A New Voice
Karen felt time had gotten away from her, when next she looked up. She had been reading for...a while? but it didn't seem like the room should have grown so much darker. Glancing up at the skylight she could see the sunset giving way to night, the bright pinks and oranges slowly becoming blue.
Either Frank was following her reading closely, or he just noticed the prolonged silence, but she turned away from watching the heavens when he cleared his throat.
"Are you tired? There's bedrooms, and uhh, a privy. For washing up and necessaries."
On this...sensitive topic, Karen found herself blushing again - only to note with some amusement that Frank seemed a bit red in the cheeks as well.
Well, thank God for small mercies.
"Yes, I'm getting a bit sleepy thank you."
She smiled and closed up the book, glancing down at the page to remember her place and setting it down gently on the chair. Standing up she stretched a bit and tried to stifle a yawn, then retrieved her shoes from under the chair and headed towards the doors. Frank was right beside her, and then ahead of her, walking a few paces in front and glancing back to make sure she was following. He walked out of the room and gestured to the blue-green glass door.
"Bedroom there, and the ahh, privy is the door down the hall", and he gestured towards where she'd seen the unobtrusive wooden door. He was not blushing this time, but he did mumble the words more towards the floor than her.
"I'll, uhh, see you tomorrow. G'night."
He didn't wait for a response but turned and walked back towards the kitchen, his footsteps growing quiet as he moved away.
"Goodnight to you too!"
Karen called it almost sarcastically, to his back.
Whether he be man or monster, he has no manners.
Sighing, she looked over at the door to her bedroom - what he'd said was her bedroom, at any rate, though Lord only knew who it actually belonged to. Hopefully no one that would mind her sleeping in their bed. Thinking of sleeping in someone's bed gave her a moment's pause, and she bent down to sniff discretely at her dress.
Oh God, I need a washing. Hopefully the privy will have a bucket and cloth, and I can at least get some of the dirt off before I crawl into...someone's bed.
She headed down the hall towards the wooden door, expecting to see his retreating form heading outside, or in to the front room. Instead, she found the hall empty.
He moves fast.
Not a helpful thought, that, and she pushed it out of her mind as she reached the privy. She opened the door and was...bewildered.
The room, to start, was larger than she expected and divided into two sections by several panels of a cream-colored fabric - silk, perhaps? - that shifted and moved as though wafting in an unseen breeze. It was beautiful, but just a touch unsettling.
On the visible side of the room was a stone basin attached to a pillar, much like the one in the kitchen. There was a mirror set on the wall above it, lovely and gilded with a familiar branching motif (is everything in this house tree related??). As in the kitchen there was a bucket of water and a rag beside it, and stepping closer she also noted what looked like a cake of soap sitting on the basin's wide rim.
Is it for washing up? I mean, it must be, mustn't it? But where does the water go?
Now standing in front of the basin, she picked up the cake of soap and gave it a sniff (honey and lavender, how wonderful!), smiling at the thought of how delightful it would be to smell like that, rather than sweat and dirt. Looking up, she caught her reflection in the grand mirror and spent a few moments making faces at herself. And then...
{Hello}
The mirror fogged for a second, as though breathed on, and the word appeared. Written by an unseen hand.
Karen let out a startled noise - half shriek, half whimper - and jerked back from the wall.
{I beg your pardon, I did not mean to startle you.}
As before - fog, then the words appeared.
Ok, so...magic mirror. To go along with magic doors and magic library and magic trees, I guess?
Cautiously, Karen stepped closer to the mirror and, looking towards the door as if to confirm she wasn't being watched, leaned in to whisper,
"Can you hear me?"
{I can, yes.}
"Oh! Are you, um, a person? In the mirror, I mean."
{I am not a person, I am the house.}
"...that's very...interesting. Are you alive?"
{In a manner of speaking, yes.}
"How is that? I mean, how are you alive?"
{I do not know. Do you know how you are alive?}
"Well...I know that my mother gave birth to me, which is why I am alive but that is not the same as how, I suppose."
{I do not understand the distinction, but I am alive. At least, I am aware.}
"That's...probably more than most houses, and probably some people, I guess?"
There was no response from the mirror, and Karen supposed that served her right for asking a rhetorical question to a sentient mirror. Might as well ask some real questions, then.
"What are the stone basins for?"
{They are for washing up.}
I knew it!
"I thought so, but then I couldn't see where the water went...?"
{It is diverted through the basin back into the plants that are part of my structure.}
"Oh! So it...helps water...the house?"
{In a manner of speaking, yes.}
"That is...very interesting."
{Is it?}
"I think so!"
There was no response from the mirror again (it's good at answering questions but not so good at conversation, I guess?). Time for another real question.
