Metaphorosis March 2019 by Carolyn Lenz & Amman Sabet & Vaya Pseftaki & Rajiv Moté & Evan Marcroft

Author:Carolyn Lenz & Amman Sabet & Vaya Pseftaki & Rajiv Moté & Evan Marcroft
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SFF
ISBN: 9781640761353
Publisher: Metaphorosis Publishing

The mansion, their father’s summer home, always smells of baking. Its thick stone walls, its light elderberry furniture, the curtains, the sheets and the inside of the wardrobes, have all been imbued with the fragrance of dessert cooking in the ovens. Today, it’s lemongrass pie and hot caramel-flavored chocolate. The smell spreads better in the silence.

Only it shouldn’t be silent. Their father should be here, sipping seadrop liquor with their friends’ parents by the unlit fireplace. When he left, they were all still lounging in the dining room, heavy with Latima’s cooking. He can’t hear them now; even the servants are nowhere to be seen.

Still shivering, barefoot and half-naked, he crouches over the boiling pot of chocolate, letting the delicious steam warm his insides. The thought of grabbing a spoon and digging in flashes, then fades.

“Hello?” Sediniel almost whispers standing under the doorframe, looking down the drab corridor. She trails back into the kitchen and closes the door gently behind her, heading for the saltwood chest where a blunt pair of scissors is kept under the towels. The water-weight clock that never worked properly hangs overhead. The faint creaking of its cogs always out of tune, a tick too late, a tack too long. Only now it echoes smoothly, first a tick and then a tack, tick tack, tick tack.

“The clock is working,” she mumbles distracted, groping in the chest.

It sounds wrong, he wants to tell her. Disorienting. But the words snag on his tongue.

“Where is everyone?” she asks and Sheyen turns to check the door they snuck in from, scanning the garden through its colored glass, hoping to spot someone they missed before.

“Perhaps they’re out for a walk?” Alarm coils under her casual concern; her gaze has followed his.

“Could be.”

“And Latima? The kitchen servants?”

“They’re probably running some errands downtown.” Highly unlikely, but she mustn’t be sidetracked from the haircut, the moment is too convenient. What if she changes her mind? He’s been nagging her to help him for a month now, and she always refused.

“All four of them?” Sediniel strokes her head just above the forehead, her tattoos still dim and lifeless, but she doesn’t seem to notice and he won’t tell. He glances at the scissors.

Lightning. Unheard thunder rattles the pots on their shelf.

“Something is wrong,” mutters Sediniel darting glances at the shelves as if they are about to tilt and crack. “The house is wrong, they didn’t even put out the ovens. And the storm,” Sediniel says pointing a finger towards the glass door. Rain whips the glass and for a couple of breaths they linger, waiting for the din to come; what comes is only silence.

She approaches the door, ready to open it.

“Sediniel?” he says. “Quit stalling. Obviously, they’re going to be back any minute now. We need to be quick.”

“Quick? Sheyen, something is off, I can’t hear a thing from outside the house. No rain, no thunder, no barking dogs. Nothing.”

“I know, which is why we should do it now. Something’s happening to me and maybe this is how we stop it.

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