Every Saturday night, Lane Seven filled with dumpling steam, guitar music and the bright plastic glow of market lanterns. Juno helped at her aunt’s spice stall, stacking jars by colour: paprika red, turmeric gold, pepper black.
One evening the pepper jars began disappearing. Not the chilli, not the cinnamon, only pepper. Juno found a trail of stray peppercorns bouncing under the tables like tiny dark marbles and followed them to a magician’s booth behind the mango cart.
The magician was feeding pepper to a hat. Each pinch made the hat cough out something impossible: a silver spoon, a live violet, a postcard from 1923. 'It only performs when seasoned,' he admitted. Juno made him pay for every stolen jar, but in return he gave her the hat’s best trick: it coughed out the exact spice a dish needed, just before anyone asked.