Speaker 1: Caleroga Shark Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Night Market, a special Romance Weekly and
Ghost Scary Stories crossover event. This is episode two, The
Price of Wonder.
Speaker 1: Twenty eight days. I'd counted them down like a prisoner,
marking time. Each sunrise another small death as the honey's
memory faded further from my tongue. The article I'd written
that first night had sparked something. My editor wanted more
pieces like it. Readers were sharing it across social media,
and for the first time in months, I felt like
maybe I could salvage my career. But the words wouldn't come.
Every morning, I sat at my laptop, fingers poised over
keys that might as well have been foreign symbols. The
blank document mocked me, cursor blinking like a slow heartbeat.
I'd tried everything, visiting new restaurants, experimenting with exotic ingredients,
even attempting to recreate the flavors from my grandmother's old recipes.
Nothing worked, food tasted like cardboard, experiences felt flat and colorless,
and the world around me seemed drained of all meaning.
The bells had gotten worse. What started as a distant chime.
I could almost convince myself was imaginary had become a
constant presence. They followed me through grocery stores, whispered through
my apartment walls at night, echoed in the space between
raindrops during Seattle's endless drizzle. Other people didn't seem to
hear them. I'd even asked the barista at my usual
coffee shop if she noticed anything strange, and she'd looked
at me like I was losing my mind. Maybe I was.
By day fifteen, I was jumping at shadows. By day twenty,
I'd stopped leaving my apartment except for absolute necessities, and
by day twenty five I was barely sleeping because the
bells had developed a pattern, three slow chimes followed by silence,
then three more like a countdown, like something was measuring
time until it could collect what it was owed. On
day twenty seven, I called in sick to a restaurant
review because the thought of pretending to taste anything made
me physically ill. I spent the entire day pacing my apartment,
checking the locks, obsessively, drawing the curtains tight against a
sun that hurt my eyes. The bells were so loud
now that they drowned out traffic television, even my own thoughts.
When I looked in the mirror, my reflection seemed wrong, somehow, thinner,
more translucent, like I was fading from the inside out.
And tonight, finally, mercifully, tonight, the moon would disappear entirely
from the sky. I arrived at Pine and Melrose three
hours early, sitting in my car like some kind of
supernatural stalker. The alley looked exactly as it had for
the past month, empty, ordinary, disappointing. But as darkness fell
and the last sliver of moon faded from view, I
felt it a shift in the air, a change in
the quality of shadows. The temperature dropped ten degrees in
an instant, and my breath began to fog. Despite the
mild October evening, the bells stopped ringing. The silence was
somehow worse than the sound had been. It pressed against
my ear drums like water, thick and soft, vocating, And
then cutting through that terrible quiet, came something that might
have been music, or might have been the sound of
reality tearing at its seams. The light appeared at eleven
forty seven pm, exactly spilling from that impossible gap between
buildings like liquid gold. But this time I noticed things
I'd missed before. The light didn't just spill, it writhed,
moving with deliberate purpose, reaching toward me with tendrils that
looked almost like fingers. The shadows it cast were too dark,
too deep, and they moved independently of their sources. I
was moving before i'd consciously decided to, drawn by sense
that made my mouth water and my chest ache with longing.
But underneath the familiar aromas of cardamom and star annis,
I caught something else, something metallic and bitter that made
my stomach clench with unease. The market had changed. New
stools lined the twisted pathways, their wares glowing with inner
light that pulsed like a heartbeat. A woman with butterfly
wings that left trails of silver dust sold bottled laughter
that sparkled like champagne, But when I looked closer, the
bottles contained what looked suspiciously like tears. An ancient man
whose skin looked like tree bark offered first memories the
moment a baby opens its eyes and sees the world,
But his display case was filled with empty eyed dolls
that tracked my movement as I passed children who might
have been there for centuries or minutes, traded in perfect conversations,
but their voices carried an echo that made my teeth ache,
and when they smiled, their teeth were too sharp, too numerous.
But it was the customers that made my blood run cold.
What I'd taken for drowsy contentment on my first visit
now revealed itself as something far more sinister. They didn't
move like sleepwalkers. They moved like marionettes, jerky and unnatural,
as if something else was pulling their strings. A woman
in expensive clothes stood at a stool selling perfect beauty,
but her face was gaunt, hollowed out, and when she
turned her head, it moved too far, rotating at an
angle that should have been impossible. A man clutched a
jar of confidence to his chest, but his hands shook
and his eyes darted constantly, and I realized, with growing
horror that he wasn't holding the jar. It was holding him.
Thin silver threads extended from the lid, wrapping around his
fingers like puppet strings, and every time he tried to
set it down, the threads tightened and pulled his hands
back up. They're not customers, I whispered to myself, the
realization hitting me like a physical blow. They're livestock. But
Kiran's stall remained exactly where I remembered it, honey jars
glowing like captured sunsets. He looked up as I approached,
and something crossed his face. Relief, disappointment, terror. You came back,
he said, voice soft as midnight rain, but carrying an
undertone I hadn't noticed before, fear. Did you think I wouldn't.
