#day got a punchcard where every fifth toe he gives up he gets a free burger

[throughtheglassdarkly]

Roadblocks, part 2

Welcome back. When last you were here, Bella broke all the glass and I used Day as a makeshift hurdle. Onward.

The day after our last adventure, Bella spent pretty much all day meeting and having dinner with her entire extended family. Pam, being such a mom, decided to stay on call in case anything went south. So that meant only three of us were free for the next nonsense that came up. I was at home, whipping up a perfectly nice lemon cake, when trouble called. Or texted, to be more accurate. I got a message from Evain that simply was an address about half an hour away. I washed my hands and texted back, “Need me to bring lube?” He replied, “You wish. Meet you there in 45 minutes. With the others.”

I sent off a message to Yova and Day: “Evain wants us to meet him at the Goblin Market. You in?” Yova texted me back, “Do I have time to change into something appropriate?” “Do you ever?” I asked her. She showed up ten minutes later, dressed to the nines, and we drove over to pick up Day and get to the address. It was a Sunday evening around 7:00, definitely getting dark early at that time of the year. We drove on the thoroughfare for about 20 minutes before pulling off on another highway. When we got there, we had to double check the address about eight times before we realized we were in the right place. It was the saddest looking mall any of us had ever seen. The biggest sign was for the Cash 4 Gold store and the parking lot was almost deserted. The only thing that told us we were in the right place was Evain, who was sitting on the hood of his SUV next to a large unlit Super Kmart sign.

Evain greeted us and gestured for us to walk up to the abandoned-looking Super Kmart. We were skeptical, but the double doors did slide open as we approached. The first thing any of us smelled was an overpowering reeking mixture of cheap incense and burnt rubber. It got worse from there. We didn’t see any electric lights at first, but about ten feet in, things started to brighten up a bit. Inside was what could only be described as the Spirit Halloween of Faerie markets. It had none of the class, ambiance, or deafening power of the goblin market we witnessed in Arcadia and none of the charm of a usual street fair. There were tacky streamers hanging from the metal supports in the ceiling, Christmas lights strewn over the walls, multi-colored lanterns lighting individual pathways between the vendors, and fairy lights on a few of the stalls. It was laid out in the aisles like a department store and awful, just-barely-out-of-sync folk music was playing. The three of us just stood there, staring in disbelief for a few moments.

“I’m pretty sure we can get goblin dysentery just sitting here,��� Day said. “I want to find whoever’s playing that music and beat them over the head with a metronome,” Yova said. “I think Bella would be right at home here,” I said.

Evain apologized that it wasn’t the classiest place in the world, but said it was the best they could do. “They don’t announce this place until the last minute, so it’s not like they’ve got a lot of time to set it up and make it look nice,” he said. “But there’s a lot more you can buy here than it looks like. And they take a lot of different stuff in exchange. Cash, memories, toenails.” All three of us turned to look at the same moment. “Wait, toenails?” Yova asked. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Couple of months ago, there was stand selling this amazing hedgebeast jerky. Best stuff I’ve ever eaten. And all they wanted was a month’s worth of my toenails. Don’t know what they used them for.”

“Please tell me you didn’t have that ready to go to exchange,” I said, feeling my gorge start rising. “Oh, no, it was installments. I just had to keep a jar of them and hand them in at the next market,” he said. “Where’d you say this stall was?” Day asked. “DAY,” I said. “What?” he asked. “Day, you don’t save your toenails, do you?” Yova asked. “No. I mean, not really. I haven’t changed my vacuum bag in a while, so-” “Gyaaaaaah,” I said, going through a full body shudder.

Evain warned us that our phones weren’t going to work inside the market due to magical wards, so we planned to meet back at the entrance in an hour and a half. He headed off to find some things of his own and the three of us tried to figure out a good plan of attack and what we were looking for. “So, uh, maybe we could pick up some things for the others? Maybe some treats for Paisley?” Day asked. Yova and I both turned our heads so slowly to look at him I heard creaking. “Day, are you suggesting we get presents for Pam and Bella?” I asked. “…maybe. I dunno,” he said. “I guess since you guys pulled me out of that office I should probably do something nice.” “Awwww, I think his heart grew three sizes today,” Yova said.

