Chapter 3

A few days later, my older sister Emily came bursting into the house in tears.

It turned out her boyfriend of four years had dumped her. The reason he gave tore her apart.

He told her she was ugly.

"Mom! I don't want to live anymore! Emily and I came from your belly, so why are you so breathtakingly beautiful while the two of us were born looking so hideous?! Are we even your real daughters?!"

Mom's eyes flickered, dodging her gaze as she said dismissively, "Oh, please. It's just because your father was so ugly. He passed down his miserable genes to you girls."

Yet for as long as we could remember, we had never once laid eyes on our father.

"I don't care! Mom, everyone says wearing your silk nightgowns makes a woman beautiful! I want to wear one! I want to be as gorgeous as those foot-spa hostesses next door! I'll make Austin crawl back to me on his knees!"

Emily threw a fit, begging for a gown, but Mom flatly refused. She wouldn't offer an explanation either, repeating over and over that it was for Emily's own good.

Emily wouldn't take no for an answer. In the dead of night, she dragged me out of bed, demanding that I help her steal one.

"I know where Mom hides the silk gowns. They're down in the warehouse basement. Once I steal one and put it on, I'll have Mom's flawless face and curvy body. When Austin sees me, he won't be able to keep his hands off me!"

Emily held her flushed cheeks, lost in fantasies of a passionate future with her boyfriend.

Terrified of being caught by Mom, I tried desperately to pull her back.

In the dead of night, the warehouse felt infinitely more sinister than during the day. When the hidden door swung open, the narrow corridor ahead was pitch-black. We stared into the murky basement, exchanging uneasy glances, neither of us daring to step down.

Eventually, Emily's burning desire for beauty overcame her fear. Running her trembling palms along the cold wall, she crept down the stairs step by step like a blind girl navigating a void.

She looked back at me with every single step, her face pale as a ghost, as if a monster lurked in the dark below, waiting to swallow her whole.

A strange prickle of unease washed over me too.

I had seen regular tailors make clothes before. People always hung their fabrics out in the sun and open air so they wouldn't smell musty.

Why were Mom's silk nightgowns kept hidden away in such a damp, terrifying crypt?