NOTHER PACKAGE ON THE STOOP. The old bitch and her scented goddamn candles…the whole house smelled like a fruit truck, a florist’s stand, a bakery, and a candy shop simultaneously exploded and then burnt down. 

Sighing, he picked up the box. It got everywhere, that smell. Permeated everything. He kept his bedroom door shut but it still got in there. Into his clothes and hair. Coating his skin with waxy-feeling residue. People remarked on it. 

But what was he supposed to do? The old bitch owned the place. The old bitch’s disability checks paid the bills and then some. As long as they kept rolling in, he didn’t have to get a real job. All he had to do was take care of things here. 

Besides, the candles did help cover the sickroom stench. 

He let himself in and yep, there it was, a faceful of citrus and spice, vanilla and roses, something that was supposed to be clean linens, something else that was supposed to be spring rain, a mingling melange of dozens more. Plus those whiffs of wax and smoke. 

Clocks ticked, the ancient refrigerator hummed, and a stand-fan whirred as it stirred the musty-dusty perfumed waxy air. He went through to the kitchen and set the box on the counter. An idle glance at the label didn’t tell him much. 

C&C Candles, Lake Hali, The Hyades. 

Never heard of them. She must’ve belonged to like six different candle-of-the-month clubs, not to mention guilt-gifts from distant relatives too busy to bother with actual visits. 

He snagged a beer, popped the top, and took a long swig. A cheap brand, but he wasn’t about to shell out for the good stuff when whatever he ate or drank ended up tasting like scented wax anyway. 

Once he’d finished the beer, he held off on opening a second and decided to at least act as if he was doing his job. He picked up the box again—the logo on the label was creepy, though he couldn’t quite pinpoint why—and carried it down the hall. 

“Yo, Edith, you got another candle.”

The sickroom scents grew stronger the closer he got to her room. Not urine; he kept her catheterized for that. Not shit either; the old bitch probably hadn’t had a true bowel movement for years. Stale and sour sweat … chemicals, medication, ointment … the tang of alcohol wipes … and … 

“Whew,” he said, waving a hand in front of his nose. 

And that, friends and neighbors, was eau de cancer, a body rotting from the inside out. Strong today. Very strong. 

In her room, the air seemed thick with waxy particles. The wallpaper was more wax paper by now. Fussy antique sideboards or hutches or who-the-hell-knew stood around, covered with candles. Most were in little glass jars, white wicks rising, flames flickering above molten puddles. 

“Edith? Still with us?”

The old bitch didn’t respond. She was a mummified bundle of sticks and wrinkles, one eyelid sunken shut, the other half-lidded over a filmy, faded orb. Her mouth drooped slack. If not for the shallow hitches of her chest, he would’ve thought she’d gone and died on him. 

How long and how well, he wondered, would the candles mask full-on decay? When she did die, nobody had to know, did they? The checks would keep coming until it was reported, and who else but him would be reporting it? Quitting the agency and claiming he’d been hired as her live-in was the smartest thing he’d ever done. 

In the meantime, though, might as well go through the minimum motions. 

“Let’s see what this one is,” he said when he’d dealt with the IV. He slit the tape—that logo, that weird symbol, what was that?—and opened the box. 

Packing material … plastic wrappings … and aha, finally, the candle itself. 

He hesitated, nose wrinkling. “Eugh.”

Not in a jar. A squat, stout cylinder. Yellow, but not citrus-yellow, not lemon-meringue-pie yellow, not honeycomb yellow. A darker, nasty-somehow yellow. Earwax yellow. Diseased earwax yellow. Greasy. Greasy to the look and to the touch. Like poorly-rendered tallow. 

And its scent … 

Not floral. Not fruity. Not candy-bakery-sweet. 

Acrid sprang to mind. Alkaline. The bitter mineral salt flats by a strange lake. A warm lake. Lake Hali? In the dry shadows of the Hyades where black stars shine sharp? 

No wick protruded from its top. It was just a cylindrical blob, greasy and unpleasant, and why was he holding it, turning it around and around? Leaving impressions of his fingers in its soft, luridly organic substance … 

Was it a candle?

It felt like butter. Bad butter. A bad, rancid lump of butter. Churned from the yellow milk of some…thing … 

He squeezed and met a gooey resistance, a squirming undulant sort of movement. He thought of insectile larvae in wet cocoons … unborn malformed embryos slippery in congealed fluid … boneless and gelatinous … 

As myriad inhuman eyes peeled open, as the first slick tentacles oozed to curl around his fingers, he heard a low and chuffing rattle-sound, and realized the old bitch was laughing.