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A new temporary co-op shop called the Boo-tique has opened up for the holiday season. Folks from all around the city are selling neat odds and ends to celebrate the spooktacular parties and events to come at the end of the month. While you’re trying on one of the many costumes for sale, you leave the dressing room and find yourself engulfed in a world associated with whatever costume you put on. You can't go far--only a few feet in any direction, as if you hit an invisible wall. There is no person there, no animals, but a very vivid sight. After a few moments, you blink once and it's all gone--you've returned to the mothball-smelling, dusty dressing room you’d originally entered. The costume you’d put on has no price tag and if you approach a staff member to purchase or question it, they take it away and apologize -- it shouldn’t have been out on the floor to begin with. What… exactly happened?
If only I’d known about this place before it went up, Daisy thought to herself. Then, she too, could have had a cute little section all to herself to sell some of the cute s**t she’d made. Ah well, maybe next year. For now, it was enough to wander around and pick up a few things that caught her eye. And while she didn’t really need a costume given her Closet ‘O Cosplay™ at home, she still wanted to see what other folks had whomped up. She already circled the costumes like a shark scenting blood in the water. There was one in particular that she wanted to try on and examine up close. In had been left off to the side, which was simply mind-boggling given how exquisitely made it seemed to be. The wings alone…
Seizing the fairy costume, Daisy headed for the dressing room, wrinkling her nose a little at the heavy scent of mothballs. Stripping out of her jeans and sweater, she wriggled into the fairy costume, taking a moment here and there to admire the stitching and how the leaf clusters looked so real. As she strapped herself into the wings, she decided that she was going to hunt down the person who’d made them and ask for pointers. A cursory check revealed that the straps were cleverly hidden within the sleeves of the costume itself. The mirror in the dressing room showed that the costume seemed to fit well, but she wanted a look in the set of mirrors she’d spotted just outside of the dressing rooms. That way, she could see the back and sides together.
Opening the door and stepping from the room, Daisy felt her jaw drop. Instead of seeing clusters of tables loaded with spookycute merch and scurrying employees, she was facing a dimly glowing fairy forest. Leaves and flower buds sparkled, moss-covered rocks looked like little mounds of quartz draped in ombre green velvets.
Okay. This had to be a trick. Storming forward, intending to tear through the prop scenery, Daisy instead felt herself bounce off of an invisible wall. Well, fine then. She tried a different direction and bounced again. Letting out a snorting growl, Daisy considered for a moment, slowly realizing that she couldn’t hear the low grade hum of the shop. Nothing but stillness and an eerie forest for company. And for a forest, it was entirely too quiet. Not even a single bird call…
Right. So she was either going completely crazy or Boo-tique had some sort of bizarre dimensional rift in its dressing rooms. Closing her eyes to help calm herself, Daisy began aware of the return of store sounds. Eyes flying open, she stared in shock as the forest had given way to normal holiday pop-up shop activity. Ignoring the cluster of mirrors that had originally brought her out of her own dressing room, Daisy bolted back in and quickly changed back into her street clothes. Gathering the costume up, she searched it carefully. No price tag, that was weird. But it could have fallen off. Not that she was completely sure she wanted it anymore. Still, she had questions… Flagging down the first free rep she could find, Daisy held the costume out, doing her best to keep her voice casual.
“Hey sorry to bother you, but this costume’s got no tag and I was wondering if…”
She got no further as the rep whisked the costume from her arms, all bright smiles and hard eyes.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, this one’s a private commission, I can’t imagine who left it out on the floor. I’ll let the seller know, they’re probably worried sick! Okay, thank you, come again, bye-bye!”
Unable to get a word in edgewise, Daisy stood there blankly as the costume and rep vanished into the crowd. What. Just… what.
