TW for unpleasant eating experience/gagging
Harry held his pinky out as he drank, pursing his lips to sip a shy mouthful of tea. He smiled and set the cup down on its saucer, careful not to let it clink.
‘How’d you like it?’
‘Delightful, madam.’
‘Try the spaghetti.’
Harry hummed. This moment had happened once before.
The air had strummed like the bottom of a lake. Of course, that time the Lady had seemed normal – pretty, even. The cottage was quaint: proud pot plants and shelves of books clutching their scented pages close to their spines. Harry had drunk his tea with unmannerly enthusiasm and twirled the spaghetti round his fork with delight. The sauce had a nice tang to it, aromatics glazing his nose.
It had been delicious – aside from the crunch. And the slow, queasy realisation that what Harry had seen as plump noodles had become thick strands of hair in his mouth: slick with bitter oils, grinding and catching between teeth. He’d seen the Lady’s bulging-cheek smile and found himself alone, voice trapped behind walls of hair and creek water. And he’d known he’d have to swallow. Hair slicing down his throat: tangling and breaking and never going down properly, blocking off his airways as he’d began to gag, reaching frantically down his gullet to tug the strands back out.
And then suddenly he’d found himself once more welcomed into the cottage and settled before a table of tea and spaghetti. This time, of course, he could see what he had not. The Lady tilted her head, smiling impatiently. Her waist-length hair was matted, her sockets on display where eyes had been.
‘It’s really quite delicious, you know?’ Her voice was clean, the type best suited for bedtime stories.
‘I’m sure of it, madam,’ Harry assuaged. ‘I think I’ll walk off my tea first.’
The Lady appeared content to let her fly roam around her web as Harry made some interest in trinkets as far distanced from the table as possible. The shelves of books were carpeted in dust, the potted plants burnt dry and weepy. Harry made sure to comment every here and now on her wares. She trailed behind him, bare feet plodding over rotting wood. He could feel phantom hairs on his tongue.
‘That there is a fine piece of late 17th century glasswork – Venetian,’ she appraised over Harry’s shoulder, as he held a splintered glass pendant up to the light. ‘A nobleman had it commissioned as a commemorative piece for his late wife. Quite romantic.’
Harry hummed agreeably and shifted a little further. She followed.
‘Are you feeling hungry yet?’ the Lady’s breath brushed his ear.
‘Not quite,’ he squeezed out. ‘I’ll be a few moments longer.’
Harry hadn’t found a single exit on his traipse of the perimeter, not even a window. Harry couldn’t figure out how he’d made it inside in the first place, just that he’d been anticipating going cave diving this weekend. A luminosity emanated from the ceiling, but every time Harry tilted his head up his vision went funny.
‘I think you’d better be eating your meal now, lest it go cold.’
The Lady pulled his chair out for him, and Harry sat meekly, trembling fingers hidden in his lap. The Lady stood across from him, watching him pick up his fork, and pause, and not dare look back up.
‘You didn’t like it the first time?’
Harry’s brain froze over.
‘You want to leave?’
He couldn’t look up.
‘Oh dear,’ she purred. ‘That just won’t do.’
The Lady stalked abnormally fast towards him, Harry’s chair legs squealing as he scurried back, making a frantic dash for the sturdy walls to scratch at with raw nails, searching out some hidden crack to pull himself through. Ice cold fingers slithered around his neck. She twisted his head to meet her empty eyes as though she were opening a tap.
‘One shouldn’t be wasteful, Harry.’
Zoe Petersen is an emerging writer and artist living on Dharawal Country. Her work gravitates toward the comical and fantastical across all forms of fiction. She was featured as both an author and editor in TIDE Anthology’s Volume 12 Issue 2, proofread for BlueRookies’ comics and has been involved in voluntary work for Spineless Wonders and The South Coast Writers Centre.