It is late evening, October. The weather is unusually warm for an autumn day, the air heavy with humidity and noise, so I’m wearing my only dress—the white one embroidered with pink roses and oversized bees who are dazed by the fragrance of the flowers around them—and have just a cardigan on top. My mother hates the dress, says it makes me look younger than I am. I like it alright, but mostly I wear it to displease her. Disobedience towards our mothers must come from an archaic desire—that of not ever becoming them.

My hair is still damp from the shower I took earlier, but the sun dries it quickly as soon as I go out on my grandmother’s balcony. The time I spend out there gives me a chance to look at the neighbours’ apartments. There isn’t much to see; all the blocks in our area look the same: grey, tall, the apartments stuck to one another as if glued. If you peer through the windows, it seems like no one is living in them. There is no movement, just emptiness.

When I go back inside, my grandmother hands me a cup of chamomile tea, and asks me if I want some milk in it. I say “Yes, please,” and she hands me a small jug of curdled goat’s milk. The stink fills my nostrils with revulsion, but youth must always respect old age, mustn’t it? So, I say nothing, and pour all the milk into my cup. All of a sudden, my skull feels like a box full of memories. I fall into a state of catalepsy and I can hear only faceless voices sobbing, first muttering words I don’t know, then shouting. The screams are so loud they enlarge my eardrums—it seems as if there are beasts buried in the basement of my brain.

            I wake up from my reverie and I can smell that dinner is almost ready. Evening creeps up on us slowly.

           ‘I’ve tried something new tonight,’ Grandma says, smiling friendly, and then she roughly stirs the saucepan. She inhales deeply and with pride, and tastes the dish for the last time before turning off the gas. Her figure is both old and youthful, and I’m taking her beauty into my eyes, deep, letting the pale and wrinkled image burn into my retinas.

           ‘How should I eat this?’ I ask. My hunger increases strangely, and my stomach is squeezing tight. I lack the ability to control myself, and my mouth opens wide. Even the pores of my skin are ready for the feast.

            ‘Sit down at the table. Give thanks for the food. Eat in silence. Chew three times for luck. Swallow. Melt bread in the sauce. Have some spring onion with it. Your mouth will emanate sweetness. If we are what we eat, you are now a corrupted country. If your lover kisses you tonight, marry him!’ She serves the dish in an old, wooden bowl. I try to follow her instructions with care. I want to tell her that her words are confusing, though I’m unable to do anything but stuff my mouth with food.

            There is a knocking at the door, and I get down from the table to answer it. It is one of the neighbours. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but whatever your grandmother has cooked, my wife and I, we’d appreciate a taste of it.’ He is tall and bony, a walking skeleton, his eyes desperate. ‘You see,’ he continues, ‘my wife is expecting. I left her crying for your food in our bed. She is terrified of this lust. Left unfulfilled it might cause issues for our soon-to-be-born child. I’ve heard stories of ravenous babies growing the heads of wolves.’ He wipes his tears with his shirt sleeve and chews his lips nervously.

            ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do much for you! There isn’t anything left of the dish. You’ll have to sort yourself out.’ I avoid eye-contact. As soon as the lie finds its way out through my teeth, I turn around and close the door without looking back.

            When I return to the living room, I shove my nose into my grandmother’s scarf. I breathe naphthalene and something like melted plastic. They say the poor have their own miasma.

            ‘Dessert won’t take long,’ Grandma shouts from the kitchen. The room is filled with the smell of baked pumpkin, pastry, and mouldy walls. I stare out the window, trying to ignore the ache in my bones. That feeling of dread is back. I’m losing my battle with the sobbing voices; their cries are carving fears into my skull.

            Grandma announces that the pie is ready, and we are back at the table. I can’t recall sitting down. We eat and she tells me the story of her cousins, two young sisters, who loved each other so much that when one of them died suddenly of unknown causes the other hung herself from a walnut tree in the back garden. Their parents couldn’t cope with the thought of losing both daughters, so they preserved the corpses, embalming them with salty water, vinegar, honey, and vermilion, before hiding them in the basement of their house. Everything was done with complete discretion and kept secret from outsiders. But, despite several attempts to dissipate the odour of putrefied flesh by placing wild roses, lilies, and cinnamon candles everywhere around the house, their friends started to come over less and less, until one day all visits stopped for good.

            ‘Why are you telling me this story?’ I didn’t mean to offend, but now it’s too late.

            Grandma sighs. ‘They are all I have, these tales, and you must take them in, as you’ve done with my stew and my pie. Walk for hours and hours into this dark world, with my words in your head and I promise you’ll see things clear. Everything I do is to nurture you!’ She drags her chair closer and closer to me until her ragged fingertips are touching my knees. They sting like the blades of sharp knives, and I bleed a little, but then I blink and the blood is gone.

            The time to leave has come and I hug Grandma tight, as if I wanted to crush her to powder and inhale her. Her frail hands are trembling, and I kiss them. I worry about her health. She’s the only old person I know. I rush back home. Where is home? I wonder. The road doesn’t seem familiar. I see nothing for miles, and the wails are louder than usual. I don’t fear their sorrow anymore and I grow stronger, caught between their cries. I walk through a labyrinth of naked branches, dry leaves, and brick sidewalks. The fire-red horizon gifts me the history of flesh and I am waiting for the daylight. When I arrive home and catch sight of my reflection in the hallway mirror, I see my grandmother is no longer the only old person I know.

Liliana Carstea is a Romanian writer fascinated with the macabre, the ancient, and the magical. She writes mostly strange and magical realist tales, inspired by her culturally rich background. Through her short stories, she hopes to illuminate the tragedy and complexity of her culture. She currently lives in the UK and has a BA with Honours in Creative Writing from the University of Bedfordshire. You can read her work at adaughterofmoths.com.