Thrift Store Finds

The first thing Sophia noticed was that her eyes had changed colour.

Not by much, though, and she only realised when she moved closer to the mirror, inspecting the flowery headdress she’d pushed up into her hair.

Instead of her usual hazel brown, her irises reflected a deep chocolate brown, so deep she could almost see her soul in the old looking glass before her.

Her mouth was slightly different, too. Her smile was a little wider, her teeth a touch whiter.

It was like a Snapchat filter had fallen over her face.

Sophia removed the flower crown and noticed her eyes shone her regular, boring brown colour. She put the crown on the old, worn loveseat in the thrift store fitting room, and picked up her next find: a pearl necklace, tied and re-tied in places it had been snapped.

The beads were smooth and cold in her hand, and as she connected the link behind her neck, Sophia felt a flush of warmth run through her body. A strange sense of self-importance ran alongside it, from the soles of her feet, standing against a pair of bronze stiletto heels, to the hairs on her head.

Sophia reached up and tapped her now long, slender, red-painted nails against the shiny surface of the beads, and noticed that the blemishes and wrinkles that used to litter her skin like stars had disappeared, blended back to the soft, tanned skin of her youth. She saw her eyes twinkle with a light she hadn’t seen for a long time, before taking the necklace off again and putting it back into its velvet-covered box.

A top hat came next. It was well worn, well loved through its many previous owners. A little snug, perhaps, against Sophia’s mop of raven curls. The inner lining had come loose many moons ago, but Sophia wasn’t willing to change a thing about her favourite find. It really brought the whole antique store to a whole other level.

Her reflection, this time, changed rather more drastically. She jumped from her 5 '5 frame to looming above, standing at over 6 feet tall. The room from this new height was very, very different. For one, Sophia could see through the translucent window much better, now being at eye height. Though, how much can really be seen through a translucent window?

It made the room around her sway a little, being so high up. Sophia half expected to see clouds dancing around her head.

She tried out her voice, admiring the way the hat cast her face in shadows.

“Good day to you, my fine lady.” Sophia’s voice was deep, far deeper than she’d been able to force on her own. She was taken aback momentarily, but laughed (with the same deep voice) and swung it from her head with a flair, tossing it back into its rightful box.

Sophia’s favourite dress rested peacefully in a dusty box in the corner. She’d piled it in before the rest, leaving it til last to put on and admire. A wedding dress from a bride that never got to take her vows, it was donated with a note attached that had long since worn away. Most people who’d seen it before enquired about its history, but no-one really knew the true story behind such a beautiful garment.

Some had suggested it must be cursed, if Sophia was to believe the post-it notes plastered across one length of the cardboard. Others thought it was simply bad fortune to take another’s unused dress.

Sophia never cared much for the warnings, and slipped into it quickly, before their harsh words could take hold. Some of the fabric was moth eaten, seeing as it had sat in a dark storage room for decades before being brought out to the storefront. Sophia had admired it since she was a young girl, and had always wanted to try it on.

The instant the last hook and eye were linked, a change overcame her. Shoulders pushed back, hands clenched into fists, and a snarl written across her face, Sophia turned and exited the fitting room and stormed through the thrift shop. The scarce customers scarpered quickly out of her path, and she was quickly freed from the confines of those four, dreary walls, for the first time in years.

A vague thought fluttered across Sophia’s mind; that all the item’s she’d tried on had come from the same bland, dark corner of the room, with the same scrawly handwriting across them.

The thought was banished just as quickly as another appeared, which set her face hard as a rock and forced determined feet to follow an unknown path.

No-one knew why the dress wasn’t worn to the wedding.

They’d soon find out.