Hedra moves like someone always calculating routes through crowded stalls: economical, deliberate, with a constant half-step ready to close a bargain. Her face is warm and freckled from years outside, but her left eyebrow bears a faint white scar that splits a tidy braid of three lines of hair at the temple. Her hands are callused and stained with grain dust; the nails are short, occasionally inked with a telltale blue from the tally chalk she uses. She wears a heavy, well-oiled olive duster over layered linen skirts and a waistcoat bristling with pockets. Around her neck hangs a small brass locket shaped like a grain sheaf; inside is a pressed scrap of a child's drawing. When stressed she paces, tracing the rim of her little brass measure with one finger. Unexpectedly, she keeps one perfectly polished riding boot on a low shelf as a shop talisman and insists on tapping it three times before closing the ledger each night.