The Buttundonua church bell rang loudly across the narrow valley the small town laid in, signaling the arrival of the traveling merchants. Mary, a girl of 17, stops picking flowers and herbs on a nearby hilltop and races back to her small cottage to collect her wares to trade. She fills her cart with a few cheese wheels and bottles of milk from her lone cow, dried herbs and mushrooms from the hills, and a few dresses she managed to sew from extra cloth she traded for last year. The travelling merchants only come twice a year -- in the fall and now in the spring -- so it is vital Mary manages to sell the little excess she has.
But there is another reason she is so excited to get to market. Mary had caught the eye of a young merchant named Joseph at last year's visit. Joseph was two years her senior and had tanned olive skin and green eyes that spoke of ancestry from a far off land. But on his last visit Buttundonua, he had approached young Mary and spent his free time following her through the hills and telling her stories of his travels. His thick accent held her hostage as he showered her in compliments and spoke of his homeland. Mary was even sure he would propose this time around, for now she was 17 and before last left he gave her a small golden amulet with a ruby laid in it. No boy would give a crush such a gift, this must be love.
Mary raced her cart to the same spot he was at last season but it was taken by a jewel trader. So instead she called out to her love. "Joseph, Joseph..." until she heard a shrill voice do the same.
"Joseph! Help me down!" Mary ran toward the voice and saw her love moving things around his wagon to sell. Mary's heart almost thumped out of her chest. There he was: her Joseph. He has grown taller and he definitely seems to have grown stronger. Does he have a mustache now? It suits him. Mary pulls her cart alongside him and taps him on the shoulder. He turns around. "Mary? I..."
"Joseph!" She takes him into a big hug. "I missed you so much. How were your travels? Find any interesting new treasures? Oh I don't care, I just missed you so much." She throws her arms around his neck and holds him tight but he isn't holding her back. Mary pulls away. "Joseph? What's wrong?"
He rubs the back of his neck. "Well Mary, you see..." The same shrill voice cries out from before. "Joseph! Help me down!" He calls back to the front of his cart. "One moment, Valeria."
"Who's that? Did you bring your sister? She sounds like a handful. No wonder you didn't mention her, my Love."
"Valeria isn't my sister, Mary." Loud footsteps come stomping our way. "Joseph!" A woman with long black hair and olive skin like Joseph's comes marching from around his wagon, her chest on full display as her low cut dress forces them to bounce with her steps. "Why didn't you help me down? That blacksmith Georg had to do it. Some husband you are."
Mary freezes. "Hu-husband?" As Valeria approaches, Mary becomes increasingly aware of the fact of the foot and a half height difference between her and the couple.
Valeria rolls her eyes. "Yes girl. He is my husband." She holds up her ring and Joseph's wrist to show his. Mary's head drops. "I tried to tell you Mary, honest" Joseph half-heartedly tries to console her.
Valeria notices the look on Mary's face and instantly becomes jealous. "Don't tell me. You and Joseph here... Aw how cute. But that's in the past now. He is married to me and..." she places her hand on her slightly swollen belly "he is going to be a father too."
"Valeria be kind. Mary is nice girl."
Valeria snaps back "But not your wife. She's not even very pretty. So be done with her and sell some of this junk. I'm going for a walk around this dirty town."
She walks away and Joseph watches her walk away with a sway in her wide hips. "So that's what you look for in your wife, huh Joseph?"
"Don't be that way, Mary. You must've known we would never have worked out."
"No actually I didn't. I though when you gave me this necklace it meant something!"
"Come on, Mary, I just gave you a little trinket. I didn't mean anything by it."
"But you have no problem marrying a snake when she looks like that. I saw the way you were watching her walk away. Disgusting."
"Give me a break. Mary you're just a little girl."
"I'm 17!"
"...who is built like a twelve year old. Face it, Valeria is a woman. She's gorgeous! I never though of you as anything more than a little sister."
Mary starts to tear up. "Face it, Mary. A man has needs. And you just don't deliver." He tries to put his hand in her shoulder but Mary slaps it away. "How could you? I loved you!" She takes her wheelbarrow and runs off, trying to keep keep her wares from falling through her tears.
Mary keeps running and running. She goes on until she can't go any further, for she had reached the town's river. She drops her wheelbarrow and falls to her knees at the river's edge to cry. Seeing the glint of the necklace in her reflection, Mary grabs the delicate golden chain to toss it when a soothing voice speaks out. "Dear girl, what ever could be the matter?"
Mary turns around to face one of the Buttundonua's mysterious wizarding family. She could tell from the long purple cloak they each wore. They don't normally talk to the regular townspeople, but Mary is so upset she freely tells her story of heartbreak to the stranger. As she weaves her tale, he gradually comes to sit next to her by the riverbed. "...and now I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I thought he loved me back and we could travel the lands together. But now I'm stuck in Buttundonua alone forever. And all I have to show for it is this stupid necklace." She grabs the necklace to throw it once more, but the wizard stops her. "Don't let this beautiful jewel hurt you the same way he did. Maybe I can help."
