This piece was originally written for a vid-cast called Modern American Ink, a real-time writers group where writers met and critiqued one another's variations on a theme. The theme for this piece was "antique shop."
The shop looked like a hundred others – towering shelves of bric-a-brac grouped into arbitrary piles and cases upon cases of dusty glass filled with yellowing books; all of it wrapped in a familiar, permeating silence that muffled the steady tattoo of rain falling outside.
Lightning flashed white through the front window, blurring the scene. On its heels, thunder boomed like cannon fire and set the glass to rattling.
The clerk looked up from his cell phone to glare at the door, as if the weather had been sent to irritate him personally. He glanced over at her and she pointedly turned her attention to the rack of old coats.
Velvet, suede, tweed, most of them lined with synthetic fur that felt waxy and wrong under the pads of her fingers.
There was one shawl, tucked behind a heavy blazer in the back, which looked and felt real enough. She wrapped her hands around it and lowered her face until the downy fibers tickled her nose.
The fur had been so long cured that it smelled of little more than dust and the faint impression of its many wearers. A pang of sadness resonated through her at the thought of the empty skin, passed from stranger to stranger until the memory of the life it had once carried was erased completely.
She took a shallow breath, pretending she could taste the humid musk of the deep forest sitting heavy on her tongue.
She stopped at the door to thank the clerk, who grunted and offered a lazy wave. A bell rang overhead as she stepped outside, collar of her coat turned up against the wind.
She traveled by train.
The cacophonous noise of the city gave her headaches, and the thick stench of tar and rubber made her cough.
Even the metallic rattling of wheels against the track set her teeth on edge, but at least there was the view out the window. Wide open skies, their vast expanse clean and unmarred by the jagged silhouettes of metropolitan buildings. The hills and mountaintops all blanketed with thick, lush woodlands.
She could almost hear the trill of birdsong, the melodic burble of a nearby stream.
She closed her eyes and relaxed into her seat, wrapped in warmth that carried with it the phantom scent of fresh-turned earth; a fading piece of an old, old memory.
The shop was little more than ceramic figurines and tin signs, painted to look older than they actually were.
She peered at a display case full of cheap new jewelry artfully arranged in piles of rice.
The woman behind the counter offered her a bland smile.
“See anything you like?”
She shook her head and drummed her fingers against the glass.
“I’m looking for vintage furs.”
The woman pursed her lips apologetically.
“I don’t carry clothes.”
She nodded and tapped the toe of her boot absently against the concrete floor. She flashed a bright smile and the woman mirrored it.
“Thanks anyway.”
Sometimes, she dreamed she stood at the edge of a quaint little village, watching townsfolk amble to and fro, stewing in envy so thick and putrid that it burned the back of her throat.
Nature had made her clever. She wondered if that cleverness was to blame for the resentment that pumped through her veins like slow-acting poison.
She dreamed of scampering rabbits and baying hounds; of screaming hens and hot, bright blood in her mouth; of digging into the spaces between her ribs, gripping her skin and pulling tight, tight, tight.
The aisles stretched before her, same as they had a thousand times before, a meandering labyrinth of cast-offs and hidden treasures.
The proprietor –a gruff, sallow-faced man with kind eyes – pointed her to a gigantic trunk in the furthest corner of the shop.
Its faded surface was cracked and peeling, brass fixtures dingy with age. It groaned and shrieked like a living thing when she shouldered it open.
Her heart leapt, alight with hope, when she saw the high pile of furs it housed.
She leaned forward until she was elbow deep, pulling them up and out and over so they splayed around her on the floor. One by one she stroked them with her palms, bringing them up to drag across her cheeks, reveling in the different textures. Some thick, some coarse, some velvety soft; warm, and laden with the memories of the creatures they had been. Every one of them exceedingly beautiful, though not what she had so long been in search of.
A small sliver of her mind wondered in horror what would happen if she never found it.
She tamped down on the slow burn of terror tightening her chest, hands running reverently over the smooth pelts until the fear receded and her breath came, steady and strong.
On occasion, she managed to glimpse herself in a window or a still puddle, a small body with delicate features that sharpened dangerously at the corners. When she turned to look, she was always disappointed to find herself staring into the face of a graceful young woman with dark eyes.
She found a skin tacked to the wall in a tannery that made her heart stutter and skip.
She pulled it down while the clerk wasn’t looking, her hands trembling so badly that she nearly dropped it. She brushed a knuckle over a flattened ear and brought it up close to her face.
The sunny tang of hope soured in her mouth when she realized that the burnished copper of the fur was a shade too dark, the narrow muzzle too liberally streaked with grey.
