Chapter 1: The Market

The morning was warm, the kind that made the city bustle with life. Stalls lined the cobbled streets, brimming with fruit, vegetables, trinkets, and oddities that smelled of dust and incense. The husband and wife walked slowly together, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm.
She wasn’t in the best of moods. Her dress clung tighter these days, seams straining softly around her middle and across her hips. In the last few months she had gained twenty pounds, a change she could not stop noticing. Each reflection, each pinch at her waist, was a reminder. She sighed, tugging the fabric across her belly.
The husband, however, looked at her with different eyes. To him, she was lovelier now than ever. The softness at her middle, the way her breasts filled her bodice, the gentle sway of her fuller hips—it all delighted him. He gave her hand a squeeze, smiling, though she shook her head in exasperation.
“I hate it,” she muttered under her breath. “I feel fat & chubby.”
“You’re beautiful,” he answered without hesitation.
She rolled her eyes, but he meant it.
As they turned down a quieter lane, they stumbled upon a strange little shop wedged between a bakery and a tailor. The window displayed dusty objects: old jewelry, figurines, and strange artifacts that seemed forgotten by time. A painted sign creaked faintly above the door:
Curiosities & Wonders
“Let’s go in,” the husband said.
The wife hesitated, wrinkling her nose. “It looks creepy.”
“All the better,” he grinned, and tugged her gently inside.
The shop smelled of incense and woodsmoke, the air thick with dust. Shelves overflowed with oddities: brass lamps, animal bones, jars of faded herbs. In the center of it all sat a glass case. Inside, upon a black velvet pillow, rested a withered monkey paw. Its gray fur was sparse, its skin leathery and cracked. One of its claws twitched faintly as though alive.
The husband leaned close, fascinated. “What’s this?”
The shopkeeper, a bent and quiet man who seemed to appear from nowhere, rasped: “A paw that grants five wishes.”
The wife scoffed. “Oh, please.”
But the husband reached for his coin purse.
Moments later, the paw was wrapped in brown paper and tucked under his arm. The wife shook her head as they left, muttering about “nonsense” and “waste of money,” though he held it like treasure.