After about ten minutes, Chevias and Afina seemed to be talking about food Chevias had encountered during his trip in Wehsan. Ellie’s queasiness had developed into full blown nausea and she could only hold as still as possible, still desperatly hoping it would go away. Now she was really glad she couldn’t smell. She was sure that if she could smell the apparently highly aromatic remains of her meal, she would’ve hurled five minutes ago.

“Anyways, Wehsan likes to use way too much salt-hey, Ellie, are you ok? You’re looking green around the gills.”

Ellie twisted to look at Chevias and that was it. Just that little movement was all it took and she felt it all coming up. She flung herself away from the table and pelted to the kitchen door, hearing Afina and Chevias’ exclamations and the clatter of her chair falling over. She heard the one maid still in the kitchen doing clean up yell as she rushed for the back door. She felt her stomach violently curl in on itself as she struggled with the knob a bit, then threw it open.

She made it a few steps from the door before, with another painful twist, she felt the bile come up. She doubled over and spewed, coughing as more than she thought she had in her stomach came up. Right when she thought she was done, she felt her stomach squeeze like a wet rag, wringing itself dry and another bought of stomach acid forced its way out her throat.

She wasn’t sure how long she was hunched over, but when she was sure her stomach had nothing left to offer she backed away from her mess and turned, knowing that looking at it would send her into a fit of dry heaving. She fell to a crouch, her knees weak. Ellie was thanking Thia for her handicap now. ‘Puking still isn’t fun,’ she thought as she wiped her sweaty brow, ‘but at least I don’t have to taste it.’

True, but she could feel it. She could feel the slime of it still in her mouth, the burn of the acid in her throat and on her tongue. She was sweating and felt weak, weaker than after she woke up on a farm with a memory-erasing bump on her head. Her stomach felt like a shriveled hole, and she could feel that it was still tight, like it could sent her into another fit at any second.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Chevias, clearly concerned. Over his shoulder she could see Afina with her hand over her mouth in shock and a maid with her mouth agape. No, not agape. It was permanently slacked open.

“Ellie, are you ok?! Here,” He turned back to the maid and motioned for a rag. After a bit of fumbling, she tossed him a washcloth and he started wiping at Ellie’s mouth. “Yeesh, you got it on your dress to….”

Afina hurried over, “Oh my gods, are you ok Ellie?” To Chevias, “Is she running a fever?”

He tossed the washcloth back to the maid, who squealed and dodged it, before brushing Ellie’s wet bangs out of the way and feeling her forehead. “…She’s clammy, but I don’t think she have a fever….”

Ellie could only stand in a daze as Afina pulled her out of Chevias’ grasp, “Oh you poor thing…this was probably because of what happened earlier.”

Chevias nodded, “Yeah, must be the shock.”

Afina snorted, “I was thinking more like having an arm rammed into your gut, but it could be shock to. Come one girl, let’s get you cleaned up.” She turned to the maid, “Where’s a bath? And can you have someone get Ellie’s clothes? They need to be washed.”

She nodded quickly and started giving them directions. Her speech was slurred into almost incomprehensible garble, but she managed to say that there was a bath on each wing of each floor. They were always the middle door of the side of the hall facing the back of the house. She amended that she would pick up Ellie’s clothes herself.

Afina nodded, “Thank you. Well,” she turned to Chevias, “I’ll take her to get cleaned up…bye.”

Ellie nodded to him, now feeling pretty embarrassed that she’d thrown up like a toddler. “Goodnight.”

“Night Ellie. Try to get some sleep, okay?”

“I will.” Then she was carted off by Afina for the fourth floor.

……………………………………………..

Chevias watched the girls as they left. Something wasn’t sitting right with him. He looked over to the maid, Ida, who was carefully trying to throw dirt over Ellie’s mess. He walked back through the kitchen and into the deserted dining room. All three meals were still on the table. Had Ellie been acting strange? She seemed to recover from her near death experience pretty quickly, and Chevias was under the impression that she was a pretty tough little girl. But she was still just a little kid. It was probably stress, or the shock, or punch to the gut that made her sick. Right?

