The Thrill Of It

I still remember my first lantern. Down the path to the cliffs, glass glittering in the bushes and in the dirt before the sand swallowed it, pieces of burst metal hiding between broken shells, basket empty, eyes too.

Ebby’s thoughts quieted as she approached the same path again, no basket, no eyes, but with the same expectation, the same thrill. Two shell for a sentence, three for a promise, said a gnarly voice near her and she stopped, hood pulled into her face.

“You’ve got buyer’s eyes. And one of the prettiest lantern lights I’ve seen in a bit. How about it? Just nod, no need to waste yer’ magi—”

“Actually, I’ve got none.” she chuckled, pulling back the hood, pointing at her empty sockets. She couldn’t see his surprise at her voice ringing down the path and into the sea below, but she heard the hitch in his breath when his eyes met the lack thereof on her face, heard the way his robe fluttered, likely his hand moving up to clutch his chest.

“Well… four shell for… a look then.” the vendor mumbled, clearly not comfortable with his customer’s unexpected possession of a voice. Ebby ignored him, lifting her lantern. “It’s sea glass,” she said, nodding at her own words. “It was quite a bit of work.”

The sea glass had cost her a winter, water cold enough to ache in her lungs for days on end, and nights so long that all she could think about was what had happened to the witch who had owned the lantern before her. Not that it mattered. If back then, the witch would have been barely alive next to her lantern, Ebby would have put out the witch’s light herself. There were enough stones scattered about on the beach. Enough trees dropping their branches like flies in the dry heat.

She gave the tiniest bow with her head, barely a nod for all that was worth it, and moved down the path, away from the vendor whom she imagined to look puzzled or perhaps carrying a sour-looking frown at the lost opportunity for business.

As she followed the well-known path, Ebby listened to the market, the hood of her cloak resting around her shoulders. There was a shuffle of a hesistant buyer three stalls down, the wet cough of someone haggling over something they couldn't afford, the sizzling of flames and magic, and the background noise of the sea, and the sand crunching underneath.

Five shell for a full breath of words at your disposal, he offered, but Ebby didn’t even bother to stop at his stall. “No thank you.” Even if she wanted to buy something, she wouldn’t be able to. Not that anyone here was able to offer her anything, mind you. They were selling to those who had kindled a flame and given their voice in return, and if there wasn’t a witch present to buy, it was villagers looking for easy ways out of whatever trouble they were having.

And Ebby needed neither: no borrowed words, and no quick fixes.

Whispers traveled the market faster than Ebby could walk its narrow corners, and by the time she had made her way down to the beach (where the bulk of stalls lined either side, creating labyrinthine narrow alleys), the sales pitch of each stall had changed whenever she came close enough.

One shell for a piece of twine guiding your way, said one. Two shell to find what you’ve lost, offered another.

She ignored them.

As if she wasn’t capable of walking safely or finding things by herself… Idiots. All of them. The vendors, but mostly the witches who supplied them.

Sure, they didn’t really have a choice in the matter. You simply weren’t allowed to sell things if you didn’t have a voice and no magic could return what you used to kindle the lantern flame with, so by design, a witch needed a vendor, and a vendor needed a witch because only someone lazy and foolish and greedy would spend their days in a stall, taking more money for a spell than they had paid to aquire.

Ebby chuckled to herself again. Perhaps she was a bit like a vendor. She too hadn’t paid a thing to aquire her magic. Eyes weren’t important. But voice was, taste and hearing were as well. But sight? For what? A way could be walked until it was known, most books were available in braille. Directions could be asked. Wasting her magic for telepathy as all witches did? Slimming the flame for the most basic of tasks, to just to speak a spell or to haggle the price of ingredients? Absolutely not.

She was three alleys in when she smelled cedar wood. It was coming from her left, two stalls ahead perhaps, or one large one. She stepped up, wondering what the vendor looked like.

“Lovely night,” she said, to no one in particular, letting her voice carry only as far as the counter went.

“It’s broad day.” A man's voice corrected her dryly, younger than she'd expected.

