“All the same?”
“You’ll see, if you stay,” he said. “But as to water and a fire,” his voice was becoming more confident, the sound more fluid, as he spoke, “that shouldn’t be a problem.”
I cleared my throat. “I need water,” I said to the House. “And a fire in the fireplace. And ...” Well, there was nothing, nothing in the whole place. “Soap,” I continued, “and rags, and tubs, one for bathing and one for the dishes. And food.”
“Steady on,” said Cornelius.
“Bread, for certain, and meat, and fresh things. Vegetables. Fruit. And I don’t know where you keep the plates and cups and such.”
I had that same strange feeling of the place sneezing around me and rearranging itself. It was a disorienting sensation, like missing a step on the stairs—things didn’t appear, exactly, but had suddenly always been there, and I had just failed to notice them, somehow.
A fire bloomed like red lilies in the grate. Two tubs of hot water stood simmering before it, towels and linens draped over their sides and two long bars of green soap laid between them.
There were bread baskets and sacks of green vegetables, all full—I hadn’t seen such healthy produce in a while, with the terrible harvest we’d had—and an expensive-looking black crystal bowl full of fruit.
A door swung open to show a cold room where meat hung from silver hooks. The table was covered with dishes and cups of all sizes, as well as a kettle, and a teapot wrapped in an embroidered cozy (black). I lifted the cozy and the lid of the teapot. It was full of tea, steaming and fragrant.
“That’s a nice touch,” said the cat.
“It is at that.” I ran my hands over the dishware. Fine china, so thin you could see through it if you held it to the light, with a spindly pattern of black and silver at the edges that reminded me faintly of crows sitting on tree branches. There were saucepans too, great heavy things.
“No stove, though,” I said, and then heard aclankand turned to see a stove installed on the wall behind me, made out of the same black stuff as everything else.
“I think the House likes you,” said Cornelius. “It’s not usually this helpful.”
“How does it normally work?”
He did something with his shoulders that would have been a shrug if he had been hinged properly for one.
“I have food and water when I need it,” he said. “And the odd mouse.”
“Mice? In this place?”
“I think the House makes them for me. They taste peculiar. Have a funny texture, not like the real ones. But it’s a change, having something to chase.” He stopped to wash a paw. “I think it’s worried I’ll get bored. Maybe it’s worried you will, too.”
I looked around at all the new things. “I suppose I could have wished for the dishes to have cleaned themselves.”
“I don’t think that would have worked,” Cornelius said. “More of a want than a need, if you see what I mean.”
Well. I rolled up the sleeves of my dress, which, frankly, would have to be made into rags soon enough anyway, and piled up the dirty plates. I scraped the leavings into the fire, where they crackled and shriveled, and then dumped the dirty dishes into one of the tubs of water to scrub them with soap and a linen rag that was made of nicer stuff than any dress I’d ever owned.
It was satisfying, having my arms up to the elbows in hot, soapy water, and made me feel a thousand times better and more at home.
Cornelius watched for a while, then curled up on the hearth rug—had there been a rug there a moment before?—and appeared to fall asleep.
He opened one yellow eye when I had finished, however, and watched me pour the dirty water down the sink that had politely introduced itself to one corner while I wasn’t looking.
“You close those eyes,” I said. “I’m going to take a bath.”
The cat snorted. “You think I care?”
“You may not, but it’ll make me more comfortable.”
“Fine.” He yawned, rolling out a carpet of tongue, and flipped himself over to toast his other side.
The hot water was glorious. It seemed such a long time since I had felt anything good, anything at all, besides the terrible pull of the spell, and I had forgotten what it was like. I lay in that water until my skin was wrinkled and soft as a baby’s bum.
I dried myself on the fine cloth that passed for a towel and groped for my old bodice and skirt, but I found them exchanged for something altogether sturdier and handsomer, of better cloth, and with fine silver fastenings.
