Quinn was almost certain that she was a bikini.



It was a weird thing to be sure of. It could have been a dream. At least, she was hoping it was. But the evidence was all there. Like the way she couldn’t feel her legs, or her hands, or even her face, but instead she could feel straps and loops and cups. Or the fact that see was looking in a mirror, but couldn’t see herself. Instead, all she saw was a pretty young woman about her age. Quinn wasn’t even in the picture. But right on eye level - or whatever passed for her eyes - was the top half of the girl’s bikini: a fashionable design with wide cups in a kaleidoscope print, wrapped around her torso in thin straps. The bottom half was thin too, except for exactly where it counted.



It was unique and looked very comfortable. It felt very comfortable. The girl in the mirror posed and preened over her outfit, and Quinn could feel herself wrap around the girl's hips and chest in two halves. She could feel the girl's figure inside her. Her entire being moved to match this girl’s desires. It was by far the strangest feeling of her life.



Everything felt fuzzy. It had been that way ever since the girl who now wore her barged into the changing room with that odd, slightly scary grin, and did whatever this was to her. Before, she remembered clearly. She was here with Phoebe, her best friend. They were going to join a volleyball tournament. Phoebe was smart enough to come already wearing her swimsuit, but Quinn had needed to change. So she went into a locker for just a second, leaving a smirking Phoebe outside to wait and laugh at her forgetfulness.



And then the girl showed up, pointed at her, and everything was upside down. She felt herself fall, every piece of her spinning and shifting into something flat and fluttery. In a second she was lying on the floor, and her whole body… bodies felt alien to her. She had no limbs, she couldn’t get back to her feet, and everything seemed bigger somehow.



For some reason, she couldn’t clearly recall what happened next, but next she remembered the girl was holding her up. She was in the same changing room Quinn was using, in the middle of changing clothes - except now Quinn was the swimsuit being stretched and pulled as the girl fit her on. It wasn’t painful, but it was a feeling that was as impossible to ignore as it was impossible at all.



Dream or not, ridiculous or not, she was definitely a bikini right now. The mirror just confirmed it. As did the girl’s excited words.



“Well, I don’t know who you were, lady. But I definitely think you’re a keeper now.”



Then she smacked her behind to make it clear just what she was talking about. If she were still able to, Quinn would’ve flinched.



She had heard a rumor or two, about people disappearing mysteriously. It was an uncommon fad around campus, since the serious stories were rare and often disappeared as soon as they started. A funny new urban legend about how a sorority disbanded because nearly all of their members vanished one night - with only one girl escaping the house carrying an armful of shoes. Another involving a boyfriend with a wandering eye, whose girlfriend didn’t see him for days… until she was sent a box a week later with a nighty inside and a note that said “he wasn’t my size.”



But those were only supposed to silly stories. Just jokes that people passed around, and fake explanations for less interesting events like the sorority girls walking or the boyfriend cheating. After all, didn’t the people themselves admit that they weren’t serious a few days later? They weren’t supposed to be real. And they definitely weren’t supposed to be signs of people being transformed into… things!



It was unbelievable! Even more so, it was something Quinn was sure she couldn’t deal with. How could she get turned back, when she didn’t even know what was going on. All she could do was wait and watch, hoping that either Phoebe had noticed what was going on and was coming to save her, or this was all just a prank that the girl would reverse once she had her fun.



She was hoping it was the second, because the first didn’t seem likely.



The girl was heading out of the locker room now - the walking was uncomfortable, all that bouncing and rubbing and swaying. Quinn tried to will her to stay put, to explain what was happening, but that “keeper” line was the last thing she ever said to her. She adjusted her fit, admired her look, but didn’t seem to acknowledge Quinn as a person at all any more.



“Hey!” someone shouted from the entrance. Quinn’s hopes rose. Maybe it was Phoebe, or someone else who saw what the girl had done!



There was another girl there, but it wasn’t Phoebe. This one had a bit less of a figure than the one wearing Quinn (which, given that the first girl was less developed than Quinn herself, meant this new one could be called skinny), and was sporting a one piece swimsuit with a very light, very bright blue color. There was something off about the look on her face, but Quinn didn’t care. She was saved!



The girl wearing Quinn walked right up to this newcomer without fear, and Quinn’s hopes fell a little. What if she just turned this new girl into flip flops or something?



But then the new girl spoke, and that possibility disappeared with the rest of Quinn's hopes. “It took you long enough to find something, girl. I told you to just pick something and put it on quick. There’s like fifty people around us, you could’ve snagged any one of them and been done by now.”



“I’ve told you before, it was to be just right! I can’t be out there wearing something I grabbed at random. Plus, I really, really like this one! Doesn’t it look great on me?”



The new girl glanced at Quinn, and then down at her own swimsuit, and shrugged. “Whatever. As long as you’re finally ready.”



Quinn felt as if she couldn’t breathe. This new girl was part of whatever magic had done his to her. There wouldn’t be any help coming from her. Where was Phoebe?



“Hello? Can’t anyone hear me?”



Oh, there she was. Or, as Quinn quickly realized, there was the swimsuit that Phoebe had been changed into. Oddly, of all the things the first thing Quinn thought about how terrible this new girl's chromatic sense was. The bright color of her swimsuit would’ve clashed horribly with her friend’s dark skin tone, though she supposed that wasn’t important now.



“Phoebe! I’m over here! I can hear!” She thought in a way she hoped was ‘loud’ enough to hear.



“Quinn?” Phoebe sounded relieved, if terrified. “Where are you? What happened to me?”



“We’re… not ourselves. Are you alright?” That was a relative term when talking to a person who was now an inanimate object, but Quinn felt the need to ask.



