When Zelda wakes again, it's because there's a bright ray of sunlight peeking through the curtains and hitting her eyes. She sits up and presses her palms against her eye sockets, resting there for a moment before she chances a look at the clock. 5:00pm. So she hasn't wasted the whole day then.
She folds the covers back and scoots to the edge of the bed. With her feet resting on plush, dark carpeting, she pauses to listen to a sound coming from downstairs. Salem is talking to someone, but she can't quite make out the words. Oh well. Probably invited his poker dogs over again, though she keeps telling him to stop gambling with them.
Zelda stands up and presses her hands against her back, arching into a stretch. When she feels a satisfied pop in her spine, she stops and straightens up before moving to open the curtains. The sunlight isn't as bright now that it's nearing evening, but the warmth is nice on Zelda's face. She gives a small smile toward the bright ball of light and turns around to look at her bedroom.
It is dark, she thinks. Maybe after a couple of centuries of living here like this, it was time for a change. But what? She didn't want to match the décor in the rest of the house. It was just too plain.
The rumbling of her stomach drew attention away from where her gaze was fixed on the wall. With a sigh, Zelda realized that she probably needed to eat something since she skipped breakfast earlier.
With sluggish steps, she makes her way downstairs and into the kitchen to see Salem next to the phone but reading from a newspaper.
"Were you talking to someone?" she asks the cat.
Salem flicks his tail. "I was, but I'm not now. She hung up."
Zelda rolls her eyes. Salem was always looking for dates. It's a wonder he hasn't found the entire female population of the Earth twice over and been rejected. Still, it's not like he can just go to the Other Realm. Most witches and warlocks there would probably curse him into oblivion.
She opens the freezer, inspecting a couple of things on the shelf labeled "Actual Food".
Sabrina broke out a label maker after accidentally eating some potions ingredients instead of food and turning purple for three days. Salem laughed until he coughed up furballs, and Hilda kept turning everything Sabrina touched purple.
This house is chaos, Zelda thinks, and takes out a package of frozen chicken. She turns to the microwave, but decides against the waiting time and just zaps it onto a plate, steaming and aromatic.
Salem turns and reaches out with a paw. "May I..."
"Absolutely not, Salem." Zelda smacks his paw and brings the plate to the table. Darn cat.
She sits with all the grace her age has taught her to, despite wanting to slouch and cry. Six hundred and forty-seven years of grace, to be exact, but Zelda wasn't counting. She spies the cat looking at her intensely, and turns to her food, relishing in the taste of a hot meal. The first, she realizes, in a good week or two. Or three. Huh.
"Zelda, are you okay?" Salem asks, and jumps down from his counter perch to a chair at the table. The witch looks distraught. He knows she's still taking her breakup really hard, but the casual relationship she had with what's-his-name wasn't something her expected her to cry over. Yet, here she was three weeks later, still moping about the house.
Zelda did not want to talk about her failures with the king of failure. Instead, she says, "I'm having a hard time figuring out how to decorate my bedroom."
Salem, about to start cleaning his paw, pauses. "Just read a vacation magazine or something," he offers, not expecting that as her response.
The witch mulls the thought over in her head. They do have a couple of magazines that just came in. Rather than reading for pleasure, she could read for research. Zelda likes research, and supposes this is no different from working on her labtop. When she's finished eating, she puts her plate in the dishwasher and zaps the dirty rag to the laundry room.
She walks to her previous spot on the couch and grabs a magazine from the side table, flipping through absentmindedly. Maybe the Italian villa style would be nice, but still reminds her too much of the living room. Nothing else really catches her attention, so she tosses the magazine to the coffee table with a loud smack and picks up the other.
This one features glamourous women in fancy homes in exotic locations. The one in India is nice, but still not something she'd want for her own room. The California vineyard is also pretty, but still not what she's looking for.
There it is: blues and whites, and an expanse of ocean, and Zelda can almost picture herself there. Salty air, sun and more sun, and warmth, and the promise of a good tan. Zelda catches a whiff of a new scent and looks up from the magazine to find herself perched on a bench in…
"Greece?"