Fiction
October 2021
The Piano Room
by Clio Velentza
A gothic retelling of the myth of Faust, set in Hungary in the 1970s and 1990s Eighteen-year-old Sandor Esterhazy, rich and entitled, is descended from a long line of talented pianists, but he has no intention of following in their footsteps. One afternoon, in a fit of pique, he calls up the devil, using an old book of magic spells, and offers to exchange his soul for a life free to choose his own destiny. Afterwards Sandor laughs it off as a joke, but that night he sees the shape of a man approaching the house. He is dragging someone – or something – behind him through the snow. Sandor goes down to the piano room. The devil has delivered a bare-foot young man who Sandor instantly recognises. But what is this creature? And what exactly is to be done with him?