“I don’t know. Last I remember I was waiting for you, then suddenly I was on the floor, and something was carrying me somewhere. I can move a little, but now every time I do something yanks me back into place.”



“Lucky. I can’t move at all, just see and hear things…”



“Where are you? Maybe we can help each other out. Are you behind this huge girl in front of me? I keep trying to call out to her but she won’t listen!”



Quinn suddenly realized that Phoebe must not have been in front of a mirror yet. She didn’t know about the bizarre transformation that had struck them both. Quinn almost didn’t want to tell her. “I… I’m on that girl in front of you. Listen, Phoebe… we’re not human any more. Whoever these girls are, they’re some kind of witches. They turned us both into swimsuits. I’m the bikini you see. That force that keeps pulling at you is the girl who’s wearing you right now.”



She expected Phoebe to object and say it was impossible, but her friend didn’t respond for a long time. When she did, she seemed very distant. “I’m dreaming. I have to be.”



“I was hoping that I was dreaming.”



“But… how in the…”



“I don’t know. I can barely understand anything. I have no idea how we’re going to get out of this.”



Quinn hadn't thought about this possibly lasting forever yet, but now she couldn't stop. Would these girls turn them back? Could these girls turn them back? Did they even care about what they did? They seemed so casual about it, like they didn’t consider them people at all. Was this their new existence, doomed to spent eternity as cute pieces of fabric?



The more she thought about it, the less Quinn could see any reason why the two witches would reverse this. In all likelihood they were stuck.



Phoebe seemed to think the same thing, because she was suddenly frantic. “Hell no! We have to get out of here!”



“Phoebe, wait!”



Quinn didn’t know what Phoebe could do, but she did know they shouldn’t panic just in case something worse happened. And in a moment, she was proven right.



“Sonavabitch!” The girl wearing Phoebe suddenly jerked wildly and tightly gripped Phoebe’s shoulder straps, causing Phoebe to yelp.



“What happened?”



“This bimbo’s still in there! She just wriggled on me!” She pressed her finger against one of Phoebe’s cups, and it glowed for a second. Phoebe gasped as if touched with something cold. “Yeah. Her mind’s still active. And she can move? Ugh, I hate it when that happens.”



The girl who was wearing Quinn giggled, sending tremors through Quinn’s top half. “Ooh, that’s just embarrassing. Well, that’s what you get for rushing it.” A terrified feeling rushed through Quinn. She didn’t think she could move still, but then she hadn’t really tried. But if the’s girls could feel their actions, if they could sense their panic and confusion, then what would they do about it?



“Funny. Whatever, this should take care of it.”



The girl’s finger glowed again, but this time it was different. The only outward sign of change was a slight ruffling of the girl’s bikini, but inside her head Quinn heard Phoebe give an terrific shriek and then… nothing.



“Phoebe?”



There was no answer. If Quinn had a voice, it would be wavering.



“Phoebe! What happened? Answer me!”



Still no answer. Either this girl had cut off Phoebe’s ability to express herself, or something far worse. Given the way she kept fading in and out of consciousness, maybe even existence itself, Quinn didn’t want to think about what that something might have been. “That should take care of my bikini problem,” the new girl said, as if it were no big thing. She glanced back at the girl wearing Quinn. Her finger glowed again, and she reached for Quinn herself. “Just in case…”



Quinn was overwhelmed with pure terror. Whatever had just happened to Phoebe was about to happen to her, she was sure of it…



But then at the last second Quinn’s girl slapped her friend’s finger away, laughing. “Don’t you poke me! Unlike some people, I’m always thorough.”



Luckily for Quinn, the girl didn’t know how mistaken she was. And the last thing she wanted was for her to find that out: not now, not ever. Maybe what had just happened was driving her into a panic, but she didn’t care. She was like a mouse on the run from a cat, riding on pure overwhelming fear. Quinn focused so keeping her mind as even and blank that it almost hurt, but she had to just in case one of them decided to look too close at her anyway. She needed to hide, or she would end up like Phoebe… or worse, whatever that could be. She had no idea what else these girls could do to her, and she didn’t want to find out.



Unfortunately, it worked a little too well…



——



… Quinn woke up far away from the beach, and even through the haze she recognized it as a street on her own campus! For a second, she felt some hope for rescue. Maybe someone would recognize her! Who knows, someone might be able to take her away from this girl before it was too late, and then they could save Phoebe too!



It was silly, of course. The girl didn’t pass by a single person Quinn knew, but even if she had Quinn was only a bikini, not the young woman she was. Nobody would have realized who she really was. The only attention she got was impressed looks from other girls who asked the girl where she did her shopping, and the occasional stares from a few lecherous guys. No one saw her as human, and why would they?



By the time the girl made it to her place, Quinn was totally dejected. The girl lived in one of those apartment-style suites, the kind only rich kids and lottery winners got. She was probably supposed to have a roommate, but there was none in sight. The girl ran straight to her bedroom, giving Quinn her first look at her new home. It was neat, but still more packed than most rooms Quinn knew. There were bits of clothing hanging everywhere. Shoes under the table. Hats stacked on top of the television. That sort of thing.



“Hey, guess who got herself a new bikini?” The girl shouted at no one. She did a little dance on the way to her closet that made whatever passed for Quinn’s head spin. Then she threw open the doors and Quinn mentally gasped. There were dozens of outfits in there, many of them swimsuits. Far more than even Quinn herself had, and she’d had quite a few. How many of them were people, like her?



Quinn shuddered. She couldn’t stop herself. But luckily, the girl was already taking her off - Quinn didn’t seem to make a detectable movement, and even if she did the girl seemed to dismiss it.



