Serendipity Market

by Penny Blubaugh

  “Well, of course,” Roberto says in a quiet way, and he goes back to his discussion.

  In the west, one person struggles to find the words, struggles to write them down. He still has trouble dealing with this world. Finally he simply writes, very carefully, “Yes,” and sends the falcon on its way.

  Mama Inez is kneading bread when the last bird flutters outside the window. Toby sees it and gallops outside to retrieve it. He drops it at her feet. Mama Inez dusts the flour off her hands, unfolds the letter, and sees the careful printing. She breathes out a long breath and says, “Nine, then. A good number.” And Toby barks and nods his big head.

  No matter what the state of the world, the market, with its buying and selling, laughing and haggling, dancing and sharing, is always a special event. Baskets and birdcages, weavings and whistles, fabrics and fruits—all change hands as people come to listen and to tell.

  As the day wears on, as the moon is just starting to show her face, the market makes its first shift. The selling and buying are through, and now it’s time for the dancing. Fiddle music begins to glide through the air, and it pulses like a heartbeat. Everyone, even Toby, begins the intricate weaving and passing, the hand clasping and clapping, the loud and soft footfalls that have been passed down from a time long forgotten.

  Just before the dancing is through, Toby and Mama Inez disappear. Roberto and Franz never look in their direction as they glide into the gentle darkness that tugs on the edges of the dancing circle. They don’t stop moving their feet, they don’t raise an eyebrow. They know just where those two are going. They’re on their way to the Indwelling and, from there, to the storytellers’ tent. Franz and Roberto will join them there, and the market will shift once again.

  Because Roberto has the gatherer instincts, he’s been to the Indwelling several times. He’s tried to tell Franz everything he’s seen, but there’s never been a way to describe the feeling of the place, the inner peace mixed with the thrumming excitement of stories that reflect the business of living.

  Inside the Indwelling, it’s just cool enough to be comfortable. The air smells of dust and salt and stars, and the moon reflects itself in the stream that divides the place into neat halves. There are shelves of varying widths that travel from the entrance, over the stream, and back to the opening that leads out into the night. The shelves are filled with squat raku and sunbaked jars the colors of the clay in the potter’s room in the house with the witch’s-hat roof. They’re the exact right size to hold small treasures, and they have conical tops that make them look like beehives.

  Toby walks across the stream, just outside the entrance, on a walkway of smooth stones. He walks back and forth seven times, and he makes sure that his paws are always dry. Then, his part of the beginning ritual complete, he sits and watches the moon’s reflection rest on the water.

  Mama Inez takes the purple jar she made just days ago. She raises it above her head, where the moon waits, leans down and holds it for several seconds against the reflected water moon, then stands slowly, sure to keep the jar level. Now, her half of the rite finished, she smiles at Toby, and the two of them leave to begin their night’s work.

  Even before she is back from the Indwelling, people gather beneath Mama Inez’s tassel-draped, desert-gold canopy, waiting for stories. Some slouch on pillows big enough for three and drink the steam-coated spiced tea served in salt-glazed ceramic cups. Others sit at low, square tables, sip cold melon drinks, and rattle tiny ice cubes against the sides of thin glasses wrapped in silver filigree.

  Mama Inez sees the waiting listeners, then sees her storytellers, a small moving amoeba of a group in the tellers’ waiting area. Roberto is with them, looking something like a shepherd with a herd of wayward sheep. As Mama Inez and Toby come closer, they begin to hear snatches of conversation, to see the tellers’ interactions.

  Zola holds a length of midnight-blue cloth shot with gold. He’s talking to a tall woman with a death grip on a basket of seashells: “…at the booth by the basket weaver’s. It’ll be a fine shirt for him. Make him look quite royal.”

  When the woman doesn’t respond, Zola fidgets a bit, then adds, “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  The woman, who has no idea who Zola is talking about, nods, serious and nervous at the same time.

  A large white horse, who looks as relaxed as he would if he were in his own stable, munches on a clump of grass. Periodically he pokes his head through an opening in the tent, as though keeping watch on someone. Every time he does this, a woman runs her fingers through his mane or holds her hand in front of his nose to feel his breath on her fingertips. She says very softly, “Lightning, I don’t think we’re at all in the right place. I mean, I guess this here’s the end of the world, but I’m thinking that we don’t fit in, not one bit. Everybody else looks right fancy. And like they know just what they’re going to be doing.”

