The Gallery

Chapter 1
Whole Story

Chapter Description: Whole Story

“Hey Makayla!” Tammy called out. “Wait up!”

Nova rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “That’s not my name, Tammy.” the goth girl said. “You know that.”  Despite herself, she let Tammy catch up to her instead of picking up the pace. 

“It is, legally,” Tammy said, breathlessly. “That’s what it is on your birth certificate. On your social security number. Driver’s license.  It’s what’s going to be on your diploma in a couple months.”

“Still not my real name,” Nova countered. “Not who I am on the inside. Not who I want to be.”

“Then why haven’t you changed it?” Tammy asked, sounding like a teasing brat. “Hm?  Hm?”

“Because that takes money I don’t have yet,” Nova said frankly. “And I don’t have my own place yet.”  Nova could list off two or three more reasons why, but she didn’t need to.

“Yeah,” Tammy admitted. “That’s fair. Sorry, Nova.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nova said.  Tammy wouldn’t. They’d be having this exercise next week. It might last longer depending if Tammy wanted to find a way to really mince words. It didn’t help that Nova’s parents kept insisting that her Goth aesthetic was ‘just a phase’. Such was life.

They’d had this conversation at least once a week since 9th Grade. Tammy didn’t forget, she just liked being obnoxious sometimes. Okay a lot of times. Most times. Tammy Greene was the annoying little sister Nova never had asked for, but they’d been stuck together since Kindergarten. 

Nova attributed Tammy’s less flattering qualities to the fact that she was something of a brainiac academically. Straight A’s, all Honors and AP courses, and being in the running for Class Valedictorian came at the cost of Tammy having next to no social skills.

Some might say that Nova didn’t have room to talk, but there was a difference between not having social skills and not liking most human beings. Nova dressed in all black not because she was depressed, but because she found a deep beauty in the macabre and the sad. Humans were often their truest selves when they were at their lowest points or thought no one was looking.  Everything else was just fake.

Speaking of Fake, yay for College Fairs. County wide, all the highschool seniors were allowed to skip as long as they submitted proof that they were at the Fair.  The grounds were dotted with booths and tents from every college in the state and a few that were right on the border.  Highschool kids milled around talking to recruiters and college folk about the different programs, tuition costs, and scholarship opportunities.

They were all the same to Nova: Come to our school. Here’s our colors. We have a mascot. Behold our pamphlets containing racially and ethnically diverse models wearing our school colors and smiling.  You can get good degrees if you pay us money, or kinda good degrees if you pay less money. If you order now we’ll also throw in a set of steak knives.

“Worst. Fair. Ever.” Nova snarked.

“I know,’ Tammy agreed. “Mostly community colleges.”  Tammy had already been accepted to Yale during her junior year. She didn’t need to be here. Frankly, it blew Nova’s mind that she was even here. 

“Why are you here?” Nova asked.

“What else was I gonna do?” Tammy replied. “Teach Mr. Stowers how to actually do calculus? No. No, no. Never again.”

In truth, Nova suspected it was because Tammy had imprinted on her.  They’d known each other since Kindergarten, declared each other BFF’s and Tammy had taken it to heart, no matter how wildly their paths diverged. Nova had gotten into poetry, theater, and art. Tammy was still the rigorous academic specializing in the STEM fields.  They had almost nothing in common anymore, but Tammy was just still drawn to Nova like a lightbulb battered bug.

Three more familiar faces worked their way through ever mingling tides of eighteen year old bodies.  “Hey, Nova,” Charlie said. He winked at Tammy. “Sup Lil Sis?”

“I keep telling you, I’m three minutes older!” Tammy flustered. “Mom said so too!”

Charlie was Tammy’s twin brother, and the brawns to her brains. Big and muscular, but surprisingly fast, Charlie had played Varsity since freshman year and had already broken the school record for most interceptions in a single season. He had at least three separate colleges from different conferences making offers but he’d yet to accept one. 

Nova didn’t much care for Charlie since they’d both gone through puberty.  He’d become a different kind of cocky from his sister that Nova didn’t much care for. That and he had a very particular odor about him that never seemed to fade. 

Charlie wore his letterman jacket everywhere, because of course he did, and he never washed it either, because of course he didn’t.  Chloe, his girlfriend, didn’t seem to mind the smell too much.  She hung onto his every word, and as of this very moment, was hanging from his arm. With as big as Charlie was and with how petite Chloe was, he could probably carry her around in his arms if he wanted to. They were almost a cute couple. Almost.

“Hey Nova, hey Tammy,” Chloe waved. Her voice was much too high, almost squeaky. That had to be an act of some kind. So fake. Faker than the cheap costume pearls she wore around her neck. She also had an annoying habit of checking her makeup every five minutes.
Not that Charlie was any better. He was constantly combing his hair and peacocking.

“So,” Charlie said. “This place kind of sucks, right?” He moved his arm to indicate the entire fairgrounds.  It was a big sweeping gesture, because everything Charlie did was big. He’d turned man spreading into a conversational art form.  Case in point, he and Chloe fell in line with the girls and  draped his arm over Tammy’s shoulder. “No spinny rides. No roller coasters. No face painters? Nothing. I don’t think these guys know.what fair means.”

Nova stepped to the side so she could get away from the pungent odor of uncontrolled glands, ax body spray and unwashed jacket.

“A fair can be a gathering for commercial purposes instead of entertainment,’ Tammy grumbled.

Charlie scoffed. “I don’t see any commercials. Not even a T.V.”

Chloe giggled like she thought Charlie was being clever.  He probably wasn’t.

“Learn what words mean!” Tammy shouted.

Nova tried to take another step sideways, lest anyone see her associated with this bad comedy act, and almost slammed directly into Jane.  “Whoah!” 

“Sorry!” Nova yelped. “Didn’t see you there.”

“It’s cool,” Jane said. “No harm done.”  Jane was the school’s token lesbian, and had the butch haircut and clothing to prove it.  Most people assumed she was a boy before she opened her mouth. “What are you losers doing here?” she asked jokingly. Jane had moved in from out of state, and she and Nova had clicked with their mutual disdain for most people.

“Free day off and nothing better to do,” Charlie answered.

“Yeah. Same.”

Nova wanted to argue the point, but truthfully didn’t see any. It’s not like she was seriously looking at any of these universities. Nova wasn’t sure if she wanted to go to college at all. If she did, it would primarily be to get as far away from this place as she could and none of the colleges advertising here fit that criterion.  She had a feeling Jane was in the same boat, albeit for different reasons.

“Mind if I hang?” Jane asked.  No one objected and so she slinked in among them.

For a time they meandered about., doing what came naturally: Gossipping. Gawking. Pretending to show interest in things that they weren’t even remotely interested in so that they could mock it later.  They were all eighteen, but they were teenagers all the same. Highschoolers too..

“You’d think they’d have a food court,” Charlie said. “Turkey legs or something.”

“It’s not that kind of fair,” Tally said.

Chloe laughed and hugged her boyfriend closer. “He’s just joking,”

No he wasn’t. But Nova kept the thought to herself.  They lingered on the very fringes of the fair grounds.  Sadly it was on the edges that were farthest away from the fairground parking lot.  They’d seen all there was to see, but no one was quite comfortable with leaving yet. No one wanted to be the first to leave the party, even if it was a bad one.

