Housewarming Ch. 01

"Are you sure, ma'am? It's a rather old place," the real-estate agent asked her one more time, just to be sure. Eileen didn't quite understand why he was so hesitant, though.

"Yes, I understand. It's been well-maintained, hasn't it? And it's not located near anything dangerous, or contains asbestos..."

"...I suppose not. Most people tend to balk at older places, be it for spiritual or superstitious reasons. I assume that's not an issue for you, then."

"Ah, it is not. Most domiciles of mine have been older than me - European and all such. It shouldn't be an issue."

"...Alright then. Good luck, miss Jeffords."

---

Eileen was quite satisfied with this new place. It looked a tad old, but it was far from derelict. Three floors and an attic, all to herself, for relatively cheap! You just didn't get stuff like that in this economy. How lucky.

The exact where-abouts, which was about the middle of nowhere, didn't bother her much either. She was used to moving around, doubting that she'd stay here for more than a year, or even half of one. Staying in America was usually a transient thing for her, but it was a charming place all the same. Especially if the mansions were this cheap! And pre-furnished, too.

Thus, with a car full of belongings, she was as good as moved in already. Most of it was a variety of clothing, cutlery, and handiwork stuff like toolboxes. Whatever she could do to get small maintenance done. Not that she'd need much of that, the house looked in excellent state.

Taking her briefcase of important belongings, she made her way up the stairs to the door - large, imposing, looking like it was recently varnished. The locks were fairly modern, though. She took out a small key, slowly sliding it in. After a moment's hesitation, she turned it. Once, twice, followed by a satisfying click.

The door creaked a bit as it opened into the entrance hall. It was carpeted, surprisingly spacious, with both a closet and a coat hanger. Turning the lights on, Eileen could see a small cabinet or two, though save for a mirror this part of the place was suitably bare.

After hanging up her parka, Eileen took a moment to glance at the mirror, at herself. She looked out of place here, with her green, black-splotched hair, her weird, furred button-up and her informal posture. Well, that was stereotyping herself, she supposed, but taking any photos for her friends would absolutely have that difference called out. She kept that in mind as she continued on, her formless pupils tracing that reflection for a little longer - as if something was unusual about it, though there wasn't.

Then she sauntered into what she'd call the 'lobby', if this was a hotel. She wasn't sure if that was the same, or if this was an extension of the entrance hall, and it didn't matter to her all that much. Two sets of staircases curved upwards on either side, leading to the second floor, while another fancy, more ornamental table stood in between them. Hallways upon hallways were visible from here, promising her a house that wouldn't be fully explored for a while, if at all. Really, she almost wished she got her hands on a map or a blueprint, but no such luck.

She made her way up the first flight of stairs, glad that there wasn't some kind of echo thanks to the luxurious carpets. It made the house feel silent, sure, but it was the right sort. Eileen was the type to wear headphones all the time, but as long as the silence was relaxing she didn't really mind. Better than constant creaking or howling winds, or... well, the pitter-patter of rain was always nice, admittedly.

She paused, realizing that she'd stopped walking. She'd been thinking so much about the sound stuff that she'd stopped to listen, to see if there was anything she could notice. There was some dissonance between body and mind, of course. After ascertaining that she didn't hear anything, she continued on. A massive bathroom, some supply closets, broom closet, all rooms that didn't bear much description to her current goal. There was only one thing that stuck out to her. Most mansions like this stereotypically had many paintings lining the walls. This one, instead, had mirrors. All of them were different, featuring a variety of interesting and detailed frames, or being wildly oversized in some fashion. It was weird to see her own face so many times. Perhaps the previous owner was a narcissist of some kind, or a mirror collector. She liked to be charitable, so she assumed the latter.

After a few minutes and a few more mirrors, Eileen stumbled on what she assumed was the master bedroom. It was bigger than any she'd slept in before, which was good enough. A king-size bed stood in the middle, accompanied by small cabinets on each side, with a large closet to the side. A working desk stood on the other side, with various sizable bookshelves surrounding it. Surprisingly full, too! Some of it was in languages she didn't know, but most of it was either English or German. How curious.

Of course, this room wasn't complete without a mirror. There wasn't one on the ceiling, which she figured was more fitting for a narcissist than a collector. Instead, there was a large standing mirror, a few heads taller than her. Its frame had a water-like pattern, decorated in silver with actual onyxes set into it. They were cut into various random-seeming shapes, once more making Eileen wonder why the hell this house came so cheap.

She struck a little pose at the mirror, like she was taking a vacation selfie, before moving on to the closet. This one was mostly empty, save for what looked like a butler's uniform and a maid's uniform. Curious, but nothing she was inclined to think about. She didn't remove them, instead beginning to hang up her own stuff. Man, everything here was neat! There wasn't even an extra chair to play the role of 'laundry chair', so it looked like she couldn't procrastinate her laundry here either, not without covering the expensive wooden floor.

Well, at least it'd help her build up that habit. She was pretty sure she had a laundry basket in her car, and would need to get that one out in time.

A glance at the fairly large, modern clock on the wall indicated that it was about 7 PM. She didn't really feel like moving all her other stuff in just yet, if she was honest, so she'd leave that for tomorrow. All she'd need for tonight was her laptop, the food she'd brought with, and the hot chocolate. Perfect stuff for a winter month, truly.

First though, she decided to put on something more comfortable. Unbuttoning her top, unwrapping the several belts around her jeans, she decided to put these on the desk chair for the time being. After throwing her bra to the side, she was almost hoping she'd find some sort of night gown in the closet, but instead she simply put on her pajamas. Having custom-made pajamas absolutely wasn't the norm, but they were incredibly comfy. Soft and fuzzy, made to mimic her hair in its green-and-black appearance. It fit like a glove, too - another glance towards the mirror, it was loose-fitting but close enough that it kept all the warmth in.