“You guys’ve been getting a lot of company lately, haven’t you?” She said softly to her collection. “But… I think this one’s my new favorite. Sorry!” She giggled, shunting another striped swimsuit aside to put Quinn on the rack.



Nobody answered her either time, though it struck Quinn that the girl probably knew that. Quinn didn’t hear any “mental” responses either, but that depressing fact also made sense. If this girl was as “thorough” as she prided herself on being, she was probably well aware that none of them could even hear her. She was gloating to her possessions just for kicks. And as far as Quinn knew, she was the only thing in here that was listening.



That horrible realization finally brought the entire situation crushing down on her head. She was an inanimate object. She belonged to this girl. She had no idea if she would ever be human again, and if anyone were looking for her they would never find her. Her best friend belonged to some other girl, and she didn’t know if she would ever see her again. Thanks to a random mistake she could comprehend what had happened to her, but she would never have anyone to talk to. And even if she did, she couldn’t be too loud or to noticeable or she could end up losing even more than just her body just like Phoebe, and then there really would be nothing left of her but a pretty one-piece swimsuit.



And then the girl went to bed, leaving Quinn even more alone.



She wished she could break down sobbing. She settled on screaming. She yelled for what felt like hours - for help, for answers, for some kind of escape. All night, her cries silently echoed through in the girl’s closet. The girl herself slept happily, unaware that any of this was going on…



——



Quinn got a lot of use in the next few weeks. She quickly discovered that this girl - Henrietta, as she learned her name was - absolutely loved the beach. She would be out there almost every day. Typically she would go with her friend from before, whose name was Jeanette. And even when she wasn’t planning to go out there, she often packed Quinn and a spare bikini (this one was around longer than Quinn, so she had no idea if they were once human like her. She didn’t doubt it) along with the rest of her things. Once in a blue moon when Henrietta was planning to go to the shore but wouldn’t have time to change she would wear Quinn under her clothes instead of underwear, which let Quinn see more than just the beach from time to time. It was all the experience she got, and she knew it was all she had to look forward to for a long time, so she tried to make the best of it.



And the more time Quinn spent as Henrietta’s clothing, the more she realized that as bad as her situation was things could have been a lot worse. On the outside, Henrietta and Jeanette were seemingly normal girls. They did the same thing regular people did when going to the beach: laid back and got a tan, swam in the surf, chatted about life and class and such, played some beach sports when the mood struck them. But in their case, everyone was a prospective part of their normal routine. They were witches, powerful ones it seemed, and the careless use of their power was even more frequent than Quinn feared. If they were out of sunblock, some poor bystander would be replacing it. If they needed a towel - well, there was another sunbather right next to them. If they wanted to play volleyball but didn’t have the equipment, a passerby or an opponent would be their new ball.



She would never forget the first time she actually saw them do it. They had joined up with a bunch of friends from class on their way to the shore. It wasn’t like Phoebe or herself, who were just random people they barged in to. The two of them knew these girls well. They were laughing and talking like friends - it was so normal that Quinn might have forgotten they weren’t a pair of callous witches, if her very existence wasn’t proof of it. But then most of the group went off to see if there were any events going on, leaving the only two who were still talking to Henrietta and Jeanette behind to set up camp while they were gone.



They kept chatting for a little bit more, before one of the girls admitted - with a sheepish laugh - that she had forgotten the equipment back at the dorm. Without even a moment to think, Jeanette groaned and flicked a finger at her.



The change itself lasted less than a second. All at once the girl was flattening, puffing up, changing color… and then, she a jumbo-sized beach towel. It was one thing to feel it, but it was another thing altogether to see it happen to someone else. And so quick, out of nowhere. Quinn wouldn’t forget the look of horror and confusion on their other girl’s face either. She only got as far as “what did you d-“ before Henrietta sighed and waved in her direction. A second later, she was picking up an extra-large pool toy.



Henrietta chided Jeanette for “being trigger happy,” before the rest of the group returned and asked where the missing girls were. Jeanette shrugged, and Henriette gave a fake story about them walking off before heading to the water with her new toy.



Of course, none of the others ever found out the real story - besides the one or two who the two witches decided to transform later on.



Quinn never saw them turn anyone back. Many, like the two friends whose fates she saw the first day, they just left sitting there after they were done. Others they took a shine to and kept. Quinn often wondered how many random treasures she might have found lying in the sand or drifting in the ocean before this all happened, who might have also once been unfortunate people like her that had the misfortune of running across the wrong pair of teenagers.



Quinn’s thoughts often went to places like that, as there wasn’t often much to do when one is a bikini. She could only ever do what Henrietta wanted, which usually meant going out and watching the two of them change people.



Despite seeing Jeanette often, Quinn only saw Phoebe very rarely. Jeanette apparently didn’t have as much fondness for favorite outfits as Henrietta did. She was always seen wearing something - likely someone - new. She got new clothes constantly and often gave the old ones away, which struck Quinn as even colder than Henrietta’s tendency to hoard her possessions. They were both horrible, but Henrietta at least changed people because she liked the idea of having them - those people had a good chance of some kind of twisted home or purpose afterwards. It was usually Jeanette leaving things behind or only changing people for a moment’s convenience. Sometimes Henrietta would jokingly chide her, but that hardly made it better.



When not out with those two, she spent most days hanging in Henrietta’s closet or stuffed inside a laundry hamper doing nothing. The view wasn’t exactly great from her closet - usually she just got to watch Henrietta sleep and count the fibers in the fabric of the tenant in front of her. Sometimes Henrietta would bring a boyfriend up there, which never got any less unpleasant to be around for. Every once in a while she would bring a friend home, but only Jeanette was ever guaranteed to leave the way she came.



