Note: Thank you everyone that's been following this story thus far! I always appreciate reviews. Just a reminder that you're welcome to join my discord server that I run with Aria of Light for both our stories. The code is nPkEbyDts3 which you paste at the end of the usual discord invite link.

Chapter 48

Room

Anna didn't poke at anyone else, so she and Jack left soon after.

Jack was still giggling like a child.

"It wasn't that funny," Anna argued, half a step behind him.

"There are few citizens that fluster the Gatekeeper," Jack explained through snickers. "Arachne and him had a… misunderstanding a couple centuries ago. And both can hold a grudge."

"Is it something annoying and ridiculously petty?" Anna asked, widening her eyes in interest.

"He broke one of her looms and she lost one of his books. At least that's the official story. I'm sure it's more complicated. But Gatekeeper is the reason Arachne doesn't let anyone into her workshop and the Weaver is the reason he doesn't lend out his books happily."

"…" Anna stopped walking.

"Something wrong?"

"Well, don't I feel special," Anna muttered as she kept moving. "Nevermore lent me a book. And Arachne didn't complain about me coming in her house."

"Hm. You were intriguing from the first night you arrived. I can see why they made exceptions. Curiosity killed the cat after all."

"But satisfaction brought it back," Anna completed with little thought. "Or is it understanding? What else have I done that's…. strange? Or made citizens act strangely?" She wasn't sure she liked the "special" treatment, but it was probably to be expected.

Jack thought for a minute. "The witches let you stay with them longer than they normally would. But that's my fault. Otherwise, I'm afraid the novelty of you will last for quite a while. Especially after the meeting."

"Afraid?"

Jack shrugged a little. "We can discuss it more later. At the moment we have something else to take care of."

Anna nodded, suddenly feeling like her throat should dry if she had one.

Right. Citizenship.

The witches and Jack had said something about a ritual. But what did that mean? What did she agree to?

Jack opened the door for her as they arrived at his house.

Sally was in the living room sorting through a box full of… something Anna didn't recognize (they looked like large weird chest pieces) and looked up.

Annalise ducked her head from the knowing and joyful gaze Sally had when she saw the teen.

"Sally," Jack greeted with a goofy smile as he crossed the room and leaned over his lover and her work. "And how are you today?"

Anna watched him hang on the ragdoll's every word and mannerism.

"Jack," Sally scolded gently. "I could have sworn you saw me a few hours ago."

"Is that all?" he asked. "Feels like far longer."

Sally snickered and stood up to meet his face with a kiss, while he didn't move from his stooped posture.

He straightened after he got what he wanted, looking very pleased with himself. Then he remembered Anna was watching. Jack suddenly grieved the realization his displays of affection to Sally would have to more… measured with a third entity occupying the manor. Damn.

Sure enough, Anna looked a tad uncomfortable and was staring very intensely at a cobweb in the far corner of the room.

Yeah.

Anna realised Sally didn't give a shit about either of their anxieties as Sally smirked and kissed him again, breaking him out of the complicated plan he was trying to piece together of how they could schedule kisses where Anna wouldn't be bothered.

"Annalise?" Sally asked. She brushed dust off her dress and left Jack by the fireplace to come over and clasp Anna's hands. "Are you staying?"

Not "are you staying for dinner?" She knew she was asking for something a bit more permanent.

"…Yes, ma'am," Anna whispered. She nodded, feeling very small suddenly.

"That's wonderful," Sally said. She turned without letting go of one of Anna's hands and Anna yelped as she stumbled to follow.

Sally pulled her along, leading her further into the house. "I didn't really decorate your room. I'll leave you to that. But I added a few knick-knacks. I also hunted down some curtains and Harlequin helped me fix the desk and cabinet. Don't worry, Jack. The doors still creak. But the desk drawer was just not functional unless we fixed it. And Jack, we really need to go through those boxes you put in there. There are other rooms to use for storage besides one of the nicest bedrooms!"

"Her room?" Jack asked, just as stunned as Anna felt as he trailed behind them as Sally dragged Anna up the stairs.

"Of course! Don't tell me you were expecting her to stay on the couch," Sally scolded over her shoulder.

"Well…no. But I hadn't…"

"You hadn't thought to prepare a room for her," Sally said with a nod.

Jack looked sheepish. "Well, I supposed I was going to wait until she picked one."

Sally laughed lightly. Then she looked a little sheepish herself. "Anna, if you don't like this one, you are more than welcome to move into another. I won't be offended. I just thought you'd want to have your own space immediately."

"You…" Anna stammered as Sally stopped in front of one of the rooms. "You made a room for me?"

"Of course."

"But you didn't know if I was going to stay here."

"Well, it's better than the town library—."

"—The library?—" Jack interrupted in confusion.

But Sally spoke quickly before Jack could press for answers and Anna could ask how Sally knew she had been squatting.

"And if you decided not to stay, well, then at least we'd have a guest room. For once."

Sally opened the door and stepped back to let Anna see her new room. She whispered to Jack. "I went ahead and actually put a carpet in Ivy's room while I was at it, Jack. She could have gotten splinters!"

"Er…she…um…she never complained."

"Jack."

"This is…"

Anna's distracted tone interrupted the two adults.

Sally had picked the biggest bedroom for the teen. It was actually the room Jack had originally offered to Sally when she moved in with him, but she hadn't been comfortable with the size, so she had chosen the one with the largest window and second-best view of town instead, even if it was smaller.

Anna's new view was third best. Not to say it wasn't lovely either, with a large circular window taking up half of one wall. A small, rusty and unfortunately unusable telescope was installed in the frame, but Sally had opted to leaving it as a later project. Or something Anna could tinker with if she was so inclined.

