The city’s lights smeared across it, neon melting into puddles. Her hoodie was damp at the shoulders, her stomach was a clenched fist, and her backpack felt heavier than it had any right to. It wasn’t the weight of her stuff. It was the weight of “eighteen” and “good luck” and “you’ll be right.”

She hadn’t been right for a while.

Then she smelled bread.

Not the supermarket kind that came in plastic with a forced smile. This was warm yeast and browned crust and butter doing something close to prayer. The scent curled into her nostrils and tightened her throat, like her body recognised safety and didn’t trust it.

Nia looked down the street. Shops were shuttered, signage dark. The only thing open was the usual late-night kebab place and a petrol station that always looked tired.

But the bread smell came from an alley.

Nia hesitated. Hunger made you brave, or stupid. Sometimes it made you both and told you it was character development.

She stepped into the alley anyway.

Halfway down, where there should’ve been a brick wall tagged with old graffiti, there was a door. Plain timber, brass handle, no sign. A thin line of light spilled from beneath it, warm and golden, the colour of toast just before it tipped into burnt.

Nia pressed her palm to the door. The wood felt strangely alive, as if it held heat the way a person held a secret.

She pushed.

A bell chimed, soft as a spoon tapping a teacup.

Inside was a bakery that looked like it had been carved out of honey. Copper pans hung from rafters, a display case gleamed with pastries that seemed to glow from their own good mood, and the air was thick with flour and cinnamon and something Nia couldn’t name but wanted in her mouth immediately.

A woman stood behind the counter kneading dough with forearms like tree roots and hair pinned up in a messy bun. She looked up without surprise, like she’d been expecting Nia the way ovens expected heat.

“You’re late,” the woman said.

Nia blinked. “For what?”

“For admitting it,” the woman replied, and flour dusted the air as she slapped the dough into a smooth round. “Hungry people always arrive late. Pride makes you take the scenic route.”

Nia’s cheeks burned. “I’m not… I didn’t come to—”

Her stomach betrayed her with a loud, savage growl.

The woman’s mouth quirked. “Mm. Your body’s got manners like a possum.”

Nia stiffened. “I can leave.”

“You can,” the woman said easily. “But you won’t.”

Nia hated that she was right.

The woman washed her hands in a bowl of warm water, dried them on her apron, and reached under the counter. She brought up a small plate with a thick slice of bread on it, the crust blistered dark-gold, the inside pale and steaming. Butter already melted into it in glossy pools.

Nia stared like it might vanish if she looked too hard.

“Eat,” the woman said.

Nia’s voice came out rough. “How much?”

The woman lifted a brow. “That’s not the question you think it is.”

Nia swallowed. “I don’t have money.”

“Never asked,” the woman said.

“Then why—”

“Because you’re hungry,” the woman replied, as if that explained the entire world. “And because I’m Maris. Sit, Nia.”

Nia froze. “How do you know my name?”

Maris nodded toward Nia’s backpack strap, where a faded label still clung. NIA R. in marker, the kind of label someone had written because kids got lost easily when nobody paid attention.

Nia’s hand went to the strap like she could hide it now.

Maris’s gaze softened, just a fraction. “Eat before you turn into a ghost.”

Nia didn’t sit. Sitting felt like permission. Permission felt dangerous. But the smell was a hook, and her body was already halfway surrendered.

She picked up the slice with both hands and took a bite.

The bread was warm and dense and somehow… bright. The crust cracked under her teeth like thin ice. The inside tasted of butter and salt and a faint sweetness that reminded her of school mornings long ago, when someone had packed lunch and the world had seemed simpler because there had been a sandwich waiting.

Her eyes stung.

She swallowed too fast, took another bite, and then another, as if speed could outrun whatever this feeling was.

Maris watched her without pity, which somehow made it safer.

When Nia finally paused, breath shaky, half the slice was gone.

Maris leaned on the counter. “So. What kind of hungry are you?”

Nia blinked. “The… normal kind?”

Maris made a sound like amusement trying not to be rude. “That’s one. But it’s not the one that dragged you off the street like a tide.”

Nia’s fingers tightened around the bread. The warm crust pressed into her skin, grounding her.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Maris shrugged. “Then we’ll find out.”

She reached for a small jar on a shelf behind her. The jar held a pale, bubbling paste, like porridge that had learned to breathe.

“Sourdough starter?” Nia guessed, because she’d watched enough cooking shows in group homes to pretend she knew things.

Maris smiled. “Wild starter. And it’s moody.”

Nia looked at the jar. “Why is it… doing that?”