Jane pointed to something that didn’t quite fit in. “What’s that?”

The group looked in the direction she’d indicated. It was a double long trailer, the kind commonly seen being pulled by semi-trucks all along the hallways. It rested at the very edge of the parking lot, its sides painted to make a stunning mural of the same woodland scene multiple times but in different seasons.  Winter blossomed into spring, intensified, into summer, and faded into fall. The trees were in the same location, but the color palettes, position of the sun, and fauna changed.  Furthermore, Nova noticed, the seasons seemed to bleed into one another.  Near the border of Winter and Spring, the snow seemed patchier, with little sprouts sticking up out of the ground.

Truth be told, it looked more like the kind of thing that would be hauling things to and from the kind of carnival Charlie had desired.  What signaled its inclusion in this particular gathering was the banner hanging from its side. 

“Arcadia Academy of the Fine and Vulgar Arts,” Nova read the banner aloud. 

Tammy harrumphed.  Folding her arms over her plain white blouse.  “Never heard of it.”

“Me neither,” Jane agreed.  The way she said it, made it sound like a good thing.

“I like paintings,” Chloe said. “Do you think they have some paintings?”

Charlie answered for everyone. “I dunno. Looks less boring than every other fucking place.  Let’s check it…”  Nova was three steps ahead of everyone. This looked interesting! 

The rear end of the trailer had been converted so that in place of a drop down sliding metal sheet, a false wall had been installed with steps leading up to a door.  Whatever this thing held, its contents were small enough to fit through a regular sized door.

The door was open with a welcome banner draped above it.  Nova was first up the steps. She found herself possessed of a strange giddiness. What strange kindred spirit would she find inside?

To her slight confusion and disappointment, waiting for her was a girl about her age, maybe a tad older, sitting behind a desk.  Unlike the other college students peddling pamphlets with the recruiters, this one was dressed infinitely more casual.  She wore paint splattered overalls, and her hair was dyed bright neon pink.

Actually…this might not be her particular aesthetic, but it was still a sign of a free spirit.

The others caught up to Nova as she walked up to the desk.

“Hey hey,” The girl said. “I’m Erin. May I have your name?”

  “I think I’ll keep mine, but I’ll tell you,” the goth girl joked. “It’s Nova.

College girl got the most sour expression on her face at a harmless fucking dad joke. “Thank you for telling me.  Come to check out the exhibition?”

“So…is this like a fancy art college or something?”  Charlie asked. “For freaks and geeks and glee kids?”  He looked at Tammy and Jane.

“Some taken,” they said together. 

Even adoring Chloe felt a need to peel herself off of her boyfriend.  “You are such a guy, sometimes,” Chloe said.  It did not sound like a compliment.

Charlie immediately turned into a kicked puppy dog. “My bad…”

“Are there brochures,” Nova asked, “or…”

“This is more of an art exhibition,” the girl behind the desk explained.  She thumbed behind her to a black velvet curtain. “Was kind of hoping we’d get a better spot, if I’m being honest. But we’ve got some really cool pieces.  Interested in taking a look?”

Nova felt her face fall. “So you’re not recruiting?”

“We’re always recruiting,” Erin said.  She removed a clipboard from the desk and slid it across to Nova. “Just put your name here for our attendance logs, and see what I can dig up while you’re in there.”

“Attendance logs?” Tammy asked. “Why?”

“To prove we had visitors, mostly. Justify the funding. All that.”  She tapped the clean piece of paper.  “Just put your name down here and you can go on in, and take a look.”

Nova sniffed and wrinkled her nose. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something didn’t feel right. Also she could swear something foul.  It wasn’t rotting corpse foul; closer to the odor that seemed to come from Charlie two inches in every direction. Something unclean…but natural.

“Fine,” Nova said, and scrawled some illegible gibberish on the clipboard. The others followed suit, deciding it was better than nothing.

Their host didn’t move from her seat.  “Okay,” she said, jerking her head. “Go on back. Have fun and play nice.”

Nova pushed back the curtain and went in.  “Play nice?”  Jane said as soon as the curtain had closed. “What was that about?”

“Maybe this is a modern art or experimental exhibit?” Tammy supposed.

“Looks like a boring old art museum to me,” Charlie said.  He was right.  It was dimly lit and air conditioned, but as far as any of them could tell, it was just a long hallway full of painted pictures. 

Chloe was already checking her makeup in the new, slightly dimmer lighting of the trailer.  “It’s not that bad.”  Hard to tell if she was talking about her makeup or the exhibit.

“Let’s check it out,” Nova said. “Maybe something will speak to us. Or like there’s a hidden theme or something.” Gosh she hoped so.

There was definitely a theme, if an unexciting one. Location,Location Location: Lots of landscapes and depictions of static places. Nova noted paintings of cabins in the woods, Roman-esque ruins, jungle settings, cityscapes both modern and futuristic, tropical islands, and so forth. Admittedly, the one that looked like the inside of a dilapidated farmhouse from pretty much every horror movie ever held Nova’s interest, but there was no action. None of them had any people or animals or whatever in them.  Everything was static and still life; the most uninteresting fictional travelog.

“What’s with the titles?” Tammy wondered.  Nova hadn’t even remembered to read them.  “Lumira? Vente? Arachne? Strata? Raksha & Pavo?”  Tammy shook her head. “They sound like proper nouns, but the pictures are all empty?”

“Places can be proper nouns,” Jane said. “That, or maybe they people in the paintings are all invisible.” She joked.

Speaking of invisible… “Where’d Chloe go?” Charlie asked.

The teenagers all did a double take, looking left and then right.  It’s not as if the mobile gallery were big enough to get lost in. Yet, Chloe was nowhere in sight.

“Hey!” Nova said.  “That’s her purse!”

Sure enough, Chloe’s purse was lying neatly by its lonesome on the floor, directly in front of one of the mobile gallery’s paintings.  As if drawn to it, the four of them gathered around it. Tammy picked it up.  “It looks too neat to have just been dropped,” she said. “Maybe she put it down and forgot it?”

Chloe was bubble headed enough to do that, hypothetically.  “Where’d she go, though?” Jane asked.

“Maybe she went to the bathroom?” Charlie guessed.

Nova rolled her eyes. “Why wouldn’t she take her purse with her?”

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she looked at all the water in that painting and had to go.” Again, he shrugged. “Maybe?  Or maybe it was girl stuff or whatever. I dunno.”

“Dude,” Jane called him out. “You can be such a tool.”

“Whatever,” Charlie grunted, I’m gonna see if there’s a bathroom over here at the end.

The three young ladies shook their heads at one another.  “Don’t look at me,” Tammy said. “I’m only genetically connected to him.”  The group forgot about Charlie and went back into the painting where they’d found Chloe’s purse. A placid beach scene if there ever was one. Fairly boring, really. 

“Sedna,” Nova read the plaque. “What’s a Sedna? Is it the name of the beach? Or the artist or what?”

“Not relevant,” Tammy replied. “It’s just a pai…” Tammy stopped. What’s that sound?”  The three stayed completely still, and in the silence they heard the faint cawing of gulls and the dull whooshing sounds of waves crashing on the beach. 

