The broker knew it was going to be that kind of Lunday morning when the duchess was chattering away before she’d even gotten her wide skirts through the shop doorway. There was an upcoming event at the castle, the duchess declared while shaking dust from her hem, so very rare and so very important that she’d absolutely need new fingers.
All that jabber and bustle did nothing for the broker’s hangover. The broker didn’t stir from her seat at the opposite side of the table that divided her shop. Her nose remained pointed at a book, as usual, eyes settled in a tired blur on a line she’d already read six times over.
As usual, the duchess asked the broker if she was feeling quite alright this fine morning. As usual, the duchess didn’t wait for a reply before offering to build the broker a new shop on the finer side of the village, and with a more impressive doorway.
The broker didn’t respond to either question, which duchess surely expected. They’d been perfecting this dance for years, ever since the duchess was but a milliner’s daughter. The milliner had lofty aspirations, though. He nearly went broke from buying his daughter a distinctive nose, pointier shoulders, dainty ears, and more, until finally a duke looked her way. The milliner went to ground soon after, and his daughter-turned-duchess inherited her father’s obsession.
The duchess resumed her yammering about the royal event, as if the broker cared. Introductions would be made to the prince’s new bride, said to be a remarkable lady. A singular princess from some far-off place, with such a unique and delicate constitution that she cried pearls and even bled gold from her tender, bare feet.
First impressions once made could never be undone, the duchess said, and such a momentous occasion called for particularly lovely fingers. Also wrists, the duchess added. Indeed, new fingers and the very slenderest of wrists.
The broker held her aching head very still. Mum’s distant voice scratched at her thoughts. First rule: only one per customer, only one per week. Keeps them from going into shock from the change.
Keeps them coming back for more.
The broker could wait all day for the duchess to choose which of the two things she wanted most. After those last three rounds at the pub last night, she’d gladly remain still at her table until the sun set on this day.
The duchess shuffled around the shop, brushing off some of the trinkets that dangled from the rafters, snickering at the sign that read No Mirrors Here, until she finally gave in. As usual.
“Alright, then. Alright. Fingers. Fingers it is.” She removed her gloves with a series of neat tugs, one finger at a time, and then the duchess laid her hands on the table. “Of course I love these fingers. You did a wonderful job finding them for me last season, but I need something . . . more striking. Being from a far-off land, you know, the princess will surely be in search of regular company.”
Her hands were already free of jewelry, and the slight knuckles free of wrinkles. The undertaker had been paid well for these, and the grieving family. Since taking over the shop, the broker always insisted on fair trade.
Holding up her own stubby, original finger, nail chipped and dirty from the previous morning’s forage, the broker kicked back her chair and walked to the row of cupboards at the back of the shop.
“I knew I could count on you,” the duchess said. “Long and thin, dear, but with a little more muscle this time. I need to make an impression.”
She’d already said that. She always said that.
The tea the duchess left for her hadn’t yet grown cold when a stranger opened the door. He paused in the doorway as the broker continued to stare at her book while huffing a light breeze across her tea. He then apologized – didn’t say for what, and asked if this was the shop of the parts broker. She spoke in the direction of her book and confirmed that it was, indeed, and then she resumed blowing on her tea.
The man walked in and closed the door.
The broker usually learned all she needed from a glance at a new customer’s boots, or in the case of this customer, boot. One boot, one peg. This man spent his days in the soil, his nights widdling by fire, unless it was someone else who carved the leaves and vines up and around his wooden leg.
She was about to tell him she didn’t have any left feet, least none in a size matching his right, when the man spoke first. He surprised her by asking for a pair of eyes, as he heaved a large sack of apples onto her table. Said the eyes weren’t for him, but for a young lass just about marrying age.
Ah, so this man was a fixer. The broker tried to unclench her jaw.
Was he fixing his own bride to be, or was he shoving one of his offspring into a so-called advantageous arrangement? Fragrant as those apples were, she was in no mood for this. But then Mum’s voice raked at her mind. Give ‘em what they want, she always said. Never mind what they need.
Fine.
She rifled through a drawer under her table and pulled out the first pair of eyes she touched. She slapped on a charm, wrapped them in cloth, and sent the arsehole away, hoping the lass told him off the moment he showed her the eyes.
A young man walked into the shop the next Lunday, breaking a peaceful afternoon spell. His shoes looked triple buffed, his trousers creased with lines that were supposed to mean something. His voice was soft, like the beginning of a melody. The strange accent soothed the broker’s regular Lunday hangover. He placed an obnoxiously large piece of silver on the table and asked if she might have a rather thick mane of hair. She almost asked if it was for him or his horse, but what did it matter?
“Color?” she asked instead, nose still pointed at her book.
He paused before asking in return if she had anything dark and streaked with white. Dignified, he suggested, perhaps with a slight curl?
She grunted and left the table to rummage through the third shelf on the far-left cupboard. One person’s trash, she thought as she gathered up a long mane, wondering if the man would be leaving his discarded hair behind. They often did.
He sighed as he ran his fingers through the locks spread across the table, and then asked where her mirror might be. She pointed to the sign without looking up. The shop had a mirror once, but it was buried with Mum’s body, every part still original.
The man barely waited for her to mutter the necessary charm before switching out his hair, and then he asked her how it looked. The broker raised her eyes just enough to see salt-and-pepper waves brushing the back of his fine coat. She collected his old hair in answer, and he instantly began rambling about his impending visit to the castle. These new locks were bound to impress as he offered congratulations to the prince and his new bride.
