#i should call this chapter

Because we’ve been talking about the Hob in the #ToastedTHG reread and this has been sitting on my hard drive (unfinished and untouched :/) for some months now…

(Madge POV, in case that’s not clear)

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However impulsive – not to mention, an utter failure at bargain practice – the stop at Swannee’s provided me with a boost of both confidence and comfort in these new surroundings. I take my time browsing the other stalls and find myself drawn in by a bench of ragged baby clothes in baskets – always a sad sight, if a common one. It’s the sort of purchase you can’t avoid when young ones come along – though I suspect most Seamwives are enterprising enough to sew their own from whatever scraps can be spared – but when your youngest is a baby no longer, you’re left with handfuls of tiny precious garments with little market value, too small to make over into clothing for an older child and of next to no use as fuel for the fire.

The vendor, a hollow-cheeked woman with heavily silvered hair who might be a grandmother or simply old before her time, steps forward as I approach with a quick, meaningful glance at my belly. I wonder how she came to run such a heartbreaking business. Whether she had many children – and if so, how many survived beyond the age of baby clothes – or none at all, and simply to touch baby things is a balm.

I pick up a little brown sweater that might fit a doll, my mind full of a wrinkled red newborn with a thatch of sticky black hair and lavender buds sticking to its damp petal-soft skin, and ask the price with burning eyes.

The woman grunts what might be tenorbreadorsalt, and I hand her enough for all three, then place the garment at the bottom of my market bag with as much care as if it were made of porcelain or spun sugar. “I’ll be back,” I promise. “When I have – w-when the babies come, I’ll buy more; muchmore.”

As I walk away, I belatedly wonder if the whole district will think I’m pregnant by nightfall – after all, buying baby clothes at the Hob rather than the mercantile would be one way to delay Merchant parents from discovering the inevitable – but at this point such rumors, while mortifying, would be largely harmless and quickly disproven.

Just the same, I carefully avoid the eyes of passing shoppers for the next few moments and nearly collide with the woman who runs the canteen of sorts – Greasy Sae, I believe she’s called – whose eyes grow bright and downright greedy as she curls one bony hand around my wrist and draws me into her stall.

“I’m tired of skinning mice,” she says baldly. “Your lover sells the good meat to the high rollers – no fault there, of course, but even my regulars are starting to turn up their noses at the stew. It’s little more than broth these days,” she grumbles, chewing at the inside of her cheek. “Good for warming the bones, but you’d do just as well to soak in it as eat it.”

I stare at her for a long moment as I process all of this, then ask what seems to be the last question she expected: “What do you do with the skins?”

She chokes on something halfway between a snort and a guffaw. “Mouse skins, miss?” she sputters. “They’re too small to warm your baby toe.”

“Nevertheless,” I persist pleasantly, and she shakes her head in what almost might be admiration.

“If you’re wanting mouse skins for something finer than a kitty-cat’s play-toy, there’s exactly one person you talk to, and I daresay you know who that is already,” she says dryly. “T’won’t hurt that her son is enamored of you, but can’t say it’ll make her any more amenable to the trade.”

She’s right – I should have known. Gale’s mother used to tan deerskins for Jack Everdeen, according to Prim, and there can’t be that many people in Twelve who know that art.

“And what does Hazelle Hawthorne do with all those mouse skins she refuses to sell?” I wonder, firmly ignoring the ridiculous reference to Gale having any sort of affection for me.

“She has very small young ‘uns,” the woman replies sagely. “I shouldn’t wonder.”

I chuckle and begin to turn away, but the woman’s hand is still firmly encircling my wrist, checking my progress. “Rabbits,” she grunts. “Squirrels. Weasels. I’ll even take a bat if you catch one. Anything with more meat on it than my thumb, and the furs are all yours.”