"How? He's married to that snake and I clearly don't have the form he craves." She looks down to her flat chest and sighs deeply. "Who am I kidding? No man would want to marry a girl, they want a woman. I thought my personality would be enough, but I guess not."
"My dear, most things are possible with magic." He pulls a stick out of his cloak and it glows and elongates into a large staff in his hand. He mutters a foreign incantation and taps the ruby on her necklace. The gem begins to glow a dazzling red.
The wizard stands up and helps Mary wipe off her tears. "I have cast a powerful spell upon this amulet. With it, you will become irresistibly attractive towards all men. This will surely help to mend your broken heart. All you have to do is dunk the pendant into this magic river and then put it on. I hope you have luck in love, dear Mary." Before she could say anything else, the wizard holds his staff up to the forest ceiling and disappears in a bright flash of white light.
Clearly alone, Mary kneels back down to the river and unclasps the chain from her neck and looks over the glowing ruby. "Could this really help me? The wizard clearly believes it can." Unsure, she dunks the pendant into the slow flowing water of the river. Instantly, the water surrounding the amulet begins to bubble and the ruby grows brighter, almost blinding. Trying to keep calm, Mary holds the chain in place until the bubbling stops completely. She lifts it out of the water and eyes the no-longer-glowing stone carefully. "It looks the same as before. But there is clearly some magic in play here."
Mary reclasps the necklace around her neck and instantly the stone starts to tingle on her skin. A mist spirals up her body from the forest floor until she is completely encased in a white light. Watching herself, Mary can see her body start to grow. Her faded blonde braid that had fallen onto her shoulder is weaving itself longer, thicker, and brighter until the tail of it falls below her hips. But as it grows over her chest it rises as the front of her dress balloons forward as Mary's breasts fill up her dress and keep going even after they start pushing out of her dress. Her arms, shoulders, and chest thicken as well as Mary's body gains the muscle and stature expected of a grown woman of her new size. The seams of her dress are stressed even further as her hips widen and her legs grow thicker and longer. Pretty soon, the dress can't take anymore and the side seams break open exposing her bare chest to no one in her cocoon of light. Her shoulders and arms break through the sleeves of her dress leaving her completely topless. Mary tries to pull the material back up but it only covers a small square of her chest; she has to use her arms to even cover her nipples.
By the time she stops growing and the mist fades away into the breeze, Mary is a completely different person. The only thing that hasn't stretched beyond belief are her shoes, which were old and worn to begin with. Unable to see her reflection in the river, Mary decides to head home for a better look. She holds up one of the extra dresses (which are all too small) to her chest with one arm to cover herself up and carefully pushes her cart over to her small cottage near where the edge of the woods and the hills of the valley meet. "Hopefully everyone should still be at the market and I don't run into anyone."
And she is right, for she doesn't see a single huntsman or playing children all the way home. Her cow Marybelle shakes her neck to ring her cowbell in greeting, not even stopping to moo while she eats her hay. Mary drops the wheel barrow, grabs her dresses, and walks into her small one room cottage.
But not before knocking her head into the door post. "Ow! That really hurt! How did I even..." but walking into her home, Mary realizes the answer. All of her possessions, from her table & chair to her mirror, seem smaller than before. Mary looks up to her roof and outstretches her arm, touching the beam easily for the first time without a stool. "I've gotten taller as well. That wizard really must have cast a powerful spell on this amulet." Mary walks over to her mirror and looks over her new body, carefully inspecting each new inch and curve as if it might disappear. She looks like a whole new person! Well not entirely; Mary's face still looks like her own, only with plumper lips, rosier cheeks, and longer eyelashes. Her eyes even have gone beyond their normal pale grey-blue to the bright blue of the town's magic river. She is all but unrecognizable. No one could think this body could belong to anyone but a demigoddess or a nymph of the mountains: not plain, homely Mary.
Filled with excitement for her new adventures to come in her new body, Mary takes off what is left of her old dress and starts measuring herself for a new one made out of it an her dresses she was going to sell at market. She measures and cuts and sews into the night and finishes her new dress just as the sun's light peaks over the high edge of the valley. "Today is going to be interesting." She cuts a piece of cheese off of one of her wheels, eats some stale bread and remembers to duck as walks out of her cottage. She refills her wheelbarrow with the milk, cheese, herbs, flowers, and mushrooms from the day before and spreads some more hay for Marybelle.
Ready seize the day, thanks to wizard's magic, Mary pushes her wheelbarrow into town, confident to not let Joseph have a hold on her heart any longer.