“Sound effects?” Jane wondered. “Maybe they put speakers behind the painting or something?”

Nova squinted her eyes. Looking at the painting from a certain angle made her eyes hurt, almost like she was staring at the sun.  Her skin tingled, albeit not in an uncomfortable way, reminiscent of the feeling of heat reflecting off of white sand.  “What…is…?”

WHOOOOSH!

A powerful force, like a riptide, yanked Nova off her feet towards the painting. She let out a scream of shock and surprise. Two skinny arms wrapped around her waist with Tammy instinctively reaching out to save her, but the extra weight failed to anchor either of them.  Nor did it save Jane.

A flash of blinding light engulfed them, followed by a subtle yet distinct change in the air around them.  Cold recycled air conditioning was replaced with warm breezes that whipped through their hair, causing Tammy and Nova’s skirts to flap, as well as Jane’s baggy shirt.

“The fuck was that?” Jane asked. She turned to face the ocean.

Tammy looked up and adjusted her glasses. “Those are seagulls…” she said, more to herself than the group. 

“No shit,” Jane said, still entranced by the ocean. “Last I checked, we don’t have any oceans nearby. So where fuck are we?”

Before Nova had dived into the works of beautiful self-torturing despair by Edgar Allen Poe, she had taken a swim through the silly absurdities of Lewis Carol.  Their works were not so dissimilar, she found. Carol simply chose to externalize nihilism where Poe internalized.  “Guys…” she said. “I think we’re in the painting.”

Tammy looked down from the sky. “Impossible! That’s just impossible.”

“Yeah,” Jane. “There weren’t people in the painting.” She pointed and the group followed her aim.  In the middle distance, farther along the shoreline, were what were very obviously people who appeared to go about their business.

“What do we do?” asked Tammy.  “We…we…we’re not at all dressed for beach weather.”  In lieu of being unable to wrap her brain around the impossible, Tammy’s mind leapt to other reasons to disengage lest she shut down completely.  No one was buying the flimsy excuse, however.

“Go say hi,” Nova said, simply. “Maybe they’ve seen Chloe.”  When in Wonderland, don’t stop to wonder.

“But…but…but…”  Tammy was already leaning back, digging her heels in the sand. “The further we get away from the…the…” she didn’t want to say ‘portal’, such dreck was for science fiction.  “We popped up here. If we’re going to leave, shouldn’t we stay in proximity?”

Jane was unusually quick to point out, “Doesn’t mean there’s only one way out.”

“But those people…” Tammy pointed to the figures in the distance.

Nova took her oldest friend’s hand. “Come on,” she said. “I didn’t hear any screaming. Nobody saw us. We can walk right up, ask where we are, ask how to leave, ask if they’ve seen Chloe.”  That was just barely enough for Nova.

The walk along the shoreline was longer than it seemed at first. What they hoped would take one minute, took closer to ten. Even that was more of a rough estimate. The walk gave them plenty of time to check their phones.  Painting or not, wherever they were didn’t have any kind of cell reception.  They might as well have had rocks in their pockets.

Their pace slowed as they drew closer.  The waves were further up the beach the more they closed in. The sand was becoming wetter and darker, almost muddy in some places.  All around their feet, shallow ankle deep pools started to dot the landscape and waves threatened to overtake their sneakers. None of them knew enough about the ocean to guess whether the tide was rising or falling, and it didn’t much matter, they supposed.  They wouldn’t be here long enough for it to be a factor.

The tide and the state of their shoes was the least of the group’s concerns, however. As they drew closer, and the silhouettes grew sharper, they realized that something was dreadfully peculiar.  Building sandcastles, running around giggling, and splashing in the shallow pools were young adults; men and women roughly their age.

They weren’t exactly dressed for the part, however. Many wore bright bucket hats with straps fastened to their chin.  Sunscreen was slathered on thick and pasty over many a face. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but a glimpse saw more than a few paraded around with inflatable water wings on their biceps, or bulky life jackets on their torsos.

“Who our age needs floaties?” Jane scoffed to herself. “Is this a joke or something?”

It was Nova who spotted the biggest reddest flag.  “Is that a diaper?” Nova grimaced.  She motioned to a young man with his back turned to them, squatting in the sand on his haunches and digging a hole with a tiny shovel and bucket.  Out from under his baggy swimsuit, peeked something blue and padded. 

Nova didn’t have any little brothers or sisters but she had been to the public pool enough times to recognize a swim diaper when she saw one.  This one just looked a lot bigger.

“If that isn’t,” Tammy gasped, “I bet that is.”

Beside them a young lady lifted up her baggy white t-shirt to prevent it from getting splashed by an oncoming wave.  It was very clearly a pull-up style swim diaper, decorated with little fishes.

That’s what was off: Every single person around them, playing happily in the sand and shallows, was dressed like a toddler might be on a day at the beach.  Extra sunscreen and shade protection for sensitive skin, bright and cute colors that made them easy to spot should they toddle away. Bathing suits adorned with children’s cartoon characters, flotation aids to prevent drowning, and padded bottoms to make sure that no nasty surprises were left on the sand.

Across the shore, everyone the three of them laid eyes on was very obviously diapered. Even the girls their age wearing bathing suits- gaudy frilly one pieces mostly- had a tell tale padded bulge along their backside and a hint of aquamarine peeking out around the legs that clashed with the rest of their outfit.  The boys who wore bathing suits were more discreet, but it didn’t take more than a glance to see the waistband of the diaper poking up out the top of a seawater drenched pair of trunks.  Most of the boys (and some of the girls) didn’t bother to wear bathing suits at all, instead choosing to tromp and splash along happily in nothing but colorful swim diapers.

“We are definitely not in a painting,” Jane said. “This has gotta be some weird convention or something.”

“How do you know?” Tammy asked, oddly curious.

“I’ve seen some shit online,” Jane answered matter of factly. “Just…not to this level.”

“Hey guys!” A familiar voice called out, causing the group to jump.  “Tammy! Jane! Nova! Over heeeeeeere!”

“CHLOE!”

They ran towards their friend, waving to her, ready to embrace her and tell her how worried they were.  They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw what she was wearing. Save for the fake pearl necklace, the clothes she’d been wearing were gone, not a trace to be found. In their place, Chloe was wearing something that might be deemed by the locals as ‘appropriate’.

Chloe’s makeup had been washed off, with gobs of sunscreen smeared on her face.
A bright, neon pink bucket hat rested over her curly red hair with decorative sunglasses laying over the brim.  Her bathing suit was a two piece, but it was hardly what one would call ‘sexy’ or even ‘mature’.  

Like her hat it was bright pink, with the covering Chloey from her shoulders down to just above her belly button. Needless frills ran along the shoulder straps and the hem, and cartoon starfish were painted over her petite breasts. The bottom half was much the same, frills wise, and the girls wondered to themselves how Chloe could possibly move around without having the inside of her thighs constantly tickled. 

Had Charlie been there, he would have noticed that it looked like she’d suddenly gained a few extra inches of junk in her trunk.  The bottom was less of a bathing suit and more of a diaper cover.

