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it was a tough break at the market, she had been so assertive against all odds but the hugonot had managed to haggle her down so decisively. oh well, it wasn't as though she would have got rid of that old chest very easily.....what was with the sudden rash of enchanted chests anyway? every stall from here to the vegetable stand seemed to have one for sale, and rumour had it that nobody knew what was inside. she certainly had not opened hers, it gave her the creeps, mouldy old box, with a rusted lock.....but the hugonot had seemed to know what it was for, he had seemed to will her into lowering the price just by staring. and he took it away in such a covert manner, when he first left she had assumed that he was just sheltering the box from the light rain...but now she was wondering, there was something about the speed at which the hugonot had whipped his cloak over the box which made her ponder.....what if not all the boxes were the same? what if she had been wrong about her assumption that they were all a special gimick for christmas, and all the other traders had picked theirs up from the same egyptian wholesaler she had......what if hers was a genuine item? oh god she felt sick, "jerry!" she yelled accross the market to her friend on the gold exchange, "where did you get your wooden chest from?"..."dixies discounts" he yelled back, and then in a quieter voice, "it's not wooden though, it's plastic made to look like the real thing" a big, heavy, cold stone settled in the pit of her stomach...what had she just let slip through her fingers? and how did that intense hugonot know how to find her on the morning she had bought the old trunk, less than an hour after she had set up her stall? as she stared around at the stall and the space where the trunk had been she spotted a tiny key lying on the ground, just then a heavy hand gripped her shoulder....she froze......