He looked over the dining table and felt that unsettled feeling work its way through his mind. It was a familiar feeling, the feeling that he was missing something. And he knew from experience that it was a feeling he outta listen to it. So he took a closer look.

He took a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching before he reexamined the first odd thing he’d noticed when he walked in. There used to be a lot more chairs, practically right next to each other. Now it was like every other one had been carried off. He remembered that the seat had been oddly cold when he sat down, far chillier than the room. He remembered that the room had smelled like food even before they walked in. But wasn’t that normal for a dining room?

There were usually a few centerpieces of roses in vases on the table, but they were nowhere to be seen. There were some fresh stains on the tablecloth at the end of the table opposite of theirs. There were some crumbs on the hard wood floor, haphazardly swept under the table. Upon closer inspection, there appeared to be animal hair under the table to. Dog, probably. There was a dark purple smudge just under the elaborate painting that looked vaguely like a handprint that was recently scrubbed at.

He silently made his way to Ellie’s seat, with her mostly finished and completely thrown up meal still sitting. Now that the food was cooling the smells that had been completely overwhelming were dying down. It smelled just as he expected it to, except….

He leaned down and reared back at the smell. It was normal, for the most part. But there was something there that hadn’t been in his meal. Something else was detectable now that the food had cooled down and the smell had started dissipating. Something hiding underneath the peppery steak and pungent gravy. Something…bitter. And familiar.

This smell was defiantly something he remembered. Weeks of his trained had been identifying poisons and other harmful substances. He got the feeling that this wasn’t something deadly, as he distinctly remembered having to take a drink of whatever made this smell, but he was sure it wasn’t pleasant.

Chevias picked up the spoon and lifted a mouthful of mashed potatoes and gravy. It didn’t steam anymore, and the smell of…something was clearly there. Thanks to the training he was more sensitive to bitter smells and tastes than most, but he was confused about why Ellie hadn’t warned him something was wrong by mentioning that her food smelled and tasted funny. Surely even a human could’ve detected this, even if just a little bit over the overpowering spices?

He looked around to make sure no one was around again and cautiously took a small bite, ready to spit it out.

He immediately did. The bitterness snapped him back to that mountain grove, a bucket and a pail of water at the ready and a table with cups of steaming noxious brews and pouches of powdered and dried herbs. Rapstine. Ellie’s food was spiked with an emetic.

……………………………………………..

The bathroom wasn’t what Ellie was expecting. It was large, with pale pink and white tiled floor and walls. There was a sign on the left side of the door that requested in both Witch Speak and Common to ‘Please remove your shoes’ and an arrow pointing down. Ellie obeyed it and put her shoes under the arrow, and Afina complied after her. It had a long and low counter on one end with a huge mirror above it. There were cubbies with towels under the counter down to the floor, most of them empty. On the other wall was a line of stalls with privacy curtains. Afina brushed her hair out of her eyes, “…Well, it’s…efficient?”

“Where are the actual baths?”

“Hold, let me….” Afina walked over and opened up a curtain. Inside the small stall was a ledge on one side that had a bar of red soap in a dish. Several feet up was an odd metal thing connected to the wall by some kind of pipe. There was a knob on the wall beneath it at chest height for Ellie and what looked like a little circular drain on the floor. Afina opened up the next one and found that one to be identical.

“…How is this supposed to work?”

Ellie looked at the knob. It had a blue dot on the right side and a red dot on the left. “Try twisting that knob maybe?”

Afina twisted it all the way to the right and there was a squeaking noise that startled Ellie, but otherwise did nothing. Afina started turning around, “Well this is stu-!” Afina’s hand slipped on the knob and it stuck further out from the wall with a pop. There was a rumbling before the broad metal piece started spitting streams of water at her.

Ellie hopped back as Afina shrieked, “AH, COLD COLD COLD!!” She fumbled for the knob and accidently twisted it all the way the other way. The metal thing sputtered before pouring steaming water on her. “GODS DAMN IT!”

