Disclaimer: If you found this story, odds are you have scoured through hundreds of pages of similar material and have happened upon it, so you know what you're looking for. If by some reverse miracle you have found this passage and are
NOT
looking for a story in the deep end of transformation erotica, and/or are underage in the place where you live, there has been a
horrible
mistake. For your own well-being, don't read it.
Now that that's out of the way, on with the show.
Chapter 1
"All I'm saying is if it's good enough for shapes, it's good enough for numbers!"
Julie strode through The Mall while Emma bounced along beside her, telling her close to the stupidest thing she's ever heard.
"That's not how it works though, it would just be confusing as hell."
The pair of girls wandered past the rows of shops as they had done dozens of times when there was nothing to do on a Sunday. The smallish shopping center wasn't as much of a mall as it was a collection of shops too poor to afford leasing anything else. But as much as it wasn't a mall, the two insisted on calling it that due to it being the only mall-like structure in several hundred miles. The Mall. Singular.
The whole place was bright and well lit, which seemed to be inevitable as almost everything was outside. There were a few tarps set up to hang between the hallways of shops to provide a faux ceiling for shade, but they never helped much with the heat.
"How!? How is it confusing. If you have a pentagon, then a hexagon, hepta, octo-nona-deca-eccetera, then why can't I have a pentillion dollars? It should go million, as in Mono, Billion as in two, trillion,
quad
rillion, pentillion and so on. And don't even get me STARTED on the word square. It's a
quadrangle."
Emma nudged Julie's shoulder with hers, too lazy to take her hands out of the pockets of her shorts.
Emma was a little thing, about a head smaller than her friend, who stood at around 5'9". Her legs were so short that she had to take a step and a half for every one that Julie did. Her impish features tied into her shortness, big blue eyes and a cute little turned up nose. She always had to look up at Julie through her straight blond hair, which she pretty much refused to pull out of her face.
"Quadrangle." Julie repeated, chuckling a little as she returned the shoulder nudge "Why not just go all out and call it a quadrellagram?" Julie laughed, adding "But I can see how someone with no curves is so annoyed by shapes."
"Bitch." Emma snickered, finally pulling her hand out of her pocket to give Julie a playful punch in the arm. Julie didn't exactly have that feminine "hourglass" that all the magazines rave on about, but standing next Emma's twiggy figure made her look like a particular someone from Willendorf. Julie had wavy brown hair that ended a little below the hood of her grey hoodie hanging behind her neck, which she persisted to wear even in the current weather. She had a straight nose in contrast to Emma's, and her green eyes sparkled like lake water in the blistering sun.
"Hey, check it!" Emma broke the monotony of their stroll with the outburst, tugging on Julies sleeve and pointing at some store, "'Nother new shop! We're going in there! We are
so
going in there!"
At The Mall shops came and went like bugs around a streetlamp, a new one cropping up for every one that closed down. It wasn't uncommon to see a new shop that you kind of thought might be interesting if it got popular, only to see it gone a week later because nobody went in, which was kind of your fault too since everyone else had that same thought. However, this particular shop that Emma was pointing at with her outstretched arm was different.
Julie
It felt like Emma was damn near about to shake my arm off.
"Quit! What is it?" I half-shout at her, shrugging her off my sleeve and turning towards where she was pointing.
As she had so plainly stated, there was a new shop. This one stood out more than the usual new ones, and it wasn't hard to figure out why. The whole front of the place was painted black, and instead of whatever glass entrance or revolving door all the other shops had, this place's entryway was just a bare archway, with a thick wall of beads hanging from the top of it like some hippies' room. You couldn't see much from between them either, just black wall and dim new-store insides. It stood out comically, crammed between Kitty's Cupcakes and some Dippin Dots knock-off called Little Ice Cream Balls. Wonder why that place never got popular.
Emma walked past me and stared up at the sign, which was a trip all by itself without the whole "emo kid's bedroom" vibe they were throwing off. It was this big wooden thing that scrawled across the top of the entryway-beads, carved to make it look like a scroll. On the paper between the two scroll-roller things it read "Ye Olde Magic Shoppe". You'd think if they were going the whole old English route they'd have at least spelled it like "Magick" or something.
"Freaky." Emma said to herself without looking away from the strange sign, "Huh. You'd think they'd have spelled Magic the other way." God I love Emma. This is why we're friends, she gets me. Without another word she disappears behind the curtain of beads, clattering behind her as they retook their places in the doorframe. I took one last glance at the sign before going in after her, making a neat part in the beads with my hands and pulling them to either side.
The first thing that hit me was the smell, like chocolate chip cookies and some kind of exotic spice mixed together. The next was a blast of cold air in my face as I cleared the wall of beads, and Emma inelegantly flapping her shirt against her chest.
"Glorious air conditioning!" Emma shouted to the ceiling, "I'd be wondering how they keep all the cold in here if I wasn't so grateful."
"It's part of the magic." We both jumped a little as a girl's voice sounded from somewhere in the back of the shop. That's when I took my first look around. From what I could see the place went much further back than it seemed from out front. It was set up like a library, every wall covered from ceiling to floor in shelves, but rather than books, they were filled up with the most random crap you could imagine. It was like a tornado tore through a neighborhood on garage sale day and dumped it all here.
The shop girl popped out from behind one of the shelves and approached us, pulling her straight black hair out of her eyes. Half of her head was shaved, and she had a pierced septum with a little silver nose-ring, "Hey guys! Welcome! Feel free to look around or whatever." She swung her weight around like someone who knew how to use their curves. And curves she had. With the tube top and skin-tight black jeans she was rocking I felt my self-esteem drop a few points just looking at her.
"Uh, thanks! We will." I responded, dumbly. At her say so Emma had wandered off without saying a word to go lose herself in one of the shelves low enough for her to reach. For a moment I looked around at the shelves and shelves of stuff before realizing that I still didn't exactly know what they were even supposed to sell. She must have noticed something from the look on my face.
"I could... show you around a little? If that would start you off?" God her voice was cute. I caught myself thinking that and shook my head a little before responding.
"Um, sure. What exactly do you sell? Like I know, "Magic stuff", but
really