Fantasyland 01 Wildest Dreams(15)

Once inside, I fed the fires more wood then took inventory.

The kitchen was rudimentary: big, old battered wooden table with two chairs, big used butcher block in the middle, big, black iron stove, wooden sink with (thank God) a pump that, upon testing, worked and pumped clear, clean water. Cupboards, as my dickhead husband said, were not bare but most of the shit at first glance I didn’t know what it was.

I decided I’d spend more time on that later.

There were also other supplies stuffed in the plethora of cabinets: dishes, cups, silverware, wooden spoons and a stack of wooden bowls and other accoutrements to use for cooking, cast iron pots and skillets, candlestick holders and gas lamps with a few lanterns thrown in.

Using the stack of wood in the kitchen, I built another fire in the stove then out the backdoor I went. There was an enclosed porch type area that ran the length of the house, one whole side lined with stacks of logs so high, they went up to my neck. There were a couple of cupboards too, one I opened was filled with tall candles of all widths. Another one was filled with plugged jugs of what a sniff test told me was some kind of fuel. Probably for the lamps.

Okay, good. I had heat and light and, by the looks of it, a lot of it.

I stamped out the backdoor to the two, remaining out buildings.

One, to my gloom, was an outhouse.

The other, far larger, was a shed that was also filled with split, prepared logs, a shitload of kindling and another cupboard filled with fuel. There was also a hatchet, an axe, several buckets and other bits and bobs.

Back to the house I went, I opened a door off the living room and entered a room that had a table with a ceramic basin on it, a pitcher under it, an oval mirror on the wall over it and a drum like thing in the middle of the space, this one made of some kind of metal. It was oval and I suspected it was a tub. There was also a small fireplace in there.

Well, bath time wasn’t going to be relaxing. But at least there was a bath.

Back out to the living room where I wandered the place, noting there were lots of rugs on the floor, not thick, but they covered the wood planks so the cold wouldn’t seep up. As I wandered, I carefully pulled off the sheets covering the furniture, bunching them quickly while doing it so I captured as much of the dust as possible.

Now we were talking. Finally, something decent.

A big, fluffy couch and two deep-seated fluffy chairs with ottomans, all turned to the biggest fireplace. A sturdy desk with chair behind it in a corner. Handsome tables here and there as well as some tall candleholders. It was all rustic, hunting-cabin chic but it looked well-made and definitely comfortable… if cleaned.

I then climbed the ladder and, moving around the loft stooped, which was the only way I could for the ceiling was so low, I saw it had three windows (two either side of the small, stone fireplace that had an iron grate at the front to catch sparks) and one at the side facing the back, all grimy, all with heavy, short curtains. It also had a fluffy, down mattress on the floor covered with a sheet I yanked off and I saw it also had four fluffy down pillows. Last, it had a heavy curtain that ran on a rail the length of the space in front of a short railing, likely to ward off the chill from the bigger space and keep in the heat from the fire.

Bent double, I stared at the bed. Then I thought of crawling into it. Then I wondered about the light, how long the days were here and how I would most assuredly not want to pass out, sleep the day away and be in this loft in this stinking house in the dark without having at least set up the candles and probably be, by that time, ravenous instead of what I was right then, starving.

Not to mention, I had two open fires burning downstairs.

I sucked in breath.

Then I muttered, “I’m never telling Claudia any of this.”

Then I went to the ladder and down to see if I could unearth any cleaning supplies.

* * * * *

There were, indeed, cleaning supplies in the back of a cupboard in the kitchen (if one could call them that, but there was soap, what I took as parallel universe dish towels and rags which weren’t much different from each other but the towels were slightly finer material and definitely cleaner and I found a broom and mop on the back porch).

Therefore, hours and hours and hours later, the sun had long since set (way early if I estimated it right) and I was done.

The floors were swept (and, proudly, mopped). The cupboards wiped down. The rugs and furniture cushions taken outside and beaten with this kind of enormous bent twig fly-swatter thing I found in the shed. All the dishes, pots and pans were cleaned, the cupboards (and the dead insects hiding there) wiped out and dishes, pots and pans put back. The cobwebs were swiped down, the surfaces of the furniture polished. The windows were washed to a shine so I could actually see out. The curtains carefully taken down, pulled outside and shook to within an inch of their lives. The same with the pillows on the bed upstairs.