He’s become Dr. Fantomas, for Dr. Fantastik seemed too superhero-ish for a Tabat story. Final story came to 6650 words, and I’m pleased with it. Recent reading that may have influenced it include Anthony Trollope’s Can You Forgive Her?, John Hawkes’ The Blood Oranges, and Mary Roberts Rinehart’s Dangerous Days (free on the Kindle!).
The title of the story has become “The Ghost-Eater” as well.
Before retiring for the night, he unshuttered the window, exposing a view of the restaurant’s rear courtyard, an expanse of wrought iron tables, chained to the fence as though someone were worried that they might go walking about.
He sat upright. The moon hit the window almost as bright as witchlight when first summoned. What had called him out of sleep? Some noise in the dining room, rhythmic as hammer blows but more muted. Footsteps? Perhaps.
He put on his breeches, head tilted as he tried to listen. The noises continued, stopped, restarted.
The door opened of its own accord. Charlotte. Beckoning him to follow.
She preceded him down the hallway. There was little light in its confines, but when she opened the door to the kitchen, everything was moonlight and steel, the rims of the great soup pots shining like rounded scimitars, the rack of cleavers and knives varying from the length of his forearm to the smallest paring blade possible, the tiles of the floor like moonstones underfoot, sending up a muted dazzle that mirrored the steel’s.
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