I hoped you wouldn't. His storm gray eyes held mine
with an intensity that made my knees weak. But now
I could see something else there. Desperation. The market doesn't
give gifts without act, affecting payment eventually, and the interest
he swallowed hard. The interest compounds quickly. Then it's a
good thing I brought my wallet, I said, trying for lightness,
but hearing the desperation in my own voice. Kieran didn't smile. Instead,
he gestured to the other customers wandering between stalls. Look
at them, ava really look. I followed his gaze and
felt my stomach drop. The woman at the beauty stool
wasn't just gaunt. Parts of her were missing where her
left eye should have been was empty socket that seemed
to contain swirling darkness. The man with the confidence jar
had no shadow, and when he opened his mouth to
speak to a vendor, no sound came out, like his
voice had been stolen. But worse than the missing pieces
were the things that had been added, silver threads from
every customer, connecting them to their purchases, like umbilical cords,
and those threads all led back to the same place,
a massive web that hung in the shadows between stalls,
tended by something I couldn't quite see, but desperately didn't
want to. What happened to them? I whispered, they traded?
Kieran said, simply, the market always collects what it's owed,
one way or another. And once you're connected, he gestured
to the silver threads, you become part of the collection.
A chill ran down my spine, but it was overwhelmed
by the desperate hunger clawing at my chest. I could
feel the emptiness inside me, like a physical wound, and
I knew, knew with absolute certainty, that only another taste
of that impossible honey could fill it. The bells might
I stopped, but they'd been replaced by something worse. A
whispering in the back of my mind that sounded like
my own voice but spoke words I'd never thought. You
need it. The voice whispered, You'll die without it. Look
how gray you've become, how lifeless you're already dead, you
just haven't stopped breathing yet. I need it, I said aloud,
abandoning any pretense of dignity. Whatever the price is, I'll
pay it. Kieran's expression grew pained. Behind him, the honey
jars pulsed with their own light, and I could swear
I heard them calling my name, Ava, Please. The word
came out as a broken whisper. I can't. I can't
live like this. Everything is gray and flat and meaningless.
I haven't been able to write, to taste, to feel
like anything real since that night. I need what you
gave me. The whispering in my head grew louder, more insistent.
He wants you to beg they all do. Show him
how much you need it, show him you'll do anything.
For a long moment, he just stared at me. Then,
with the careful movements of someone handling something incredibly dangerous,
he reached for a different jar. This one contained honey
that swirled with ribbons of gold and amber, beautiful enough
to make my chest ache. But as he lifted it,
I noticed something that made my blood freeze. There were
things moving in the honey, tiny writhing shapes that looked
almost like memories. Kiran said, quietly, following my gaze. This
is nostalgia, honey. It tastes like every perfect moment from
your past, concentrated and purified. But the price, he hesitated,
and I saw his hands shake slightly. The price is homesickness,
your ability to feel settled content in any place. You'll
always be searching for somewhere you can never find again.
I should have asked questions, should have demanded to understand
exactly what I was trading away, But the whispering in
my head had become a raw, and the tiny shapes
in the honey were reaching toward me, pressing against the
glass like they knew I was there. They're your memories,
the voice explained, with sick sweetness, pieces of you that
are already gone. He's just showing you what you've lost.
Take them back, take them all back. I'll take it,
I said, without hazard. Kieran's jaw tightened, but he dipped
a silver spoon into the jar. The honey clung to
it like liquid light, and the tiny shape swarmed toward
the spoon, clustering around it in a mass that pulsed
with their own heartbeat. I could swear I heard it humming,
a frequency that resonated in my bones and made my
teeth ache with anticipation. Wait, he said, as I leaned forward.
Before you do this, you should know I'm not just
a vendor here. I'm bound to this place, trapped by
debts I can never fully repay. I've been watching people
like you for longer than you can imagine. And he
looked away, jaw working like he was fighting with himself.
I don't want to see you become like them? Then
why offer it to me? Because if I don't, someone
else will. They won't warn you first. His voice dropped
to a whisper. And because every person I don't help
feed to this place means another day of my own punishment.
The honesty in his voice made something flutter in my chest.
Separate from the hunger. There was genuine pain there, genuine concern,
but it wasn't enough to overcome the desperate need that
had been eating me alive for twenty eight days. I
opened my mouth, the honey touched my tongue, and the
world exploded into memory. I was seven years old in
my grandmother's kitchen, flour dusting every surface as we made
Christmas cookies. I was sixteen, tasting my first real croissant
in a tiny cafe in Portland, understanding for the first
time that food could be art. I was twenty two,
writing my first restaurant review and feeling like I'd found
my calling. But this time I could feel what was happening.
As each memory played out. They weren't just being recalled.
