The Gingerbread Ashes

Central Pennsylvania, 1891. The frost comes early. A kitchen smells of smoke and sugar. Elsie’s little brother doesn’t wake—the stove fire died in the night. Her mother sits by the iron door until morning. A small handful of ash is kept. On Christmas Eve, Elsie mixes that ash into dough, shapes a tiny figure with raisin eyes, and whispers his name before the heat. The scent is sweet and sharp. Her mother weeps: “It smells like him.”

Each winter, another figure. The story goes they begin to whisper back. Elsie lines them on the windowsill; in the morning there are crumbs like footprints on her pillow. When neighbors force the door,  ...