“It’s alive,” Maris said simply. “It feeds. It grows. It remembers.”

Nia swallowed. “That’s creepy.”

“It’s honest,” Maris corrected. “Most living things are hungry. Bread is just polite about it.”

Nia stared at the jar, then at her half-eaten slice. Hunger inside her shifted, uneasy, like it had been called out in public.

Maris lifted a cloth from beside the jar, revealing a second bowl, empty and clean. “I can give you another slice. I can give you ten. I can fill your stomach until your body stops panicking.”

Nia’s mouth watered at the thought, and she hated herself for it.

“But,” Maris continued, “if you don’t name the other hunger, it’ll keep chewing holes in you. Doesn’t matter how much you eat.”

Nia’s throat tightened. “I’m not… I don’t have—”

“A word,” Maris supplied. “You don’t have a word for it. That’s fine. Hungry people lose language first. It’s like your brain sells vowels to pay rent.”

Nia let out a startled, embarrassed laugh that turned into something almost like a sob, and she covered it by taking another bite.

The bread tasted of comfort and it made her furious, because comfort always came with strings.

Maris’s voice dropped gentler. “Nobody walks into my bakery by accident, Nia.”

Nia’s stomach twisted. “I didn’t even know this place existed.”

“It doesn’t,” Maris said. “Not in the way you mean.”

Nia stared. “Are you… a witch?”

Maris’s smile went sideways. “I’m a baker. Sometimes the overlap is inconvenient.”

Nia shook her head, half laugh, half panic. “This is insane.”

“Mm,” Maris said. “And yet you’re still here.”

Nia finished the slice without thinking, and only when her fingers closed on air did she realise she’d eaten the whole thing. For a moment she just stared at her empty hands, stunned by her own speed.

Maris slid another slice onto the plate, quieter this time, no ceremony. “Eat slower. You’re safe in here.”

Safe.

The word landed on Nia like a stone in her pocket. Heavy. Unfamiliar. Not entirely welcome.

She sat, finally, on a stool at the small counter by the window. Rain streaked the glass. Beyond it, the alley looked like an alley again. Brick and wet concrete. No door.

Nia swallowed. “So… what? This place appears for hungry people?”

Maris nodded. “For the ones who are hungry enough to stop pretending.”

Nia picked at the crust of the new slice. “And you feed them.”

“I do,” Maris said. “But I also ask them questions they’ve been avoiding.”

Nia’s laugh was thin. “Great. So it’s therapy bread.”

Maris’s eyes warmed. “Exactly. Except you can toast it.”

Nia took a small bite this time. The warmth eased her stomach’s frantic grip, and with it, something in her shoulders unclenched.

Maris turned back to her work, hands moving with practiced calm. “Tell me about your hunger.”

Nia stared at the bread. The crust looked like the top of a river stone, browned and resilient. She wanted to be like that.

“I’m hungry,” she said slowly, “for… for not having to think about food all the time.”

Maris nodded once. “Yes.”

Nia’s jaw tightened. “I’m hungry for a place where my stuff isn’t always packed, like I’m about to be moved.”

Maris’s hands paused for the first time. She looked up, eyes sharp with attention.

Nia felt the room listen.

“And,” Nia whispered, surprised at herself, “I’m hungry for someone to… choose me. Like on purpose.”

Silence, thick as dough.

Maris’s gaze softened. “There it is.”

Nia’s eyes burned. She blinked hard, angry at her own body for leaking. “It’s stupid.”

“It’s human,” Maris corrected. “Now. That kind of hunger doesn’t go away with a second slice.”

Nia laughed weakly. “So what do I do? Eat a whole loaf and become emotionally stable?”

Maris’s mouth twitched. “If only.”

She washed her hands again, then came around the counter and set the jar of bubbling starter in front of Nia.

“What’s this for?” Nia asked.

Maris placed a hand flat on the jar lid. “This bakery runs on wild yeast. It feeds on what you offer it.”

Nia frowned. “Like… flour?”

Maris nodded. “Flour. Water. Heat.” Her eyes met Nia’s. “And truth.”

Nia’s throat tightened again. “You’re doing metaphors at me.”

“I am,” Maris said. “Because direct language scares you.”

Nia opened her mouth to deny it, but it was true enough to sting.

Maris slid the jar closer. “If you want more than a full stomach, you have to help me make a loaf.”

Nia stared. “I don’t know how.”

“You will,” Maris said. “But first, you have to feed the starter.”

Nia swallowed. “With… truth?”