They were being extracted, pulled from the deepest parts of
my mind, and consumed by something that tasted them along
with me. Every perfect moment I'd ever experience flooded through
me at once, but as they passed, I felt them
becoming hollow, empty shells that would never again carry the
same emotional weight. And as the honey dissolved on my tongue,
I felt something else dissolving too, the comfortable feeling of
being home in my apartment, the satisfaction of a quiet
evening alone, the simple pleasure of familiar surroundings. They drained
away like water through a broken glass, leaving behind a
hollow ache I couldn't name. But worse than the loss
was what took its place. A silver thread, thin as
spider silk emerged from my chest and stretched back toward
the shadows between stalls. I watched in horror as it
connected to the massive web i'd seen earlier, and suddenly
I could feel everything it touched, the desperate hunger of
every other customer, the cold satisfaction of whatever tended the web,
and underneath it all a vast and terrible presence that
regarded me with the interest of a child examining a
new toy. Welcome, something whispered directly into my mind, and
the voice was old and patient and infinitely hungry. We've
been waiting for you. I was still crying when the
honey's effects began to fade, but now the tears felt different,
not joy, but loss, a bone deep longing for something
I couldn't identify, some perfect place that existed only in
the space between memory and dream. And underneath the longing
was terror, because I could feel that presence watching me,
measuring me, calculating exactly how much more I could give
before there was nothing left. What did you do to me?
I whispered. Kieran's expression was full of regret, but also relief,
like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, even
as a heavier one settled on mine. I gave you
what you asked for and took what the market demanded
in return. Around us, the market seemed brighter, more vivid.
The other customer's hollow expressions made perfect sense.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: They were all searching for pieces of themselves they'd traded away,
following silver threads that led back to a web that
would never let them go. The woman at the beauty
stool was running her hands over her face, looking for
features that were no longer there. The man with the
comfortdance jar was checking his reflection in every shiny surface,
seeing someone he no longer recognized. And they were all
connected to the same web, all feeding the same hungry
presence that I could now feel in the back of
my mind like a tumor made of whispers. How long,
I asked, How long before I end up like them?
That depends, Kieran said, softly, on how strong your will
is and how much you're willing to lose. As if
summoned by his words, something moved in the shadows between stalls,
not quite visible, but there a presence that made the
air grow cold and the paper lanterns flicker. It was enormous.
I realized something that existed in the spaces between spaces,
and the web was just the part of it that
I could perceive. The other custom has suddenly looked up,
their empty eyes filling with terror, as they searched the crowd,
their silver threads vibrating like harp strings. What is that,
the collector, Kieran said grimly. It runs this place, feeds
on what we trade away. And you. He looked at
me with something that might have been pity. You've just
signed your name in its book. The presence moved closer,
and I caught a glimpse of something that hurt to
look at directly. Tall, wrong shaped, made of absence rather
than substance. It had too many eyes, all of them
focused on me with predatory interest. The bells I'd been
hearing for weeks suddenly made sense. They hadn't been calling
me to the market. They'd been marking time until I
was ready for harvest. Soon, the voice in my head whispered,
and I realized it wasn't my voice at all. It
was the collector's voice, speaking through the silver thread that
now connected us very soon. Now I have to go,
I said, backing away from Kieran's stool. Ava wait. He
reached for me, but his hand passed through empty air.
I was already running, pushing through the crowd of lost souls,
following the scent of night air and car exhaust back
to the gap between buildings. But as I ran, I
could feel the silver thread stretching, never breaking, and the
presence at the other end growing more excited with every step.
Behind me, the other customers began to moan, a low,
harmonious sound that vibrated in my bones. They knew I
was trying to leave, and they didn't want to be
alone with whatever was coming for them. But as I ran,
I could hear them behind me, not just the bells now,
but something else. Whispers, voices calling my name in tones
that made my skin crawl and my heart race with
primal terror, And underneath the whispers the sound of something
vast moving through spaces too small to contain it. Following
the silver thread that led directly to me. I burst
through the gap and stumbled into the alley, gasping and shaking.
The market was gone, leaving only brick walls and dumpsters
and the distant hum of traffic. But the whispers followed me,
going off the walls like accusations, and the silver thread
remained invisible now but still there, still connecting me to
something that regarded me as property. And Worse than the whispers,
Worse than the thread, Worse than the terrible presence I
could feel watching me from the other side of reality,
was the growing certainty that I would be back. The
homesickness was already setting in, that terrible ache for somewhere
I could never find again. My apartment would feel wrong now,
every familiar place would feel like a lie. I would
wander through my own life like a ghost, searching for
something that existed only in honey and memory. I drove
home with tears streaming down my face, the taste of
nostalgia still sweet on my tongue. But underneath the sweetness
was something else, something bitter and hungry, that whispered of
death unpaid and prices yet to be collected. In my
rear view mirror, I caught glimpses of something following me,
keeping pace no matter how fast I drove tall shadows
that moved between street lights, always there when I wasn't
looking directly, always gone. When I was twenty eight days
until the next new moon, I wasn't sure I could
survive that long without going back, and I wasn't sure
I could survive going back either. The whispers followed me
all the way home, and when I finally made it
to my apartment, I realized with dawning horror that they
were coming from inside. Welcome home, the collector's voice murmured,
as I locked the door behind me. We'll be seeing
each other very soon. The silver thread pulsed in my
chest like a second heartbeat, and I knew with absolute
certain that no lock in the world could keep out
what was coming for me.