Nova recoiled back a step, but in the recesses of her mind, an intrusive thought wormed its way inside her:  It really was a very good look for her.  It showed off her femininity, but kept her cool in the sun, and the bottom would be easy for a Mommy or Daddy to remove whenever she needed a change.  The goth girl cringed. Where had that thought come from?

“I’m building sandcastles,” Chloe said. “Wanna play?!”

“Hun, why are you dressed like that?” Jane asked. “You look like you’re two or something.”

As always, Chloe giggled as if a joke had been made. She grinned big and wide, and bounced a little, like a child barely able to contain their excitement.  “Nuh-uh!” Was all she said.

“Where’d you get that stuff?” Tammy asked.  “Why are you wearing that?”

Chloe looked down at herself, clearly confused. “I’m wearing them because it’s not bathtime, silly. Naked time isn’t allowed when I’m not getting washed.”


“Naked time?” Tammy and Jane parroted.

Nova found her voice. “Who put you in that outfit? Who dressed you up like that?” Strange how Nova phrased it, she realized. Why ask that question as if she didn’t or couldn’t dress herself?  From the lack of stares from her companions, no one else thought the phrasing was strange either, but even that was strange in its own way.

“Mommy got me this swimmy suit,” Chloe said proudly. “Isn’t it pretty?”

“And the diaper?” Tammy asked, unable to take her eyes off of Chloe’s bulging bottom.

Chloe pouted out her lip and blinked. “Mommy did, too. She gets all my diapers. Why? Who gets yours?”

“Mommy?” Jane asked. “I don’t think that word means what you think it means. “Who the hell is ‘Mommy’?

“I am!” a deep yet feminine voice bellowed and a shadow fell over them. Looming over the reunited quarted, still dripping from the waves, was what could only be described as a giant mermaid. With breasts wreathed in coral, and hair wrapped in seaweed, the woman stood high above them.  Despite her bottom half being decidedly fish-like, she sat on it perched and strong, muscular like a sea lion instead of flopping pathetically on her belly.

Chloe clapped her hands together and squealed. “Mommy!”

“Hello baby girl.  Mommy just had to run back and make sure your nursery was all ready. Do you want to go see it, or do you want to stay here a while longer and finish your sand castle?”

“Can my friends come play too, Mommy?” Chloe asked innocently, oblivious to the horror on her friends’ faces. “Can I show them my nursery?”

“Awww, I’m sorry, my little guppy.  Your friends aren’t quite ready to visit yet. Maybe later?”

“Mommy?” Nova spoke up. “You’re not her ‘Mommy’.  You’re…you’re…what are you?”

The mammoth mermaid looked down at her as if seeing Nova and the others for the very first time. “Of course I’m Chloe’s Mommy,” she said sweetly.  “I adopted her, didn’t I?  People call me Sedna.  ‘Miss Sedna’ to little boys and girls like you.  Chloe’s Mommy if that gets too hard.”  She seemed to bubble at the thought of being called that last one.

“You can’t adopt her,” Tammy pointed up at the giant fish lady.  “She’s eighteen! An adult!  You can’t adopt an adult.”

The mermaid chuckled good naturedly. “Oh, aren’t you precocious?  I just know somebody is gonna loooove you, little eel.”

“Sedna?” Nova thought out loud. “Like the name of the painting?”

“Painting?  Painting?!” the mermaid laughed as if Nova had just said something adorably funny.  Chloe laughed too, but it was the empty hollow laugh of a child who didn’t get the joke. 

“What’s so funny?” Jane demanded, trying to sound tough and failing.

“I’m so sorry, little ones,” the mermaid spoke over them.  “I would have happily adopted any one of you, but Chloe washed up into my arms first.”  As she said this, the foamy waves gave way to other merfolk, all titanic and monstrous in size, slithering up.  In lieu of screams, the diapered young adults threw up their hands and shouted with joy, as if witnessing the return of a loved one.

Nova’s jaw fell and her head went on a swivel at the madness practically engulfing them. People their own age were scooped up and hugged, or had their lips brought up to behemoth breasts which they happily began slurping and suckling on.  Still more got their bottoms pat and the back of the swim suits pulled back for inspection.  Beach towels were being flapped out and used as changing mats while people only a year or so older than she (if that) laid down to have their bottoms wiped.

“Babies!” It was Jane who said it. “They’re all babies!”  The disgust and fear coming out of her was palpable. It was almost a slur the way she intoned it.  Only children whose ages were still in the single digits could have such open vitriol for something they used to be.

“Oh, I think that’s enough excitement here,” the mermaid, Sedna, said, grabbing their attention. She picked Chloe up, and the already petite girl looked like an infant cradled in the giant’s arms.   “Off you go. I hope you find your Mommies and Daddies soon.” 

She placed her free hand under her chin, inhaled, and puckered her lips.  From out between them, a hurricane blew, hurling them through the air back the way they came. The trio of highschool seniors screamed.

Like a roller coaster, they were flipped end over end until they didn’t know which way was up.  Nova sat up from a mulchy dirt covered floor and grabbed at a painfully bruised ankle.  It felt like she’d caught her foot on a door frame or something. Or a picture frame.  “I think we’re in another painting,” she moaned, rubbing at her ankle through stark white socks that went all the way up past her knee.

She stood up and looked down at her feet. A stray thought: Hadn’t she chosen all black, eight down to her socks?  And why were her shoes so shiny? They were still black, but Nova could practically see her reflection in them. 

“Snap out of it,” Jane said, jostling Nova for the shoulder. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this place.”

The sounds crowing and the chittering of monkeys rattled from behind impossibly tall trees. “It looks like a rainforest,” Nova said.

Tammy indicated a bit of paved ground. “Rainforests don’t have sidewalks,” she said. “And the sounds sound automated. Canned.” An identical round of monkey chattering coming from the exact same place, gave truth to Tammy’s hypothesis. “ It’s more like a zoo. A poor imitation of real wildlife.”

“Okay,” Jane said. “But then where are the animals?”

“There,” said Nova.  Not thirty feet away from them, they spied an elaborate network of cages made of elaborate bamboo, with tiny creatures flitting about in them.

“Those aren’t animals…” Tammy said.  Without realizing it they began to move closer, drawn deeper and deeper by the sidewalk.  “They’re people.”

They swung from the tops of branches.  Pushed each other on tire swings. And slid splay legged down inclined planes. Others ran after one another in intricate games of tag. Encircling the cages were rows of monstrous sized benches.  Titan sized creatures with the brown feathered legs and wings of a bird, but the torso of a woman sat upon them, keeping careful watch of their happy prisoners.

“This isn’t a zoo,” Jane realized. “It’s a playground.”

Indeed, it was. The people running around were giggling, having the absolute time of their lives from the look and sounds of things.  None of them looked the least bit afraid of the sharp toothed monsters just on the perimeter.  They all walked with a familiar yet foreign wobble, too.  It was a toddler’s waddle, legs spread wide by thick poofy padded underwear.

None seemed bothered by it.  Disgustingly they watched a game of tag abruptly pause when an effeminate looking young man  clad in drab dirt colored shortalls stopped, popped a pacifier into his mouth and then squatted right there in the middle of everyone.

On one side of the playground, a row of strollers big enough to fit people in them sat, with occupants loading and unloading at a regular pace; each of them pushed there by a drab colored bird woman.