Maris nodded. “A small one. Nothing you’re not ready for. Just something real.”

Nia’s fingers hovered over the jar like it might bite.

She thought of all the times she’d smiled and said she was fine, because “fine” was the easiest answer. Fine was a shield. Fine was a door you could lock.

Her voice came out small. “I’m tired.”

The jar fizzed. Not dramatically. Just… pleased, like it recognised itself in the sentence.

Nia blinked. “Did it—”

“It heard you,” Maris said. “Go on.”

Nia swallowed again. “I’m tired of being… grateful. Like gratitude is the rent I pay for existing.”

The starter bubbled more actively, a soft froth rising.

Nia felt her chest tighten, not with panic, but with something sharp and clean.

Maris nodded. “Good. Now we bake.”

They worked together in the warm hush of the bakery. Maris measured flour with effortless confidence; Nia copied her, hands clumsy but determined. They mixed water and starter, salt and a pinch of honey. The dough came together under Nia’s palms, sticky at first, then slowly learning structure.

Maris guided her hands. “You don’t wrestle dough,” she said. “You convince it.”

Nia snorted. “That sounds like dating advice.”

Maris’s grin flashed. “Most good baking is.”

They folded and rested the dough, letting it breathe. The smell shifted from raw flour to something faintly alive, a promise warming in the bowl.

While it rose, Maris poured tea into two mugs. The steam smelled like chamomile and smoke. She slid one to Nia.

Nia wrapped both hands around it. The heat sank into her fingers. It was such a simple kindness it made her throat ache.

Maris sipped her tea and studied Nia over the rim. “You can leave after the loaf bakes.”

Nia stared into her mug. “And if I don’t want to?”

Maris’s voice stayed steady. “Then you come back tomorrow. Or the day after. Or whenever your hunger drags you here again.”

Nia swallowed. “What do you get out of this?”

Maris’s gaze drifted to the oven, where the dough now waited in a proofing basket. “I get to watch people remember they are worth feeding.”

Nia’s mouth twisted. “That’s… suspiciously kind.”

Maris’s eyes crinkled. “Kindness is only suspicious if you’ve been starved of it.”

Nia looked away, because that landed too accurately.

The loaf went into the oven with a soft thud. Maris scored the top with a blade, a clean slash that looked like opening a door. As it baked, the kitchen filled with the deepening perfume of crust and caramelising sugars, the sound of tiny cracks as the bread expanded, becoming itself.

Nia sat on the stool, tea cooling in her hands, and felt something in her settle. Not fixed. Not healed. But steadied, like a boat that had finally found a calmer current.

When the timer chimed, Maris pulled the loaf out. The crust was dark-gold, blistered, beautiful. It sang as it cooled, tiny crackles like whispering applause.

Maris set it on a board and cut two slices once it was just cool enough not to punish them. Butter melted into the crumb. Steam rose. The first bite tasted like warmth and salt and a quiet insistence that tomorrow might be different.

Nia chewed slowly, making herself be present.

Maris watched her. “Still hungry?”

Nia considered the question honestly.

Her stomach felt full for the first time in days. But the other hunger was still there, softer now, less frantic, like an animal that had stopped biting because it had finally been seen.

“Yes,” Nia admitted. “But… not desperate.”

Maris nodded. “That’s how it starts. Hunger becomes direction instead of damage.”

Nia swallowed. “So what now?”

Maris reached under the counter and pulled out a small cloth bundle. She set it in front of Nia.

Nia untied it. Inside was a tiny jar of starter, bubbling gently.

Maris’s voice was calm. “Take it. Feed it when you feel yourself shrinking. Flour, water, and one honest sentence.”

Nia’s fingers curled around the jar. It was warm. Alive.

“And,” Maris added, “come back when you’re ready to be chosen on purpose.”

Nia’s eyes stung again. “You mean… you’re offering—”

“I’m offering an apprenticeship,” Maris said. “If you want it. No gratitude required. Just work. Just truth. Just showing up.”

Nia’s chest tightened like it couldn’t decide whether to panic or bloom.

Outside, rain softened to a drizzle. The alley beyond the window looked ordinary. But the air inside the bakery still smelled like possibility.

Nia held the starter jar close, like a small heat source she didn’t want to lose.

“I want it,” she whispered.

Maris’s smile was quiet and real. “Good. Then eat one more slice before you go. Hungry people make poor choices in the dark.”

Nia laughed, shaky but genuine, and reached for the bread.

She ate slowly this time, tasting every bite.

Not because she wasn’t hungry anymore.

Because for the first time, she believed she might not always be.