The Spice of Elsewheres¶
She held the jar like it might shatter, which it might, if the stories were true. The label read Cinnamon (Probably) in six languages, the last one smudged into a spiral that looked like a child’s drawing of a galaxy. I wanted to tell her it was just cinnamon. But then, the air around the jar shimmered, and the smell hit me—burnt honey, wet pavement, and something I could only think of as regret.
“They say it’s from a branch where the oceans never froze,” I said, too casually. My voice cracked.
Lila tilted her head. “Which branch?”
“The one where we never learned to lie,” I said, and immediately regretted it. We’d been dating three weeks. I’d spent all three trying to convince her I wasn’t the kind of person who said things like we never learned to lie.
She laughed, but it was the good kind, the kind that made the merchant at the next stall glance over, curious. “You’re such a market myth person,” she said. “Always poking through the weird stuff.”
That’s when I did it. I told her the story. Not the one about the jar, but the one about the man in the violet cloak.
It happened last solstice. I’d been here, same market, same row of spice sellers. The man appeared between two stalls like he’d walked through a curtain nobody else could see. His cloak was the color of a bruise, and he smelled like fresh bread and formaldehyde.
“You’re the one who asks questions,” he said. Not a greeting.
I nodded.
He handed me a mirror the size of a thumbnail. “Your reflection’s been asking about you.”
The mirror showed me, but not me. This version had a scar across their cheek, a silver ring in their left ear, and eyes that looked like they’d never doubted anything.
“You’re… me?” I asked.
“Was,” he said. “In a branch where curiosity outpaced caution. I’m here to warn you.”
“About what?”
He smiled. “The cost of knowing. You’ll start seeing the cracks. The jar you’re holding now? Empty in most branches. Here, it’s full. But the more you notice, the more you’ll lose.”
I reached for the mirror, but he closed his hand over it. “What do I lose?”
“Choice,” he said. “And the people who love you when you still had some.”
Then he vanished. Poof. Left behind a single clove, nailed to the wooden counter like a tiny, spiky heart.
Lila stared at me. The jar in her hand now, spinning it slowly. “You’re making this up,” she said, but her voice wavered.
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But what if I’m not? What if the spice really is from another branch? What if every time we choose something, the universe splits, and this”—I gestured to the market, the endless rows of impossible things—“is where all the splinters collect?”
She leaned in, close enough that I could smell her shampoo (jasmine, real, not synthesized) and the faintest trace of cinnamon. “If that’s true,” she whispered, “then there’s a branch where I’m the one telling you this story. Where you’re the skeptic.”
“And?”
“And in that branch,” she said, “I bet I’m way better at it.”
We both laughed, nervous and bright. Then she kissed me, and the jar slipped from her fingers.
It didn’t shatter.
It floated, for a moment, suspended in the air between us, spinning like a tiny planet. And then it vanished.
Lila pulled back, eyes wide. “Did that just—”
“Probably just the post-scarcity holograms,” I said quickly. Too quickly.
She didn’t look convinced. But she didn’t look scared, either.
We kept walking.
But I haven’t stopped wondering: If the jar was real, if the man was real, then what else is? And how many more choices will it take before I lose her?
The cost of knowing.
She’s still here. For now.
But sometimes, when she hums that weird melody she thinks I don’t recognize—the one that sounds like the market’s wind chimes on a day that never happened—I wonder if she’s already started seeing the cracks, too.
And if she has, which branch of her will she choose to stay in?