I bought my love a diamond
But it did not have a ring,
So then I bought a silver bell
And that proved just the thing.

At the market my mother and I played a game to see who could make the better bargains. We split the coins in her purse and drew boundaries across the Rialto. I would take the west half of the square and she the east, then we assigned responsibilities and agreed on terms of value. Every week we played this game, and every week Mother would win.

When we arrived that day we sat beside the fountain to rest. The market is a city within the city, and it pulses like the heart of a living thing. A prince might pass by and point out to his entourage the carpets and tapestries he wants for his palace, a mountebank will offer a tonic to guard against baldness, a pardoner displays a pouch containing splinters of the True Cross. Cobblers, carpenters, blacksmiths, butchers, everyone has something to give and something to take. I sometimes thought that if the market closed the entire city would wiltÐthe bridges crumble into the water and the church windows fade to greyÐuntil the merchant booths were reopened, the heart made to beat again. The city thrives on the ritual of the Exchange. In the Exchange everything is sacred because everything can be gained or lost.

But my mother and I, we were there only for sugar and for grain. She dipped her hand into the fountain water and brought it to her face to drink, spilling most of it across her dress. When I laughed she hugged me until we were both wet. Then she jumped up and ran into the twisting corridors of the market. The game had begun, and she already had a head start.

The sugar first, that was easy. I knew an old man who sold it cheap as sand and quickly filled my sack. From there I hurried to the miller's for flour, determined to get a better price than he usually granted.

I found the miller sifting his flour, pouring it from a tall cart down a metal chute into barrels. He pretended not to notice me, one more customer in a long day of sales. As I waited, I noticed the outline of a figure through the streaming cloud of white powder. It shifted, mirage-like, as if looking back at me from its hiding place under the miller's cart.

I moved around the cart to investigate. She was crouched there in the shadow, squinting at me, a thin layer of flour across her face and arms. A girl about my age, hair gold as wheat, a pale angel in the dark. I was sorry I had found her when I realized I did not know what to say. But then, through the dusty mask she wore, I recognized her face.

In the spring of the previous year I had seen her countless times from my post above the canal. She was working the cargo boats, paddling back and forth between the market and the bay, often alone with the piled bundles and crates. Peering over the edge of my book, I often caught her looking up at me as she dipped her oar into the water. Just a discreet exchange of glances, but it was enough to make her a part of my daily musings. Over the course of a few months I repeatedly rescued her from the pagan princes who aimed to sell her into slavery, braved the tempests of distant seas with her at my side, and won for her the jewels and silks of kings and queens.

She had become the genesis of my every adventure. As if conscious of the role I had built for her, the real girl before me grabbed my hand and said, "Papa is looking for me, we'll have to go quickly."

We ran, and everything I knew about the laws of the market was shattered in that moment. I had come to the miller with a pocketful of coins and the intention to buy flour, now I fled through the Rialto with a girl I knew only from daydreams. I thought of the places I should be, the purchases I should be making, the bargaining game my mother was sure to win again.

But I followed. Past a man with a blanket of copper pots and bowls spread on the ground, past racks of embroidered robes and gowns, past barrels of fish, a bin of lemons. Past a spinning wheel of silk, a tree of bells and chimes, past a stand hung with ornaments of quartz and ivory. When we stopped and hid ourselves between two barrels of apples, I realized that we had been laughing the entire time.

I asked to know her name.

It was Amaranth, like the flower. But I could call her Mara.

She wiped the sweat from her face with the back of a hand, streaking away the flour. "My father is a sailor," she explained. "He'll want me to leave with him again, but I need more time on the solid earth, just a few more hours with all these people."

So I hid with her. We sat with our hands clasped and in exchange for the stories she brought from distant harbors I told her about my father the magician. In time, it was agreed. Some day she would take me on a ship, and I would teach her magic. But now her papa was coming.

He was a short pirate of a man, with billowing lavender pants and arms covered in swirling tattoos of blue and red. I couldn't make out any of the images, but the ripple of muscle beneath skin gave the impression of an ocean storm at twilight.

Mara grabbed an apple from the barrel and held it to my lips. "Hurry and take a bite," she said. I took the apple and ate, then gave it back. She opened her mouth wide and took as much of the fruit as she could between her teeth. "There, now it is finished," she said, the juice dribbling from her chin.

Her papa had found us and Mara was lifted into the air by the storm of his arms. He cast me a brief grimace before moving back into the crowd. Mara tossed the apple and I caught it; when I looked up she was gone.

I ate the rest of the apple while I walked. Beside the fountain I found my mother, waiting with her sacks full. "I was lost," I told her. "I only got the sugar."

We both knew that I was too familiar with the market to ever lose my way there, but my mother showed no indication of surprise. "I'll just have to finish this up myself," she said, then added, "and you must be more careful."

When we had made all our purchases there was still a bit of money left, so she decided to get flowers for the house. Browsing through buckets of lilies and daisies, she asked, "What about for your window?"

"Amaranth," I said.

She frowned at me but didn't ask.