While Sally's room fully faced the town, this one was more turned toward the town gates and the graveyard (and then forest) beyond.

Jack's office/study high in the tower doubled as his bedroom, with a bed that he dragged in front of his fireplace then shoved away into a deep-set crawlspace under one bookshelf when he woke (on the rare occasion he bothered sleeping). He had the best view, of course, and while it was of a decent size, the study certainly wasn't the primary bedroom. Neither was this one, actually, although it might as well be.

The actual "master" bedroom was somewhere else in the house. But Sally hadn't found it.

Jack had explained that he never wanted to really use that bedroom for anything after he inherited the manor from Oogie. So he tucked away as a storage space, likely forgotten behind a bookshelf he had pushed in front of the door decades ago.

There was some magic in the house. It was far more spacious on the inside than it appeared on the outside. Hallways were longer than they should be and some placements of the rooms made little sense.

That master bedroom could be lost to the halls anywhere.

Sally and Jack both hung by the door, Jack pulling Sally into a quietly grateful side-hug as they watched Anna turn around in the room, staring at the large ceiling. It never even crossed his mind that Anna was going to need some place that was… hers. Of course, he was going to let her stay in Skellington Manor but he hadn't exactly planned much of the following details.

"This looks like it should be the library," Anna murmured, studying massive empty bookshelves that covered one wall and stretched to the fairly high ceiling. The room itself was seemingly two stories tall. How was there room in the house for this? Even if Jack ever failed to mention there was magic involved, she already guessed that was the case.

"I suspect whatever King originally built the manor had a greater appreciation for books than his successors," Jack admitted. "I just never got around to filling these particular shelves."

"You've certainly got the books for them," Sally said. "You just elected to make 7-feet-tall stacks in the library and your study instead of hauling them here or the other half-dozen shelvings."

Jack winced, remembering a few times he'd been buried under the precarious stacks following a particularly hard slam of a door. Or when they were used as an obstacle course.

Sally nodded to the shelves and Anna. "I figured you would like to use them. Your own books. Storage perhaps. Maybe a display or two?"

Anna craned her neck to look at the top shelf, giving up counting them for the moment. "…I certainly have the time to put something in them," she breathed. It would take her years to fill the shelves herself. But that wasn't a problem. She had all the time in the world now, she supposed.

She swallowed and turned away so Sally wouldn't see her face, pretending to study the window. This was so kind of Sally to do when she didn't have to. But thoughts have a funny way of invading the mind.

How long would this be her room? She was…

She was immortal. Wasn't she? She'd fill this bookshelf even if she only added one book every year. One a decade. One a century maybe. She would have a full bookshelf, eventually. Of course, realistically, it would probably fill in the next couple of years, if that. But it was a disturbing reminder that if every shelf was a century, for example, her entire living family would be long gone before it sported yellowing paper and cracked binding. She'd probably forget them before then.

This was her room now. Okay, she could deal with that. But somehow the permanence of that bookshelf felt unnatural.

"I'm sure there's a chest or two you can have as well," Jack said, eying the empty corners. "For storage, you know. Actually, there might be one—!" He abruptly turned to hunt down some random furniture, his words fading down the hallway moments before he changed his mind and stuck his head back in the doorway. "Ah…priorities… Yes. Annalise, will you and Lily please join me in my study in about half an hour? I just have a few things to set up. Where is your familiar anyway?"

Anna nodded, then shrugged. "Around. She's been following us."

"Is she inside? Impressive. I didn't see her come in."

"The fog help—." Anna was interrupted by well-timed barking from downstairs, along with yowling and a bit of spitting.

Lily streaked up the stairs, weaving between Jack and Sally's legs to bound off the doorframe before launching at Anna, clawing up the dress to her mistress's arms.

"The hell did you do?" Anna snapped.

"Why do you assume I did anything?" Lily asked primly, scrambling to climb to Anna's shoulder, slipping on the skeleton's clavicle.

"Don't tear my dress!"

"Tell that mutt to not snap at me!"

"I'm not going to believe Zero would just snap at you," Anna said pointedly.

Lily looked surly. "In my defense, I didn't see him."

The echoed barking followed close behind as Zero came up the stairs, maybe forgetting that he was a ghost and could have just come up through the floor. He saw Lily and barked again.

"Whoa, boy, that's enough," Jack said, snagging Zero's collar. "What got you two up in arms?"

"Nature," Lily snorted.

"Hush," Anna said. "Did you jump on him?"

Zero growled at the cat while Lily looked offended. But she didn't refute.

"I think Lily might have jumped in Zero's bed and didn't see him," Anna said.

Sally laughed. "Did she interrupt your nap, Zero?" She scratched the ghost dog behind the ears.

Zero yipped, but he was still glaring at Lily.

"He looks offended. Lily, what really happened?"

Zero barked a few times as if yelling the story.

"Zero, we can't understand you," Jack reminded. "Surely we don't need to call for Jasper or Trouble to mitigate?"

"No!" Lily snapped. "I don't want those idiot toms prowling around thinking they're so slick rubbing themselves on my furniture."

Annalise tried not to burst out laughing at the premise that Lily had immediately decided the manor was hers.

Lily shifted her weight on Anna's shoulders before she rolled her eyes and admitted. "I thought that dog was a pillow at first. I used my claws to fluff the… ahem… bed a bit. That certainly woke him up. I've never seen a dog sleep that heavily. Needed claws to get his lazy self up."

Anna snickered and told the older monsters what the cat said.

Jack laughed. "I'm sure we can all get along going forward, hmm? We can get you a bed of your own, Lily."

Zero growled, although the skeletons and ragdoll didn't understand him. "Don't even think of taking my fireplace, cat."

Lily ignored him and licked down her ruffled fur.

—