Dusty Secrets

The scent of lemon polish, usually a comforting herald of Seraphina’s relentless pursuit of cleanliness, was this time tinged with something acrid, something that snagged at the back of my throat. It was the smell of impending doom, the olfactory prelude to another of her “enrichment activities.” Today’s particular brand of torture was to be a comprehensive lesson in the proper etiquette of serving cucumber sandwiches at a hypothetical garden party. Hypothetical, of course, because the only guests Seraphina ever entertained were the shadows that danced in her own peculiar mind.

I had been tasked with arranging a miniature tiered cake stand with precisely seven finger sandwiches on each level, each crust meticulously removed, each slice cut at a thirty-degree angle. The slightest deviation, I knew, would be met with a sharp intake of breath, followed by a pronouncement of my inherent inadequacy. My heart thrummed a nervous rhythm against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. I was already picturing the thinly veiled disappointment in her eyes, the way they would narrow, the almost imperceptible twitch of her lips that signaled the start of her lecture.

“Alex, darling,” her voice, saccharine and sharp as broken glass, had purred from the drawing-room doorway just moments before. “The sandwiches, my little artiste. Precision is paramount. We wouldn’t want to offend the imaginary Duke of Earl Grey, would we?”