No use in being vain about her pajamas, though. After putting on some slippers and some wooly socks, she headed downstairs, back to her car, to get herself a meal for the day. Nothing fancy this time, bami noodles with babi pangang, microwave ready meal. This place was modern enough to have a microwave, luckily, so after finding the dang kitchen she got 'cooking'.

The kitchen itself was fine. So far the only place without a mirror, but outfitted with a bunch of appliances, electric stoves, ovens, et cetera - no cutlery though, so she was glad she'd taken that with her.

After five minutes of waiting, most of which she'd spent on her phone chatting to friends, she heard the excited beep of a microwave having done a good job.

"There we go, Look at that!" she smiled, closing the microwave and giving the handle a pat, "good boy! Thank you for the food!"

Tempted to draw a smiley face on the microwave but not going through with it, Eileen plated her food and headed for the room she'd scouted. A living room, she would call it, though it might have been called the 'television room'. There was a fairly big flatscreen TV - any TV would have felt out of place here, though.

Quickly moving a small table around, Eileen grabbed a thin winter blanket and assumed her ultimate cozy position: In a leaning chair, food on her lap, a nice mug of milk to her side. It was a thing she'd mastered a while ago, and, living alone, she didn't have to worry about improper eating or sitting at tables. Screw that, she loved chairs like this!

As she dug into her meal, her eyes fell towards the television. Admittedly, she wasn't much of a TV-watcher. It was hard to keep up with the different assortments of channels every home and every country had, and some countries had vastly more ads than others. That had been a relief about Britain, she remembered from her few months there. Either way, she might as well check what was available here.

"Well, my wide-screen friend, let's see what reflections you bring to me..." she murmured to herself, picking up the remote to scroll through the channels available to her. If it was anything like the rest of the house, she'd probably get a full assortment of stuff she was hoping she didn't need to pay extra for.

News, news, news, kids' channel, two whole streaming services, more kids' channel, the sports channel, the 'overwhelmingly masculine channel' (they did darts), standard affairs for the most part. At least, until...

"Huh. The previous inhabitant really was some kind of pervert, wasn't he?"

Living in the information era, Eileen wasn't quite from the time where things like porn TV-channels were a thing. At least, they were phased out by the time she could easily access them. So, seeing a genuine washing list of lewd channels was as much a surprise as it was confusing to her. Why would one need so many? Why was there '24/7' porn? They had Wi-Fi here, for Gosh's sake!

She did snap a photo of the list, of course, her group chat would get a laugh out of that one. There was a temptation to ask if this was standard with the house, but she wasn't sure if asking that question was a social faux-pas. Probably, people were prudes. She too, sometimes, but still. Some of this stuff was downright comedic, there was no way 'Sweatpants TV' was a whole channel!

In her scandalized confusion, she bookmarked a few channels. Sweatpants TV was one of them, but the rest was a suitably niche selection, based on curiosity and a bit of genuine interest. For now though, she just put on one of them streaming services, full of all sorts of documentaries. Learning was always one of her favorite things to do. Today's topic would be... penguins! She loved those cute fellas.

With that, most of that early night would pass swimmingly. She and her friends had a laugh about the TV stuff, and mused about what might be going on with all those mirrors. Her food was good as always, and for a change, she felt surprisingly comfortable in this big new home. Even for her, change required some time to adapt to, brought about grumpy moods, depressions, the whole lot. Maybe that'd come at night, when she couldn't sleep again, but she was optimistic about it this time.

Eventually, though she didn't keep track of time like that, her eyes wandered from the television, having passed into some topic she didn't really care about. Given how much time there was left in the day, she'd be better off finding something to do. Exploring the house seemed quite appealing, too - she couldn't imagine more than two floors' worth of rooms. These people must have been very imaginative.

Getting lost at this hour wouldn't be great, though, she'd like to be in bed with a nice cup of tea before ten. So... perhaps it would be better to leave that for now.

She got up from her cozy little spot, sighing to herself as she gave her dishes a quick wash. Once the single plate, fork and knife looked about clean enough, she began on her little nightly ritual. She filled a glass with cold water, and a mug with hot water - this place had a tap that instantly gave her the boiling stuff! -, preparing some strawberry tea while going through her music choices for tonight. She wanted something romantic, maybe a little moody. After arranging a queue of nice songs, she put on her noise-canceling headphones, threw some sugar in her tea, and headed upstairs. Unable to hear anything that was going on, her eyes were all that focused on the surroundings. It was the same path, of course, but her curiosity at the mirror obsession now made her think about how they were placed.

It wasn't all of them, of course, but as she walked through the hall to her bedroom, she noticed most mirrors were in sets of two, more horizontal than vertical. One was at chest level, the other at hip level, matching up exactly to her height. It kinda felt like she was being leered at, constantly seeing the reflection of her chest and her butt like that, but she chalked it up to coincidence. Most other mirrors she'd seen were placed in more reasonable ways, being full-body ones or being at a general face level, rather than anything specific.

So, coincidence it was. Another mystery solved, or perhaps just left for tomorrow. Instead, she simply hopped into bed, laptop, tea and water on the nightstand, pulling the covers over herself and relaxing.

The bed was... extremely comfortable. It was the perfect amount of soft, not enough for her to sink a full meter, but not too hard as to feel like brick. The temperature was just right, there was a perfect amount of pillows-Three-, and for the first time in a while, getting into a new place felt just perfectly right.

Her plan to play some video games in bed faded quickly as she felt her body relax, sleepiness almost immediately taking over. She could only barely finish her tea before closing her eyes fully. Her breathing steadied, a smile stayed on her face, and she joined the night - the last normal night for her.