Managing the affairs relating to the accident and deaths was tiresome and the day was long passed into night before Mr. Croft locked the door of his office behind him. Though the men had gone home and the lights were out he knew his way throught he twisting corridors and machines by heart. A fierce pride filled his heart. Surely Satan himself held no more dread and mastery in the pits of hell. This was power and glory.
But then what was the flickering light coming from the kitchen? What defiant outrage could now trouble his thoughts. Peering throught the keyhole, Mr. Croft saw the baker labouring over dough on his bench, rolling it flat with much grunting and muttering, beneath the light of a single guttering, smoking candle. In the dim light the baker seemed more like some groteque hog pretending to be a man than anything human and Mr. Croft had to stiffle a laugh as he stood and swung the door wide.
"You're done here baker!" He shouted exuberantly! "Wasting company materials on your own gluttony after you thought everyone was gone! Well, now at last I have you and with you gone I will soon, very soon crush the spirits of all this pathetic, lazy, ignorant rabble. I will be defied and laughed at no more when you are gone!"
The baker intent on his work ignored the manager, continuing to drone on and grunt as if he were alone. Incensed, Mr. Croft glanced about the kitchen, his eyes fixing on a small figure crouched beside the stove.
"So, harbouring thieving little rats can be added to your letter of dismissal!" He roared. The baker stopped and looked at his work as if he were satisified and dusted some flour from his hands.
"Judith is feeling unwell, and I fear her ills are beyond my art to heal." The baker said softly, in a sad voice. "Do you know, so many of the world's ills are beyond my grasp." He shook his head. "Have you ever seen dough beneath a strong lense Ezekiel? It is like a world of fierce little animals turning and devouring themselves in endless generations. Almost biblical, like something out of Revelations. Do you think yourself an evil man Ezekiel?"
At this the baker fixed his rat like eyes on Exekiel Croft who was sputtering at the impertenance of the baker to assume such a familiar address. "Do you know anything about the power of evil? As it happens I do, I was born to weath and status though I dare say I was an embarassment to my family. No self control, I couldn't stop eating you know? But as it happens I had a gentlemans education in my youth and more afterwards. Do you think yourself a very prince among devils? I can tell you I have done worse. My curiosity was as insatiable as my appetite and I consumed books with as much fervor as I did sweets. I had an uncle, who was also an embarassment. He was a real scholar and his studies were more esoteric and deep than your shallow mind could possibly grasp. He took to me and I to he and I learned so much and under his tutelage I did such things as a petty fool like you could never understand. In time we were found out and he was locked away forever in Bedlam and I, I was disowned, disavowed, and set out in the world with no more than the clothes on my back and the dark knowledge in my heart.
Fortunately a good hearted priest took me in and found me a trade and a place in the world. To my shame, I saw the working classes in their huddled masses and knew I looked on greater nobility than was found in my vaunted family halls and so I dedicated myself and my terrible knowledge to their well being. Did you think you fed on the terror and despair you wrought here? Look here on this table, this flat expanse of dough like the world before Columbus pounded and rolled it into shape. See the candle there, it is very special. The bodies of the children who died here today provided the tallow that burns there. Their anger will burn like an eternal light for untold ages. See the hole there in the roof by the chimney, open to the souless void of the heavens above us like the end of all time and creation? I have writen terrible things here in the dough in words never spoken by the tongues of men. I have chanted and sweated and bled here this long night. Do you hear the twelve bells ringing from the church house in the town?"
Ezekiel Croft shook off the terrified fascination that had gripped him as the bells tolled twelve. It seemed to him that the child, Judith had walked into the dark shadows behind the stove into an abyss of endless miles and the baker was now standing so close that he could smell the blood and sweat and sweet sticky breath.
"Only one thing remains, the life of a wicked man, a murderer, a hypocrite of such diabolical manner that even hell itself would scorn him." It was then Mr. Croft noticed the knife and all the blood, so much blood, as he began to slip away. "And so, I give the children of the world a place of refuge that will long endure in the void beyond time and knowledge." The baker whispered in a soft, measured voice. And then, even more horrible than the pain of his life blood flowing across the dough covered bench, the massive baker turned and flowed into the narrow shadows behind the stove, down between creases and cracks in the facade of the world to follow young Judith into a realm of endless light.