Page 11 of Lost in the Moment and Found

“Good girl,” said Vineta approvingly. “Now, a few ground rules: if this isn’t Dejanira, it’s close enough to Dejanira that the people are probably verylikethe Dejaniran, meaning you mustn’t run or move too quickly, ever. Movement attracts and excites them, and the young ones especially are inclined to pounce on anything that catches their eyes. The older ones will have learned better manners, but they’ll still be interested if you move too quickly, and we’re about to be uninvited guests. Do you understand?”

“Not even a little bit,” said Antsy.

That appeared to be the correct answer, because Vineta nodded and handed her an envelope filled with coins that clanked against each other in unfamiliar ways. The weight of them was satisfying, even if she couldn’t possibly have guessed how much money she now held.

“We’re going shopping,” said Vineta. “I know what we need; your job is finding what we don’t know we need yet, since you’ll have no preconceptions about what can be bought at a market like this one.”

Antsy blinked slowly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean if something catches your eye, buy it and put it in your basket, and when your basket is full, return to the Door. Hudson will make sure it doesn’t close. Nothing alive, please, sometimes those don’t handle the transition well, as you clearly haven’t. Now come along, we have no idea what the market hours are.” Vineta stepped through the door and started toward the first rank of stalls, not looking back to verify that Antsy was following.

Antsy didn’twantto follow a woman she’d only just met through a mysterious door and into a market filled with cat- people who might chase her if she got excited and moved too fast, both things she was profoundly inclined to do. She also didn’t want to stay behind, alone, with a talking bird when she’d only have to deal with Vineta upon the woman’s return. She stepped cautiously through the doorway.

Putting her first foot through felt the same way it had in the jungle, like she was just taking a step. Putting her second foot through was harder, like she was trying to drag her body through the thickest soap bubble she had ever encountered. But after only a few seconds, she was through, and when she looked back, the open door was still there,with the shop behind it, just… faded somehow, made faint and unobtrusive. Cat-people should have been staring at it, thronging for this impossible thing that had opened in their midst, and instead they were going about their business, ignoring it completely.

Vineta was already gone, swallowed by the crowd, which seemed less like a movie and more like a real thing now that Antsy was actually a part of it. The people had a smell. Not an unpleasant one, but a smell like a cat that had been out in the afternoon sun for hours, baking sunlight into its fur. They smelled hot and vital and alive andreal.They weren’t the only smell in the air, either. A cacophony of fruits and flowers tickled her nose, and under them was the sweet, almost-familiar scent of baking bread.

Her mouth watered and her stomach grumbled, and she turned, almost without intending it, to follow the smell of baking deeper into the maze of stalls.

She looked nothing like the cat-people around her, but none of them stopped her or even looked at her twice. She passed stalls selling fruit she’d never seen before; stalls selling nuts roasted and poured into twists of paper; stalls selling flowers and jams and jellies and what looked like jars of golden honey. Everywhere she looked, there was something new to see.

Despite the impossible crowd, she caught several glimpses of Vineta, who didn’t seem to be following her, only making her own way through the market; Vineta’s attention was on the merchants who took her strange copper coins in exchange for the items she placed in her basket. Antsy kept walking, and felt better when Vineta didn’t follow. The idea of an adult following her right now was…

It wasn’t good. She might never know exactly what Tyler had intended, but she knew she had been lucky to escapeit, and she knew she didn’t ever want to be in that position again, not even with a little old lady who looked like a stiff wind might knock her over. Antsy kept following the scent in the air.

Then she came around a corner, and there was the stall. It was being operated by a bright blue cat-person with paler blue rosettes on their cheeks, wearing another of those long robes, and the counter was covered in an assortment of baked goods that would have put every bakery she’d ever passed to shame. There were croissants and danishes, and folded pastries she didn’t know the names for but that she longed to taste. Her stomach growled. Antsy drifted closer, until the merchant took notice.

“A traveler child,” the merchant said, sounding surprised but not displeased. His words were a little oddly shaped, accented by the shape of his muzzle, but they were comprehensible all the same. Antsy met his eyes and froze, not sure what to do.

The merchant blinked, whiskers shifting forward in a way that meant friendliness and curiosity from a smaller cat. “To here, or to somewhere close on here? We don’t often see furless travelers in the market. You tend to be uncomfortable and can’t read us half the time, and so it seems likely you might be from somewhere close.”

“I, um,” said Antsy. Then, with an air of desperation, “I have money. I’m supposed to buy whatever interests me and put it in my basket and then go back to the door. Hudson’s keeping it open so we can go back when we’re done with the shopping. He didn’t come shopping because he’s a bird.”

“Yes, this is not a good place for birds,” said the merchant. “I’ll make you a bargain, traveler child: reach into whatever purse you have, and give me the first thing your fingers touch.I’ll give you twice its value in pastry, as a gift of welcome,andI’ll tell you which way you should go next, if you’re meant to buy whatever interests you.”

“Everythingis interesting here,” said Antsy, a little plaintively. But it was true. This place was so new, so unfamiliar, and so brightly colored, it felt like she’d been dropped in the middle of a parade on television, or in an amusement park the way they looked in the commercials, where there were no lines and no sunburns and princesses appeared with open arms every time you went around a corner. It was all so much.

“Yes, but a thing being interesting doesn’t mean it has to interestyou,” said the merchant. “That’s what a market test is, for you travelers; it’s to see if you have good instincts when it comes to what catches your eye. And so far, I’d say you’re passing. I make the best pastries in this whole market. Not the cheapest, but I have the finest butter and the hottest oven, and what I lack in affordability, I balance out with quality.”

For the first time, Antsy looked alarmed. “What if the first thing my fingers touch isn’t even worth a roll?”

“Then I’ll give you whatever you ask for anyway, as welcome and well-met.” The merchant’s whiskers pushed forward again. Oh, that had to be a smile. There was no other way to explain it. Antsy smiled back, careful not to show her teeth. She remembered dogs didn’t like it when people showed their teeth, and maybe cats were the same way.

She reached into the envelope she’d been given, brushing her fingers against the top of what felt like a solid wall of coins. Then she grasped the first one that distinguished itself from the rest and pulled it out, revealing a flat silvery disc about the size of a half-dollar, with a stern-looking cat-person in three-quarters profile and tiny, unfamiliar writing all around theedges. She held it solemnly out toward the merchant, whose eyes widened.

“I did not offer you a kindly bargain to cheat you,” he said, in a strangled voice.

Antsy frowned, glancing to the coin in her palm and then back up again. “Is this not enough?” she asked.

“Child, that is… that is a silver phoenix, from the reign of our first Empress. It’s worth more than my entire stall put together.”

“But we made a deal,” said Antsy. “And when Vineta gave me this money, she did it expecting me to spend it. Can we make another deal?”

“What deal would that be?” asked the merchant, eyes still on the coin.

“I give you the coin, and you let me have whatever I want from the things you’re selling, then you give the rest away to whoever wants it, and you come show me around the market for a little while. I’ll be able to relax and look at things more if I’m not afraid of getting lost, and you can tell me if I’m trying to pay someone who’s not as honest as you are more than I should.”

The merchant, who clearly wanted the coin, blinked at her. Then he laughed, delighted. “So we both get the better of the deal,” he said. “You get sweets for later, I look like a generous soul, and you have a guide for the day, while I make my week’s profits in a moment. If you would not feel ill-done by, I would be glad to take your offered bargain.” He held his hand out, waiting for the coin.

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