  Lightning glances at her, calm and easy. When a man with greenish-blond hair comes over and rubs Lightning’s neck, then says, “He is a beautiful horse, madam,” Lightning sniffs the stranger’s hand, nods his head, and looks at Sue as if to say, “See? We’re exactly where we should be,” which makes Sue laugh.

  Closer to the entryway than anyone stands Maddie, who clutches her twin. Even for an elf, she’s quite pale. “Earl, I’ll faint. Or you’ll talk and distract me, and I’ll lose track. Which will make me sound ridiculous, as if I have no brain.”

  “And that would be unusual because…?”

  “Earl,” she moans.

  “You were so thrilled when the invitation came,” Earl says.

  Maddie nods. “Before I saw all these people. Before I really knew what I’d have to do.” She breathes out, hard, then looks at him and says, “You could do it, you know. I’d sit beside you and look quite interested.”

  “Oh, no. You were the one who most wanted to come, after all.”

  “Ummmm.” Maddie breathes again. “At least promise you won’t interrupt.”

  He flashes her an evil grin. “Only if you lose your place. Or faint.”

  Toby goes to stand by the most relaxed-looking person in the cluster. He doesn’t look travel worn, like the man talking to Lightning. He’s not nervous, like Maddie, and he seems completely comfortable, unlike Sue. He’s smoking, in an absentminded kind of way, but when Toby comes near, he drops his cigarette and grinds it out in the dirt, then picks it up and puts it in his pocket. “No littering,” he explains, and Toby taps his head against the man’s knee.

  Mama Inez follows Toby into the group. “I need,” she begins—and the voices quiet immediately—“to thank you all. Tonight, with your help, we’ll set the world in balance.”

  Rosey is wrapped in a shawl as red as Mama Inez’s scarf. When Mama Inez first came back from the Indwelling, she pulled Rosey aside and hugged her, hard. Rosey hugged her grandmother back, her grandmother who lived at the end of the world and sometimes in Powton, near Rosey.

  “When I sent your bird, I was worried that you might think that what happened wasn’t important enough for a gathering,” Mama Inez said then.

  “I did,” Rosey admitted. “But Samson said I was wrong.”

  “Excellent bird.” Mama Inez held out her hand, and Samson snuggled in as if he belonged there.

  Now Rosey stands next to a young woman who holds a smooth stone that periodically flashes in the moonlight. They look at each other. “I didn’t think, even with all Gram’s taught me about magic, that telling a story would be so intense,” Rosey says. “I’ve been to gatherings before, but I’ve never been a teller.”

  “Hmm and well,” says the other, “you’ve got me beat. I’ve never even been to one.” Behind her, at the same time, Nodia’s voice says, “B.J., I told you this was serious.”

  “Quiet, Nodia,” says Wink, the second young man in their group of three. “Listen.”

  “If you could each give your talismans to Roberto, then he, Toby, and I will sequence them and give you the order of the tellings,” says Mam
a Inez. She looks at her crowd of calm, nervous, and uncertain people, and she adds, “Any questions?”

  Wink raises his hand. “I’ve heard of this, you know. This market. This balancing.” He pauses, then asks, “The need to do this—does it happen a lot?”

  Mama Inez laughs her rich laugh. “Not a lot. But enough. And sometimes more than enough.”

  The woman with the flashing stone says, in a tight little voice, “But we’re just…people. What if we’re not strong enough to fix things?” The shifting of feet and the low murmurs around her show that this is what many are thinking.

  Toby barks. Mama Inez says, “I agree with Toby. A group like this? I believe that you can conquer anything. And you must believe it, too, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “There’s got to be some kind of truth right there. Something that hasn’t happened to me, but something that I can learn from,” Zola says to the woman with the shells, and he points to her basket.

  The man with the greenish hair says, to Lightning and to Sue, “I do not know about me, but the two of you—you must have a story,” and Sue looks at Lightning, thinks of Bill, and says, “You just might be right about that.”

  Mama Inez watches. She sees the man with the cigarette pat Toby, sees Earl steady Maddie, sees her group begin to grow in strength. She smiles and says, “Has everyone given their talisman to Roberto?”

