Was it too much for me to ask for a simple answer from my comrade? As I sat across from him at the table, I couldn’t help but notice his silent staring.
“Are you in or not, John?” I asked, giving off a questioning tone, mixed with a hint of disbelief.
The man sitting across from me frowned, folding his arms and leaning his elbows on the table. “Sorry, Syd, I’d rather not go into that freaky antique shop ever again. I’m already scarred from the last time we went in there.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“Why not? I’m just going in to get that necklace, then I’m heading out of there! I just wanted a friend to go in with me.” I retorted with my mouth twisted in a fake pout. “What makes you scared of a little ol’ antique shop?”
“I dunno… maybe the fact that the owner turned me into a frog!” John slammed a fist on the table, glaring at me with disdain.
“But you’re… a human.” I exclaimed, cocking a brow at the weird statement of my friend. “Well, as human as you can be, at least.”
John put a hand to his head. “Just call me a human for now, okay? And, no, I ain’t goin’ anywhere near that dang shop again! I’m fine with being a human… or a werewolf… but not a frog!”
I scooted my chair away from the table, breathing out heavily as I lifted myself to my feet. “Suit yourself then, John. I’m going to head there right now. On my own… because my friend isn’t willing to come with me.”
“You can’t guilt trip me into going with yah, Syd.” John exclaimed, staring me in the eyes again, making me feel uncomfortable. “I’m adamant in not going, and that’s final!”
I glowered down at John. I had figured he would not fall for my attempt to guilt him, but he didn’t have to call me out on it, did he?
Turning around, I left the room with my tongue clenched between my teeth to avoid me from retorting to the man. When I had opened the door and left the building I was in, I finally let out my frustrations. “Stubborn werewolf. Not even hot cocoa got him to go!”
Along with my attempt to guilt John into coming along, I also wanted to coax him by buying him some hot cocoa at the nearby café. He seemed to enjoy it, so I thought it would have been enough….
But no…. I thought about my goal as I stepped in front of the aforementioned antique shop. I found myself shivering slightly as I stared at the dilapidated shack with its worn sign that had the words “Antique Shop” hand-painted onto it. Not even hot cocoa could coax the werewolf into a building like this one.
Ring! Ding! Ding! The door chimed as I opened it. Peering in through the door, I looked around to see if there was anything suspicious.
Other than the weird knick-knacks that dotted the shelves, there appeared to be no cause for alarm. “Okay. So far so good.” I opened the door more and walked inside. “Just buy the necklace and you’re good to go!”
“Necklace?” A voice asked, seeming to come from my left. Its sudden gruel, and harsh tone made me jump. I spun around to face the owner of the voice, finding that an old man was staring at me with squinted eyes.
“Ahh! Y…yes!” I stammered, looking into the store to see if the necklace was in the vicinity. “The… n…necklace with that jade claw on it? It was ten dollars.”
“I know what you are talking about.” The old man replied, giving me a disturbingly wrinkled smile. “It’s in the second room over there!” He pointed behind me at a room filled with mirrors and mannequin heads draped with jewelry.
“T…thanks.” I gave an awkward nod before turning around and quickly shuffling over to the other room. I knew what the necklace looked like, but it took me several minutes of rifling through globs of jewelry to find it hanging from the side of a vanity mirror.
“This isn’t where it was before.” I muttered to myself. Did someone look at it before me? I took it off the vanity and stared at it. Beads of matt, green-black lined the necklaces string, giving it the appeal of age. It was questionable if the necklace was truly aged, given the string was made of a thin piece of nylon, but that didn’t matter to me. What mattered was the jade claw. Sitting at the bottom center of the necklace was the lustrous piece of art, having the cool, rough feel of hand-carved mineral embellishing its pale green surface.
“That’s a claw, alright.” I smirked, clenching the claw in my hand. “Wonder if it’s made of real jade.” I held the necklace at arm’s length. While staring at it, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, the shop owner seemed to have disappeared.
“Uh… what? Where’d he go?” I asked. “Does he trust me not to steal this?” I asked, looking down at the necklace. “I know I wouldn’t, but still….” I took a look at all the mirrors in the room, all facing toward me to give me a view of myself.
“Huh. While there are mirrors around me, I guess I might as well try the thing on, right?” I shrugged at myself in the vanity mirror before gingerly fitting the necklace over my head and letting it slide down until it rested around my neck.
“Not too gaudy, and it’s green, too! Perfect!” I smiled a big toothy grin, feeling proud of myself for finding something so astounding in an antique store.
“Sir?” I called, turning away from the mirror. “I’m ready to make a purchase!”
After a moment of silence, I called again. “Sir?” I scratched my head, finding that my rising nervousness was making it itch. Why would a store owner just leave randomly when a customer was inside? That was bad business practice.
I gave a gulp and felt the itch on my head intensify. While it was slightly noticeable before, it became more prominent now that I noticed it more fully. Naturally, I lifted a hand up and scratched it.
“Ow!” I gasped, recoiling my hand from my head. Did I just stab my head? Why did it feel like it was poked with a needle? Staring, dumbfounded at my hand, I was having trouble believing what I was seeing. My finger nails. They were long… and pointed. Not to mention my hand seemed to have more black hairs on it than usual.
“Aha… oh…. I think I’m hallucinating.” While both of my hands seemed to be growing black hair, I still decided to wrap one hand around the other. “Sir! You wouldn’t happen to have a phone per chance, would you? I’m feeling a bit… sick.”
In reality, the sick feeling I had was from rising nervousness. It was hard to explain, but something felt off, and it wasn’t just the growing black hairs on my hand. But, what was it?
I felt my nose being pushed by something. I didn’t exactly know what, but it was bothering me enough to me lift my hand up to it and rub it. It felt rough. But… why?