Yova, our resident strategist, suggested that we do a lap around the main floor to see if we could figure out where everything was before we started buying anything. “It’s just like an anime convention. You don’t give your money to the first person who catches your eye, you might see the same shirt being sold three different places,” she said. Nerd. We ended up doing what she said and I realized while we were scouting things out that the market was laid out just like a big box store: if you found one thing you were looking for, everything else like it would be in the same area.

Our first stop was in the pet section, which was FUCKING LOUD. All the creatures were damn vocal about not wanting to be in crates and cages. Most of what was on sale was small to medium hedgebeasts, which meant Yova was a lady on a mission. She stopped off near a cluster of tables and shelves and I saw her blinking her eyes behind her Jackie O sunglasses, the big softie. The proprietor, a short, squat goblin, took clear note of her and asked if there was anything in particular she was looking for. She tried to play it cool, but then she saw a terrarium in the back with a bunch of tiny geckos. She moved closer and they all started swarming, trying to look up at her and get her attention.

The proprietor took a puff off his pipe and waddled over, asking her, “God a soft spot for the wee dragons, do ye?” “I’ve always preferred things of a herpetological nature over things with fur and feathers, yes,” she said. “HEY,” I said. “Shush, you,” she snapped. He asked her if he could interest her in one of the little dudes and she gave him a look, asking what the price was. He eyed her up and down, asking what she wanted it for. “Cockroaching, companionship, food?” When she told him she was interested in a pet, he considered this and said, “Well, since you’re looking for something to fill that void, how about a memory, a time when you felt that void?” She extended a hand, saying, “I get to pick the gecko.” He reached up, took her hand and shook it. She told me later that as soon as he did, she felt something ripple in her memory. She could tell there was something gone, but she couldn’t even remember what. Everything around it was just missing.

(Side note: Yova lost the painful memory of the time she came out to her parents and they rejected her. Per her player, “Not the worst memory to lose.”)

That, however, was a concern for another day. She put her hand in the bowl and started feeling around. The geckos were stepping all over each other, pushing each other away. As they were doing so, she noticed one of the less excitable geckos crawl onto her and she pulled him out. He was a scrawny little guy who was much paler than Paisley and he hadn’t fully grown into his wings yet, but as soon as she pulled him out, he wrapped himself entirely around her knuckle like a ring. “Awww, look at the little guy. Whatcha gonna name him?” I asked her. “Gershwin,” she responded without missing a beat. “What?!” Day scoffed. “You had that name completely ready to go, didn’t you?” I asked her. “Yeah,” she said. As we were walking away, I overheard the shopkeep chuckle darkly to the other geckos, “And to think you guys were just going to be feed!” before he tossed one of them to another hedgebeast, which caught it and crunched down hard. I decided it would be best not to mention that to Yova.

We realized that we would probably need to look for weapons and other supplies we could use on our mission to Arcadia, but in asking around it became clear PDQ that there was a total moratorium on weapons and other deadly things. Nevertheless, Yova spotted a stand that got all our attention quickly. It was a stand with a bunch of weird odds and ends: a golden comb, a pair of mudboots, an old IOU paper, a pair of chopsticks, a spool of silver thread. The thing that really got her attention was an old Montreal Expos pennant. I tried to ignore the pennant as best I could because when I was a much smaller, even more awkward Derek, I had to play shortstop on my local Little League team for one brief and tragic summer and as a “reward” for doing that, my dad took me and my brother up to Montreal for an Expos game. I just wanted some goddamn crepes, but no, I had to sit and watch one of the worst professional teams in history get completely trounced by the Orioles. The Orioles, for crying out loud.

Sorry. I have some baggage.

Point being, every time Yova looked at the pennant, she was filled with a swelling of pride. In fact, all the items at the booth did that. The chopsticks filled you with overpowering dread, the thread with a feeling of belonging. The proprietor, a taller Mrs. Pepperpot-type goblin named Nanny Primrose, asked us if she could interest us in anything. Yova casually reached out to touch the thread and Nanny Primrose rapped her knuckles with her cane. “That is not easy to come by, I don’t want it stolen!” she crabbed. “What is it?” Yova asked. “That, my dearie, is the length of a leash that one of the fae used to keep one of their pets on,” Nanny Primrose said. “Ohhh, like Bella,” I said low-key to Yova. “And what does it do?” Yova asked. “Well, if two people love each other very much and don’t mind the thing, you just pull them back to you like a fishing rod,” Nanny Primrose said. I leaned in and murmured, “You know, nine months out of the year, the Autumn Lodge is closed to outsiders…” She didn’t dignify that with a response, but I did see her eyeballing it more closely.