The most interesting thing to happen in the first few weeks of Quinn’s bikini existence was when, one afternoon, Henrietta rushed into the room and pulled a thick woolen sweater off a hanger - which was odd, since it was still the middle of summer. She placed it on the bed, and made a gesture Quinn by then understood to be transformation related.



Instantly, the sweater became a shaggy-headed young woman.



“W-what? I’m human again! D-does this mean you’re going to let me go?”



“No,” she said, as simply as if she were announcing the weather. The girl looked horrified, but Henrietta didn’t seem to notice or care. “I forgot to take you out of a few records, and now some of your old friends is asking questions. I don’t feel like turning them all into stuff, so I’m going to need you to make a show out of being my roommate again for a while so I settle it all out.”



“Are you crazy? You want me to act like everything’s okay, so you can go ahead and turn me back into that… thing for the rest of my life?”



“Hey, you’re lucky I’m letting you do this!” Henrietta groaned, but even then she sounded more slightly annoyed than nasty. “I like that sweater, so no way do I want to risk losing it! But if you mess this up for me, I’ll make you into toilet paper instead and make you wish you were unaware!”



Jasmine whimpered and shrunk back, but nodded anyway. Then Henrietta pushed her out of the room, making a dumb joke about only her clothes being able to see her personal space. Jasmine actually laughed, but it was weak. She seems too freaked out to do anything else.



So Jasmine stayed around the apartment for the next week. Henrietta didn’t treat her any differently than someone might treat a normal roommate, surprisingly - she didn’t gloat or force her to do anything, like Quinn expected. They went about their separate lives. Quinn could tell Jasmime spent all of her time looking for ways to keep it that way, but Henrietta had been very insistent. Apparently, Jasmine’s brief human spell was conditional - the moment she acted up, she would immediately change back.



Quinn hoped Henrietta wasn’t serious about the toilet paper threat - she had yet to see her turn someone into something that horrible.



After a few days Henrietta happily announced that she tied up all the loose ends and promptly turned Jasmine back into a sweater. Quinn never saw her again - at least not as a girl. It was unbelievably cold, and somehow Henrietta’s friendly attitude and lack of smugness or nastiness made it even worse, but Quinn soon learned that it was usually that way with her.



——



As Quinn slowly discovered, Henrietta almost never just used her powers for convenience sake. That was more Jeanette’s thing. But Henrietta was almost obsessed with transforming people for its own sake. If she turned someone into a pen, it wasn’t just because she happened to be out, it was also because she really liked the idea of owning that person, or just turning someone into a pen at all. She would often talk out loud to herself, thinking about how a random sales clerk might look as a dress or wondering if she might be able to smuggle a classmate out of school as a watch or a radio or a pair of shoes. She was constantly reading and rereading her spell books, looking for new ways to change people into her possessions.



This compulsive habit actually worked out in Quinn’s favor. On the occasion that Henrietta took her spell books to the beach, Quinn could read them along with her. She barely understood how it worked, but it was a start - and it was the only glimmer of hope she had. Henrietta never paid much attention to the reversal spells. On several occasions Quinn had to hope that she could catch a glimpse of a new word as Henrietta flipped past them - but slowly, surely, she was starting to learn.



She discovered early on that changing oneself back to normal without any hands (or any ability to move at all really) would be almost impossible. Almost. It could be done - skilled witches were a lot better at it than desperate untrained transformees, but it was the only chance she had. And as far as she was concerned, “almost impossible” was a much better prospect than “trapped forever.” Every moment she had, she drilled herself on new tidbits of magical theory she picked up. She ran over incantations in her head, wondering whether this one or that one would be more effective - if she chose wrong, it would very likely that she would never have another chance.



But knowing the incantations wasn’t enough. Each night she practiced and focused, trying to summon up any small amount of magical energy within herself. Nothing would happen, but with lots of determination someday it just might.



But first, she had to master the art of keeping herself aware. Be it magic or her spirit, as far as she knew there was only a small thread keeping her sense of self intact, which she figured was why sometimes she felt hazy and others she lost track of time entirely. With practice she learned how to shut her mind off at will - or “go full bikini,” as she liked to put it. It was lot harder to control turning her mind back on, but eventually she worked out something akin to an alarm clock system - as long as she knew when she wanted to “awake” before she let her thoughts fade, she would do so. If she didn’t control it it would go off and on at random, which did have its advantages as well. She definitely preferred being mindless when it was laundry day - the few times she went through the washing machine while aware, she sheer sensation of her whole body twisting and spinning nearly destroyed her mind all on its own.



Thankfully she had yet to completely disappear unless she herself willed it. If she wanted to, she could probably ignore her bleak situation entirely and slip into glorious inanimation for years. Especially in the winter, when Henrietta would throw her into a dresser for months at a time, it was a very tempting idea. But she had to keep herself sharp. She was her own only hope.



The weeks never ran together. She wouldn’t let them.



——



Henrietta and Jeanette were almost inseparable. As far as Quinn knew, Jeanette was the only other magical person Henrietta knew on campus - or at least the only one she associated with. So they did everything together. This didn’t change until just over a year after Quinn was first transformed.



They weren’t planning to go to the beach that day, so Henrietta left Quinn hanging in the closet - which at least beat “draped over the shower” or “tossed onto the ground” like she sometimes did when in a hurry. Quinn spent most of the day “sleeping” and wondering about the identities of some of the new possessions that she hadn’t seen transform, until Henrietta returned home. Alone.



Quinn was surprised. This never happened. When Henrietta and Jeanette went out, they always came back afterwards to hang out and compare their new acquisitions. Even if they didn’t come up to the room, Quinn would often hear them talking downstairs, gushing about the ring that was once a boyfriend or the dress that was that boyfriend’s ex. But today, Henrietta walked into the room by herself, looking furious… distraught… terrified… lots of emotions at once. She was wearing a different dress than the one she left with and was carrying a luggage bag, which wasn’t odd except for how big the bag was this time.



