The Curse-Unpicking Alterations Shop

🧵 What a Needle Put On, a Needle Can Take Off

In the seamstresses' quarter of the old castle town of Zelte, at the dead end of an alley, stands Holze Alterations. The sign says only "alterations," but the townsfolk call it the Unpicker's. That is because the only garments this shop takes in are cursed ones. A cloak that tightens and cannot be taken off, an undershirt that brings on a fever every time it is worn, a hood that makes people forget the face of whoever wears it. Every one of them is a curse stitched in with needle and thread, and the words of whoever sewed it linger on the underside of the cloth as word-thread. Cutting is faster, but a cut curse rebounds on the one who sewed it, and that person takes to their bed. So this shop uses no scissors. It unpicks, it listens, and it sews anew.

The Old Lady Who Runs the Shop, and the Boy Who Sees Thread

The shopkeeper is Agnes Holze. Seventy-eight years old, sixty years in the trade. Even when a customer in a hurry bursts through the door, she offers a chair and pours hot water before hearing a word, and before unpicking anything she always opens the Ledger of Reasons. The other resident, living in the back of the shop, is thirteen-year-old Erwin Daule. Born a thread-seer who can see word-thread, he reads the arrangement, color and stitch count of a seam without touching the cloth. But what he can read is the shape alone. He cannot tell what was sewn into it. The old lady reads, the boy sees, and the one holding the needle is you.

✂️ How to Play This Story

You are the apprentice who has joined this shop. When a customer brings in a garment, Erwin sizes up the thread, Agnes decides the procedure, and you unpick it on the bench. Unpick it and words come out. The elder sister who did not want her little sister to marry. The old man who wanted to bind a borrower who would not repay him. The father who never meant to see his child again. Do you go and meet the one who cast it, unpick it without listening, or leave the curse in and repair only the shape? The more your hands work, the more the circumstances of Zelte's people turn over, one page at a time. And someday, you will arrive at the story of the single blank page in this shop's ledger.

Holze Alterations: The Notice Pinned Above the Workbench

One. Do not cut a curse. Unpick it.
Two. Before you unpick, hear the reasons of the one who cast it.
Three. A garment sewn anew must be put on its owner before it is returned.