Nana always made us set an extra place at the table, always put the best portions there and left them until we'd gone to bed. We were young enough to not ask questions and old enough to assume she just put the food away when we were asleep.
Then I saw who Nana was feeding every night.
It came pouring from the fireplace like oil-coloured jelly and smelled like something sickly sweet and decaying. I don't know how many nights I sat at the top of the stairs and peered into the dining room to watch it eat but I was there enough to know it didn't take the same shape twice.
Every night it came out the same way, same stench and Nana would say the same words to it ("Welcome home, I made your favourite and kept it nice and cool for you"). Every night it would look like something or someone else, once it looked like my sister.
The last time I spied on it eating, it looked like me. From the way my hair curled to the crumpled pyjamas I wore that night to the way I slouched at the table to the way I held my cutlery. I think it knew I'd been watching it and was fed up of the additional audience.
That was the night Nana went missing.
Then I saw who Nana was feeding every night.
It came pouring from the fireplace like oil-coloured jelly and smelled like something sickly sweet and decaying. I don't know how many nights I sat at the top of the stairs and peered into the dining room to watch it eat but I was there enough to know it didn't take the same shape twice.
Every night it came out the same way, same stench and Nana would say the same words to it ("Welcome home, I made your favourite and kept it nice and cool for you"). Every night it would look like something or someone else, once it looked like my sister.
The last time I spied on it eating, it looked like me. From the way my hair curled to the crumpled pyjamas I wore that night to the way I slouched at the table to the way I held my cutlery. I think it knew I'd been watching it and was fed up of the additional audience.
That was the night Nana went missing.
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