Chapter 17: Market Day Morning

Evelyn pov

The morning mist hadn't even cleared off the mud tracks of  Market when Auntie Beatrice shoved a heavy wooden crate of smoked catfish into my arms. The wood was slick with old grease, and the sharp, salty smell of dried fish clung to my skin before the sun was fully up.

"Keep your eyes sharp today, Evelyn," Auntie Beatrice snapped, her voice like grinding stones as she adjusted her heavy woven wrapper around her waist. "The price of palm oil went up at the port last night. Nobody gets a single fish on credit today. 

"Yes, Auntie," I whispered, shifting the weight of the crate against my chest. My ten-year-old arms ached, the rough timber digging into my ribs, but I didn't complain. In Auntie Beatrice’s stall, complaining was a luxury paid for with a wooden spoon across the back of your thighs.

By six in the morning, the market was already a roaring, living thing. The narrow pathways between the makeshift tin shacks were choked with people—traders shouting over the price of stuff ,  mothers bargaining down to the last copper coin for a handful of pepper. The air tasted of woodsmoke, diesel fumes, and raw, sweat-drenched heat.

I sat on a low wooden stool beside the overflowing trays of smoked fish, my lap covered by a faded cloth apron with two deep pockets. My job was simple on paper, but brutal in practice: calculate the totals, count the change, and make sure nobody walked away without paying every single coin.

"Little girl, give me four large catfish," a tall man demanded, stepping up to the stall. He wore a starched white shirt, but the cuffs were frayed and stained with dirt—a man trying to look like he had money when his stomach was empty. He tossed a crumpled, filthy banknote onto the wooden counter. "And make it fast."

I picked up the note. Five notes?

I looked at the four fish he had pointed to—the thick, dark ones lined up near the front of the tray. "These are twenty notes each, sir," I said, my voice quiet but steady. "Four will be eighty notes. You need thirty notes more."

The man’s face darkened, his brow furrowing as he leaned over the wooden counter, towering over my small frame. "Eighty? For dried fish? Are you mad? Yesterday your mother sold them to me for fifteen notes each!"

"She's my auntie, sir," I corrected softly, holding my ground even as my heart thumped hard against my ribs. "And the price of oil went up. Four is eighty notes."

"Look at this small girl trying to play smart with me!" the man hissed, glancing around to see if anyone was watching. He leaned closer, lowering his voice into a sharp threat. "Give me the four fish for fifty notes now, or I'll tell your auntie you dropped two in the mud when she wasn't looking."

Fear spiked cold in my belly. Auntie Beatrice was currently across the aisle, arguing furiously with a yam seller. If she turned around and heard him, she wouldn't ask questions. She would just strike.

My hands trembled under the counter, but I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked the man straight in the eye. I picked up two of the larger fish and swapped them with two smaller ones from the back row.

"Fifty notes buys two large ones, or four of these smaller ones, sir," I said, placing the small fish into a black nylon bag. "If you want the big ones, you bring thirty notes more. If you tell my auntie I dropped a fish, she will check the inventory count in the crate before she hits me—and when the count matches, she will call the market security boys to ask why you're lying to a child."

The man stared at me, his mouth opening slightly in disbelief. For three long seconds, the noise of the market seemed to fade as he weighed my words. He looked at my small face, my patched dress, and then down at the crisp, orderly way I had arranged the bills in my pocket.

With a harsh curse under his breath, he snatched the black nylon bag containing the smaller fish, grabbed his change, and vanished into the surging crowd.

I let out a long, shaky breath, wiping my sweaty palms against my apron.

"Not bad, small girl," a raspy voice murmured from the shadows beside our stall.

I turned my head. Old Pa Caleb was sitting on a flipped-over kerosene tin, leaning against a wooden post. He was the market's informal accountant—a blind old man who sat in the dirt all day, listening to the sounds of trade, calculating numbers in his head faster than a bank teller.

"You have a good brain for numbers, Evelyn," Pa Caleb said, his milky white eyes staring at nothing in particular. "Most adults in this market can't calculate thirty percent profit on an unstable exchange rate without using their fingers. But you... you calculate like the numbers are alive inside your head."