“The owner turned me into a frog!” John’s words rang in my head, making my eyes widen with panic.
“He can’t be serious! I mean, how could he turn into a frog?” I looked at my reflection in the mirror, horrified fascination taking over me. To my chagrin, my face was starting to turn a black color as fine follicles of hair creeped their way out of every inch of my elongating face.
“No! No, no, no!” I spoke in a rushed tone, hobbling over to the mirror and placing my blackening hands on it. I could only watch helplessly as my face continued to contort. My nose pushed itself up and shrank down until it was covered by a black, leathery skin. My mouth slowly crept out as my lips disappeared, giving way to a pair of puffy black patches of fur with coarse nylon-looking strands of hair.
I couldn’t comprehend what was happening to me. This was not what I had in mind. I only wanted a necklace! I didn’t want this to happen! My hands left the glass of the mirror and placed themselves on my ears. Whether or not to find a better position, my ears had decided to start migrating to the top of my head, slowly and rounding out as they went.
RIP! I cringed as I felt sudden pressure on the lower half of my body, emanating from my feet and my backside. I already had a good idea of what was happening, but when I saw a pair of white claws protruding from my sneakers, I knew my feet were morphing.
As for my backside, I found a long, rope-like tail appeared, curling down toward the ground and stopping just short of the carpet below.
I looked back at the mirror, the rest of my curiosity being replaced with horror. My face. Where was my face? It was changing before, but now… it looked like… like….
I stopped. What was I? I cocked my head curiously, doing my best to stand up straight, but finding I had to adjust my center of balance to not fall over. It must have had something to do with the strange feet I had sticking out of my sneakers.
“Am I a… cat?” I placed my hand in front of my face, staring at the strange black fleshy protrusions coming off of it. Paw pads…. My paw pads.
“I…. I don’t believe this!” I grimaced at my reflection in the mirror, still coming to terms with the fact that I had turned into a… cat… thing.
I closed my eyes and rubbed them. “Bad dream, right? That’s what this is? I’ll wake up and see that I was just having strange delusions! Yeah! Haha! Yeah!” I opened my eyes again. To my dismay, I still had the face of a cat. More specifically, a black panther.
“Gah! No! Not what I wanted!”
“Is the necklace not to your liking?” A voice asked from behind me.
My newly-formed hackles suddenly raised as I spun around. “What? Do you not SEE what has happened to me?” I gestured to my body and how I was now covered in black fur.
“I see someone trying on one of the necklaces I am selling.” It was the old man. He certainly picked a terrible time to appear. “It looks good on you!”
“Change me back!” I said, feeling the man was ignoring me.
“There’s no need to shout, sir!” The old man said, eyes widening a slightly larger amount. “If you don’t want the necklace, then give it to me and I will put it away. We can find something else you-“
“I don’t care about the necklace! Change me back!” I felt my lips curl up as a sneer appeared on my face.
“Please give me the necklace, sir.” The man said, holding his hand out.
My snarl faded as my head cocked to the side. “Y… you’re saying the necklace causes this? Will it change me back if I take it off?”
I stared down at the matt, green piece of jade around my neck. Giving a bit of hesitation, finding it still looked wonderful, I gingerly lifted it up and over my head, then placed it in the man’s palm.
“O…okay.” I stated. “Now what?” I stared down at my tail, seeing it was still there.
“We find you something else you’d like, sir.” The man shook his head. “I’m so sorry that you were displeased with the necklace. You’d not be the first to dislike how it looks when you put it on.”
“No! The necklace looks amazing!” I frowned. “I just didn’t expect… this.” I gestured to my body again, hoping he’d acknowledge it this time.
“If the necklace looked good, why do you not want it?” The man thought for a moment. “Oh! Was it an allergy? I know it’s strange, but some people have an allergy to jade!
“No! I don’t mean the allergy!” My snarl reappeared. “I’m talking about literally being turned into a panther! How do I change back? I took the necklace off! I want to be me!”
The man cocked his head in the same way I had done. “Is it too… pricey?” His head lowered and he looked visibly distraught. “Oh! I am so sorry! I’m still trying to work out the price of my wares! Does seven dollars work instead?”
“No! The price is fine! I just….” I bit my tongue, as I had done with John. Looking down at my fur-covered fist, I took a deep breath.
“Would five dollars work?” The man asked, seeming to sink lower in posture than he already had. “I can’t go lower than that, I’m afraid. I still need the money to pay for food.”
I gritted my teeth. “It’s a cursed necklace, isn’t it and I’m stuck like this?”
The man frowned, looking away. “I’m sorry…. I can’t go lower than five dollars. ” This wasn’t a direct response from him, yet it seemed to answer my question.
“Urgh.” I snarled again. “Fine….” I looked at myself in the mirror. “I’ll… take the necklace….” I sighed, examining my new body. Black fur covered almost all of it. My head looked like a cat’s head. My feet were now replaced with big black paws that shot through my shoes. I was no longer human.
I finished the transaction with the man, still trying to figure out how to explain this to anyone. No one would believe that a human turned into an anthropomorphic panther, would they? Maybe John would… he was a werewolf, after all. The supernatural was not foreign to him in the slightest, so maybe he knew how to fix this?
“Have a good day, mister cat!” The man said with a wry grin, interrupting my thoughts. “That necklace will look wonderful on you.”
“Yeah…. Thanks.” I grabbed the bag that contained my new necklace and quickly left the antique shop, heading straight to the café in hopes John was still there. My ears flushed hot with mortification. I should have listened to John, but it was just a necklace. All I wanted was that simple jade trinket, yet here I was….
I got a little more than I had bargained for.

~~~~~

This is my half of a TF story trade with  xsyd!