The Apple Seller and the Eye -- bonus snippet

It was a good day in the marketplace.

Travelling merchants had come into town, some with more money than sense, which made it hard to stay rich in a town with people like George. George cracked his knuckles and headed into the bustle. He had a rule at work: visitors first. He didn’t pick from the locals if there were obvious visitors in easy range. Stealing from people you saw regularly was bad business – sooner or later, you’d get caught. George had no intention of languishing in prison or getting hanged over a purse. So he completely ignored the established shops, no matter what the blacksmith might have in or the weaver’s guild might be pooling from the local farms (the price of cloth wasn’t making sense lately anyway, with the new factories in the city), and focused on the newer and more temporary stalls instead. In particular, the customers.

There. A woman. Tall, tanned skin, dark hair, looking around like the place was unfamiliar but she was trying to hide it. Her purse was guarded under a couple of layers of skirt, and she kept a wary eye on anyone close enough to touch her, but George wasn’t worried by that sort of thing. He had an advantage.

George wasn’t a great pickpocket, in the traditional sense. He needed his target to stand still, and be distracted, and be close to shelter. But this was a marketplace, so no issues there.

It wasn’t long before the woman stopped at an apple stall. She struck up a conversation with Catherine, the seller, and George ducked into a space behind a couple of cider barrels, unnoticed.

He closed his eyes. Focused.

“I already told you people I’m not interested,” Catherine snapped, her sharp voice cutting through George’s concentration.

“We think you should reconsider the proposal,” the foreign woman said. “The war – ”

“No war is any of my business! I have family here, I’m not traipsing off to some – ”

George ignored the voices and regained his focus. He dredged up old memories, memories of exclusion and abandonment and neglect. Memories that he usually tried to forget.

“Forget me,” he whispered, and the curse in his blood rose to meet him.

He had half a minute, at most. With magic coating his skin like oil, he slipped out from behind the barrels and approached the woman, careful to be silent, carefully not to bump into anyone. The curse was robust, but it wouldn’t stand up to him making a scene. He took out his knife and, as delicately as he could, felt for the woman’s purse strings.

“Duniyasar is – ” the woman stopped talking. Looked right at him. Frowned.

George froze, holding his breath.

“Something wrong?” Catherine asked.

“No, I… thought… never mind. Duniysar is safe; we – ”

George cut the purse free, scooped it up, and made a run for it. He didn’t stop running until he was well clear of the marketplace. He’d been certain, dead certain, that the woman was going to grab him and call for the guards. He had to be more careful!

The purse felt heavy in his hand. He opened it to count his prize.

Stones. Nothing but dull, clunky river stones, each about the size of his toe. George swore, and resisted the urge to throw the bag onto the ground – it had to be worth something, or the woman wouldn’t have been carrying it. Or maybe it was some weird foreign thing. He’d heard stories about foreigners and their funny ways.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t something he could turn into money tonight. He tucked it away and went back to work. Only later, after the markets had closed and he was tucked back in the corner of the stable he’d been using for shelter for the past couple of weeks, did he take the stones out again and inspect them.

They just looked like normal, dull stones. He couldn’t figure out why anybody would be carrying around –

“Do you want to know what they do?”

George leapt to his feet, hitting his head on the wall. “I didn’t steal them,” he snapped at the foreign woman, who was frowning down at him, arms crossed.

“i’m sure you didn’t,” she said. “Clumsy me, I must have dropped them while I was shopping. I’m sure you picked them up with only good intentions, and probably spent the whole day looking for me to return them, kind-hearted little boy that you are, right?”

“That’s right,” George snapped, bristling at ‘little boy’. He wasn’t little! He’d turned eleven last week!

The woman held her hand out. Cornered, George handed over the stones. The woman tucked them carefully away and pulled a coin out of her sleeve, which she handed to George. “In appreciation for finding my property.”

“Um. Right.” George tucked the coin away. “How did you find me?”

“You’re not well hidden. Are you educated, boy?”

“Do I look educated?”

“Would you like to be?”

“… What? What kind of scheme are you running?”

“No scheme. I’m offering you a job. Food, board, and an education. I can – ”

“Forget me,” George whispered, and vanished. The woman stopped talking, frowned to herself, glanced around the barn. George ducked under her arm and made a mad dash for the door. He pushed against it, smacked his head on the wood, and stumbled back, swearing. He could’ve sworn the door wasn’t that heavy.

The woman was holding it closed. She gave him a considering look. “That was quite powerful,” she said, sounding impressed. “I wasn’t even distracted that time.”

“How did you see me?” George asked, blinking his vision clear. “Are you some kind of witch?”

“A bold accusation for someone in your position to make, but no. I don’t have any magic.”

“Then how – ?”

“I have training. It’s better than magic. When you deal with things that affect your mind a lot, you learn to think around them. Now, are you ready to have a conversation?”

“Just say what you want to say and leave me alone.”

“Have you ever heard of Duniyasar?”

“No. I mean, you said that to the apple woman. Some kind of apple?”

“Ah, yes. Catherine. We were really hoping to have her on board. But you, I think, are a much more interesting find. Duniyasar is not an apple, it is a place. A place full of cursed people.”

“An evil place,” George sneered.

“You’re welcome to your opinion, but I don’t think there’s anything evil about curses. Many of those people are my friends.”

“So you’re evil, too.”

“Do you have friends, George?”

“Yeah…”

“And you have a curse. Are your friends evil?”

“That’s not what I… shut up!”

“Would you be interested in coming to – ?”

“No!”

“I have an alternate proposal, then. Duniyasar is my home. I’ll be travelling back there in three months. In the meantime, I’ll be travelling to several other towns to talk to cursed people. I want you to come with me.”

“Why?”

“I’m new here. I need an assistant, a guide. Someone who knows how people behave here and who can, um… stop me from dropping my purse again. I can guarantee you two hot meals a day and a bed every night, as well as some money. We’ll travel down and then back up the country, and I’ll drop you off back here before heading to Duniyasar. Is this acceptable?”

“I’m not going with you.”

“So you said.”

“How do I know this isn’t some trick to change my mind?”

The woman cocked her head. “Would it matter if it was? It’s your mind. If coming to Duniyasar is a bad idea, you won’t change it.”

“I mean it, I’m not going to your cursed place.”

“Yes, I heard you.”

“Two hot meals every day?”

“Every day.”

“And I’ll be back here in three months?”

“Yes.”

“… Alright. Fine. On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“Tell me what the stones do.”

The woman grinned. “Gladly. But for the story to make sense, I’m going to have to explain a little about Duniyasar…”