“Well, things do look pretty dark for me.” That earned her a laugh.

“What are you selling?” Ebby asked, taking a deep breath of cedar in. Maybe oils, pine wood crafts, or small trees, she thought. But to her surprise, the man took her hand and guided her to the wares on the counter. Her fingertips graced the edge of a worn box, some glass, some wood, finding smaller objects inside, paper thin, sturdy in a way, but oh so fragile.

Shells.

“You’re a lender, then.” she smiled.

“That I am. Most vendors require payment in shell, because that is what the witches ask of them. The sea hates them witches, but who am I telling. You probably know better than me.”

Ebby tilted her head. “I have my fair amount of shells at home, witch or not. I simply don’t intend to buy anything today, so I left my basket and my shells at home. You know, if I bring them with me, I will end up buying something for sure.”

She heard a muffled thud, something hitting the sand behind her, then another laugh coming from where she assumed the counter to be. “You’re an odd one. Have a seat, there’s a wooden stool behind you.”

“Pardon?”

“I heard about you before you strolled around that corner. A witch to visit a witch’s market… no eyes, without bringing a single shell with her. No basket either? If you’re not looking to buy—pardon, intending to buy—then why are you here?”

“Can’t I stroll a market just for the fun of it?” She ignored his pun, though not smiling at it was harder than she expected it to be.

“There’s nothing here you can’t do yourself. Aside of aquiring shells.”

Ebby reached for one in front of her, remembering the placement of the boxes with ease.

“Why do you think I can’t collect my own shells?” She asked, tracing the sharper edge of it. Something behind the counter made a muffled sound. A coat, presumably. Or perhaps a blanket, as it was cold on this beach all year around.

“Because the sea hates witches. And no witch can take from the sea without facing its wrath. Everyone knows that, silly. Fish come from the sea, so do shells and thus, shell. And they spend a fortune on either thing, those witches.”

“And yet,” Ebby said, raising her lantern slightly to make a point, “I spent an entire winter in the sea to collect sea glass, I have shells at home, and I love to catch my own fish.”

“You weren’t a witch when you collected the sea glass, judging by your lantern.”

“I was not, true. But if the sea hates witches so much, wouldn’t she try to stop me from becoming one? Besides, I catch fish and I collect shells still.”

Silence from behind the counter. The blanket or coat shifted again. Perhaps a shrug? Or maybe not?

“Maybe. I don’t think the sea cares. She doesn’t meddle, you know. If you walk in, she doesn’t spit you back out.”

“Have you tried?” She set the shell back in its box, careful about it, fitting it back the way she'd found it, but he didn’t answer her question. Briefly, Ebby wondered if she had been rude, but then again, she couldn’t care less. She wasn’t here to make friends. But she was here for something.

“You know everyone here,” she said, waiting for him to shift his body, for the muffled noise to return, but he kept perfectly still.

“Most, I suppose.” he finally said. “You learn faces, working a stall. Who comes back, who doesn't. Who always haggles and who's too proud to.”

“And smells?” She tilted her head toward him. “Do you learn those?”

“Most vendors here smell dirty. Some wear too much perfume. The customers looking to buy wares… not really. You can smell when someone lives on a farm. When they work with soil or wood. The richer ones smell nicer.. The few witches who come here to buy breaths for words, promises and sentences… it depends. Not much smell to them. But the lanterns give them away.”

“Mm.” She stood from the stool, her basket swinging up to her wrist. “And what do I smell of, to you?”

Something behind the counter shifted again. Ebby wondered if he had gotten up as well (or if he had been sitting at all prior to that) or maybe, perhaps, he had simply leaned forward a little.

“Salt, I suppose.” he said finally. “But I’m not sure. Could be the sea behind us… with its waves creeping closer by the hour, you know.”

She reached into the nearest box and took a shell. Small, by the feel of it. Smooth. “I’ll take this one, if you don’t mind.”

“I thought you didn’t intend to buy anything?”

