Hot water rained on her skin like blood. Any second, Eloise may open her eyes and find herself awash in the red fluid which belonged only in her veins. She shuddered once, then lifted her heavy lids just to assure herself that no such illusion would occur. When satisfied, she closed her eyes and continued rinsing the mix of filth and suds on her skin.

Eloise felt like she was in a hotel room she could never afford. When she’d walked in, she’d been greeted by a bed much larger than any she’d ever slept in. A queen at least, it was dressed in black and white sheets and patterned with fleur-de-lis. The walls were plain and warm, inviting her to rest once she finished her shower. The shower itself sat opposite a giant, ovular tub, the bathroom half as large as the bedroom itself. Eloise was afraid to see the size of the closet judging by the largeness of the rest of the room.

She fumbled along the row of soaps, oils, shampoos, and conditioners, each uniquely scented and jarred as though homemade. Sniffing each jar one by one, she applied only the least overwhelming and most pleasant to her senses. By the time Eloise stepped out of the shower, her skin was steaming and covered in a new layer of scented protection. Wrapped in the softest towel she’d ever felt, Eloise stepped out of the tiled bathroom onto the velvety carpet of the bedroom. She paused, heart stopping at the folded clothing on the bed. Eyes wide, she turned to see that her dirty clothes had somehow disappeared from the floor in the bathroom. Eloise hadn’t heard anyone come in. Taking a shallow breath, she turned back to the items on her bed. “Okay.” Gripping the towel at her chest, she reached for and turned over the clothes for inspection. A set of underwear and a nightgown revealed themselves to her. Hesitantly, she picked them up and carried them to the bathroom, where she changed behind a closed and locked door.Their room?

It was creepy, how comfortable the clothes she hadn’t even picked out were. Creepier still was the fact that they’d just appeared at random. She’d met a giant wolf, an elf, and walked into a mansion in the woods all in the same day, but this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Eloise closed her eyes and exhaled before hanging her dampened towel up and exiting the bathroom. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as she opened the door onto a new sight.

A bowl full of hot soup and a large glass of water on the nightstand.

‘This is insane,’ Eloise thought, but logically it was no more insane than falling out of a window and landing on an entirely different plane. She swallowed hard, feeling like time had stretched the hours between the two instances. Simultaneously, her pulse raced over the fact that the windows in this manor were too lean for her to squeeze through should she need to experiment with such teleportation again.

Five-spice and sesame oil floated on vapors to her nostrils, making her stomach rumble. The churning in her stomach started off as regular hunger, then turned to lurching in seconds. Doubling back into the bathroom, she found herself heaving over the edge of the porcelain bowl, emptying out the contents of her stomach into the toilet. All the devilishly mixed drinks, vain attempts at hydration between fruity delights, and needlessly deep-fried appetizers from the last night spent in her world left her body in a torrent of thick, chunky bile. She gagged and heaved until all that was left to do was collapse on the cold, still moist hard floor. Lying with her feverish head against the cool tile, Eloise’s vision blurred as a salty heat pooled between the ground and her cheek. “Is this real?” she croaked, half-afraid there would actually be an answer from the dark corners of the room. Maybe she really was dead, and the Headmaster was kind enough not to tell her. Or cruel enough. Maybe this was all in her head, and any moment she’d wake up with her legs broken from the fall she’d taken. Would she still be on the ground outside her house? Would she be in the hospital? Would she be in her room again? Their room? Where would she be?

Would he be there?

Eloise lay on the bathroom floor until the tears she’d shed dried between her cheek and the tile, until her stomach was calm enough she could sit up without feeling dizzy. Pushing herself back to her feet, she closed the toilet lid without looking and flushed. Then, she returned to the sink and found a conveniently placed toothbrush and a series of homemade tubes of toothpaste awaiting her approval. Finding one she liked, she brushed the sick from her teeth and returned to face the food she desperately needed if she was going to get any sleep that night.

Thirty minutes after sitting down by the nightstand, she was able to put away the homemade ramen that had cooled enough for her to eat. The broth thickened so much in her stomach, she sank into the black and white bed with ease and closed her eyes. Letting go of the haunted nature of the room she was in, she let her bones rest and her fears settle. Though she was in a strange place, she knew intrinsically she truly was nowhere close to home. For Eloise, that was enough to help her sleep.