Nova looked over at a bench and almost gagged. One of the harpies openly vomited into an empty baby bottle, screwed the lid on and then fed it to a gurgling baby girl in a bonnet and indigo baby dress that was barely a curtain for her bulging wet diaper.  “Fucking sick!”

“You think that’s sick,” Jane pointed to. “That chick is getting her butt wiped in front of everybody.”  It was true. A little girl in a frilly green dress hiked up way past belly was in the middle of being changed, and no one seemed to mind.

“I don’t think that’s a girl,” Tammy said. “See?” When the not-so-little girl’s bottom was lowered down onto a fresh diaper and her legs were spread, the three young women got a good look at a penis.

“Tammy!” Nova said, shocked. “Transphobic much?”

“Hm?” Tammy blinked, adjusting her glasses. She glanced at her companions and took notice of their faces and back to the full grown adult getting their privates powdered by a feathery hand.  “No, not that!  That!” 

She pointed again and Jane and Nova finally saw the diaper bag the harpy had been taking the changing supplies from lying on the ground next to the bench. It was just as intricate and ornate as the dress the big baby was in, but it had a name stitched into it that they hadn’t expected.

“How many girls do you know named Jonathon?” Tammy asked.  She jerked her head to a plain brown one.  “Or boys named Kimberly?”

“Mommy! Mommy!” A deep voiced adult dressed like a kewpie doll reached out for the girls like a child wanting to pet a puppy. “Play?”

The harpy pulled the baby man back by just a single wrist. “No, no, Scott. Not till they’ve been adopted. You know better, little boy.”  She still had a soft, indulgent smile that cut down on the severity of her butch haircut.

With fresh eyes and a new perspective, the girls saw things in a new context. All the strange men and women were dressed like babies and toddlers, but the gender aesthetic was completely swapped.  Girls had short haircuts, some even buzzed, and wore baggy clothes in muted colors that hid their womanly curves.  Boys’ hair had been grown out and filled with ribbons and bows, and wore ornate festive dresses straight out of a beauty pageant. 

But in all other ways, certain gender stereotypes still played out.  Short haired, butch girls played jump rope with a vine and hopscotched on sidewalk chalk.  Boys still rough housed and played war games yelling “Bang!” and “You’re dead!” 

The trend didn’t end with the ersatz babies.  “Come to think of it,” Jane whispered to herself.  “These bird ladies do look kind of…like me.”  The Harpies likewise had what would be referred to as ‘butch’ haircuts. It was easy enough to assume they were women because all of the diapered humans called one ‘Mommy’. That, and they all had their naked breasts on display.

A pair of talons came down on Jane’s shoulders, and yanked her into the air.  Her screech of shock made every other resident of the playground look up in alarm, but only momentarily.  As soon as they saw what was happening there was a collective shrug.

“HEEEEEEEELP!”  Jane cried out, in the harpy’s grasp.   She let out another shriek while the bird thing flipped her up into the air, caught her and cradled her just as it landed.

This Harpy looked very different from the others.  The human parts were lithe and fit with rippling abs and long flowing blonde hair, and carefully applied makeup on his face reminiscent of the powders and markings that the aristocracy of various cultures had used for time immemorial. His (and it was decidedly a he) bird parts were bright and colorful, and as he stood to his full glorious height, his bright and shining tail feathers spread out in a fan.

“Worry not, my beautiful bouncing baby boy!” the peacock of a man crowed. “For you have been chosen, by the one, the only Pavo!”  He paused as if waiting for applause.

Jane kicked in his arms. “I’m not a boy, you jerk!”

“Now, now, now,” the peacock said. “I’m not falling for that one again. I know how you little ones work.” He let loose Jane’s legs and dropped her to her feet, but only so he could use his other hand to yank her baggy shirt up over her head. “You dress backwards because you don’t know any better. But that’s why you need…” Jane’s shirt came flying off, exposing her. “Boobs?”

Tammy and Nova blushed slightly and looked sideways. Something inside them was telling them not to interfere. Little girls shouldn’t bother grown-ups…

Braless, Jane covered herself with her arms and practically roared up at the bird man. “Told you, you idiot!”
“This isn’t fair!” the peacock harpy whined. “I wanted a boy! And the one time I got a clear shot, I picked a dull little girl that somehow managed to dress herself properly! What are the odds?!”

The two remaining girls snapped out of whatever trance of shock and spectacle they’d been placed under and made a mad dash towards the peacock thing and their friend.  “Grab Jane and run. I’m going for the shins!”

“Right!” Jane shouted back.

The pair ran straight towards the towering feathered grown up. They should have been faster than they were, but it was like the air around them worked against them. Perhaps it was some mesmerizing power peacocks had but neither girl’s legs moved quite right.

A blur of orange and black crossed their path and snatched their friend off the ground and away from the peacock creature. 

“Mine!” the muscular woman tiger creature proclaimed. “Mine!” She cradled Jane in her arms and cooed down at her. “Don’t worry, baby girl. Mama won’t let that icky peacock man adopt you!”  She lowered her head and nuzzled Jane.

“Raksha,” the peacock harpy screeched. “No fair! That was supposed to be my baby!”

“Get bent, Pavo.” The tiger Mommy growled. “You snooze, you lose.”

The male harpy puffed out his chest, in an attempt to be intimidating. “But I saw her first, Rakasha!!”

Unconcerned, she turned her back on him. “Pavo, you were disappointed with her the second you found out she was a girl.  You want a baby with Daddy issues?”  She looked down at Jane and regarded her. “Especially when she’s so very obviously a Mama’s girl .Isn’t that right my widdle cubby wubby?”

Despite the impossible circumstances, or perhaps because of them, Jane showed little fear and less patience. Even half naked and cradled in a monster’s arms, she remained more indignant than scared.  “I’m not your baby you maniac!” She shouted. “I’m not your baby. Not anybody else’s baby!  I’m!  Not! A! Baby!”

The peacock man stepped back and folded his tail feathers away.  “Nevermind, Raksha.” He said. “She’s a better fit for you.” He flew off with little pomp.

Nova and Tammy regrouped. “How are we taking on a tiger lady?” Tammy asked, at a total loss.

“No clue,” Nova admitted. 

Meanwhile, Jane was staring down the tiger with a woman’s face and not blinking.  “Not a baby!”

“Really?” The tigress cooed.  “My baby girl isn’t a baby?”  She set Jane back down on her feet.  “Explain this, then!”  Clawed hands quickly tore Jane’s pants asunder, leaving her completely naked save for her pink tennis shoes.  That and her diaper.

“Huh?” Jane gasped, turning several shades of crimson. Forgetting about her breasts, she tried and failed to use both hands to hide it.  “No! I don’t wear these! I don’t”  It didn’t even look like an adult diaper. It had cartoonish jungle leaves, the kind of foliage tigers stalked in, printed all over the front and back. “Mommy! I don’t!”

“Is that so?” the tiger Mommy said. She used a claw to pull back the waistband of Jane’s diaper.  “Not poopy,” she said.

Nova and Tammy gawked at Jane and one another. “I didn’t know Jane wore diapers,” Tammy said. “Is that why she wore those baggy clothes?”

