by Tony Moreira
Time didn’t pass in the attic. It curled, coiled, and even lashed out. It also maintained a dark silence that remembered everything. Filled with timeless dust and shadows, the air carried the awful scent of dread from the years that passed. A single window in the room exposed a portal to the outside world. Bent nails that resembled the crooked bones of gnarled fingers grasped and held the frame in place. No fresh air could filter into the room, only a sliver of light, which the dust embraced as a dance partner in the imprisoned staleness.
Its occupant, Katherine, lived her life like a soft breeze. Her skin, once pale as moonlight, was now covered with grime and appeared carved from wax. A tangled mess of blond strands that clung together like cobwebs filled with dust and time draped her shoulders and ended just above the floor. As fragile as she appeared, her eyes carried a fierce, flickering spark of defiance and determination.
Today, a special day, Lady Evelyn and Miss Tangle, who never missed teatime, arrived early at Katherine’s request. They gathered around a small wooden crate. A soiled and tattered blanket, once as white as fresh snow, covered the uneven and splintered surface. Katherine declared the day her tenth birthday, though her birth date and age were unknown. Her actual birthdays passed like mysterious whispers, all at the hand of her evil guardian, Aunt Agatha.
Admiring the sparkle in Lady Evelyn’s eye, Katherine asked, “Would you prefer one lump or two?” She paused for a reply, which only she recognized.
Lady Evelyn sat at the head of the table, upright and attentive, even though only one glass eye remained, clouded and unblinking. Her other eye, lost years ago, exposed a hollow socket that gave sight into a world of the past. Once painted with delicate care in light pastels, Lady Evelyn’s porcelain face now featured a dark map of fine cracks that resembled a chilling web of frost on a clouded windowpane.
Time had treated her with cruelty.
So had Aunt Agatha.
“Very well, two it is,” Katherine acknowledged as she dumped two servings of dirt into an old, chipped teacup from a polished silver teaspoon. Unlike the other pieces in the tea set, the unblemished spoon illuminated the attic like the brightest star in the darkest of nights.
Katherine poured the tea with grand ceremony, though the pot contained stagnant, oily water. As the liquid filled the chipped porcelain cup, the dirt swirled into a murky spiral and bloomed like a horrid blob of discolored ink.
Lady Evelyn’s head appeared tilted with purpose. She always listened and understood.
Her glass eye caught the dim light filtering through the small window, casting a kaleidoscope of shimmering stars on the walls. Katherine recognized this as Evelyn’s approval of the concoction.
“What about you, Miss Tangle?” Katherine asked, turning her attention toward her other guest. “Would you like a biscuit? I prepared your favorite flavor.”
Miss Tangle’s eight spindly legs twitched in anticipation, and her body vibrated with an eager and delicate rhythm.
Katherine opened her small, dirt-smudged hand and revealed two large beetles. Their glossy black abdomens shuddered. Katherine plucked each leg from the insects, one by one. She had learned long ago that when she served them this way, although they tried to cling to life, they could not escape.
She placed one beetle before Miss Tangle, who wasted no time subduing her meal. She pounced and sank her needle-like fangs into the beetle’s underbelly, causing a thick and sickly mix of brown and yellow juice to bubble and ooze from the puncture wounds. Many of Miss Tangle’s children joined the gathering and sipped the fluid that pooled onto the tablecloth like sticky syrup.
Katherine smiled with pleasure, comforted by the sounds of the crunches, squelches, and slurping that flooded the quiet void of the attic.
She then plucked the second beetle from her palm. Its body twitched, but she didn’t mind. She brought it to her lips, bit down, and savored the tangy taste of the earth and the bitter flavor of iron. Katherine’s gaze never left Miss Tangle’s as they both reveled in their meals.
“Delicious, like always,” she whispered, her voice warm enough to soften the horror of the beetle cracking between her teeth.
Miss Tangle paused mid-feast. Her many eyes shimmered in the light that filtered through the cloudy attic window and reflected Katherine’s smile as a sign of appreciation. Then, with delicate accuracy, Miss Tangle clutched the remaining half of the beetle in her front legs and scurried up the threads of her web. When she reached the center, she began to spin thin, gleaming strands of fine silk, wrapping the meal’s remains in a tight cocoon.
As Katherine admired Miss Tangle’s fanciful work, a sudden heavy thud echoed, disturbing the stuffy air that filled the attic.
Then another thud.
Then another.
And another.
Each sound resonated in a measured and deliberate cadence.
Katherine remained still, while each piece of the tea set sitting upon the table trembled with each thundering sound.
Footsteps.
Evil footsteps.
They grew in volume.
Then silence.
Horror, unseen but all too familiar, stirred beyond the door to the stairwell. The dread it brought curled inward, suffocating the room. Katherine’s eyes darkened with the clarity of unforgotten memories. Lady Evelyn’s single glass eye reflected with razor-sharp precision in the room’s dim light, and Miss Tangle’s many glittering eyes turned red and twitched in perfect synchrony.
The unmistakable jingle of keys rattled from outside the door. Metal clinked against metal with sharp, piercing, cold shrieks as each key tangled and fought with the others.
The doorknob began to turn, each creak slicing through the thick attic air like a knife.
The door opened.
Aunt Agatha hunched in the doorway, her silhouette framed by the flickering candle in her hand.
Burdened with caring for Katherine, Aunt Agatha made no effort to hide the hatred that consumed her. She despised children, had none of her own, and only by inheritance of wealth had Agatha agreed to care for her niece.
