The Echo Feast

Journal Entry – November 23, 1871

I think the others are beginning to hear it too.

At breakfast, the guests sat in silence long after the food had gone cold. No one seemed hungry. When I asked if the coffee was too bitter, Mrs. Crane lifted her head slowly and said, “It hums,” as if that explained everything. Then she smiled and went on stirring an empty cup.

Last night I dreamed of a table set for thirteen, though I had only twelve guests. The thirteenth chair faced me. I couldn’t see who sat there, only the shape of a shadow where a body should be. Each time I blinked, another guest leaned forward and whispered a phrase I couldn’t understand — not words, but tones that vibrated in my teeth.

When I woke, the parlor still echoed with it. The smell of myrrh clung to the curtains. The silverware on the sideboard was arranged in a perfect circle.

At supper, I watched their mouths. Some moved in rhythm with the sound beneath the floorboards. One man, the preacher from Topeka, began murmuring a verse between bites:

“Sha’veth am ulth’ra ven drath.”

The same words I burned days ago.

He didn’t know he was speaking them.

When I cleared the plates, a coin lay beneath each one — dull, gray, faintly warm.

The thirteenth chair was empty.

But the napkin was stained red, folded neatly on the seat, as though whoever sat there had finished their meal and left before grace was said.