The goth girl looked at Jane's pink sneakers and considered her buckle shoes with the frilly socks.  “She doesn’t. Or didn’t…”

“Guys!” Jane called out pathetically. “I’m not a baby! You gotta believe me!”

Raksha reached around and stuck her fingers inside the leakguards of Jane’s diaper. “Wet,” she said.  “But not too wet.”

Jane’s face sank. “Wet?! I’m not! I mean I’m not that wet…! I’m still a big girl! Right?”

Her friends didn’t shake their heads, but they were inclined to disagree.  Instead of properly terrified, the girls were more disappointed than anything else.

“Go on,” the tiger lady gave Jane’s padded butt a gentle pat. “You can go play on the playground for a little bit.”

Jane whirled around and clenched her fists.  “I don’t wanna go on the playground!”  She stamped her foot.

Her new Mommy stroked her chin. “I think you’re right. Maybe a nap first.”

“No!” Jane stomped her foot again. “No nap! NO! NAP! MOMMY!” She collapsed on the ground and started flailing.  Plenty of bawling sounds came out, but none of them were words.

The tigress seemed unimpressed.  “I know, I know,” she cooed over the now insensate girl.  “Mommy’s so mean for making you take a nap.  Maybe this will help.”  She moved the girl over to a naked, and decidedly human looking breast.  Jane’s cries ceased as she latched on to the nipple and started nursing.

“Now as for you two rascals,” the tiger woman stepped over to the cowering girls. “My new baby needs some time to adjust. Go play somewhere else.” 

Her free hand was a blur when it connected with the two of them. It should have killed them; broken both their necks.  What it did this time was hit them with so much force that they were knocked sideways and at such a velocity that when they landed, they almost didn’t realize that they’d been knocked into another painting.

“Ooooooh…” Tammy groaned. “That shouldn’t be possible.” 

“None of this should be possible,” said Nova.

“People don’t go into paintings,” Tammy said, rubbing her head.

“That’s the least weird part,” Nova replied.

“You mean with Jane and Chloe?” Tammy asked. “Yeah. Finding out they were big diaper babies all along was weird, but I think the painting thing is worse.”

Nova thought about it, and despite herself couldn’t think of a decent way to argue the point.  “Where are we now?”

Wherever they were was dark and mist laden, a quiet woodland scene in the middle of a moonlit night; a dark cabin being the only sign of humanity.  “Maybe we should go into that cabin?” Tammy suggested. “The lights are on.”

Nova yanked on her tightly braided pigtails. “That’s probably the last place we should go,” she said. “Do you want to deal with whatever’s inside?”

“No.” 

The two crinkled into the mist, but no matter how far they got, the cabin seemed to be the same distance away, like it was following them. Or maybe, they weren’t really going anywhere.  A figure in the mist caused the girls to freeze. Everything they’d met so far had been too friendly for their tastes.

“Hold on,” Tammy said. “I’d know that stupid jacket anywhere.” She dashed forward. “Charlie! Charlie!”

“Tammy!” Nova called out. “Wait!” 

Tammy chased after her brother, and Nova ran after Tammy. With a sticky, sickening ‘thuck’, the pair collided with something invisible yet sticky.  The collision didn’t hurt and the phrase ‘baby proofed’ popped into Nova’s mind uninvited. It peeled off their skin sickeningly when they backed away from it. Part forcefield, part cling wrap, it prevented the girls from going any deeper into the non-existent forest without hurting them. 

“Look!” Tammy said, putting her palm and pressing against the extra thick chunk of reality.  “It’s Charlie!”

Whatever was penning them in here also seemed to be part window, too.  When Nova and Tammy pressed their hands against the spot, they found they were able to peer into the trailer gallery where this whole mess had started.

Charlie walked around the narrow walkway, his head turning this way and that. His body language suggested that he was more lost in his own thoughts than anything, neither looking at the painting, nor for his friends.

“Hey Charlie!”  Nova called out. “Over here! Look! We’re in the painting!” 

Tammy slapped the invisible wall too. “Charlie! Can you hear us! Get us out of here!  I’ll let you call yourself the big brother!” 

Charlie walked on, oblivious. The barrier between this one and the real did not seem to transmit sound, only sight.  So it was particularly painful watching as a brightly colored feathered peacock hand reached out from a nearby painting and groped at the air.

“Turn around!”

“Run!”

It was too late.  Charlie was grabbed by the scruff of his letterman jacket and yanked into the painting they’d just come from.

Nova felt her last desperate hope go up in smoke.  “NOOOOOOOOOO!”

“That…that…that…!”  Tammy hopped up and down. “That dummy head!”

“Dummy head?” Nova repeated, feeling the word an odd choice.

“All he had to do was turn around! Big dumb poopy butt dum dum!  Now he’s gonna get put in a diaper and get turned into a baby! Just like Jane and Chloe!”

A switch flipped on in Nova’s head. “I thought you said Jane and Chloe were always babies.”

“They are,” Tammy stated with absolute certainty. “And now my poo-poo pants brother is gonna get turned into one, too.” Tammy’s eyes widened in recognition.  Whether she recognized the logical fallacy she was reciting or just that her choice of swear words were incredibly juvenile, Tammy knew something was wrong.  “It’s not just them! It’s us too! Look at your clothes!”

Nova looked down at her black babydoll dress and her pretty black shoes with the socks that were patterned along the ankles after Victorian doilies. She made sure that hair was still nice and neat and woven into a braid. Everything seemed in place.  A naughty thought entered her brain yet again, and she thought to lift the hem of her dress, even though she know she shouldn’t.

Just as always, Nova was wearing an extremely comfortable diaper with cloth backing made of the finest silk so that even when she was wet and soggy and saggy, her bottom cover was still soft to the touch.

DIAPER?!

“We’re babies!” Nova shrieked.  Somehow, her skin managed to become even paler.  “This place is turning us into babies!”

“I know!” Tammy shrieked back. She was no better off. Her plain, ordinary, styless clothes had mutated into a brown romper with the subtlest hints of gray and darker brown splotches. The thick diaper sagging between her legs was more covered up than her friend’s, but it was no more obscured.

“Brown!” Nova pointed, thinking back to the fate they thought they’d just avoided.

“Does this mean I’m a peacock?” Tammy asked, crying.  “Am I a peacock baby? Wait. Peacocks are the boy birds.”

“What are the girls called?’

“I DON’T KNOOOOOOW!”

The creak of a cabin door and the light fluttering of wings.  “There, there, Tammy dear,” A kind sounding voice said.  “It’s alright. You don’t need to cry. Mommy Lumira’s here.”

Nova gazed up at the pixie-like giantess with moth wings and compound eyes.  She tried to scream, but all sound left her throat.

“What am I?” Tammy bawled. “What am I?”  For the first time in her life, Tammy Greene didn’t know the answer to something.

The giantess fluttered all the way down. “You’re not a peahen, my little caterpillar.” She took a knee and reached behind her.  “You’re my darling baby girl.” 

Tammy looked up and the first thing she saw was not the monster, but the stuffed caterpillar she’d brought with her.  The last of Tammy’s willpower melted away and she looked at the stuffed toy and the oddly beautiful, oddly terrible thing that gave it to her with only love.  “Mommy!”