As soon as she entered the room she slammed the door, fell onto the bed and practically ripped her dress off of herself. But instead of putting it away she held it in her hand and shouted at it. “How could you? How dare you? After all we’ve been through together, how could you try to sneak on me? To turn me into one of your… things?! Screw you! I hope you like your own medicine, you stupid… treacherous…” her voice cracked, “you can’t even hear me, so I don’t know why I’m…”



She didn’t seem to be able to keep on talking. She threw the dress - which by now Quinn could deduce was Jeanette - into a heap on the floor and curled on the bed. A few minutes later, Quinn was surprised to hear her crying. It was odd… it’s wasn’t as if she had never heard Henrietta cry before - in many terrifying ways, she was not unlike any other teenager. But never like this. She sounded absolutely crushed.



Not that Quinn had any pity. After a while, she went full bikini just so she didn’t have to hear any of it.



The next day Henrietta went through the bag and dumped its contents on the floor. It was all various articles of clothing - apparently Henrietta had claimed Jeanette’s collection after changing her. Quinn wasn’t sure whether that was some kind of tradition for witches or if was because Henrietta was that just kind of person. It could easily have been both.



She recognized some of them. A third “friend” who had never realized what that the two were actually competing to see who would surprise transform her first. A teacher who tried to flunk Jeanette but then suddenly, inexplicably went on “vacation.” A passing businesswoman that Jeanette had turned into perfume completely on a whim. Some of the players on a soccer team Jeanette had tried to join once. Some brothers from a frat who had made inappropriate comments at the two of them. And so on.



It was hard not to go numb to all these poor people, but Quinn tried hard to still feel for them. She didn’t want to end up cold to other people’s suffering, like Henrietta.



She had been expecting it as well, but she still reacted when Henrietta put a very familiar bight blue swimsuit on the rack next to her.



“Phoebe…”



She thought it “out loud,” but she didn’t really know why. Wishful thinking, she supposed. Unlike Quinn, there was no trace of Phoebe left in that fabric. For all intents and purposes this wasn’t her friend any more, it was just a bikini that used to be a person once upon a time. The thought made her sad, but no sadder than everything else she’d had to deal with since that first day on the beach.



The bikini that used to be Phoebe joined Henrietta’s regular swimming rotation, though Henrietta didn’t seem to remember who it was or anything about Phoebe’s failed escape attempt. Quinn supposed she never paid attention to things she didn’t create. In fact, she seemed to be under the impression that it was just a normal swimsuit, which made the fact that she liked using it strange. Usually, only her own creations became her favorites. Maybe she was just treasuring it because it used to be Jeanette’s.



Speaking of which, after a few weeks of being thrown in the corner and forgotten the dress that was once Jeanette also became one of Henrietta’s favorite outfits, which might’ve been poetic justice if not for the fact that Henrietta never once thought of her apparent near miss with becoming clothing herself as a reason to change. She was soon right back to turning innocent people into objects like nothing happened. But Jeanette would always keep a “sentimental” place in Henrietta’s heart, which made Quinn wish she could punch her.



About a month later Henrietta brought another friend over, which was also a surprise. Quinn didn’t know Henrietta had any other friends. And this new friend didn’t seem to be due for the closet, or the dresser or the cupboard.



Her name was Steff. They apparently knew each other from way back. She was the only other witch like them at the school (it was her who had transformed the entire sorority into shoes and started the rumor Quinn heard so long ago). From what Quinn could tell she and Henrietta didn’t used to get along, but now Henrietta needed someone to fill the hole Jeanette had left behind. Seeing her put on a show just to get Steff to like her would’ve been funny, if Steff hadn’t actually been buying it.



Quinn didn’t like the idea of another terrible twosome running loose on campus, but she was used to not being able to do anything about it. By now it was a hot, early spring day - so she resigned herself to another day trip to the beach where they would certainly transform more innocent people. She was preparing to pass the time mentally reviewing everything she’d learned so far when she heard someone else speak.



“Hello!”



Quinn looked around. The last peeping tom had ended up with a form Quinn wouldn’t wish on anybody, but neither Henrietta or Steff had reacted.



“Hello, are you there?”



Quinn suddenly realized that the voice was talking to her, and that she was “hearing” someone “speak” mentally for the first time since her last conversation with Phoebe. It was the first time anyone had spoken to her directly in years. She would have leaped for joy if she had legs.



“Yes! I’m here! Who’s there? Are you alive?” She scanned the room and found the voice was coming from the high heeled shoes Steff was wearing.



“I’m Stiletto!” They said. The voice was hard to identify - she couldn’t tell whether it was a man, a woman, a child - Quinn really hoped it wasn’t a kid. Not even Henrietta had never gone so far as to do that. “Who are you?”



“Quinn!” She replied with enough relief to last months. “I’m the poor bikini that Henrietta’s about to put on.”



“Quinn? That’s an odd name for a bikini.”



Quinn faltered for a second, feeling a bit lost. “I’m not really a bikini, obviously. I’m a person, like you.”



“A person? No… I’m heels! Like my name! Get it?”



“Um, yeah… But I meant before that. You know, before Steffie turned you into heels?”



“I… don’t know what you mean.” The voice sounded genuinely confused. “I’ve always been my Owner’s favorite pair of shoes.”



Quinn’s heart fell, figuratively speaking. And old terror that she hadn’t felt in ages started to return. “Oh for… were you a man or a woman?” She started to shout. This couldn’t be another lost cause! "How old were you? Were you a student? How about your hair color?”