"Is there anything else like the stone basin in this privy?"
{The chamber pot is very similar. As are the baths.}
"...the...baths?"
{There are two, behind the curtains. One for soaping and one for rinsing.}
Of all the absurd luxuries, this was one Karen had to see for herself. She crossed the room and drew one of the panels aside and, sure enough - two giant stone tubs, one with a basket hanging over the side which contained another cake of soap, a rag, and what looked like a sturdy hair comb. She was quite honestly beside herself, and wasted no time in running back to the mirror.
"Can you tell me where the well is? I would like very much to draw some water for a bath."
Drawing the water for one bath would take long enough, two would certainly be excessive.
{I would be happy to fill them both with hot water, should you desire.}
"I would...yes, oh I would so love that! Thank you very much!"
{It will be a few minutes, you may attend to the rest of your toilet until then.}
And so she did, despite the strangeness of an indoor, stationary chamber pot (really, don't think overmuch about where the waste goes). She undressed and folded her clothes and set them with her pistol neatly beside the stone basin, then walked up to the fabric curtain and pulled it back again.
She nearly cried.
The first bath was drawn, steam wafting from the water, and she could see that the second bath was very slowly filling up as well, though by what means she did not know.
Magic, you nitwit. It's obviously magic.
Whatever it was, it was glorious. Karen wasted no time getting into the first bath, sinking in up to her ears with a delighted grin.
I don't care that hot baths are supposed to be bad for your health, this is absolutely wonderful!
Sighing contentedly, she set to that most serious task of washing up - employing all the tools the cottage had seen fit to put at her disposal (lovely soap, a wash rag, a comb,) along with a single-minded determination to no longer be the dirtiest thing in the building. Some minutes later, head soaped and dunked, hair plaited, the bath looked a little bit like a forest pool - bits of bark and plant floating on the surface (even some sort of flower, how did that get there?), along with some less identifiable bits of debris from her journey. She wrinkled her nose at the mess, and looked over to the second bath which was sitting full and clean.
This house will spoil me. Well, shouldn't let it go to waste...
Carefully, so as not to slip either exiting one tub or entering the next (and wouldn't that be a sight, me bleeding on the floor and nothing having killed me but my own wet feet?), Karen switched from washing tub to soaking tub. She noted that as she did so the first tub began to drain, but she was warm and content and couldn't bring herself to get out and examine whatever magic was being employed just right this instant.
I'll ask the mirror, or I'll just have to take another bath. Wouldn't that be awful?
She smirked at the thought, this wonderful experience being some sort of price to pay for learning more about magic, and lay her head back against the slope of the tub. She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew her ears were touching the water and she jerked her head forward with a start.
Yet another embarrassing death, drowning in a tub. Time for bed, I suspect.
Again she made careful her exit from the tub, then parted the curtain to fetch up her (regrettably dirty) clothes.
They were not there.
She blinked, and peered closer at the spot beneath the stone basin (I set them right there, did I not?) before noticing that the mirror was once again using its' strange foggy way of communicating.
{I have taken your pistol and clothes, I apologize. The clothes were in terrible condition. I will see them cleaned and repaired before returning them. You may find a cloth to dry yourself with and a sleeping gown in the cupboard, against the far wall.}
It was enough to irk Karen that she hadn't been asked about her clothes, but...Lord forgive me, I had no desire to put those dirty things back on.
"Thank you, house."
Indeed she found both in the cupboard, and the latter was embroidered at the high-neck and the lace cuffs with a complex and delicate tangle of green vines and leaves. It fit, somewhat unsurprisingly, as though it had been tailored just for her.
The towel she left draped over the stone basin, and with a yawn she could not contain she left the room and went back to the hallway.
It seemed less candles were burning now, or they were dimmer, so she did not linger overlong from privy to the green-blue door. The door opened easily, swinging inward, and Karen once again marveled at the luxury this seemingly-simple cottage contained.
The bed she noticed first, perhaps because she was tired or because it took up a great deal of space in the room. It was huge, 4 posts of some dark wood carved into intricate fern-leaf designs. The fabric canopy, the headboard, and the sheets were much the same color as the door (somewhere between green and blue, like the foam on an angry sea) and looked ever-so-soft to the touch. The opposite wall from the bed was almost totally lined with what looked like one long closet with a number of doors, and the room was rounded out by a corner fireplace with seating and table for two.
It was all really, really too much.
Part of her wanted to explore, of course, go through the doors and examine everything. But that inquisitive part was loudly overruled by the demands of sleep, and so Karen did not linger in the doorway. Instead, she crossed the room and carefully crawled under the seafoam colored covers.
Oh, they're just as soft as I imagined...
And then she slept, and knew no more.