Agatha’s face twisted in a deep scowl that appeared carved into her skin. Her dark eyes, sharp and sunken, narrowed while locking onto the silver teaspoon with precision. Her voice, sharp as broken glass, cut through the dust and the silence. “How did my spoon find its way into the attic?”
Katherine didn’t flinch.
Agatha growled once more. “Answer me, child!”
Attentive to her invited guests, Katherine poured more liquid from the teapot into Lady Evelyn’s cup. “My sincerest apologies, Lady Evelyn. Where are my manners? I didn’t notice that you were ready for more tea.”
“You and your filthy and pathetic imaginary friend,” Aunt Agatha snarled as she grabbed Lady Evelyn by the throat and threw her to the attic floor.
The harsh impact shattered a portion of her skull.
Katherine’s pale face wore a mask of calmness, and her eyes radiated a comforting gaze. “We just sat to have tea,” she exhaled like a feather drifting in a gentle breeze as she raised her cup to her lips. “Would you care to join us? It’s my birthday. You didn’t forget—did you?”
Aunt Agatha scoffed at the idea and leaned forward. “You need discipline, not a tea party. And there isn’t a care in the world as to when your birthday is!”
Katherine set her teacup down so elegantly that it didn’t make a sound or spill a drop of the murky contents.
Aunt Agatha’s evil grin stretched across her skeletal face like elastic. ”The library and study floors are due for a scrubbing.”
Katherine wore an unblinking gaze as she rose from the crooked box she used as a chair. She raised the hem of her tattered and soiled dress an inch, exposing her horrid, disfigured knees. The years of kneeling on hard rice and scrubbing splintered floors as punishment had left a patchwork of marred flesh and deep scars.
Aunt Agatha raised her chin and screeched, “You deserved it—every instance. When you disobey me and break the rules of the house, my rules, you pay the price.”
Katherine stood in dark silence.
Infuriated by Katherine’s disobedience, Aunt Agatha growled, “Now, child!”
Calm and defiant, Katherine plucked the silver spoon from the table and carved deep into the skin on her right knee without flinching. As blood dripped down her leg, she smiled. With grace, she emptied the spoon. The chunk of flesh coated with thick blood slid into an empty teacup on the table. She tapped the spoon on the cup’s rim to ensure no drop went to waste.
Aunt Agatha retracted in disgust. “How dare you!” Her voice splintered. “If scrubbing doesn’t bother you, I suggest another night of standing in dry ice with no coverings for your feet!”
Katherine, without emotion, unraveled an old cloth bandage from her right foot, inch by inch. Soiled with deep rusted hues of blood and dirt, the once-white fabric that had drunk her blood over time peeled away with a gooey stickiness. She revealed skin that looked more like wet pottery than human flesh. She stood defiant, her foot marbled with bruises and frostbitten shadows of black and blue. As she did this, her eyes remained locked with Aunt Agatha’s.
The silence thickened, as if the attic itself froze in shock at what Katherine had revealed. Aunt Agatha took a step back in horror as Katherine’s eyes ignited with fire. Though the attic remained stifling and still, the window began to rattle and coughed dust into the air with each vibration. The floorboards beneath Aunt Agatha warped and groaned. The candle she held cast twitching shadows upon the walls that disobeyed the rhythm of its dancing flame. Hot wax flung about and bored blistering craters into the skin on her arms and hands.
She shrieked in pain.
Above her voice, squelches of tiny voices pierced the air like a web of needles.
Aunt Agatha twisted to flee.
Her foot caught on something.
Something invisible but strong.
Woven across the floor by Miss Tangle and her children stretched a web of fine silk threads.
Aunt Agatha stumbled and crashed down to the floor.
A sickening crunch followed as the scattered shards of Lady Evelyn’s porcelain skull pierced deep into her knees.
She squirmed in horror as blood pooled beneath her from her shredded flesh. As she pushed herself up, the floorboards, now awake and full of life, shifted and tilted. Losing her balance and her grip, she slipped and fell forward. Her face struck Lady Evelyn, who still lay crumpled on the floor. A jagged edge, once part of Evelyn’s silky-smooth brow, sank into Aunt Agatha’s left eye socket with a loud and nauseating squish.
Lady Evelyn’s single eye caught a sliver of light from the window. It illuminated the room like a fiery red kaleidoscope to celebrate Aunt Agatha’s misfortune.
The attic door slammed shut.
Miss Tangle dropped from the ceiling and wove a web across the doorway while her dozens of children nibbled at Aunt Agatha’s ankles. Their bites caused her skin to swell and blister in familiar dark shades of black and blue.
Her voice shrilled as her fingers desperately scraped at the coarse wooden floor. Long, jagged splinters drove beneath her fingernails like tiny needles. Dark shadows coiled around her, squeezing and suffocating her.
Aunt Agatha’s breath weakened.
She collapsed.
Her bloodied face, void of life, gazed toward the ceiling, one eye frozen wide with terror and the other, gone. The collapsed eyeball gurgled in the socket and gave sight into an evil past.
Aunt Agatha’s darkness caught and claimed her.
Katherine rubbed the silver teaspoon against her soiled apron. She retrieved Lady Evelyn, who slouched in a heap on the floor. With care, she cleaned her face and set her at the table, upright and attentive as always. With grace, Miss Tangle jumped from a nearby beam into her usual position at the table.
With elegance, Katherine poured murky water into the cup filled with the coagulated blood and flesh from her knee. She smiled at Aunt Agatha, who now sat propped up across from her, observant but empty of emotion and life.
Katherine welcomed her new guest. “Thank you for remembering me on my birthday, Aunt Agatha. Would you like one lump or two?”