  Roberto, Toby, and Mama Inez huddle in the north corner of the tellers’ waiting area, shifting the talismans on a table covered with a cloth the color of spring grass. The purple jar from the Indwelling sits at the top left corner, anchoring the cloth, an iris of color. On the far left: a green brocade ribbon from the man with the greenish hair. Next to it is a whorled shell from the woman with the basket, and a thick gold coin from the man who won’t litter. Then a tiny leather slipper, from the twins. The river stone that flashes in the moonlight. A small glass star from the group of three, and a golden pea from the man with the midnight-blue cloth. A piece of white lace comes from Sue and Lightning. And finally, red wool from Rosey.

  Mama Inez runs her fingers along the bottom of the talismans. She looks at Toby and Roberto. “Agreed?” Toby puts his head on the table, then barks. Roberto thinks of the rings he and Franz have made, then nods. Mama Inez turns back to the waiting crowd and makes her announcements.

  The Lizard Man, hearing that he’s to be first, bows his head. His greenish hair drapes around his face, and his breathing is shallow. Sue notices. She and Lightning smile at him, and Sue gives him a small push toward Mama Inez and the entrance to the part of the tent that holds the teller’s cushion. “Ya’ll be fine,” she says. “Done before you know it.” He smiles a bleak smile and moves with slow, measured steps through the tent opening.

  Mama Inez watches him, remembering her time in the Lizard’s story. And the Lizard Man? He feels a remembering, too, one of color. Mama Inez’s hair is the same color as a mouse he once knew.

  The Lizard’s Tale

  “I NEVER WANTED TO be anything but a lizard. That rat, that stupid rat Malvolio who became the coach driver—he’d always had dreams of being something bigger, something better than he was. But me, I was content living in the garden between the cistern and the downspout, soaking up sun and wind, water and air.”

  Mama Inez sees him stumble and nods encouragement; watches him take a breath, shift his gaze to the rear of the tent, and begin again.

  “I never wanted to be anything but a lizard.

  “Then that fairy godmother comes along with her magic wand, her high-flying notions. And as fast as a snap from two fingers I am six feet tall, dressed in green brocade, strands of greenish blond hair dipping into my eye and clubbed into a knot at the base of my neck. My brain feels huge, stuffed into my head. And it is filled with thoughts that I have no names for.

  “That rat Malvolio is prancing around the courtyard like a rearing stallion. He has new long legs, like me. He shakes his head, and his silver rat whiskers, which are now short and covering the lower half of his face, sparkle in the moonlight.

  “‘Look at me,’ he is chittering. ‘Watch me! See this wonderful thing I’ve become.’

  “He spins on his feet and immediately falls to the ground in a clatter of buttons and boots. He skids on the courtyard cobbles and ends up lying half under a pumpkin stripped of its innards and forced into the shape of a carriage. The pumpkin is harnessed to three timid-looking white horses and one bold black one. All are covered with hair that looks soft as mouse fur.

  “‘Stop that,’ says that godmother. She is the one who turned the pumpkin into a coach with a second wave of her wand. She pulls Malvolio upright. ‘You must listen to me. The cinder girl will be here any moment. You must be presentable, in control, or she’ll be afraid to ride with you. She’s a nervous little thing. Always has been.’

  “That godmother is brushing at the back of Malvolio’s pants now, trying to slap away the dust. I watch them, leaning heavily against the wall of the barn. I feel shaky and suddenly sick. If Cindergirl, whoever she is, will not like a dancing rat, what will she think of a vomiting lizard?

  “Then a soft voice says, ‘Godmother?’ and I turn in the direction of the sound. Standing before me is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. My first thought is that this must be Cindergirl. My other thoughts jumble and mix. There is a swelling in my chest, a rapid beating in my heart, a buzzing in my head. I feel woozy. I feel air on my tongue and know that my mouth must be open.

  “‘Godmother? Is this…right? Do I look like someone who could go the ball? Or will they all laugh at me?’ She fidgets. Her fingers brush her dress, hesitating between strokes. She catches her lower lip between small, white, perfect teeth.

