The Costume Maker

Monsters are not real, Allen. They are figments of our imagination.

It was on this belief that Allen MacLean built his life, becoming a costume maker whose business thrived especially during Halloween.

When he received an invitation from his rival, Con Crochetti, to attend his “epic” show at Vane House, he almost turned it down. After all, he was considered the best in the city with Crochetti a close second. What could the pompous man possibly have to show him that would be new or better than his own creations?

Then Mr Aldridge Vane called, hiring him to oversee the masquerade show without Crochetti’s knowledge.

“As you know, I like to have the best and prefer to keep my options open,” Mr Vane explained smugly. “That's what has kept me wealthy, MacLean. Options.”

When he arrived at Vane House, it seemed everything was set for a scare show. He had spent eleven years making people gasp and sometimes scream. He knew every trick: the hidden wire, the pepper's ghost, the actor in the dark suit who sells the scare.

At midnight, when the lights went out and candles in every corner lit at once, he arched his eyebrows cynically at Crochetti's new style until something walked in through the double doors.

It was nine feet tall, robed in what looked like wet bark and crowned with a stag’s skull. Every step landed with a heavy thud as it marched towards the stage. Guests gasped at first then broke into laughter and applause.

Allen did not as the hairs on the back of his neck and arms stood on end. Stilts, he thought. Good ones. How did Crochetti build the jaw? That articulation is beautiful.

The laughter thinned in the room as the figure gazed at them all. A few people stopped mid-giggle and their eyes went flat as glass like a mannequin. Others closed their eyes and slumped on their seats. Soon, the room became silent including Mr Vane and his family, except Allen MacLean.

The figure turned back and Allen did what he always did with a costume. He looked for the seam because every illusion has one, a zipper at the nape or a join at the wrist.

He walked straight up to it because walking toward the lie was how you broke it, and reached for the robe. The bark was warm and alive. Under his fingers, something pulsed, slow and heavy with every breath the figure drew.

Allen sharply pulled his hand back and looked up at it. This was no costume and nothing was ever going to be the same for him. I've been wrong, he thought with clear calm. About all of it.

Fear arrived in him at that moment the way icy cold water shocks a warm body. Every certainty he had ever held flew away and he became that seven-year-old boy again who had once checked under the bed at night and had been told firmly that monsters were not real.

The figure lowered itself until its sockets gazed into Allen's wide eyes. “Do you know how long it has been since anyone stood this close and thought me false? It's the gravest insult.” Its gravelly voice grated on Allen's senses.

“I'm sorry,” Allen blurted, surprised to find he meant it. “I make things like you for money and never believe in them.”

The stag skull tilted and the sockets rolled. “Everyone here is wearing a lie, pretending to be what they are not but you came as yourself. Hmmm. Why should I spare you?”

Allen knelt on the ballroom floor, his knees knocked on the marble as he looked up. “Because I'm the first person tonight who believes you. I'll tell people the truth and won't be laughed out of it.”

The silence went on until the candle flames rose high and steadied. “Hmm,” said the figure. “Faith from an arrogant man who builds fakes. That's rare.” It straightened to its full height and started to march out of the ballroom. “Done.”

The guests blinked awake, laughing again and searching for the figure.

Allen stood on the stage still in shock, his hands shaking when Crochetti approached him. “What are you doing on my stage? Get off. The show must go on.”

He stepped back and sat beside the fog machine until dawn when the show ended, his hands shaking, promising himself never again to look for a seam.

I hope you enjoyed reading this short piece. It's inspired by the Freewrite #dailyprompt phrase "costume”.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

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