The ducks wove like thread through the market at Kiln Green, trailing laughter behind them as children shrieked and scattered, chasing one another with willow sticks wound in red and yellow cloth. One duck hopped up onto the stool beside Lowen’s stall, peering at the cloth lining their display basket as if it too might be food.
Lowen gently nudged it away with a soft noise, amused, and then glanced around to see if anyone noticed. They were alone today, for the first time—not fetching, not handling deliveries, not packing up their mother’s stall. Just them. And the wares were theirs, properly: a neat row of simple tinctures in dark bottles, herbs bound in twine, and—just for display—a few glass vials caught in wirework cradles, made to hang from a cord at the neck. Those weren’t for sale. They were to catch the eye. They gave the table rhythm.
A small file in their hand caught the light as they worked on a silver ring, smoothing the inner band, brushing the filings into a fold of cloth when done. The wind smelled of woodsmoke and crushed mint, and somewhere someone was roasting chestnuts.
“Ah. This one’s mine, I think.” said a voice.
Lowen looked up. A woman stood before them, angular and brisk, hair cropped to the jaw. She was holding one of the display pendants.
“They’re not—” Lowen hesitated. “They’re only for show.”
The woman turned the vial over in her hand. “Mm,” she said, not as disagreement, just… acknowledgment. “How much?”
Lowen blinked, brain fumbling. “Three staves?” they said at last, though they hadn’t meant to say anything. It was too little, and too much, and the wrong thing. But the woman was already pulling coins from a narrow purse.
As she passed them over, her eyes met Lowen’s with a sideways glance. Just a flick of recognition, as if she’d picked something out of the market more than a pendant. She nodded—once, precisely—and was gone.
Lowen stood a little differently after that. Not taller, exactly, but more solid on their stool.
Later, a man with ombre skin and dark eyes wearing a worn but colourful coat stepped forward, examining the jars with care. He smelled faintly of pine pitch, and his accent ran like a river over stones.
“These are good,” he said. “You grow the plants?”
Lowen nodded. “Mostly. There’s mugwort and fennel from further down the flats. I press the oil myself.”
He reached into a pocket and poured a handful of polished stones into his palm. Milky green, mottled red, soft grey. “Would you trade? My sister makes these. She grinds them smooth.”
Lowen looked down at the little glints of colour. “Yes,” they said.
The man chose two bottles in exchange for two stones. But as he turned, he offered one more—held it out without a word. When Lowen took it, he smiled. “For your walk home,” he said, as if it were a custom Lowen ought to know.
A child came up near the end of the day, her sleeves too long, one missing a cuff button. She pointed to the cloak pin Lowen had been filing.
“That one’s pretty.”
“She’s not quite finished yet. Still deciding what she wants to be,” said Lowen, eyes soft.
“Can I see?”
Lowen hesitated, then handed it over. The child turned it over in her hands like it was a secret, fingers tracing the curling silver leaves
“Will it be done soon?”
“Maybe by the time your mother’s ready to leave.”
The girl nodded seriously and darted off. Sure enough, just as the sun dipped low, she returned—not with coins, but with a folded woollen neckwrap, worn soft and smelling faintly of lanolin and dried moss. She laid it down gently, with both hands, almost as if she were setting something to rest.
Lowen looked at the girl and saw both uncertainty and grief.
“It’s a good trade,” they said softly. “This wool’s lived.”
They set the pin carefully on a scrap of linen, the point sheathed in a twist of felted cloth, and folded the bundle tight. A loop of twine held it closed, snug enough the girl could carry it without harm.
It was the first time someone had asked for something still in the making. It stayed with them all the way home.