Afina leapt out of the stall, looking pissed and wet as the water kept coming. “WHAT THE HELL?!”

Ellie looked at the water and quickly ducked around it, shoving the knob back down. The water sputtered again and stopped. “…I figured it out.”

Afina pulled her purple ribbon out, letting her frizzy hair fall, “Damn witches and their damn contraptions…what’s wrong with a bath?!” She started taking her chest plate off.

Ellie ran her hand over the tile partition, feeling the beads of hot water, “Afina, this water was steaming hot in seconds! And all you have to do to get hot water is turn a knob? This is amazing! Brilliant!” She started inspecting the metal piece above, seeing that it had holes in the face of it to make the streams. “How did they do this? Do all witch houses have these, or just the fancy ones? Where does the water come from?”

Afina grumbled, “You’re awfully chipper for someone who just threw up on themselves.”

Ellie wrinkled her nose and looked down at her skirt. The yellow of the dress wasn’t doing much to hide the bile stain. “…I’m gonna take a bath now.”

“If you can call it a bath.”

Ellie closed the curtain before taking her clothes off. She stared at the carefully folded bundle of clothes, “…What should I do with these?”

“Normally you put them on the counter, but I’ll take them.”

Ellie jolted and stuck her head out of the curtain, seeing Afina do the same.

The maid with the scarred face was near the low counter, in front of the mirror. Ellie could see her own face reflected at her, and she almost cringed at how disheveled and pale she was. It was the first time she’d looked at herself on this adventure, and she thought she looked like a waif.

The maid, Marie, walked over to Ellie, “I heard about your little accident. It’s no wonder with what happened earlier. Don’t worry dear; I’ll have it cleaned up good as new.”

Ellie nodded and handed her soiled garments to her.

“Would you like yours washed as well Miss?”

“Ah…yeah.” Afina took a minute to shuffle out of her puffy purple pants and handed her stuff to her, “Please don’t scratch the leather.”

“Of course not. Have you ladies figured out the showers?”

“You just pull the knob out to get the water going and turn left for hot and right for cold, right?”

She smiled, crinkling her scar, “Indeed. Aren’t you a clever girl? Please take your time ladies. I’ve placed some nightgowns for you on counter. There are plenty of towels under the counter. Please have a good night.” She gave a small bow and left, closing the door behind her.

Ellie turned to the shower knob. She tried to figure out where about the middle point was and turn it slightly to the left before pulling. It was rather high up and at an awkward angle for Ellie, so she had to put her weight behind it. It popped out and the water spattered her. After the initial shock, she pulled it a little more to the left before sighing happily. This was great.

“Okay, try not to burn myself this time…OUCH!”

“Try putting it in the middle before you turn it on!”

“Ow, ow, ow-! …There, that’s better.”

The first thing Ellie did was open her mouth and gargle some of the hot water. It was nice to finally get that acidic burn and slime out of her mouth.

After spitting, Ellie sighed and stretched as the hot water helped relax all her sores, aches, and pains. The blister on her ankle stung from the water, but it looked like it was almost completely closed. That medicine Chevias gave her was amazing. She took the time to inspect her badges of honor from this escapade.

The injury on her leg that came from her missing time was nearly gone. The scratch had healed completely, and the large bruise was mostly yellow and tinged green. The bump on her head was still there, but it was going softer and getting smaller. It didn’t hurt much now. The spot on her stomach that Chevias had hit was already forming a dark bruise. It wasn’t very painful anymore, but the reddish-black mark was thick and shaped like a bar stretching from her hip to nearly her ribs. Looks like he had crouched down and swung out his arm to shove-throw her out of the way.

Ellie picked up the bar of red soap and inspected it. It was a bright, candy-like red and looked like it had been used before. “Afina, do you have a red bar of soap?”

“…Yeah, why?”

“What’s it smell like?”

“…Roses. Why?”

“Just wanted to know.”

She started rubbing herself down with it. She figured she could’ve guessed it was roses, considering this house’s motif. Could’ve been apples though. Or strawberries. She’d been told that strawberries smell very nice.