“Delicious. Would you like one?”
The matron nods slowly, her eyes wide.
“Well. Help yourself.” He winks. She reaches in. The bowl is empty. Her fingers find an apple—this one golden in color. She bites. It tastes like honey—the junk man’s daughter can tell just by looking at her face. The matron closes her eyes and her lips spread across the crushed apple in a smile.
“How much?” the matron says with her mouth full.
It takes fifteen minutes to negotiate a price. The junk man’s daughter tires of the conversation and returns her gaze to the marketplace. There is a toad on her lap, and two identical chickens pecking the ground at her feet. The toad settles itself in the folds of her skirt. She caresses its head absently.
The matron leaves with the bowl balanced on her hip, pulling apple after apple from its empty depths and shoving them into her pockets. The girl shakes her head. It was a mistake, that bowl. Like so many others. Her eyes slide back over to the signs.
She doesn’t want anyone to get into trouble. She never has.
The junk man waves as the matron disappears and counts his earnings, dropping each coin into his purse with a pleasant jingle. “Oh, my Sparrow, my Sparrow, my Sparrow!” he croons at his daughter. “And oh, the cleverness of me!” he enthuses, throwing his arms wide open. He wobbles and giggles and gives a little hiccup.
“You stole that line,” the girl says, though it isn’t exactly true. The junk man cannot read very well, and even if he could, he would never have encountered such a turn of phrase in a book. In theory, only the books that the Minister has approved exist anywhere in the country. And the Minister doesn’t approve of much. Still, there is much that is suddenly available to the junk man when his daughter is nearby. Images pop into his head. Proverbs. Quotes. Even a song or two. And worlds and worlds of stories. He collects them the way he collects his junk, which is to say, joyfully. His daughter gives him a snort. “And, anyway, you are not that clever, Papa.”
He gives her a bow and blows her a kiss and it nearly breaks her in two. It is a good life they have, the two of them. It will kill her to leave it behind. She knows a change is coming. She can feel it hover, just out of reach, as surely as a coming storm.
The church pastor wanders over, his steps weighted and slow. Sweaty skin, hooded eyes, and a red, red nose.
“Ah!” the junk man says. “Reverend! Do I have the perfect thing for you!” He ambles into the square, all bony knees and elbows. He is barbed wire and braided grass holding up a patched suit, and greets the half-drunk pastor with a foxy grin and a conspiratorial wink. With a wave of his hand he reaches into one of his many pockets and produces a bottle that, as far as he can tell, will never run dry. The pastor licks his lips and stares with interest.
The Sparrow shakes her head and turns away. She cups her hands and ladles the toad onto the ground between the identical chickens, first giving the top of its head a quick kiss. The toad bellows indignantly—not for the kiss, but for the separation from the girl. He loves that girl. Desperately. So do the chickens. And she loves them back.
She slides into the crowd. There are people who can see her today—unusual, though it’s been happening more and more lately. And it’s not always pleasant. An old man tips his hat and then puckers his lips at her.
“Oh, come now, guttersnipe,” he says. “One kiss.”
She shakes her head and darts away.
She bumps into an old woman with a basketful of muffins for sale.
“Hmph,” the woman says. “Watch where you’re bumping, little tramp.” She picks up the muffins and brushes the grit off with her fingers, checking this way and that to make sure no potential customers noticed. “Off with you now. Shoo!”
The woman doesn’t notice that the number of muffins in the basket has inexplicably doubled. She will only realize something is wrong much later when she counts her earnings at the end of the day and finds her purse nearly twice as full as it should be. She will have no explanation for it. She will not remember the girl.
The Sparrow tries to buy meat from the butcher with the coins she lifted from the junk man’s purse. The butcher gives her a poisonous glare.
“Oh!” he says, throwing his hands up. “You’re paying me this time, are you? Well. Maybe we should have a party.”
She presses her lips together and says nothing. She has stolen from him. Before. She’s surprised he knows. Sucking her lips between her teeth and biting down hard, she points at a good-looking bit of salt pork, which he wraps for her begrudgingly.
I’m sorry, she wants to say. But she doesn’t.
He has a wound on his shoulder. It is wrapped, but the wrappings are soaked with a yellow fluid, and red streaks seep across his skin. He is sweaty and shivering. The Sparrow tilts her head to the left.
Yellow, she thinks. Yellow, yellow, yellow.
The red streaks start to shrink.
“Thank you,” she says when he hands her the meat and she hands him the money. “Thank you for everything.”
And she slips back into the crowd and disappears.
Well, the butcher thinks. She didn’t disappear. I just
