The town knows you. A Cazamuertos coin the Window paid you can put your name on a place in Halloway — a plot, a shop, a landmark, each kept by one of the Waits — and two places nobody keeps go to the highest sealed bid.
Places open a few at a time across the second half. Held, never sold on, never traded away; standing in the game and nothing more — see the terms.
A holding is your name on a place — on the map, on the card, on a sign where the place stands on a ground, and on your profile. One wallet holds one place.
A plot is 80, a shop 250, a landmark 1000; first come. The two one-of-ones go to sealed bids that close on the Day.
Every place has its keeper — the one of the Waits who tends it. For the first seven nights a place is open, whoever walks as its keeper has first call. The holding is yours; the keeper stays; your name goes up beside theirs.
A place pays its holder, quietly. A sign lights at night with the name on it. A shop or a landmark deals in one of the night's finds, and the Morning Market Window pays its holder a coin more for each of those it brings in. A landmark's name stands on the night whenever its ground plays.
8 shops · 5 landmarks · 2 plots · 2 one-of-ones. Coins are earn-only, never bought.
the centre of town — where the board hangs, and the lights stay on latest
The plaza's bandstand. The old night-songs, slightly off, and the hum back.
The band stopped using it years ago. Moth uses it on the nights the yard is quiet, humming the old night-songs a little off, on purpose, and the second verse nobody ever wrote down. From the far rows, something always hums it back.
Moth keeps it· stands on Market NightThe plaza's bakery. Every name, every favorite bread.
The baker before Bay never burned a batch and never wrote a name down, and Bay learned both the hard way: by burning three and by writing nothing. The list is in the head now, every name in town and the bread that goes with it, and the ones who stopped coming in are still on it.
Where promises are mailed and the list is kept.
Cole keeps the ledger of promises behind the counter, in a hand that never hurries: who said what to whom, and whether it's been done. Most lines are struck through. One near the top is not, and the ink on it is older than the counter.
Cole keeps it· deals in torn mapsThe plaza's south side. Where the Waits drank after a night — dark fifteen years.
The only place in town that has been dark fifteen years. The crew drank here after a night, back when there was a crew to speak of, and when the crew came apart the lights went out with it. The chairs are still up on the tables. Nobody has had the heart to take them down, and nobody has had the key.
The town hasn't said which. It will, the night it opens.
west off the plaza — the street that smells of smoke and wax, down to the highway
The candle shop. Every veladora in the graveyard was poured here.
Every veladora in the graveyard was poured in this back room, by the smallest pair of hands on the crew. Wick pours them at night, when the flames lean down to listen, and never fills one all the way: a candle wants a little room to breathe.
Wick keeps it· deals in closed locketsKiln Street's kiln. The potter before Rowan fired the Kiln Arc's clay.
The kiln on Kiln Street has not gone cold in living memory. The potter before Rowan fired the clay the Kiln Arc was fashioned from; Rowan keeps the fire and worries about exactly nothing after dark, which is why the crew sends Rowan to look at the things nobody else will stand near.
Rowan keeps it· deals in cindersThe notions shop on Kiln Street. Every spool in town passes through it.
Every spool in town passes across Bobbin's counter, and Bobbin has a word for every kind of hole. Old Snast buys his thread here and nowhere else, in a color the shop doesn't stock for anyone else, and pays without being asked the price.
Bobbin keeps it· deals in brass thimblesKiln Street. The window full of brims, none of them Brim's.
The window is full of hats and not one of them is the hat. Brim sold a hat once, years ago, to someone passing through who needed it more, and has worn the replacement ever since without taking it off where anyone could see. The grin under it does the talking.
Brim keeps it· deals in owl feathersThe town hasn't said which. It will, the night it opens.
south-east from the plaza to the churchyard — the street the lanterns cross
One pole of the high lanterns down the market street. Reed lights them flat-footed.
The lantern poles down the market street are a hand too tall for anyone but Reed, who lights them flat-footed every dusk and takes them down every dawn. A holding on one pole is a holding on one light on the street, and the name on it gets lit with the rest.
Reed keeps it· stands on Market NightThe town hasn't said which. It will, the night it opens.
south of town — the six grounds the Waits walk, and what stands among the stones
The bare hill above the Hollow. First awake, first to see.
The bare hill above the Hollow, where Lark is awake before the lamps are lit and sees what comes up the wash before anyone. Nobody has ever caught the waking. Some doubt it happens. The view down the slope at the first grey is the reason the crew stopped arguing about it.
The tree by the Wash's creek bed. A bench beneath it. It taught Willow the songs.
The tree by the dry creek bed taught Willow the old songs and never said where it heard them. When the water is up, which is not often, it hums the low note of the chapel's bell. The bench under it faces the water that isn't there.
The stage's dark marquee on the graveyard's tourist side. The name goes up in the letters.
The stage on the graveyard's tourist side has a marquee that has not been lit since the last show, and the last show was a long time ago. The letters are still in the box. Whoever holds the Marquee gets their name put up in them, and the lights come on for it.
Beside the Old Rows. Every name in the graveyard was cut here.
Every name in the graveyard was cut in this yard, and Slate waves hello to every one of them on the way through, which by now takes a while. The chisels go missing in the grass a few a season. The names don't.
east and south, past the last stone — then the mesas
The town hasn't said which. It will, the night it opens.
Bay keeps it
Lark keeps it
Willow keeps it
Slate keeps it