“I don’t. I intend to trade.” She set the shell on the counter between them and left her fingers resting lightly beside it.

“Never heard of a witch offering to trade while holding no basket.”

Ebby chuckled. “That doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to offer.”

He didn't laugh at that, which she appreciated. Usually people would have laughed to bridge the sudden heavy silence. “What do you have to offer then?” he asked, but there was a slight edge to his voice now. Suspicion, Ebby assumed, or perhaps just a bit of caution.

“Advice.” Ebby said, fumbling with the shell she picked. Her offer earned her another laugh.

“You are an odd one. I don’t need advice. I’ve got quite the good standing in life. Lending is a great business. And the sea adores me, so my supply is endless.”

Ebby nodded. “Sure. Your supply is. But your time isn’t.”

There was a hitch in his breath, sand shifting underneath. For all Ebby knew, he must have backed away from the counter.

“I apologize, but I’m much younger than you. I certainly have enough time.”

Ebby gave a clipped bow with her head, similar to the one at the first stall she encountered, her smile easy and sweet. “That I know. Then you are right, I don’t have anything to trade for the shell.”

With that, she placed it back where it belonged, gave another polite bow, and walked away, back up the path connecting the beach with the forest nestled at the edge of the cliff above.

I still remember my first lantern, Ebby thought. Down the path to the cliffs, glass glittering in the bushes and in the dirt before the sand swallowed it, pieces of burst metal hiding between broken shells.

She remembered how heavy each piece felt in her hands, how sharp the edges were, how oddly warm the pieces of glass had been, how magic had lived there, only to fade as if it had never existed in the first place, how she had worked herself sick to repair the lantern, how the winter water of the sea still ached in her throat from time to time, but more than anything, Ebby remembered how fast her heart had been beating that day, how her hands had shivered before touching what had been left of the lantern, how her breath had hitched, and how her lips had curled into a smile.

Up on the cliff, the sand crunched beneath her shoes. It hadn’t done that down there anymore and it wouldn’t do so again until morning. She put her lantern down into the grass, then kneeled, hands shivering. Below her, the market continued in a mess of noise and voices, the wind picked up, the breeze turned colder.

Then the screaming started.

Ebby stayed on her knees in the grass, listening to it all come apart.

I cannot find the path!
Move, move!

She heard magic sizzle, the unmistakable sound of a few people blipping away, however, teleportation magic was expensive to aquire, even for vendors, so markets barely held three or four of these spells—if more than two at all.

That was the part she had wondered about, whether they would run. Whether they would find the cliff path and pour up it like water finding a crack. But the market had been built as a labyrinth by design, alley folding into alley, stall pressed against stall. What kept browsers in kept runners in too.

When gentle waves soaked through her clothes, her knees now wet, Ebby began to work, fingers sorting by feel, pulling in what the sea sent up to her. She discarded most things, left it for the sea, but any shell tapping against her knees, she gathered.

She thought about the lender while she scoop them up. I would have suggested you leave, she thought, but you knew better.

The screaming below had long stopped, the bodies never coming up to her spot on the cliff. Ebby knew they would be the sea’s own business.

“You were right,” she chuckled into the wind, still thinking of the lender’s words. “I, too, don’t think the sea cares. Because she doesn’t meddle. If you walk in, she doesn’t spit you back out.”

She stood, making sure to only take as many shells as she could carry within the folded hem of her shirt. Because that’s where they all went wrong, those idiots. The sea didn’t hate witches. It hated being taken advantage of.

If you only took what you could carry, if you made sure to give it a body before taking a body out of it, the sea couldn’t care less. Maybe, if the lender would have offered her a couple more shells for her advice, she would have told him this, too.

But he hadn’t.
So she hadn’t either.

The sea behind her lapped at the grass, and up above, the gulls mockingly mimicked the earlier screaming. Briefly, she thought about fishing, of gifting her catch to the gulls, but while she had given the sea plenty of bodies in all shapes and sizes, Ebby decided not to fish today.

The sea didn’t care, but gulls were a different breed.