Beyond the Market Gate
462 Words
The moment Alice passed through the side gate, the noise of the market vanished.
Laughter, shouting, the clatter of wooden stalls—all of it was cut off as if someone had closed a heavy door behind her. The ground beneath her feet changed from damp earth to smooth stone. Her steps echoed softly, each sound too clear, too controlled.
She walked between two adults without speaking.
No one scolded her.
No one grabbed her arm.
That, somehow, felt worse.
The corridors were long and narrow, lined with pale walls that reflected the cool morning light. Tall windows let the sun in from above, casting neat lines across the floor. Alice avoided stepping on them out of habit.
Her shoes were still dirty from the market.
She stared at them as they walked.
A door opened. A servant waited inside, holding a basin of water and a clean cloth.
“Your hands,” the woman said quietly.
Alice obeyed.
Sticky sugar from the pastry clung to her fingers. The servant wiped them away with practiced ease, as if this were a familiar routine. When she was done, Alice’s hands felt strangely empty.
Another door. Another room.
“Change,” someone said from behind her. “There are guests.”
Her simple dress was taken away. In its place, she was given something clean, carefully pressed. Her hair was retied, the loose strands smoothed back where they belonged.
When Alice finally looked at her reflection, she almost didn’t recognize the girl staring back.
She still looked small.
Still young.
But the freedom from the market was gone.
The meeting passed in words Alice half understood—formal phrases, polite voices, expectations spoken without asking for her thoughts. She stood where she was told, nodded when expected, and said nothing unnecessary.
When it ended, she was dismissed.
Night fell quietly.
Alice sat on the floor beside her bed, her back resting against the wooden frame. The room was large, far too large for one child, its silence heavy and unkind.
From beneath her pillow, she pulled out a small photograph.
It had no frame. The edges were worn and soft from being handled too often. The woman in the picture smiled gently, her eyes warm in a way Alice remembered more by feeling than by memory.
Alice held it close to her chest.
She buried her face against her knees, curling in on herself as her shoulders trembled.
“I miss you,” she whispered.
The words were barely sound.
No one answered.
Somewhere far beyond the walls, the market of Ranu was closing for the day. The puppets were packed away. The laughter had faded.
And a boy named Alex wondered why a girl he had just met had left without looking back.
- Writer