Yova did ultimately end up pointing to the pennant, asking, “And that?” “That, dearie, has seen a great number of battles within the Hedge. You could call it a call to arms, as it were. When things are looking down, sometimes you need just that little bit of oomph to get the guy who’s trying to beat you down. Of course, I have it look like that right now because,” she chuckled unpleasantly, “people don’t like to buy things that are covered in blood.”

Yova asked what the cost was and Nanny Primrose asked for something that had a story. “What do any of you have that has a story?” she asked. Yova and Day looked to me and I reached up, pulling a feather out of my neck and daubing it in some of the ink that was running free. “With this, anyone can write their own story,” I said, handing it over to Nanny Primrose. She looked at it appraisingly and then looked up. “Give me another one and we’ve got a deal,” she said. I pulled another feather out of the opposite side of my neck and handed it over. She tucked the feathers away and passed the pennant to Yova. “Bit of advice: you need heart’s blood to activate it,” she said. “Pardon my ignorance, but heart’s blood?” Yova asked. “Stab yourself with a stick, dearie,” Nanny Primrose said.

With a gecko and a banner secured, we decided to start looking for some things for the others. At least Yova and I did. Day wandered into the stands that were selling food and wild horses couldn’t have helped us drag him away. So Yova and I wandered into the décor section. There were a ton of different stands selling everything from carpets woven out of vines to cups carved out of pieces of rock to still-dripping paintings to glass that bent in ways glass shouldn’t have been able to bend. We ended up near a stall that was selling a collection of geodes that were SO SHINY and while I was drooling, Yova picked up one that looked like bismuth, though circular instead of the usual geometric shapes.

Unlike a lot of the items in the market, the geodes all had clear price tags on them. When Yova flipped the tag over, she saw that there was an image of two mice on it. I was distracted by all the shiny things and didn’t notice when a tortoiseshell cat jumped onto my shoulder and meowed loudly in my ear. Over my wailing, Yova asked it, “Pardon me, are you the purveyor of this establishment?” It meowed again and popped off, rubbing its tail under the “2 mice” price tag. “I’m afraid I don’t have any mice, but what about this?” She pulled out some glittery thread and twisted it back and forth so it would catch the light. The cat stuck its tongue out at her.

“You know, I think I have an idea,” I said. I reached in my messenger bag and pulled out the laser pointer I used to give Paisley some exercise and flicked it on, running it in front of the cat. It started batting at the laser and I flicked the pointer off. It looked up at me. “How about this: I give you a good chase with the red dot in exchange for the geode?” It thought for a moment, then nodded. I flicked the pointer back on and started running the cat through its stall. “You might want to go look for something for Pam. I’m gonna be here a minute,” I told her.

Yova ended up making her way through the rest of the décor section, noting a jewelry stand and a stall with journals that made noise upon opening. Eventually, she found the housewares section and a stall that sold a variety of different kinds of brooms. There was one with a polished oak handle and bristles made of something silky, which she knew Pam was going to love. Surprisingly, there was another changeling running the stall, a woman with blue iridescent scales and dark skin. Yova asked her what the cost was and the changeling gave her a knowing smile, saying, “I’m not complicated. I take cash. $75, I carved the handle myself.” Yova gave her four twenties and told her to keep the change.

Around this time, both Yova and I heard the music come to a blissful stop and an announcement came on over the loudspeakers: “Attention patrons: there is a blue light special on aisle 16!” Yova made her way back over to where I was still letting the cat chase that goddamn laser pointer. “Do you think we should check that out?” she asked. “Uh, yeah. Gimme one second,” I said. I threw the laser light about as far away as I could get and when the cat chased it away, I turned to go. Or at least, I tried to. It was a lot harder to do than I thought; it felt like there was something forcibly keeping me in place. I had to wrench myself away and when I did, I felt guilty. Some part of me knew I was leaving before I was formally dismissed and that part knew I should still be there.

