A delivery with nothing inside
Every Friday for three weeks, a small paper bag appeared on the bakery counter before opening. It was empty, folded twice at the top, and marked with three neat pinholes near the base. Lina first assumed her father had left it there while unpacking supplies. He said he had not bought that narrow size since they stopped selling the little seeded rolls.
There was no sign of a break-in. The bags arrived during the half hour when Lina’s father opened the side door for flour deliveries. Anyone from the shared courtyard could have set one down. Nothing was missing, and the cash drawer stayed locked. The mystery was modest enough to be funny, except that somebody clearly expected the bags to mean something.
Lina unfolded the latest one under the window. Flour dust clung inside a crease, and the bottom seam had been repaired with a strip of blue paper. Her father recognized the blue immediately: it matched the labels they once used on special orders. He remembered a customer who asked for six small rolls every Friday, but not the customer’s name.
The old order notebook was stored above the office cupboard. Its pages were crowded with names, crossed-out quantities, and instructions about doorbells. On one Friday page, Lina found “six small, no seeds” beside a sketch of three dots. The new bags seemed to be repeating an old order with the words removed.