She sank to her knees, body heavy with despair.
It was so close to perfect – a reflection in a warped mirror, a photograph just slightly out of focus.
Clutching it so hard her knuckles went white she buried her face in the auburn fur, her entire body wracked with shuddering cries.
Woken from a dream that drifted away like smoke on the breeze, she walked to the edge of the woods, casting her boots aside to bury her toes in the soil. The night was alive with chirping, buzzing things that made a predatory hunger uncurl in her gut.
The warm lights of the city at her back had once been magical and welcoming.
Tonight, the beams wrapped around her, casting forth a shadow that felt too long, twisted and pushing past the edges of her shape.
It was the largest market she had ever seen.
She strode past rows of Persian rugs, hand sewn quilts, and curiously shaped pottery; past food stands that reeked of burnt oil and yeast.
Her eyes roved hungrily over every surface, spurred on by the desperation that curled tight and heavy around her throat.
She narrowly avoided slamming into a mob of middle-aged women, chattering happily away about yarn weights and Afghans, ducking into a covered stall lit by a few strings of fairy lights. The towering shelves were jammed full of mason jars, wooden bowls, and bundles of fragrant dried herbs. A table full of stones and gems glittered faintly in the dim light.
A woman with long, auburn hair stood behind a tall table, poring over a thick, leather bound book.
“You’ve been a long time coming,” the woman said, jotting something down in an empty margin before stepping out into the center of the stall, and offering a hand.
“My name is Lillian. I’m glad you finally made it.”
She bore a scar on her belly, from the bottom of her ribs to her navel. Although it had long since cooled to faint silver, she could remember the years when it throbbed dark and red and angry.
Her cleverness had allowed her to outsmart nature once.
Carved into her skin was the painful, bitter warning that she could only unwrap herself so many times before she peeled back her outer layers to find nothing underneath.
“I wondered when you would come looking for it,” Lillian said, digging through a cedar chest that seemed to hold more than it ought to be physically capable of. “I found it, hung over a tree branch in the forest. It isn’t like you lot to leave your skins unattended.”
Her mouth went dry at the words, hopeful anticipation burning so hot in her chest that she felt feverish and weak.
Lillian made a sound, dissatisfied, and slammed the trunk shut. Outside the stall, people strolled past without casting the slightest glance in their direction. She wondered absently if the milling crowds were even capable of seeing it.
Lillian stepped around her, maneuvering adeptly in the space, to open up another trunk, this one made of rich mahogany. She hummed to herself and began pulling out huge swathes of fabric dyed in brilliant jewel tones.
“You must have been awfully young when you stepped away,” Lillian said absently, mysteriously producing a coat rack that she set to the side. “What are you now, twenty?”
“Twenty-four.”
Lillian wrinkled her nose and clucked decisively, “Too young.”
She didn’t offer up any further details, never much of a raconteur and presently far too preoccupied with the multitude of odds and ends that Lillian was miraculously turning out from the boundless depths of the mahogany chest. Her breath caught in her throat when Lillian hollered, triumphant, and stood.
Tears sprang, stinging, to the corners of her eyes at the sight of the ginger pelt tucked carefully over the bend of Lillian’s arm. Lillian grinned, brandishing it with a flourish.
“There we are, then. Knew you’d turn up for it eventually, so I’ve kept it safe in your stead.”
When she dug her fingers into the familiar fur the stall came alive with an electric hum that made her whole body tingle. She laughed, drawing it in close, not bothering to temper her joyful weeping.
“I have money – ”
Lillian cut her off with a sharp shake of her head.
She swallowed around the fierce knot in the back of her mouth.
“What do you want?”
Lillian tapped the side of her nose and winked.
“Maybe I just like being owed a favor.”
She smiled, taking a breath through her nose and clearing her throat. Arranging the pelt around her neck like a scarf, she stepped forward to grasp Lillian’s forearms. Lillian curled her fingers over the same spot, bending down so their foreheads touched.
“I swear, by my blood and my kin, I shall repay you in kind for this gift you have given me.”
Static sparked behind her teeth. Lillian squeezed gently and stepped away.
“Out you go, little one.” Lillian shooed her toward the door. “I suspect you’d rather not wait any longer to get back.”
She hung her tatty denim coat over the branch of a tree and carefully arranged her boots, a pair of sentinels atop a pile of neatly folded clothes.
Soft hide draped from the crown of her head, down over her shoulders, she rose up on her toes. She tugged the skin into place, sobbing with relief when it settled comfortably over every curve and divot of her body.
She dug her fingers into the spaces between her ribs, pulled tight, tight, tight, and thought of home.