“You should’ve just left the laser,” Yova told me as we made our way over to aisle 16. “Dude, this is Paisley’s favorite. You have no idea how picky she is,” I told her.

When we got to aisle 16, we saw a soapbox that had a blue light radiating out of it. The man standing on top of it was very pale with wavy silver hair pulled back in some updo that was somewhere between a ponytail and man bun. He was wearing a navy blue suit and had milky white eyes. Even before he could speak, I had the distinct feeling of oiliness.

When he spoke, that feeling was confirmed ten times over. He said, “Distinguished guests of the Spindle City Goblin Market, welcome! I have for you today a very interesting item, a very useful item, I’m sure you’ll all be quite interested in placing bids on.” He reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a long crocheted rope with little precious gem beads embedded in it. “Behold!” he bellowed as he waved it in front of him. “A skinwalker’s trinket! Yarn woven from the wool of several different powerful hedgebeasts with beads carved from the dream gates of some of the most powerful changelings on the Earth! This is a very effective back alley doorway into the dreams of anyone you want to get into the dreams of! Bidding starts at a minor boon!”

Yova and I got into a huddle quickly and we agreed we were going to at least try to get it. “I think the best thing I can offer is to ensure a promise he has someone make is locked, but I’d have to be there for it to happen,” I told her. “True. But we just need to give him some way to get in touch with us. And worst case scenario, we get outbid,” she said.

We split up and Yova stepped forward to make the bid, holding up her hand and smiling her biggest bullshit smile. “My good sir, I have an offer!” she said. “Oh, do you, do you, do share, my good madam!” he said, matching her bullshit for bullshit. “I have the guarantee of a promise, locked down and guaranteed to happen,” she said. “What sort of promise are you talking about, a sworn pledge, a guarantee to kill someone?” he asked. “A Notarized promise. My friend here has the ability to do so – he is a Notary, a very rare breed, who can make such a thing happen,” she said, swinging her arm in my direction. I felt about eighty pairs of eyes on me and tried to give my friendliest smile, which has on occasion caused people to offer me antacids and made small children start crying.

The vendor looked over us (and me in particular) and grinned. He looked back to the rest of the crowd and said, “Well, we’ve got one going all in right at the start. Can anyone beat a promise from one who knows many of the secrets of the True Fae?” I was relieved that our gambit seemed to work. There were a few tepid bids coming in, but they were pretty puny and clearly not landing. The vendor rocked back on his heels and said, “I hate to say this, but you’re all boring as fuck. This is supposed to be a Goblin Market! Notary boy, come forward!” I stepped forward, clutching my messenger bag. He looked at the rest of the crowd and yelled, “SCRAM!” They all left, grumbling and looking unhappy.

He came forward, putting an arm around both of us (I was surprised to see he was almost as tall as Yova) and he said, “To be quite honest, your bid wasn’t so exciting either, but you have a reputation, so I’ll bite.” “We have a reputation?” Yova asked. “In certain circles,” he said. “What kind of reputation?” I asked. “You have people who are fond of you. They tell stories.” He turned to me and said, “So, how does it work? Are the words actually on your skin or what?” I pulled back some of my feathers to show the skin beneath and where some words had been printed on my flesh. “Ooooh!” he said, leaning close to see what was written. “Hey, watch your business,” I said, pushing the feathers back into place. “This is my business! This is my very business! Yuri, by the way,” he said, extending a hand. We introduced ourselves and hammered out the details of our deal, with him proposing that he come for his favor within the next lunar cycle. I agreed, pulled a feather on my lower arm out and wrote a note for him to take. I felt the Glamour leave my body and enter in the words that flowed onto my wrist under the ink that was bleeding out. At the same time, I felt some pushback from the Glamour he was pushing into the deal as well. It’s definitely a weird feeling. I’ve never gotten a tattoo, but from what I understand it’s kind of similar – it doesn’t exactly hurt, but there’s definitely a pressure there, pushing it down into my skin.

Yuri handed me the Token and I tucked it into my messenger bag right away. “One more thing before you go, and you don’t have to answer this, but it’s something I’m curious about,” I said. “You didn’t happen to have sold something similar to a young lady with tan skin and the legs of a white deer, did you?” He grinned wider and said that he had. “Sweet girl. Owes me a ton of favors now. And she’s very fond of all of you. I told you I’d heard about you.” With that, he waved and disappeared back into the throngs at the market.