“That’s right,” the moth woman’s voice said, just above a stage whisper. “I’m your mommy and you’re my little caterpillar.  She unsnapped the girl’s romper and inspected her diaper. “My my, you’re soggy!” she gushed. “I think we’ll have to switch you to extra thick nighttime diapers all the time!”

Tammy’s eyes lit up.  “Oh! Nighttime! Mommy!  Can my friend, Makayla, spend the night with us? Pweeeeeease!”  She hadn’t lasted even a week without slipping.  That was okay, though. Babies like her were allowed to make mistakes and be wrong.

Lumira fluttered back into the air, holding her padded prize. “I’m sorry, Tammy, but your friend needs to find her Mommy before we make any plans”

Tammy hung her head. “Oh,” she said. “Okie, Mommy.”

“Now to send her along to…” the moth Mommy paused and looked around.  “Where’d she go?”

Nova laid on the ground of the trailer gasping for hair.  She’d almost suffocated clawing and scratching through that invisible barrier, but she’d gotten through.  As soon as she’d realized what a baby Tammy was, the big girl had started digging her way out of the painting.  She wasn’t about to let herself get blown or knocked about into another painting.

Except it wasn’t ‘realized’. Not really.  Tammy hadn’t been a baby before today. None of her classmates had. There was just this naggingly persistent voice that kept whispering to her that she and her friends were just babies and had been all along. The most insidious part was that voice sounded so much like her own voice.

It felt so natural. So right.

“I’ve gotta get a grown-up,” Nova hissed to herself.  She stood up, and smoothed the dress over her diaper.  “Adult,” she corrected herself.  “I’ve gotta get an adult.” Much better.  When you need help, always find an adult. That’s what Mommy always told her.

She thought of Edith, the girl at the front of the exhibit.  Edith was a little older than her! In college already! Surely, that was close enough to start looking.

The goth baby waddled unsteadily towards the front.  “Lady?!” she called out.  “Miss Edith?!  Art lady?!”  

Nova pushed her way past the black curtain at the entrance and froze.  The college girl who’d invited them to look at the paintings hadn’t changed, but Nova’s view of her had.

There’s nothing wrong, or particularly scandalous about wearing shortalls.  Among young women around Nova’s age it was often quite popular in the warmer months. All the same, most shortalls for adults didn’t have snaps in the inseam.  Nova knew that her host’s clothes had snappies because when she poked her head through the black curtain, she saw the other woman laying spread eagle on her desk with the snaps popped open, an absolutely vile diaper balled up on the floor, and a fresh one being taped up by what could only be described as a giant woman made of paint splotches.

Something clicked into place for Nova. This whole thing, from beginning to end, had been a trap made for people like her. This place was an angler fish and Edith was the dangly little bulb meant to bring the prey in.  The only reason this place was on the fringes of the fairground was likely because too many people would notice that no one was coming out in a more crowded section.

“You…you…meanie!” Nova screamed in blood curdling rage. She couldn’t remember any other meaner, more accurate, but ‘inappropriate’ words.

Edith turned her head to the sound of Nova’s voice.. “Huh?  You’re not supposed to be out-”  The other diapered girl was cut off by Nova’s ramming tackle that spilled them both off the heavy oak desk and onto the cold metal floor. 

“Dumb! Poopy! Meanie!” Her words were cut short with Edith’s hands wrapped around the goth girl’s neck. That did not stop the attack.  They rolled around the floor for a moment, the hostess wrapping her hands around Nova’s neck, with Nova sincerely trying to claw the other girl’s eyes out.

Regardless of her murderous intent, Nova was never much of a fighter. If she had been prior to today, she didn’t remember how. Within five seconds, the girls had been separated, with Nova finding herself pinned to a wall by the paint creature.

“Mommy! Mommy!” Edith said. “It’s okay!  It’s okay!”  She held up her hands in a calming defensive gesture. “We can play nice. We can play nice.”

Like hell they could!  Nova struggled against the scary grown-up, not caring at the moment whether or not her brain was turning to mush.  She wanted this brat dead! Something changed when she looked at Edith's face.  A few of her scratches had hit home and drawn blood.  Blood wasn’t seeping out of the cuts, though. Bright splotches of green, yellow, and blue paint were.

Fury transmogrified into dread curiosity.  “What are you?”
A look to the paint creature from Edith got it to back off.  It quickly opened the desk drawers and handed out plastic tea cups to the girls.  Evidently it served less of a desk and more of a combination changing.  Nova noticed that the paint creature’s outline looked vaguely feminine; ever shifting but always having the faint silhouette of a woman in a dress with her hair done up.

A quilt was laid out and a plastic tea set was made ready.   Edith wiped away the paint on her face, and her wounds immediately started to close. It looked less like she was healing and more like the top layer of her skin was seeping over the scratch marks, painting over them. “Come on,” she said to Nova. “Let’s have a tea party.”

Nova took a seat on the quilt and felt a sodden squelch as soon as she did. Her eye twitched and her face flushed. She didn’t know when she’d wet her diaper, but it was obvious that she had.  Several times, possibly. 

Edith took a sip from her empty cup. “Do you need a change?  My Mommy can give you a change if you need it.”

Nova gulped for real as she pretended to sip imaginary tea.  “No thank you,” she fibbed. “I’m fine.”  Her eyes flitted towards the entrance.  Maybe she could get to it.”

Edith shrugged and pretended to pour some more tea.  “Fine by me. The whole point of diapers is so that babies like us can keep playing for longer.”

There was so much to unpack about that statement.  Unpacking it wouldn’t get Nova closer to knowledge or escape.  “What are you?” she repeated herself.

Edith looked mildly uncomfortable. “I’m an artist,” she said. “Or I used to be before all this.”

There was a thought Nova hadn’t considered until just now. Maybe the girl who’d dragged her and her friends into this was just as much of a victim as she was. “What happened to you?”

In answer to Nova’s question, Edith gave a completely different answer. “Their fairies, you know.” she said quietly. “Fae. Arcadians. Muses. Powerful beings. Responsible for inspiration, passion, and madness.”  She motioned with her head towards the paint woman. “My Mommy has personally touched the greatest paintings of all time, giving them her blessing.  She doesn’t talk much, but the grown-ups call her Mona when she takes me on playdates.” 

Nova looked over at the brightly colored mishmash, and got a friendly little wave. It didn’t stop until Nova shyly waved back.  “They kidnapped you?”

“Not exactly,” the girl in the shortalls sighed. Her shortalls were more of a skirt at present. Her Mommy hadn’t had the time to snap the legs back together, and Edith, Nova guessed, no longer knew howl.  “They offered me a deal, and like an idiot, I took it.”

Nova leaned forward and barely noticed the squish. “What kind of deal?”

“Eternal youth in return for creating portals to their different realms.  I was born in 1948.”  Nova forgot to blink.  “Yeah. I’m old enough to be your grandma. That part has a bigger effect every year I tell it.”

“So what was the catch?” Nova asked. “There’s always a catch.”

Edith put the tea cup down and unfolded her hands right in front of her diaper. “This. I’m a baby. Forever. And babies don’t get to decide what they do or where they go.  If Mommy and her friends want to go on the road and round up more people to adopt. I have to do what they say.” She sniffled. “Because I’m a good girl.’  It turned out that even the woman’s tears were rainbow colored. 