“Hair? Like the Owner’s? Why would shoes have hair? Have you ever heard of a shoe with hair, Skirt?”



“No…” Another voice came from Steff’s hips. This one was more identifiable. It was definitely a man’s voice. “Well, maybe if it was designed that way. But that would be weird. Our Owner never wears anything like that.”



“Owner?” Quinn gasped. She felt weak. “B-but, you… b-but…”



“What do you all think?” The Skirt said, and Staff’s entire outfit seemed to suddenly explode with conversation. All of them went on for a long time, trying to figure out why any clothes would have human names, or hair, or a face. Her hat, a stylish wide brimmed number, talked about how she once saw a person with hair just like the Owner’s, but then realized she must have been mistaken, for it was obviously a handbag the whole time - and handbags didn’t have hair. One or two even joked about a vague dreams, of themselves wearing clothing just like they were now, but laughed it off because of course that was silly.



None of them seemed to notice that Quinn was no longer talking.



When she woke up, it was night and Quinn was in the laundry hamper again. She was more shaken that she remembered being in a long time. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d shut herself off and gone full bikini just to avoid dealing with something unpleasant, but she just couldn’t take it any more.



Steff was gone, but Quinn couldn’t shake off the conversation with her victims. Was that loss of memory part of their transformation? Was is something that happened to everyone who stayed aware in an inanimate body, or was it just something Steff liked to add to her spells? Would it happen to her too? Would being stuck, conscious, as an inanimate object slowly drive her insane to the point where she no longer remembered being human? She imagined herself like Stiletto, cheerfully devoted to her ‘owner’ and oblivious to her old life and friends, and mentally shuddered.



The next day Quinn redoubled her efforts to memorize the spell book. That night, she managed her first spark: a small glow of light that winked in and out of existence while Henrietta was sleeping.



For the first time in a while, she wished she could cry.



——



It took months after that before Quinn was confident that she could actually cast the spells she needed. Hours upon hours were spent working on her skills, increasing her capacity and ability to cast, working on new and more complicated spells without being able to move. All while keeping her training a secret from her “owner,” who would certainly finally put her hopeful existence to an end if she detected any of it.



In that time, Henrietta had finally finished school and graduated. Quinn tried not to stew about it, but it was hard. Her and Henrietta were in the same year. It should have been her graduation too. Instead she spent that day hanging in the closet waiting for Henrietta to return, and then listening to Henrietta gush on the phone about how happy she was and gloat to herself about managing to turn the Valedictorian - some girl Quinn had known would be on the chopping block for some time, as Henrietta was quite jealous of her - into a pair of formal shoes as a final souvenir.



It made Quinn furious. A graduation was supposed to be a wonderful time, for people to take their first steps into the future. Here Henrietta was as usual, selfishly taking that future away. But there would be no use in getting mad, at least not yet.



She spent the afternoon on the beach as Henrietta celebrated her accomplishments, and that night being folded and stuffed into a suitcase with her fellow swimsuits as she prepared to move out. It was an odd thing to go through: that closet had been her home for the past… how long was it? Months? Years? She’d been in the closet when Henrietta first brought her here, when she first came to terms with her situation, and for all the time she worked to do something about it. It was like the end of an era, and now she was going to move to a new closet, or worse a cramped dresser.



But at the same time, she hated herself for feeling wistful. It was just a closet, after all. She shouldn’t feel at home in it in the first place. Yet despite that, she did.



What was being like this for so long doing to her? She couldn’t take it any more.



——



Henrietta didn’t hang out with Steff as often as she had with Jeanette. Quinn guessed her experience with her last friend had made her somewhat paranoid, so that now she couldn’t fully trust anyone with powers like hers. Which was not only fitting in Quinn’s opinion, but suited her well since Steff’s clothes creeped her out. She hated “talking” to them.



And the best part was, it meant that Henrietta was alone on the day she chose to finally make her move. Fittingly, they were at the beach again lying under an umbrella - for once, not some poor soul but actually purchased from a shop - and Henrietta was leafing through her spell book for fun. For once, she wasn’t swimming or playing volleyball or stalking someone with the intention of transforming them. There were people around, but that didn’t matter to Quinn. She was about to do them a big favor, so what if they got a little scare?



Quinn had rehearsed it a hundred times in her head. The incantation was the easy part. Pulling together the power with nothing but brain power but without an actual brain was the agonizing part. It hurt as she pulled the magical energy together, the first pain she had felt since becoming inanimate, but she wouldn’t let herself stop focusing on the incantation for anything.



The surge in magic woke Henrietta up, though it would’ve been hard for her to stay asleep. Her bikini was glowing, after all.



“What the hell?”



And then it was like falling in reverse. She was rising off of Henrietta’s body, her top and bottom fusing together again as everything shifted and the world became more solid. She almost laughed at the sensation of having eyes and ears and fingers again, rather than whatever magic she’d used to see, hear and touch before.



Henrietta was on her feet, too surprised to care about suddenly losing her clothes. She was throwing her hands up, about to cast another spell. Quinn didn’t have much time: she racked her mind for something, anything she could use, and did the first hand gesture that came to mind.



Henrietta stumbled back as something hit her, but Quinn didn’t get the chance to see what she had done: Henrietta got her with a spell too, and she wasn’t sloppy this time. Quinn could feel herself becoming a bikini again, and this time her mind was fading. Her humanity would soon be totally gone, and without that there was no way back as far as she knew. This was it: she was going to be hanging in closets for the rest of her existence. But at least she knew her own spell had hit home. Whatever inanimate fate she was heading into, at least she knew that the bitch who put her through it all in the first place was going to be joining her.



