The Basket-Seller

Constance carefully arranged her baskets by size on the mat, her scarred hands moving nimbly among the brightly-colored wares. She warily watched the crowds beginning to form for the marketplace, anticipating the new day with about as much dread as she always did. She adored the basket-making, to be sure, but the selling of the baskets was to her equivalent to leaping into a sea full of sharks.

You're safe, she heard her mother's voice. Keep yourself covered and they won't hurt you.

Momma had been wrong. She had kept herself covered, her kerchief concealing her shoulders and neck and her headscarf hiding her unruly curls. He had come anyway, and that night—

Constance closed her eyes, breathing raggedly. Five years. Five years and you have to forget it. You can't undo what's been done to you. It's who you are now.

That night she died. She could never forget it.

And so she endured when the first customer, a burly sailor, made a lewd comment, so long as he bought a basket with money that would feed her slender frame. She endured when an irritable mother pushed her ogling son away, so long as she bought a basket. She endured when an old man propositioned her, his wrinkled hands reaching towards one of her reddish-black curls that had escaped from her scarf, so long as he bought a basket.

You're going to have a hard life ahead of you, little girl, Momma had told her with her last breaths. I wish it weren't so. You're too beautiful for this world, and it'll only bring you grief, but I know you'll be strong nonetheless, like your father was when he faced the sea monster and perished. You'll have to be strong.

Momma had been beautiful too, and it had killed her. Constance every day despised it. Beauty—beauty only brought death. Sometimes she would look at her perfect, earth-toned face and wish to take a knife to it, to slit the full lips, to slice off a piece of the symmetrical nose, to mar the high cheek-boned visage. But she never did, because she knew it wouldn't change anything.

Evening came and she had few baskets left. Others were beginning to pack up, and she thought she should too, but she wanted to get any extra penny she could. A tall man approached her stand, muscles bulging. A blacksmith, she surmised, noting his blackened hands and the burns on his arms.

"Going to stay the night, beautiful?" he asked, eyeing her with a clear intent.

"Which one would you like?" Constance replied wearily, ignoring the comment as usual and pointing to the four baskets that were left. "One is watertight, if your wife needs something to go to the well with."

"I need something to go home with," the blacksmith said, leaning closer. Constance smelled rotting fish in his breath, and she scrunched up her face. He laughed, reaching out a thumb and rubbing it against her lips.

"Beautiful. Just beautiful. Siren, you're calling me." He moved his hand downwards along her neck...down...down...

Constance felt her throat close up, her breath choking her. Just like that night. Just like...she couldn't move as he leaned in closer, his foul breath heating up her face. I was frozen last time, too. Frozen when her innocence was ripped from her broken body. Unable to fight. Why didn't I fight? Why don't I fight? Frantically she looked around the marketplace, but it was as if she was in that dark, lonely hut again, with the corpse of her mother the only witness to the violation being done against her. Nobody would help her. Nobody cared.

"Leave me alone," she cracked out, pulling away. The blacksmith only laughed further, stepping over the mat, taking her by the arm, brushing his filthy lips against her ear.

"I can't leave such a pretty girl alone."

Constance closed her eyes as his hands reached up towards her hair. A tear ran down her cheek, salty like the sea behind her in the docks. Leave me alone. Please, leave me alone.

"Leave her alone!" came a shout, snapping like the sound of a gunshot.

The blacksmith froze, releasing her. Constance slumped to the ground, reliving that night, feeling the rough touch in places where it shouldn't have been, her screams silenced by the ruthless soldier's aggressive kisses. I should have died. I should have died with Momma. Why didn't they kill me? I would rather have been killed.

"Hey! Hey," the voice continued, as a gentle, cautious hand brushed her arm. "Miss, are you all right? Please, answer me."

Constance opened her eyes a crack. The hut was gone. The smell of her dead mother was gone, as was the smell of the man.

She met the ocean when she looked up. His eyes were blue like the sea when the sun shone upon it, a blue that she loved to look at because it reminded her of being a child and playing in the sand when both of her parents still lived. For a moment she wanted to becalm herself in those blue depths, but then she remembered where she was and looked past them to the face that held them.

Scars. That was the first that she thought when her eyes moved from his. Four ragged scars, one across his forehead, one across his nose, a small one on his neck, and the worst—puckered and raised and disfiguring—stretched across his face from right cheekbone to left jaw. It should have frightened her, but it didn't. Maybe because she saw the quiet resignedness in his eyes, the resignedness of someone who has seen suffering—felt it—and has grown accustomed to questions and stares.

"Pirates," he said quickly as an explanation, brushing his fingers over the scar with a wry smile. "Had a bad run-in a few years back and they didn't like my attitude much. Don't worry, I'm not one of them. Are you all right?"

"Y-yes," Constance murmured, stare going from the scars back to the sea-blue eyes again. Men frightened her. All of them...except this one. Perhaps it was the tender way that he looked at her, or the way he held himself—as if he was the least of all and he didn't care much, or he was used to it—but he didn't frighten her. He doesn't want power. That's why. He doesn't want to hurt and kill and destroy. Only to help.

"Here," said the young man, holding out a hand. "I can take your baskets, if you want. Buy them, that is. So you don't have to carry them back. Or, if you need somebody to walk you back so you're all right, I could do that too."

Constance swallowed, eyes darting to the outstretched hand (it was strong and calloused from gripping ropes; he was a sailor). Hesitantly she took it.

"My name's Wes. Wester Channing, that is. My da named me for the wind that was blowing the day I was born aboard his ship. And yours?"

"Constance," said Constance.

The young man smiled, and for the first time in a long time Constance smiled back, something warm fluttering in her chest that for a moment made her forget the pain of the past, and have hope for the future.