"Numbers don't lie, Pa Caleb," I said softly, rearranging the fish on the tray so the stall looked full. "People lie. Auntie lies. The buyers lie. But numbers always stay the same."

"A dangerous truth for a girl who doesn't belong to this mud," he whispered, a strange, sad smile touching his withered lips.

Before I could ask him what he meant, Auntie Beatrice marched back to the stall, her face flushed red with anger and her heavy breath smelling of bitter kola. She dumped a heavy leather pouch onto the counter.

"Count it," she commanded, slapping my shoulder with her open palm—not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to make me stumble. "The wholesaler at the gate says there's ten thousand naira in there. If it's short by even five naira, you're going without dinner tonight."

I pulled the leather pouch toward me, unzipping it. Inside was a thick, messy wad of crumpled, damp banknotes—fives, tens, twenties, and fifties, all jumbled together in a chaotic mess.

I didn't panic. My hands went to work automatically. I separated the bills by denomination, smoothing out the torn edges, counting under my breath in rapid, rhythmic beats. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty... fifty, one hundred, one hundred and fifty... My mind moved like water, grouping the notes into stacks of one thousand notes each.

It took me less than two minutes.

I smoothed the final stack down and looked up at Auntie Beatrice, my chest tight. "It's not ten thousand, Auntie."

Auntie Beatrice froze, her hand hovering over a piece of dried meat she was chewing. "What did you say?"

"It's nine thousand, four hundred and fifty notes," I said clearly. "He shorted you five hundred and fifty notes."

"You counted wrong, you useless child!" Auntie Beatrice barked, stepping toward me with her hand raised. "You think you're smarter than a grown man who has run a wholesale business for twenty years?"

"Count it yourself then," I said, pointing to the neat, even stacks laid out on the wooden board. "Four stacks of one thousand. Ten stacks of five hundred. Eight notes of fifty. Five notes of ten. It equals nine thousand four hundred and fifty. Go back and check his book."

Auntie Beatrice stared at the perfectly organized money. She picked up one stack, counted it slowly with her thick, calloused thumb, and realized I was right to the very last coin. She swallowed hard, her eyes narrowing as she looked at me—not with pride, but with a sudden, unsettling flash of suspicion.

She grabbed the money, zipped the pouch shut, and glared down at me. "Stay here. Don't touch a single fish until I get back."

She turned and rushed back down the crowded alley toward the market gate to confront the wholesaler.

I sat back down on the low wooden stool, resting my chin in my hands. The heat was rising now, beating down mercilessly on the corrugated iron roofs above us. My stomach grumbled, reminding me that I hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon.

I reached into my apron pocket, pulling out a small, battered brass locket I had found buried in the dirt behind our room three months ago. It was scratched, tarnished, and locked tight, but whenever I held it, a strange sense of warmth washed over my skin, making me feel like I wasn't meant to be sitting in the mud selling fish.

As I rubbed my thumb over the faded metal, a shadow fell over my stool.

I looked up, expecting another angry customer.

Standing in front of the stall was a man who didn't belong in the market. He wore a crisp, tailored navy suit that cost more than all the fish in this aisle combined. His polished black shoes were caked with market mud, but he didn't seem to care. Beside him stood two broad-shouldered men in dark suits, their hands resting near their belts.

The tall man in the suit reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a sleek, laminated photograph. He looked down at the photo, then looked directly into my face.

His eyes widened slightly, a sudden, heavy silence dropping over him.

He stepped closer, kneeling right in the mud in front of my tiny wooden stool so he was at eye level with me. He didn't look at the fish. He didn't look at the money. He looked straight into my eyes, his chest heaving as if he had just run a marathon.

"Evelyn," the man whispered, his voice trembling with an emotion so deep it made my breath catch in my throat.

I scrambled backward on my stool, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I... I don't know you, sir. Auntie Beatrice will be back soon—"

The man didn't move away. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, silver velvet box. He opened it.

Inside the box lay a delicate silver key—cut in the exact, unusual shape of the keyhole on the brass locket hidden inside my apron pocket.

"Your name isn't Evelyn Beatrice," the man said, a tear slipping down his cheek despite his expensive suit and stern jaw. "And you don't belong in this market. The police are on their way to arrest the woman you call your aunt."