The broker wondered if the duchess would be there, and if she might recognize her old hair.
The broker was just returned from her Seturnday forage when the man with the wooden leg burst into the shop. He huffed and he sputtered, but he didn’t say a thing.
She sat behind the table, sorting mushrooms and waiting, a little surprised when he asked her to please pardon him. Could she take a closer look at the eyes she’d given him the other day?
“They don’t seem to work,” he said, laying them very carefully on the table. The eyes were still moist from living in someone’s head. “She just stares at the wall,” he said, “day and night. Much more so in the night.”
In the edge of her vision the broker could see the man’s worrying hands. They were hard-working, calloused. A customer is a customer, Mum always said.
The broker coaxed her voice from her throat. “Has she prior experience,” she asked, “using eyes?” She expected the answer would be no, and was already shaming herself for not asking the first time he entered the shop. What was wrong with her?
“But she has,” he assured her. “The poor lass said she’d only recently been robbed of her eyes, when her crooked governess plucked them out and then tossed the lass from her very own carriage, left for worse than dead. Only been days since that happened, weeks at most. The wife and I found her not far off the West road, a step shy of the river bend, poor thing. Dumped shoeless by her first rescuers after they used her horrible.”
The broker tried to slow the spinning of her mind as she inspected the eyes, easily recognizing they’d come from a cat. Left behind by that shopkeeper who was bent on turning her animal friend into a person.
The broker’s heart cracked. How could she?
Caught in a scornful mood and shamefully careless to boot, the broker’d almost made this poor lass into an animal, just like the villains who abused her so.
It took all she had to steady her hands as she reached into the same drawer, this time stretching to the back corner and pulling out the find she’d only just stumbled upon, having mistaken the lovely eyes for glistening mushrooms at first.
“These should serve the lass well,” she whispered as she placed the eyes on the cloth. She added an extra charm for secure binding and then included the silver piece that hair-obsessed traveler had traded
“For her trouble,” she said, “and for yours.” As if it were nearly enough.
“Most kind,” the man said, ‘and many thanks may I extend on behalf of the poor lass.”
She raised her gaze just enough to see his chin quiver, which only made it worse.
The duchess bustled through the door more or less on schedule, but then paused mid-huff to stare at the broker. ‘Have you finally run out of books?’
The broker looked up from her drawing and offered the duchess some tea. This caused the lady to huff and bustle a bit more, until she worked through the door to drop a package on the table. “But tea is what I am supposed to give to you.”
The broker almost smiled. “You always bring the finest,” she said.
The duchess sucked in a breath. “Stars and moon,” she said, “well of course I do, dear.”
And then she moved on.
“What I really need is a new voice,” she said. “I know that’s a tall order, even for you,” she patted the package, “which is why I brought double the tea this fine Lunday morning.” And the rest of the story spilled from the duchess, like milk overflowing a porcelain cup.
The prince’s new wife was a charlatan, it seemed, having stolen the life of a poor young princess during her travels from a far-off land. It wasn’t until a castle gardener brought the rescued lady to the prince’s attention, it wasn’t until the lady cried relief and asked that he send word to her family, that the truth spilled out with the lost princess’ delicate, pearly tears.
‘Everyone knew the prince’s wife was meant to have the gift of crying pearls, but she’d cried not a bit since arriving at the castle. We all of us discussed it at length, we did. We decided that the lady was simply tired of so much crying, you know. She was a hard soul, to be sure, with a very stiff countenance and unusually square posture, but then I thought maybe souls just shrivel to hard shells when one cries too much.’
The gardener. The rescued lass, the rescued lady. Stolen eyes tossed away, waiting to be found in a mushroom patch. Eyes that resumed their pearl-making once matched with the rightful owner. The broker breathed in the scents of warm earth as she covered her mouth.
“Well, this is a special Lunday, indeed,” the duchess said, “when finally I bring a story that interests my stony broker.” She chuckled before continuing on about her very urgent requirement for an especially feathery voice, a voice that would appeal to a delicate princess who’s already been through so very, very much.
“Something youthful,” the broker suggested, “with a plain tone, and an honest timbre?”
“Yes,’ the duchess agreed, “that’s it exactly. You always know what I need.”
The broker pulled out a stool to help her reach the uppermost shelf of a side cupboard. Pulling down a simple rosewood box, she dusted it off before opening it at the table to reveal delicate vocal chords stretched across a lining of fine silk. ‘I’ve been saving these,’ the broker said.
The duchess sighed.
“They’ll need much use,” the broker said, “to reach their potential.” The broker leaned forward. “To draw out the unique musicality of these chords,” she said, “will take not a small amount of coaxing.”
The duchess reached gloved fingers out to touch the edge of the rosewood and whispered. “What must I do?”
“You must speak five kind words each day,” the broker said. “Two to yourself, three to others.”
“I can do that,’ the duchess said, and then again, quieter, “I can do that.”
The lady soon swept out of the shop as best as she could, considering her skirts were twice as wide as the doorway. She turned back before stepping purposefully away, and met the eyes of the broker.
“Thank you,” she said in her new, airy voice.
The broker smiled. She wondered if, after a time, the duchess might recognize that voice. A voice ripped away so very long ago from the daughter of a simple milliner.