“Why the scratches?” Nova asked. “Why do you bleed paint?”

“They treat us like children for a reason,” Edith squeaked, her throat sounding tight. “Any human who spends long enough around a Fae will start to change and be like them.  We’re growing up, Makayla. We’ll just never finish. And it’s all my fault!”  She buried her face in her hand and continued to sob.

There was a light clicking sound that Nova thought was the crinkling of her babyish underwear.  She paid it no mind and leaned forward.  “Hey,” she whispered. “It’s okay.  You didn’t do anything wrong.”  The girl frowned. “Wait. How do you know my real name?” 

“Because you gave it to me,” Quiet sobs turned into muffled laughter.  “You put it down when you scribbled nonsense on the paper. Slipped right off ya. I picked it up!”  Edith looked up and wiped away her dazzling crocodile tears. 

Makayla recoiled like Edith was a snake. Why couldn’t she think of herself as anything but Makayla anymore? “Why are you-?  How are-?”

“Like I said,” Edith giggled. “I’m a good girl. Except for one part,” she grinned. ”I lied. I knew this would happen. There was no trap.” Makayla was stunned into silence. “Do you know how much humanity sucks?” Edith went on.  “We never really grow up anyways. We just act like a bunch of selfish brats as soon as someone can’t tell us what to do.  We’re not really adults.  We just got really good at playing dress up!”

Makayla felt her hopes sink and her fear rise.  “Why are you telling me this?”

“Stalling,” Edith smirked. She pointed high above Makayla’s head.  “Waiting for your Mommy to come getcha.”

The goth baby felt herself yanked up as if she were a puppet on a string. “Gotcha!” a new voice announced.  

With her feet dangling, Makyla looked down and saw eight spindly legs clicking on the floor.  She was turned around and gazed eight loving eyes on an otherwise human face, blinking out of unison so she would never not be looking at the girl.  “Come to Mommy, sweetie!”

Pure terror washed over Makayla and she made to scream, but a pacifier was jammed between her lips and pulled taught with spider silk.  “Mmmmph!”

“Thank you so much for keeping Makayla, company, little Edith.”  The woman-spider clicked and cooed down to the artist. “I’m so glad you and your Mommy were here to stop her from toddling off.  Who knows what would have happened then?”

“You’re welcome, Miss Arachne,” Edith beamed like a proud little girl.

The air whipped through the goth girl’s hair and the rows and rows of paintings swept by her field of vision.  When the world stopped again, Makayla was looking at a portrait of a very creepy haunted house.  “Home sweet home,” the spider with a woman’s face said.

Makayla screamed into her pacifier, but the silk that tied it around her head held fast and her strength was no match for the. She could feel herself going and her guts starting to rumble.
Her eyes darted around the old gray house with its loose floorboards and dusty cobwebs showing the decay of man’s time on this world.  It was…pretty awesome actually.

“It’s okay,” Mommy shushed. “You’re home now. You’re with Mommy. That’s speeding it up. It’ll all be over soon.”

Over. Her life was over.  The spider-woman tossed Makayla over her shoulder and started rubbing her back as if she were a fussy toddler.  “Just let it all go.  Let it all out.”

Whether she was still something of a rebellious teen, or had just been propelled back to her terrible twos,  being commanded to something made her want to do the opposite.  Makayla clenched her cheeks together and grit her teeth, practically biting through the rubber bulb of the pacifier.

“I knew you would be the perfect baby girl for me,” Arachne whispered to her “the moment you put your name down and I got a whiff of your essence. All except your name…”

That gave Makayla pause.  She stopped struggling as much.  Her cheeks loosened slightly, despite herself.  Simultaneously, she forgot how to get them that tight ever again.

“But we can let go of names, can’t we?” her new Mommy whispered.  “Fresh start? All you have to do…is to let everything go.” The words were hypnotic, weaving a spell that was too potent to resist.  “Finish the transformation like a good girl.  Give in.  Let your true nature take its course.  Get everything you don’t want out of you.”  She patted Makayla’s diaper. “Put it right here for Mommy.  Then when you’re done, I’ll get you a new diaper.” She paused. “And a new name. How about…Nova?”

Spell complete, the embers lit inside the girl, she not only relaxed her muscles but actively pushed, forcing all the mess inside of her to fill up into the seat of her pants.  As the baby did, she felt better and better.  She lost her inhibitions. Her shame. Her past.  Her future.  Her cynicism.  But the love of all things dark and macabre she kept. It would serve her well in her black nursery.  The last thing that ended up ballooning her diaper with all of the mush, was the name she’d tried to get rid of since freshman year she couldn’t really remember anymore.

“Good girl!” Mommy whispered to the baby changeling.  “Very good baby.”  She took the pacifier out of her new daughter’s mouth.  “Isn’t that better?”

“Yuh-huh!” Nova said.  “Mommy, can I play with my friends now?”

Mommy Arachne kissed her precious on the cheek.  “Maybe later. First, though, I think its time to change your diaper. The first of infinite.”

Nova felt a little sad, but that was mainly because she didn’t want to get her diaper changed just yet.  She was just starting to enjoy the squish.

A short eternity later, a most peculiar playdate was going on as a group of tiny eighteen year olds babbled and played with one another.  Among them were a petite little girl who was just starting to grow her gills, a kitten baby who was going through a scratching phase, a beautiful baby boy in the most elegant dress and bonnet that complimented (not outshone) his feathers, a moth girl who was constantly squeezing her caterpillar for comfort, an eight eyed goth baby he flounced around clinging to her Mommy’s silks, and an splotchy little artist made of many different colors.

“How do you guys wear these every day?” Chloe wondered, marveling at the piece of plastic between her legs.  “I feel so…dry.”  Her Mommy had gotten a pack of land diapers that she had to wear for trips away from her domain.

“That’s kind of the point,” said Jane. Her Mommy was just glad her diaper tapes were extra strong.  Jane squatted down into a pouncing position.  Either that or she was pooping with her but up in the air. Maybe both?

Charlie did a twirl so that his layers of skirts rustled about and opened like a flower.  “Their point is to make you look cute.”

“No,” Tammy said, looking down at herself. “I get it.” She poked her padding in her romper and looked worried. “How do you wear daytime diapers without being worried you’ll leak?”

“You think that’s bad?” Edith joked. “You should have been around before disposables were a thing.  All that cloth and safety pins and extra layers.”

“I wear cloth,” Nova said. “It’s comfy.”

“Cloth,” Edith corrected. “Not cloth-backed. Completely different. Yours is just like a facsimile of the old style. Not washable. Doesn’t need safety pins. It’s still basically a disposable.”

A mockery of a past aesthetic? Something worse for the environment but containing the shell and vague appearance of something more wholesome and benign? All in the name of convenience?. How…wonderful!  Nova giggled

While the other babies played, Edith was still stuck in her own head. Break or no, there was a part of her that was always creating, ever the artiste.  She’d heard a demoness, Lady Sousa, had become a patron to a coven of infantilist witches.  Maybe she’d paint a portal to her next.  Just imagine what she might give in return for some fresh forever children?!

(The End)