  “I know the Queen of the Lizards is the most striking, most peerless of us all, though I have never seen her. But Cindergirl must be more beautiful than the queen herself. Her gown shimmers as if the stars have fallen and been captured in its folds. Her hair, a shining gold, hangs in long curls, captured on one side in a ribbon of green. Her feet, those feet that would have been near my nose minutes before, are covered with clear, shining glass slippers.

  “I choke back a tiny noise, and in spite of the uncomfortable feelings in my gut, in my head, I push myself off the wall and stand as tall as I am able. I will look proper for Cindergirl. I will look like a man.

  “‘Godmother?’ She shivers slightly in the autumn air, hunches her shoulders.

  “‘You look exactly like someone who should go to the ball,’ that godmother promises. ‘The prince will be enchanted.’

  “This makes Cindergirl smile, and that smile makes me catch and hold my breath.

  “‘Just remember,’ that godmother says, ‘to be home by midnight. Otherwise you’ll be helping a rat and some lizards drag home a pumpkin.’

  “She smiles again. ‘I’ll remember.’ They embrace, and I hear Cindergirl whisper, ‘Oh, Godmother, thank you,’ and that fairy saying, ‘Don’t forget. Twelve o’clock.’

  “Then, with a rustle of fabric and beads that delights my ears, She begins to climb into the pumpkin coach. I hurry to assist her, almost falling over my own foreign feet. I manage to catch Cindergirl’s elbow, and the feel of that skin against mine is like the touch of the silkiest flower that ever bloomed.

  “That rat Malvolio has already made his way to the coachman’s box and is wiggling the reins of the mouse horses. I, having no confidence in him, think he is trying to figure out how to drive. If he makes a mistake, if Cindergirl is hurt, I will kill him. I hiss this at him as I pass, and he looks down at me, surprised.

  “I clamber on the back of the coach, as close to her as I can get.”

  He pauses.

  “I have no pictures in my mind of what happens inside during the ball. I wait outside with Malvolio and the mice. There are other lizards with us, lizards who are footmen, like me. They taste the air by flicking their tongues. They push their fine sleeves up to their elbows to feel the cool breezes on their skin. I do none of
these things. Instead, I watch for Cindergirl, standing tall and still. Not like a lizard, like a man.

  “We can hear music, and again Malvolio tries to dance. Even I can see that he is terrible at this, but he insists. His dream of being something new and different has come true, and now he must try everything he has ever wanted, everything he has ever hoped for.

  “I listen closely whenever the bells in the tower above my head bong. I now know the little tune that comes halfway between each series of bongs, and I know that this means it is halfway between the longer bongs of the hours. I understand how to count, something I never understood before. I think this must be another gift from that godmother, given to me to help Cindergirl get home by the right time. I count carefully, as if my life depends upon it. Last time there were eleven bongs. Eleven hours. That godmother said twelve o’clock. She must be home before twelve. By progression, twelve is the next number. I watch the wide stone palace steps, watch for Cindergirl to appear.

  “Then Cindergirl is there, half running toward us. Toward me. She is laughing, looking over her shoulder. I run to meet her, afraid that she might trip, stumble in her shiny glass slippers. I touch her elbow, guiding her to the coach. A man in fancy, soft clothing follows us closely, begging her to stay. The prince that godmother spoke of?

  “‘No, no. I must leave, Your Highness. Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow. There’s still a night of dancing tomorrow, is there not?’ She flicks her golden curls over her shoulder and smiles. She does not seem nervous now.

  “‘Yes,’ he calls as I tuck Cindergirl into the coach. ‘Yes. Tomorrow.’ His voice is desperate.

  “She settles in the coach with a happy sigh, almost closing my fingers in the door.

  “We make it back to our courtyard just as the distant palace clock begins to count twelve in the moist night air. I hurry to open her door, to remove Cindergirl from the coach before it once again becomes a pumpkin. Before I once again become a lizard. But she ignores my hand, stepping out on her own, and as she does, a barely audible pop sounds in the air. The coach shrinks back to a largish pumpkin, the footmen are once again lizards, the horses turn back to mice. Cindergirl’s clothes are no longer fine things one would wear to a palace, but are instead plain, homespun wool. She is even more beautiful this way. The only thing left is the green hair ribbon, twisted in the dirt. The black mouse watches as I pick it up and put it in my vest pocket.