Moonbean Market was just waking up under its painted lanterns. Orange-pink light shone on the wet cobblestones, and the puddles below the awnings held little wobbly copies of the lanterns above. Mina stood near a stall that smelled like warm sugar and cinnamon, her striped scarf tucked close as she stared up at a tray of moon-pies — small round pastries dusted with sugar and baked to look like the moon.
She wanted to stay right there, long enough to admire them and long enough to feel like she belonged among the busy shoppers who called out prices and laughed and traded coins. For a little while, that worked. Mina watched hands pass, baskets lift, and steam curl from the carts like sweet fog.
Then one moon-pie drifted upward.
It rose slowly, as if a gentle breeze had found it, then another followed, then three more. The stall owner gave a startled squeak. Nearby shoppers leaned in, then reached up, and one of them fetched a ladder from beside a cart. A pebble-polisher near the fountain looked over her shoulder, and a tiny coin-counter began tapping her brass abacus much faster than before.
Mina craned her neck. The moon-pies were no longer sitting in a neat tray. They were floating above the stall, just out of easy reach, nudging toward the ceiling like pale little moons trying to leave. Mina could help, maybe, or she could keep watching from the edge and hope someone fixed it. But the crowd had already started moving, and now she had to decide where her small feet would go next.
What happens next?
Sign in to rate
