frostline

[frostline]

The Market

The market came into town yesterday right where there was no room for it to be. On Wednesday the sun set on the Old Grove Shopping Center as it always had—its fast-food restaurants, its endless rotation of run-down niche stores, its abandoned storefronts—and by Thursday morning it was twice as big. Between the old dentist’s office and the third nail salon to try its luck in as many years stood what looked like an old hotel building: pale brick, a grid of balconied windows, twice as tall as anything around it for miles. On its roof, oversized red neon letters spelled the word MARKET.

We were waiting for Haniya, whose inability to make an appearance on time we had long grown accustomed to. Maria and Jordan sat in the back of Aaron’s old duct-taped hatchback, Maria absentmindedly swinging her legs and Jordan tapping out a rhythm on the asphalt with his cane. Aaron frowned suspiciously at a middle-aged couple standing hesitantly outside the market entrance. Uncertainty before the market was a sign of poor character in our group.

Haniya arrived in resolute silence. She clutched a gold necklace with a small lock hanging from the end. We could only assume it was her mother’s. She held her head high and glared at each of us in turn, daring us to say anything.

“So it’s that time?” Maria asked.

Haniya’s gaze lost its hard edge. “That time,” she said. “It’s heavier than it used to be.”

We nodded and walked towards the market.

The inside of the market was a single vast room that stretched upward and disappeared into darkness above. The cavernous space was filled with marvels. There were small wooden carvings that danced in circles and fabrics with changing patterns. There were floating lights and bells that chirped like birds, a camera that took pictures in a different time, a flute that played itself, and a violin that didn’t play at all but made us all weep when Maria plucked it. Jordan found a door that refused to open. Haniya amused herself greatly with a small potted plant that swore in Urdu.

And then there were the curators.

At least twelve feet tall, they each wore dark robes that pooled like shadows along the floor and adorned themselves with masks carved of wood and bone and bronze. Some wore strands of beads hanging from their masks, while others wore metal chains or feathers.

Although like children we were, we always stepped with care. We always returned everything to its proper place, always addressed the curators with kindness and respect.

There was only a single truth in the market. It was a truth that was passed on from mother to child, that old men told in gruff stories, that strangers whispered to each other in reverence and fear.

The market was built for you, but always remember you are its guest.

Those who forgot never came back twice, and they never left the same.

Aaron eventually bought a book full of sounds and a small floating glass light for himself and Jordan. He handed a few bills to a curator in a bronze mask of a crying woman with small bells hanging from her antlers. The curator nodded and gave them each a dollar coin from New Zealand in return.

Haniya held out her necklace to a curator in an ivory mask carved into two faces, one right side up, the other upside down above it. The curator knelt next to her, and when it spoke it sounded like church bells and felt like coming home. Haniya smiled more brightly than she had in a long time and left the necklace behind in exchange for the belligerent plant.

We all thanked the curators as we left. Aaron bowed. Maria put her hand on Haniya’s shoulder as we walked to the car. Jordan’s bauble of light followed us as we left, and Aaron wondered if he had accidentally bought a ghost.

“Next time,” he said, “if you need attention that bad, we’ll just get a dog. Less chance of it knocking my new mug off the counter trying to talk to us.”

By the next morning, the market was gone.