The thought brought a smile to her face. The last thought before her thoughts faded into the fabric entirely was a hope that her next owner was someone that took good care of their clothing…



——



When Quinn next awoke she had no idea how much time had passed, which was new. She hadn’t had to deal with lost time (or at least, lost time that she wasn’t aware of) in ages. She was lying on a bed in placid looking room, staring at the ceiling. It took her a several minutes to realize that she had hands and feet - how else would she fill the gown she had one? It was a couple more minutes before she dared to try sitting up. After that it was a literal hop skip and jump until she was dancing around the room, cheering at the top of her lungs. She was human again! After so long! Before she hadn’t had the opportunity to enjoy it, but now…



… now she was in the middle of some kind of facility who knows where, dressed in a hospital gown and without any contacts. Darn. Was someone studying her? Had some new witch captured her?



The door suddenly opened, and a redheaded woman in a neat business suit walked in. Quinn took a defensive stance, trying to think through all the spells she learned to find something she could use to defend herself. But the woman surprised her by smiling and bowing, before sitting down at a table in the corner and gesturing for Quinn to join her.



“Hello there, Ms. Thomas,” she said. “My name is Allison. I’m the one investigating your case.”



She had a million questions, including how this woman knew her name, but she went with “my case?”



“Yes. I was called to check out a sudden altercation that took place between two magic users on Drapers' Beach at 1:23 PM last-“



Quinn suddenly realized that this was the exact opposite of an evil witch. And that, on the other hand, she probably looked like one. “Hey, whoa! I’m no witch or anything. I just had to use those spells to-“



“We know. You’re Quinn Thomas. You’ve been missing for three years. It wasn’t hard to dredge up your file. Your “friend” has been involved with dozens of suspicious disappearances over the years, though we didn’t know she was the connection until your little fight. Witches have a way of staying unnoticed.”



Quinn might’ve agreed with the “dozens” number, but she only got to see a small doze of Henrietta’s antics. Between her, Jeanette and Steff, the number was likely somewhere in the hundreds. “She’s no friend of mine,” she growled. Three years. Three whole years…



“I’m sure. It’s a miracle you were able to free yourself. Henrietta Bynder was one of the most powerful witches of her age that we’ve ever encountered.”



“Was?”



Allison placed a small book on the desk. It was titled “One Hundred Fashion Tips for the Modern Witch.” At Allison’s gesturing, Quinn flipped through it - it was a fashion book with a variety of outfits being shown off by a model. It seemed like a normal rag, the kind Henrietta or even Quinn herself might have picked up once upon a time, but Quinn immediately noticed that each picture had the same model every time - Henrietta herself! And every outfit was something that Quinn had seen Henrietta wear or put in her dresser at some point or another. Even Quinn had a page. And on each page, Henrietta’s expression was different - in the earlier pages, she was shocked, then enraged, even as she stylishly posed for each ensemble. Some pictures had her captured mid-shout at the “camera,” pointing and ranting as if raging at the reader. But as the pages went by Henrietta’s body language got less and less distinctive. By halfway through the only thing that looked out of the ordinary was her face, as angry shouts gave way to scared gasps. And then slowly her mouth became a smile, and only a terrified look in her eyes remained. On the last few pages, even that was gone - if a person didn’t know better, they would think there was nothing abnormal about the model at all.



Quinn couldn’t believe it. Had she really done all that?



Allison closed the book, bringing Quinn out of her thoughts. “Your inexperience was in your favor here. We’ll keep this one under lock and key, but it doesn't matter much. You overdid it. There’s no trace of a mind - lost, suppressed or fragmented - anywhere in here, and only the slightest hint of magical manipulation. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was a real book and not a transformed person. It would take a team of masters to bring Ms. Bynder back from this state, and I don't think we’ll get many volunteers.’



Quinn stared at the cover of the book. It was another photo of Henrietta, appearing to capture the moment she was transformed. There was shock and worry all over her face. She was wearing the bikini Quinn used to be. Quinn couldn’t find it in her to be sympathetic. “Good,” she said. Allison didn’t seem to mind the cold answer.



“Unfortunately, the prognosis is also bad for most of her victims. Henrietta’s was a very strong witch. She was thorough in a way most witches aren’t.” Quinn winced. She knew all too well how thorough Quinn could be. “And being in such a state for so long… what’s the use of turning the body human if the mind is still inanimate? So far you were the only person we’ve been able to return to normal, because we got to you so soon.”



“Henrietta could turn them back. I saw her do it once or twice, when she needed someone to keep up appearances. Though eventually she stopped doing it.”



Allison nodded and wrote that down in her notebook. “Then we may need to try and change her back after all…” she murmured, clearly unhappy about the notion. “But we’ll figure that out later.” She turned back to Quinn. “Physically, you’re still the same age you were three years ago. We can definitely get you back into your old university, and I’ll see if we can have someone modify the memories of people around you so that nobody remembers your absence. That said, incidents like this are increasingly common these days and most people don’t even bother with the memory bit any more. Although if it becomes an issue for you, we can also modify your memory.”



“What? Why?”



“You’ve gone through three years of an experience that would drive most people mad. Some might say ignorance is bliss,” Allison replied, carefully watching Quinn’s face. “If you want, we can make it so you think you think you were taking a break from school, or had to drop out but came back, or even that you were born three years later and nothing happened at all.”



Quinn frowned. She had the choice to forget everything she went through. It was horrible, yes, and she would much rather have never experienced it, but… “I’d rather not,” she said. She had learned too much, especially about herself.



“I understand,” Allison said. She sounded relieved, almost as if she were hoping Quinn would refuse. “And we may need your memory anyway. We already have Stefania Terenci in interrogation, but so far she’s being silent on whether she or Ms. Bynder had any other accomplices or friends that took part in their… activities.”



