Strange Nightgowns

A mother runs a boutique selling silk nightgowns at steep prices: two thousand dollars for a short one, four thousand for a long one. Women swear the fabric makes their skin soft and their complexion glow, and the shop sells only ten gowns a night, after sunset. When a customer returns with a torn gown, the mother charges her double and insists she wear the new one in the store, then leads her and her sister down to a hidden basement.

At home, the narrator's sister is dumped by her boyfriend of four years, who calls her ugly. She begs their mother for a nightgown so she can transform, but the mother refuses, saying only that it is for her own good. That night the sister wakes the narrator and drags her to the storage room, determined to steal one from the basement.

As the sister descends into the dark, the narrator keeps watch, uneasy about why the silk must be kept hidden away.