Chapter Four: Cleaning Time

After George left, Elenni walked up beside me and said, "Follow me. You can stay in the spare room."
This would probably be the best time to explain the house. It's very odd. I've never seen a house quite like it. It is a rather long house. The front door opens into the living room. That's where I first walked into. Then there is a doorway that can be covered by a curtain hanging from the wall on the right. That's the kitchen. I'm pretty sure it is. I though I saw some pots through the partly opened curtain. Then there is a long hallway right across from the front door. It's lined with five doors. The first door to my left is the workroom. She says that's where she does her stitching and cleaning, and "other" stuff (wonder what she means?). The room across from it was her room. After those rooms, there are three more. The second door on the right and the one on the left are the healing rooms (Where people heal.?) and the last one on the right was the room I was going to stay in.
Before we entered she said, "Okay, first test of your abilities. This was George's room. No one has been in it for a while. So there has never been a reason to clean it. If you want to stay in it, you have to clean it. I would stay to help, but I have other thins to do. There might be things that don't belong in there. If there is, just set it aside and I'll look at it when I come in to make lunch. That will be in a few hours. Have fun." Then she left.
I don't know what I expected. Cobb webs everywhere, junk everywhere, rats. There was nothing of the sort, really. Of course there were a few webs, and dust, but no rats. There was junk on the floor but I guess I though that it wasn't so bad. It gave me something to do.
Elenni returned with a few rags and a bucket of water. She handed them to me and said, "You know, a few years ago, when George left, I used this room as a store room, sort of. But if I remember right, I did put a lot of the dressed that I had that didn't fit me into a box. If you find it, go ahead and look through it. See if some fit you. It will save us the extra work of having to make a whole new one. We might have to take them up a little in the skirt part, but you look almost the same size that I was. Speaking of cloths, I have laundry to do, and you have cleaning, so I'll leave you alone."
Needless to say, the first thing I did was take everything and put it into the middle of the room. I dusted, swept, and took the cobwebs down. I had to open the window though so I could breath. (Ha, I have a window that looks out onto the grassy lawn and beautiful flowers in the garden. There is also a vegetable and fruit garden. A few trees, and a swing. I have to look at that later.)
Most of the boxes were filled with books. (That's a good thing to know, just incase I get bored) I did find the box with the dresses in it. I set it aside to look at later. I was in the zone on the cleaning thing. I wasn't about to ruin it. Okay, so I lied. I took a lunch break.(I had a ham sandwich. It was unsurprisingly good. I knew Elenni would be a good cook.) But I was almost done anyway.

When I finished lunch, I asked Elenni for some sheets for the bed. She said to get them off the cloths line outside. (That's weird. Cloths line. I'm used to dryers.) That's what the last door was for. There was a door that was at the end of the hall, and it lead out to the garden/ backyard thing.

Now I got a better look at the back yard. They're two trees. The biggest one is the one with the swing on it. The other was a weeping willow. Like I said earlier, there is a garden and flowerbeds. I got the sheets and went back inside.

When I finished the bed, I walked over to the box with the cloths. When I opened it, the first thing I saw was a very white dress. When I unfolded it, it looked like a wedding dress. I decided not to keep staring at it. I didn't want Elenni to come in and think I wanted to put it on. That would be –odd. So I folded it and put it on the bed. There were so many dresses. Almost all the colors of the rainbow. There were blue ones, and green ones (better then the one I was wearing at the time, that plain green one that Laura gave me). There were yellow, and brown, and there was a black one also. (I don't want to know why there was a black one. Especially since there was only one.) Then I saw a dark(ish) blood red one at the bottom of the box. It was so pretty. It had long sleeves that slit up to about the middle of the upper part of the arms. There were two ribbons sewn on it. It's not cotton either. It's a heavier material. Maybe half silk, half cotton, I don't know. It is so beautiful. It has a darker blood red corset like thing. It ties under my breast to cover my abdominal area. Needless to say, I had to try it on first.

"That was my favorite dress also." I had just finished putting the dress on and was admiring myself in the fill length mirror on the wall. "You remind me a lot of me when I was your age, I mean the way you look." She walked to me and took the ribbons that hung at the slit in the arm and wrapped them around my arms several times before she tied it. She did it to the other arm then took a step back at stared at me happily.

"Have you found what you're going to wear when you go with George?" I hadn't thought about it and I told her so. She looked at the pile of clothes for a moment, and then grabbed what was, I guess, a light blue under dress, and a brown over dress. The blue was long sleeved and the brown had a two-inch strap. It also tied loosely at the sides.

"That should be good," she said after I put it on and showed it to her. She said if I started to trip on the dress, just to hold in up with my hands.(She said tomorrow she'll show me how to sew and hem dresses.) She helped me to hang up all the dresses and to find shoes that fit. (They were in another one of the boxes). It was she who took the black dress and the wedding dress and put them in her room. (Glad I didn't ask) When she came back she produced this book and a quill pen. She said that I could use it as a diary or something like that. It's a nice, big, blank book, as you can see, I guess. Anyway, she said I could "organize my thoughts if I needed". That sounds odd. Oh, well.

So I've been writing since she left.

What was that? Oh, I think its George. I'll write later.

Gwen.