In Pebble Town, the weather that day was stormy, like it had been cursed by a witch. At least, that's what the girl wiping the tiny counter in the small cafe with the red roof thought. The streets were howling, and the glass door was rattling. The worker, with her short, curly hair sticking up in rebellious curls, had her ears plugged to the sounds as she continued her scrubbing.
The cloth in her hand was old; no matter how much it was washed, the dirt ingrained in its fibers always remained. Its stained appearance gave the girl a strange satisfaction because while cleaning something, she was actually making something else dirty.
Finally, she leaned heavily on the counter. She rested her elbow on the wet marble surface and her cheek in her hand, continuing to scrub. Her eyes were half-closed. Daydreaming didn’t stop her from wiping the counter. She imagined scrubbing the back of the boy she liked, her hand moving back and forth on the counter. Then she stuck her tongue out and pretended to gag. Her mind could only produce such pathetic fantasies; unfortunately. She had never been one of those girls who could flirt; even a simple act like batting her eyelashes didn’t look natural on her. She was independent and outspoken. In her nineteen years of life, she had learned that men didn't find these traits very attractive. Not that she cared much about men for most of her life; Nehir loved exploring, and every inch of nature interested her more than romantic relationships. Yet lately… it was as if her heart kept trying to remind her of its presence. She took a deep breath and tried to focus back on the cloth.
When she finally finished her work, she pulled back slightly, thinking the counter was sparkling. No, she didn't think, it was really sparkling. She had done a good job. She flashed a victorious smile and greeted the cafe's occupants. Actually, this greeting was for ghosts. The cafe was empty except for one person. It had been empty like this for days.
As her smile faded into a frown, she moved around; she adjusted the chairs a couple of centimeters, checked the tables for dust with her finger. It didn’t bother her that she had wiped them down before the counter. She was bored and knew she would go crazy if she stopped moving.
When she first started working at the Slap Cafe, it used to be filled with young people. Then, right across the street, a bigger, more colorful, more expensive but more varied place opened. The Oyster Shell… ‘You will turn into a pearl inside’ was their terrible slogan. Still, it had caught attention; attention and Slap’s customers. This place, which belonged to Old Nedim, was now a ghost town.
"I need this job," Nehir grumbled. She had left her family, saying she could stand on her own two feet. When she was left on the doorstep with a small backpack, she had to force herself not to go back and say it was just a joke. Clearly, her family wanted to teach her a lesson. A lesson about how hard life was and how comfortable it was under their wings... But Nehir was determined, sharp like the edge of a knife, ready to cut through any obstacle in her path.
She could... Now, though, she felt like someone had dumped on her rose-colored glasses; the world looked utterly crappy to her. She needed to work to avoid being broke, and the only one who had accepted her was Old Nedim. The townsfolk called him that because of his age; it was said he was approaching eighty-something. He walked with broken knees, which meant he hardly ever walked at all. Old Nedim’s baby blue-painted house was right next to the cafe, and he had told Nehir she could stay in the cafe as long as she helped him out.
Nehir needed this job twice as much because it was also her home. She had to attract customers.
She returned to the counter and grabbed her cocktail called Sail Delight. It was Nehir the Sailor’s invention, and she was the only one who drank it to prevent the recipe from being stolen. Nehir had some other odd traits. For instance, she had named her Golden Retriever, who was lazily napping in the garden, Butterfly. She wanted to see if dogs could experience identity crises. It was a silly, unnecessary reason that she never explained to anyone, and Butterfly never... acted like a butterfly.
She had considered other names, of course, but Nehir was hard to break from her habits.
She took a sip of her cocktail and started watching the cafe’s only customer. He was a man who had moved to the town recently, didn’t talk to anyone, was silent and creepy. Well, he had actually moved years ago, but to the locals, anyone from outside was always “new.” Nehir didn’t even know his name. The townspeople had started calling him Ghost. He moved around like a ghost, his presence and absence barely noticeable. He only came to the cafe once a week, on Fridays; always sat at the same table and always ordered the same things. A flat soda served in a cardboard cup and a rare steak without thyme… Thyme was only added if specifically requested; Ghost was a strange man, stranger than Nehir herself.
For a few minutes, only the sound of the man’s chewing was heard, and he, with his hair tucked under a black sports cap, tried to pick whatever was stuck between his teeth with his fingers. Nehir winced at the sight and tried to focus on other things.
She closed her eyes and drifted into her dreams; one day she would leave everything behind and travel city by city to uncover the mysteries of the world. She would stop in small towns, making young boys’ hearts skip a beat when they saw her. She would be remembered as the mysterious girl with rebellious curls. She would never stay anywhere too long because putting down roots would prevent her from moving and would hurt.
This was her biggest dream; Nehir the Sailor would one day become an extraordinary wanderer.
**
A transparent sphere hiding within a green wave slid along the path, gliding forward. If the sphere had eyes, they could be said to be locked onto its target. The young boy, whose eyes – yes, entirely his own, not the sphere’s – narrowed; he stuck out his tongue and bit down lightly on the pink, bumpy surface. The sphere rolled, rolled, and…
“Yes!” the boy shouted. The marble had collided with its peers, scattering them and coming to a halt.
“Clink* You’re out, try again.” The little girl with long, red hair, frizzy from running outside, looked at the boy with childish arrogance. The wind was making her hair fly in all directions, puffing it up even more.