Knowing Steff was also taken care of made Quinn feel a lot better. “There was one. Her name was Jeanette. She’s a dress now, but I can point her out for you.”



“It might be helpful if you did that in general. Knowing who a transformed person once was can really help with turning them back.” When Quinn nodded, Allison took her hand and gestured to the door. “Excellent. But first, we should probably get you something to wear - I imagine you haven’t actually worn something in far too long.” She winked. “I promise you, no one's in any of our clothes.”



Quinn blushed as she realized she was still wearing the hospital gown, and nothing but the hospital gown…



——



For the next half hour Quinn sifted through bits of Henrietta’s clothing collection and photos of her furniture. Jasmine, the sweater. Boyfriends who became robes. That pizza delivery girl who became a coffee table, that time Henrietta couldn’t be bothered to put the delivery in the kitchen. She singled out the Jeanette dress, which was put aside with Henrietta.



She stalled at the swimsuit that was once Phoebe. Something must’ve shown on her face, because Allison asked her about it.



“It used to be a friend of mine. She and I were transformed on the same day,” she said simply. Allison nodded. Quinn wondered how often she had to sift through situations like this. “I know this is odd,” Quinn said. She put a lot of effort into keeping her voice from breaking. “But if you can’t get her back can I at least keep her?”



“I understand…” Allison said, and she set Phoebe aside as a special case before moving to the next one.



Thanks to Quinn's information, they were able to identify a good percentage of Henrietta’s victims, a small section of Jeanette’s and even a few of Steff’s. It wasn’t enough to save most of them, but it did start them on the right track.



Unfortunately, Alison was right about having to change Henrietta back for help. However, Quinn’s haphazard spell was even more thorough than Henrietta’s had been. Even after being turned back, Henrietta would constantly pose in place, as if freezing for an unseen camera. She didn’t seem to know who she was, or even be aware that she was once a person, as if she were a magazine turned human rather than a human returned to normal. Quinn might have felt pride in her self-trained abilities, if she had still cared about any of this.



Luckily they were eventually able to get Henrietta to remember her powers, and with a little coaxing they convinced her to help them change the others back with the promise that once they were done she would return to her magazine existence. But the change had cost Henrietta a lot of her skill, and even with her addled help they could only change back her most recent victims. The valedictorian, for example, was returned to normal barely any worse for the ware, which made Quinn happy - that had infuriated her in a way she hadn’t been since seeing those first victims be discarded on the beach. Others, like Jasmine, were stuck too long to regain their human minds and so remained as they were. This included Jeanette, which meant they weren’t able to return Phoebe to normal either. Though it had been so long that it was unlikely they could have done it anyway.



Allison herself personally delivered her old friend to Quinn’s new apartment a few weeks after her fight with Henrietta, with a practiced look of sadness on her face (again, Quinn wondered how often she had to deal with cases like this). She stayed to chat a while, and offered up a few of Henrietta’s other victims. Any Quinn didn’t take would be donated to various charities. The only exception to this was Steff’s victims, as because their minds were altered rather than wiped out, they were proving easier to change back. Henrietta herself would be headed for the dentist’s office of a special prison for magic users.



Quinn politely refused to take anyone else, but took her best friend out to the beach the very next day.



Since then, Quinn took to making up for lost time. Being human again was a double-edged thing - her parents were overjoyed, but also overwhelmed by everything that happened to her. Her other friends were happy to see her and sad to hear about Phoebe, but now they were all three years older than she was and moving on with their lives. She had nobody she could connect to and nothing to do but awkwardly try and return to a normal life, which was incredibly hard at first. For some time, she could only sleep standing up in an enclosed space. She would often miss entire conversations, since she was so used to “speaking” mentally and not being spoken to. She even bought a jacuzzi, because she had gotten used to the feel of the washing machine and that was the closest she could get to it as a human.



Once or twice, she wondered about turning herself back into a bikini - only for a little while, she would say - because she just didn’t feel comfortable as human any more. But fortunately, she always forced that kind of thinking down.



Ironically, the thing that brought her back into the world was the same thing that took her out of it: magic. After trading a few emails with Allison, she began seriously trying to learn its ins and outs. From what she understood, there were lots of magic users who abused their powers and turned people into their or other people’s possessions. There were some, very many in fact, who made Henrietta and Jeanette look like a saint in comparison. Deep down, she thought there should be at least one who dedicated themselves to helping others. Or maybe she just thought she would never be safe, and was trying to learn to defend herself. She might never know. Maybe it didn’t matter.



Allison helped her get in contact with other witches and wizards who weren’t so bad, in comparison to Henrietta at least. She even introduced her to someone whose job it was to track down people like Henrietta and help people like Quinn, though since Quinn never saw her for the whole time she was trapped it took a while for them to become friends. As she met these people and learned these new things, Quinn slowly grew back into her own as a person - until one day she woke up and didn’t feel compelled to stand in the closet for an hour.



Soon after, Allison came by for a visit with a girl even younger than Quinn who turned out to be Stiletto. Steff’s changes turned out to have lasting problems. While they were much easier to reverse Stiletto, Skirt and most of her other victims were having even more difficulty returning to humanity than Quinn had. Stiletto - whose name turned out to be Ruth - would even lock up sometimes and forget she was human at all. Some of the others took up nudism to cope.



By the end of the day, the three had put together a support group. By the end of the month, Quinn was taking magic lessons from some of Allison’s friends. By the end of the year, Quinn had gone from a normal college student, to a witch’s favorite outfit, to a good witch in training herself.



It was a new start, but just in case she never stopped bringing every spell book she owned with her whenever she hit the beach. You never know when you might run into another witch...