The sun was getting lower in the sky, but ultimately that worked to her advantage. Lily was sure she would have missed it in the full brightness of daytime. She found a house that looked exactly like what she wanted. There was a large enough private dock she thought she could stop her boat there, and it was lit. A lot of docks had been though, and she was starting to think that the lights had individual little solar panels on them a lot of the time. This one included. But, more than that, up the dock and some stairs, nestled up in the thick tree cover was a house. The lights were on, otherwise she was sure she would have missed it. And there, on top, barely peeking into view was a large satellite dish.

Lily decided that it was time to check it out, and if this wasn’t good she would still stop here for the night. No sense driving her boat around at night when she wasn’t really sure what made that safe or unsafe, or what precautions to take. She was dreading docking her boat, but it was actually a little easier the second time. The dock not being partially burned out helped too. She made sure to open her phone and follow the on screen knot directions again rather than trying to remember. She was trying very hard to not take any stupid pointless risks.

The house was locked, because of course it was. It was also a lot bigger than Lily could see from shore. But, big wasn’t a bad thing. She would need a lot of room for all the things she wanted to do. Heck, over time she might even expand into the houses next door. For now though, she had to get into this place ideally without breaking anything. So, her next step was to go around and check the windows.

Finding an unlocked window was easy! So was popping the screen off of it. The problem was… what then? The window was off the ground, and she was pathetically exhausted. She tried to hop up and pull herself onto the windowsill, and it wasn’t even close. She couldn’t lift her bodyweight with just her arms right now. So then… what?

Lily looked around the area for something she might be able to pull over and stand on. But nothing obvious jumped out to her. She might be able to get something from her boat? But, even if the furniture weren’t nailed down, could she really carry something like that up stairs right now? No, she didn’t think she could.

“This is so pathetic. It’s right there!” Lily whined to herself. She decided to walk around the house until she could find something she might be able to stand on. Getting around to the front of the house she spotted some lawn chairs. Grabbing them, she brought them back to her open window. She had to awkwardly stack them on top of one another, but with that boost she pulled herself through the open window!

She promptly fell onto her face from window height. Scrambling, she toppled forward and landed on her back, looking up to the ceiling. “Owww. Can I please stop getting hurt, huh world?” Lily lay there breathing hard for a few more moments. Then she gingerly sat up. Her back hurt, but she didn’t think she’d left any permanent damage. She was in a bedroom. It seemed to be a guest room of some kind. She was sitting on a light blue carpet in a white room. There was a queen sized bed in one corner on an ornate looking bed frame. It had light blue blankets and white pillows that complimented the style of the room and evoked a mental image of the sky on a clear day. Apart from that, there was a lamp, and a small end table near the bed. Otherwise the room seemed empty.

“This some kind of bed and breakfast…?” Lily carefully got to her feet, and made her way to the door. She opened it and found herself in a short hallway. To her left was an open area with a door that led outside, and directly across from her was a small bathroom. No shower or bath, but a toilet and a sink with a counter. Given the things on the counter, it seemed like it was mostly used for applying makeup. Lily knew almost nothing about makeup.

Lily went into the next little room and unlocked the door. Then she headed into the house proper. This was apparently a very small little area because taking a step into the main foyer was shocking. It was at least thirty feet from wall to wall, with a huge staircase leading up to a second floor. The door into the front yard was there, so Lily unlocked it and moved on. She was thankful the lights were all left on, otherwise she’d be getting a little scared right now.

Behind the foyer was a massive room that had an open view into the kitchen, as well as a huge TV on the far side with a couch in front of it. Lily immediately got a little excited. It was like her own little personal theater! “Geez, rich people are something else. But I can’t complain now!”

Across that room was a sliding glass door that opened into the back yard, and she could see the path down to her boat from there. So, Lily approached it, and unlocked it. Then she went down to her boat and grabbed a few things. A laptop, one of the external hard drives, a few flash drives, and her phone. She headed back up into the main living room. She wasn’t totally sure that’s what this room was called, heck it included a kitchen, but she decided that’s what she would call it. Setting down on the couch she popped open the laptop and searched for a wifi signal. There was quite a strong one! … Password protected.

“Ugh, of course.” She would have to track down the wifi router and do a factory reset or something to get in. Unless these people had a sticky note with the password or something. Fortunately, it should be in one of the central areas of the house, so she went looking.

During the next hour Lily found the router and set it up so she could use it. The house did indeed have a satellite internet connection. Even better, she could assume it would last longer than most of the physical lines around, even if it had some drawbacks. She also explored the house a bit. But, not entirely. From what she could tell, this place was beyond massive. On the ground floor there were two guest rooms, a master bedroom, a master bathroom with two showers and a giant tub, two huge walk-in closets, access to a patio with an outdoor kitchen, the main kitchen and pantry area, three half bathrooms, and a gigantic dining room. Also, an elevator. She briefly went inside to check it out, but decided not to go anywhere. Stairs were better. If something went wrong, no one would come to help.

There was one thing that bothered her a bit. The elevator had a basement button, but she couldn’t find a door that led down there. That creeped her out big time, so she decided she’d explore it some other time. Along with the second floor.

“Honestly, I can afford to explore my big spooky mansion during the day can’t I?”

With that, she set her laptop up to be downloading things. She had a lot queued up. Media ripping software, a couple of her favorite shows and albums, tons of books from audible, microsoft visual studio in case she needed to do some simple coding, and a bunch more! When she was satisfied that she had at least 12 hours of download time ready to go though, she went back to her boat.

She didn’t know why, but her boat felt a lot more safe and secure than the big mansion. So, when it came time to relax and retire for the night, she went right back to it. She chanced a glance up at the sky, and swallowed the dread that filled her upon seeing there were still no stars. She really, really didn’t want to think about what that meant. Was the rest of the universe gone, or could she not see it? Why? She didn’t want to think about something that could affect an entire universe. It was too scary. She focused on getting down to the boat in the dark, and closed herself in her little cabin so she wouldn’t have to think about it.

She set up her little blu-ray player on her bed, gathered Bay up and found a good spot near her pillows despite the ash still coating him, and retrieved her switch. She also took a moment to grab some food. It had been a long day. But, she had bowls, cans of soup, and a microwave so she opted for that and some fruit. Not exactly a dinner fit for a queen, but it would keep her nourished for now. For desert, she even snacked on a few of the hostess treats she’d snagged from her first home invasion.

So, there she lay in her comfy little bed, watching silly television and playing on her console. It was a stark contrast to how she’d ended her first day, asleep on the little couch and then outside on the deck of the boat. She was still a mess, and there were a lot of questions to answer. She wasn’t out of danger completely yet. But, she had worked hard today and things had gotten marginally better. That counted for something, right?

Tomorrow she would wake up early and go looking for farm animals. She wasn’t sure where she would put them in regards to this mansion, but she would figure it out. Then… who knows. Maybe work on figuring out this magic stuff.

She was starting to get sleepy. But, she enjoyed the sound of her little show playing. So, she left it on.

“Mmm, good night Bay.” Bay returned her look gently.

Lily drifted off to sleep.