“You mean I don’t get the marbles I hit?” The boy’s hair was a shade of yellow that verged on orange, straight tufts spiking up like porcupine quills. He had a bony face with a slightly angular jaw. His eye sockets were small; his eyes, though round, were now narrowed in anger, a stark contrast to the eagerness they had shown moments earlier.
“If you had hit the head marble, you’d have taken them, genius. Where did you grow up, in your little pink room?” The little girl, whose pants were dirtied at the knees, signaled to her friends. “Let’s go. I told you we shouldn’t involve the big kids, especially the clueless ones.”
The group of children moved about ten meters away and started playing with their marbles there. “You little brat…” the boy mumbled, knowing that girl would be a handful for boys when she grew up.
Then he sat down in the middle of the road, without a second thought. In Pebble Town, people rarely drove their cars. It was a small place where everyone knew everyone else; well, almost everyone. Most houses were detached, and their owners competed in garden design. This month, Arda’s mom had managed to grow the largest leaves on daisies, the ones sold to fortune tellers. That same night, there had been a wild daisy party at their house. Everyone wore white dresses and painted their faces yellow. Arda, with his spiky hair, had stripped the dress off a girl who was flirting with him, piece by piece, saying, “Loves me, loves me not.” It had been his favorite part of the party, no doubt. Unfortunately, the girl – whose name Arda now couldn’t even remember – had clung to him like a piece of gum afterward.
She would find him everywhere he went, so Arda had taken to the streets. The little rascals played dozens of different games, their energy never running out, and they could come up with the most creative insults during their fights. They had inventive minds that entertained Arda. Just then, two boys started grappling; their skinny arms were locked around each other’s shoulders, and they were spinning around. Their brows furrowed, one of them hissed, “Go roll in your mud, frog.”
“Ooo!” came the shouts from around. The other children clapped their hands in rhythm, chanting, “Fight, fight…” Finally, the two boys started rolling on the road. The forgotten marbles on the roadside seemed like astonished eyes watching the spectacle.
Arda sneaked up, pocketed the marbles, and quickly slipped away. “That’s the price of arrogance, genius,” he whispered, not wanting to draw any attention by shouting. He smiled at the thought, knowing the little girl’s fiery red hair would puff up even more in anger, and he started skipping away.
“Arda Mayda!” It was a cheerful voice, coming from somewhere near the roadside.
“Just Arda, sweetie, just Arda…” Arda turned with a grumpy expression, emphasizing his words with displeasure. He never openly said the name his drunken father had given him with the last name, and no one else was allowed to either. Never… His eyes, out of habit, narrowed again. It was Daisy Girl. She was standing in front of Slap, and Nehir, barely visible from behind the glass, shrugged her shoulders. Not my fault, you shouldn’t have come this way, buddy, she seemed to say.
She was right, but in a small town like this, every road seemed to lead to this girl. Cursing his luck, he waited for the daisy to come to him. The girl was tall but extremely thin. Her hair was a pale yellow. She had freckles, a long face, and crooked teeth that drew attention straight to her mouth. Crooked teeth weren’t bad; they even made her look cute when she smiled, but a clingy personality... That was the one thing Arda couldn’t stand.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” The girl spread her scrawny arms wide and quickened her pace. “I’ve planned a wonderful day for us.” She had a high-pitched voice.
“Oh really?” Arda muttered, making no effort to hide his lack of enthusiasm.
The girl didn’t seem to notice. “Oh yes, we’re going to watch the sunset together.” She clasped her fists under her chin. Hearts seemed to be shooting out of her eyes. “I got heart-shaped candies, and I hope the wind doesn’t pick up. The wind always makes my hair stick to the candy, and I hate tying my hair up. It makes my face look too big. Don’t you think?”
“What did you say?” Arda hadn’t listened to most of the words she had rattled off without pausing for breath.
“I said my face, doesn’t it look too big when I tie my hair up?” Her blinking eyes...
It looks like a balloon blown up to the point of bursting, he almost replied but stopped himself just in time. Such a stinging remark might keep her away from him, but no girl deserved to be insulted like that. Besides, the comparison wasn’t even accurate. She had a long face, yes, but she was cute in her own way. “No,” he finally managed to say. If you’re in a tight spot, the best answer is the shortest one; that way, your words don’t come back to haunt you later.
When dark clouds filled the sky, the wind picked up speed. The glass door of Slap swung open, ringing the bell, and what slipped outside was a ghost. Ding ding!
“They say he’s up to something shady in his shop.” Daisy Girl had sidled up to Arda; Ghost haunted young girls’ nightmares.
“Really?” Arda gave another absent-minded reply. The Ghost, whose real name the townspeople didn’t know, walked along the sidewalk and disappeared from sight. His clothes were of good quality but completely mismatched. He wore a leather jacket, a sports cap, dress pants, and cowboy boots. He walked with a hunched posture.
“They say he can fulfill anyone’s wishes, but it comes at a high price.” Arda had heard these rumors too. In a small town, gossip spread like wildfire. Many people were scared of this man, but there were also a few who visited his shop and then chose to zip their lips afterward. Ghost’s place had come to be known as the Shop of Oddities.
“Wishes, huh?” Arda Mayda murmured, one eye on Daisy Girl. This flirty young man had just one wish: to stay away from girls who wanted long-term relationships.
Arda Mayda: Flirty, childlike, and a marble thief.
Nehir Yelkenci: Adventurous, rebellious, and llama lover.
Emre Sanhal: Curious, has many siblings, and ultra handsome.
Aslı Kıyak: Phobia queen, honey-eyed, and has a troublesome mom.