“Okay, what next?” Yova asked. “Maybe we should go check on Day and make sure he hasn’t sold his toes for beef jerky?” I asked. “Day is a grown man, if he wants to sell his toes, he can do that,” she said. “Yeah, but we need him to be able to walk and stand in front of us,” I told him. “Besides that, why beef jerky? It’s disgusting,” I said. “I hear it’s very high in protein,” she said. “So is semen! Doesn’t mean you need to choke it down!” I said. She gave me a look of complete disgust and said, “This is exactly why I’m a lesbian.”

We passed by the food vendors and saw Day eagerly talking to the vendor at a stand marked “Organic” “Fruit” (yes, exactly like that, both words in separate quotation marks) and decided we’d swing back and get him later. Yova told me about the journals she saw earlier and they sounded intriguing, so we went back to the book binders. And that was when I realized that every single one of them made the sound of the animal whose hide was used to bind it. “NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE” I said. Yova quickly pulled me over to the other side of the stand. “What about these?” she asked, pointing to another set of journals. I picked one up and the face on it opened up and stared at me. “NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE” I said and she pulled me away.

“Look, Derek, you haven’t gotten anything for yourself, don’t you want anything?” she asked. I shrugged. “I dunno. I’m fine,” I said. And here’s something for those armchair psychologists of you out there: I was a middle child and I got used to getting passed over on stuff, so half of the time I don’t even really think about getting anything for myself. Yova, however, was not going to hear about that and she dragged me over to the cookware section to find something. And it was there that we found the most awesome stone rolling pin with kaleidoscopic handles. It was shiny and practical. I was about to ask how much it was but Yova had already spent the Glamour on it and she practically shoved it at me to put away. Having friends is awesome.

We found Day not long after that, about as big a smile as I’ve ever seen on his face. “You look pleased,” Yova told him. “I found the best freaking burgers I’ve ever had!” he said, pulling one out of its wrapper and shoving it in his face. He swallowed it whole and said, “And all they asked for was a bottle of my tears!” Yova and I looked at each other and she asked, “How many times did you have to punch yourself in the face to fill up a bottle of tears?” “None! They’re really spicy!” he said, chowing down on another one. And then, because I am a bad person, I started trilling, “Mind you, I can’t hardly blame them… these are probably the worst pies in London…” Yova bit down hard on her knuckle to keep from laughing and Day paused mid-chomp and looked at me. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?” he asked. “Oh, nothing. Nothing at all,” I said.

We were running close to the time where we said we’d meet Evain, so we took our purchases and went back up toward the entrance, where he was standing. He asked what we got and we showed him all of our goodies. He looked around and pulled a small doll out of his canvas bag. It looked eerily like Cassi and he asked hesitantly if we thought she was going to like it. “I think she’ll be very touched,” Yova said. “Yeah, you can say it’s for the first Christmas you missed. Oh! Oh, you know what I just saw this week that’s coming to Blu-Ray? Cinderella! You should get her that!” I said. “Oh, yeah, she’d love that,” he said.

“Did you watch that a lot with her when she was a kid?” Yova asked. Evain gave her a deadpan look and said, “Okay, listen. This is going to sound awful, but when you’re a single parent, sometimes you have to put them in front of the TV for a while to get stuff done. But then they want to watch the same movie six times in a row.” “Yeah, with my little sister it was Mulan,” I said. “Hey, Mulan is a perfectly good movie!” Yova protested. “She just liked the Reflection song,” I said. “She’d watch it, rewind to the start of the Reflection song, play the Reflection song. Rewind to the start of the Reflection song, play the Reflection song.” “Not I’ll Make a Man Out Of You or A Girl Worth Fighting For?” Yova asked. “Nope. Because ‘Mulan was pretty,’” I said. Evain looked around and said, “Uh, fun as this conversation is, maybe we should get going before they realize I stiffed them on the doll.” We quickly made our way for the exit and told him we’d be in touch about our mission in. And then we stopped off at PetSmart on the way home to get crickets for Gershwin.

So that’ll about do for our shopping excursion into the Goblin Market. Until next time, be safe and may you never be around well-meaning idiots who take you to go see journals bound in flesh.