After glaring at me, eyes shrinking with suspicion, the lizard-horse goes back to drinking. I almost want to touch it so I could learn its name. The man is just as strange. He pauses, wipes his brow with a muscular arm, and I realize he's not wearing a shirt. That's his brown fur covering his broad chest and shoulders. He glances at my feet, and I see an eyebrow twitch, and then he goes back to work as I push the door open.

A bell rings, and I'm surrounded by a little bit of everything. There are fruits and vegetables that look vaguely familiar, but something about them doesn't look quite right. Odd shapes or colors. Why is this broccoli orange? Shiny, gelatinous mangoes, purple apples, and onions. The onions look normal: orange and round and piled neatly in a basket.

At the window, skinned and gutted rabbits hang from hooks, their white flesh exposed. There are racks of salt, containers of flour, and bags of rice. In the back, a large burly woman chops meat behind a counter. Her face is so wrinkled, I can't really see her eyes. Her chin juts out. There's a red cloth covering her hair. Her white apron is stained with blood. Now comes the hard part. Speaking up.

At home, I used my phone for everything. Self-checkout at the shop. No need to talk with anyone. I'm already sweating like crazy, and my heart's pounding. My head's trying to squeeze my brain.

I walk up to the counter. She raises a large meat cleaver and smashes it down, severing what looks like a leg. There's red meat stuck to exposed bone. The impact seems to shake the entire shop. Then she does it again, and I flinch again. Finally, she notices me struggling to summon the courage to call attention to myself.

"Yes?" she asks. Her voice booms, but it doesn't sound mean or annoyed. Just like, she's strong, and she knows she's strong, and she's not afraid to express it. She opens her mouth to reveal toothless gums. "What can I get you, girl? You look in dire need of some good meat."

My cheeks redden. It takes me a second to clear my throat, and I sigh with exasperation. Thoughts get stuck in my throat. She licks her lips and wipes her brow, glancing down more than once at my dirt-covered feet.

"Umm... Mrs. Kivuli sent me to pick up her order?" I frame it as a question like I'm unsure of myself, and I regret it as soon as the words are out of my mouth.

The butcher lady makes a face. "Mrs. Kivuli, ey? Never heard anyone call my daughter that." She shakes her head, snapping her lips.

Daughter? This is Kivuli's mother? They don't look anything alike!

She sets her cleaver down and wipes her hands on her apron, smearing blood. "Wait right here," she says and limps off through a door behind her, leaving me staring at the cut-up animal carcass on the counter and feeling more and more sick. The scent of blood is sticky and wet, and it gets inside your lungs, and it makes you want to vomit.

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I don't really eat meat. It's hard after looking into an animal's eyes and you realize they can see you too. Mostly, I just have lots of boba tea. Sometimes regular tea. Sometimes pizza. I'm not vegan, though Jia was, and I tried to copy her, but I guess I'm closer to vegetarian. I think I used to like meat on occasion, but that was so long ago. Besides, salads are a lot easier to make and clean up after.

There's a shelf full of spices in one corner of the shop. The kind you rub on meat before cooking. Seeds of various kinds sit in little jars. I wander over to some barrels and realize they’re full of dried beans. Kidney beans and black beans and brown ones I don’t know the name of.

Butter, milk, cheese, and mushrooms are in another corner, cooled by trays of ice. There are lots and lots of mushrooms, and I even recognize one of them as the thing Kivuli gave me. It's brown and almost a cube in shape, about the size of a cantaloupe. It has a white stem. The other mushrooms are blue and green, and I wonder what they might taste like.

When Kivuli's mother comes back, she's carrying a large gray sack. She places it on the floor between us with a harrumph. "You gonna be able to carry this?"

She's a large woman, and I can see where Kivuli gets her muscles from. The woman's arms and legs are thick, and she's wider around the middle than her daughter, but she reminds me of a big momma bear. I don't think anyone would want to get into a scrap with her.

Nodding slowly, I whisper, "Yeah, I think so."

"So, you're the new apprentice then?" she asks, scrutinizing me. "A little frail-looking, even for a girl. Your family poor? Haven't seen you around here."

I shake my head. "No, I...." I bite my lip, unable to meet her eyes. "I'm just alone. No family."

She inhales noisily through her nose then swallows the phlegm, squinting at me all the while. Then she says to wait here, and she goes back inside.

I pick up the sack and groan a little. It's heavy as heck. The top is open, and I loosen the string some and find individually wrapped packages inside. I assume they're meat, but it doesn't smell like meat. Nothing bloody or anything. Maybe it’s more mushrooms?

I almost want to open one of the packages and check, but Kivuli's mother comes back before I can make up my mind. She's holding a pair of leather slip-on shoes.

"For you," she says.

"Uh..." I finger the sack of coins in my pocket. "How much will they cost?"

She clicks her tongue and shakes her head. "They're one of Kivuli's old pairs. And your feet look about the same size as when she was a girl."

"I..." It's my mom's voice in my head. Never accept handouts from anyone. People always want something in return.

"It's on the house," says the woman when I don't move. She looks irritated now. "It's a gift for helping my idiot daughter."

Dreading the barefoot walk back up the hill, I accept them, blushing and grateful. It takes me a second to remember my manners. "Thank you," I murmur.

"You don't want folks thinking you're a witch, girl." She shakes her head again and returns to the counter where she adjusts her apron and picks up the meat cleaver.

"Excuse me!" I call out once I've scraped off as much dirt from my feet as I could and slipped into the leather shoes. They're a bit big, and they flop wildly when I walk, but it's better than nothing.

She sets the cleaver down and looks at me expectantly, jutting out her chin. "Yes?"

"Is there... Um... Where can I buy a chair?"