Quick Answer: Yara trades her father’s precious pocket watch to a mysterious merchant at a market that appears only once a month before sunrise, in exchange for “Waking Drops” to wake her sleeping brother, Tariq.
Yara’s little brother has been asleep for six days, and no doctor can explain why. An old woman in the village whispers about a market that appears only once a month, just before sunrise, selling things no ordinary shop ever could. Yara has three hours until dawn, and nothing left to lose.
Table of Contents
- Part 1: The Sleeping Boy
- Part 2: The Old Woman’s Story
- Part 3: The Market Appears
- Part 4: The Price of Waking
Part 1: The Sleeping Boy
Tariq had fallen asleep on a perfectly ordinary Tuesday evening and simply never woken up again. He breathed steadily, his heart beat normally, and yet nothing anyone did, not shouting his name, not shaking his shoulders, not even the sharp smell of vinegar under his nose, could pull him back to the surface.
By the sixth day, the village doctor had run out of ideas. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he admitted quietly to Yara’s parents in the hallway, not realizing Yara was listening from just around the corner. “Physically, he’s perfectly healthy. He’s simply… elsewhere.”
Yara sat beside her brother’s bed that night, holding his small, still hand. “Wherever you are,” she whispered, “I’m going to find a way to bring you back.”
The next morning, desperate and exhausted, Yara found herself at the small cottage of Old Marta, the village’s oldest resident, known for remembering stories nobody else did anymore.
“There’s an old market,” Marta said, after Yara had explained everything. “It appears only once a month, on the first day, in the square, but only for the hour just before sunrise. It sells things you can’t buy anywhere else in this world. If your brother’s sickness is the strange kind, that market might be your only real hope.”
Part 2: The Old Woman’s Story
“How do I find it?” Yara asked, her heart pounding with a fragile new hope.
“You don’t find it,” Marta said. “It finds you, if the timing and your need are both real enough. Stand in the village square before sunrise on the first of the month, and simply wait.”
“Have you ever been?” Yara asked.
Marta’s eyes grew distant. “Once,” she said. “A very long time ago. I traded away my singing voice for something I needed badly at the time. I’ve never regretted it, though I do miss singing, some quiet evenings.”
“What do they want in exchange for things?” Yara asked carefully. “Money?”
Marta shook her head firmly. “Never money,” she said. “The market only accepts things that actually mean something to you. The more precious the item, the more powerful the thing you can trade for in return.”
Yara thought immediately of her father’s old pocket watch, sitting in her jacket pocket where she always kept it, close to her heart. He had given it to her two years earlier, shortly before he passed away, and she had never once let it out of her sight since.
“Tomorrow is the first of the month,” Yara realized suddenly. “I don’t have much time to decide what I’m willing to give up.”
Part 3: The Market Appears
Yara stood alone in the empty village square at four in the morning, the sky still deep, star-scattered black, her father’s pocket watch held tightly in one hand.
At first, nothing happened. The square remained exactly as ordinary as always, empty stone tiles and a quiet fountain. Yara began to wonder if Marta’s story had simply been an old woman’s fading memory, nothing more.
Then, slowly, the air around her began to shimmer, like heat rising off summer pavement, except the night was cold. Stalls began appearing between one blink and the next, strange and impossible: a cart selling bottled starlight, a table covered in small glass jars labeled with things like “borrowed courage” and “forgotten Tuesdays,” a merchant offering scarves woven from actual autumn wind.
A small, unassuming stall near the fountain caught Yara’s attention immediately. A sign above it read simply: “Waking Drops.” Behind the counter stood a tall, thin merchant with silver eyes, watching Yara approach with quiet, patient interest.
“You have someone who won’t wake,” the merchant said. It wasn’t really a question.
“My brother,” Yara said. “Please, can you help him?”
Part 4: The Price of Waking
The merchant produced a small glass bottle, filled with liquid that seemed to glow faintly, shifting between silver and pale gold. “Three drops,” the merchant said. “Under his tongue, before the sun fully rises this morning. That’s all it takes.”
“What do you want for it?” Yara asked, already reaching for her father’s pocket watch.
The merchant studied the watch carefully once Yara held it out, turning it over slowly in long, thin fingers. “This carries real weight,” the merchant said. “Grief, and love, held together in one small object. Yes. This will do.”
Yara’s hand trembled slightly as she finally let go of the watch, watching it disappear into the merchant’s palm. “It was my father’s,” she said quietly. “He gave it to me before he died.”
“I know,” the merchant said, not unkindly. “That’s precisely why it works.”
Yara took the small bottle and ran the entire way home, the first pale light of dawn already beginning to touch the rooftops around her. She burst into her brother’s room, breathless, and carefully placed three drops beneath his tongue, exactly as instructed.
For a long, terrifying moment, nothing happened at all.
Then Tariq’s eyes fluttered open, confused and blinking in the early morning light. “Yara?” he mumbled sleepily. “Why does everyone look so worried?”
Yara laughed and cried at the exact same time, hugging her brother tightly. Later, when her parents asked what had happened to their father’s old watch, Yara simply said she must have lost it somewhere. She never fully explained the truth to anyone, though sometimes, on quiet evenings, she found herself thinking of her father anyway, and found that she didn’t need the watch in her pocket to still feel him close.
The market never appeared again after that, or if it did, Yara never went looking for it a second time. Some prices, she had learned, were only ever meant to be paid once.
The End
Key Vocabulary
| Word | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Steadily | in a calm, regular, unchanging way | “The old clock ticked steadily on the wall.” |
| Fragile | easily broken or damaged, often used for feelings or hope | “Her hope felt fragile after so much bad news.” |
| Shimmer | to shine with a soft, slightly moving light | “The lake seemed to shimmer under the afternoon sun.” |
| Unassuming | not appearing important or impressive, though it might actually be | “The small, unassuming shop turned out to sell the best bread in town.” |
| Grief | deep sadness, especially after losing someone | “He was still dealing with grief after his grandmother’s death.” |
| Precious | very valuable or important to someone, often emotionally | “The old photograph was precious to her.” |
Quick Check
- What strange thing has happened to Yara’s brother, Tariq?
- According to Old Marta, what is special about the market, and when does it appear?
- What does Yara trade to the merchant in exchange for the Waking Drops?
- Why does the merchant say the pocket watch “will do” as payment?
- Do you think Yara made the right choice, trading her father’s watch to save her brother? Would you have made the same choice?
Enjoyed this fantasy tale? Continue your reading journey with The Boy Who Bargained with the Wind | B1 Story.
