Mirror Mirror

Mirror Mirror 2

Marilyn snickered at the four girls as they all stood before the mirror in the front hallways, highly amused by the way that they were all memorized by it. She did have to admit that it did give off some pretty odd vibes, but it really didn't look all that bad for a mirror from the late Eighteenth century. True, the mirror part had been changed once in 1932 but the frame was all original and still going very strong. It was a testament to the metal workmanship of that time.

"Come on, you guys, let's stop staring at Stacy's mirror. It's not going anywhere and you are just gonna have to get used to it since none of her family want the damn thing. Not that she'd actually give it up," she said. She laughed when the four women jumped a foot into the air and whipped around. "What? Did you think I'm a ghost?" she asked teasingly, her eyes flicking over to the mirror.

"No," one of the women drawled out, playing with a piece of rainbow colored hair. "It's just a really odd mirror.

"I can promise you, Kendra, that the mirror won't attack you," Marilyn snorted and waving to the stairs. "Come on, I'll show you guys the bedrooms. We've been able to actually clean them out and all you gotta do is provide your own mattress. Apparently Stacy's aunt was working on getting them replaced when she died, and had gotten rid of all but a couple of them," she warned.

Miranda, a pretty Gothic woman with purple dyed hair, simply rolled her eyes and smiled. "Like that's a real issue to worry about," she teased.

"Yeah, speak for yourself, Miranda. I'm not gonna be paid for another week and I spent all my money on the first round of bills and food," Allendra said. Her pink painted lips pulled into a thin line, dark blue eyes dancing with worry and some amusement.

"And this is where I'm going to prove my obvious intelligence over all of you," Miranda said, waving a finger at them. "I paid my part of the bills out of my current paycheck but I've been putting money out of my last couple of paychecks when we were asked to move in with Stacy a month ago. And yes, I sacrificed that new lipstick that I was dying to get, bought all of my food on sale, and didn't go out to eat at all if you remember. I even sacrificed my monthly treat."

Brandy snickered and tugged on a bit of Miranda's purple hair. "She's right. We were told a month ago and she wasn't the only one to follow that idea," she said. "But I also put some aside from my quarterly scholarship check after I bought what was needed and what I needed to pay for."

Allendra groaned and hung her head, shaking it. "You guys suck. So much."

"No. They don't, they were just thinking of the future," Stacy teased as she pushed the pocket door to her new office open. She was still dressed in a simple pant suit, having been in an online meeting with someone about a possible job after she graduated in February, in just under eight months time. In her opinion, the meeting had gone rather well and she was hoping to hear from them in the next week. "Luckily your room does have a mattress that is good enough until you can replace it," she promised.

"Good. Then can you please show the rooms to us? I want to see them finally," Allendra huffed, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. Stacy and Marilyn shared an amused look before they turned and headed up the stairs to the bedrooms. The smallest bedroom had been turned into a shelved closet so that they could just pile all of their towels and all of their extra toiletries that they had bought whenever they had the extra money.

All of them tended to buy large amounts of their supplies for the simple fact that they were working and on scholarships. Even working though there were months where the money was lean so they stockpiled what they could, and now they had a room to do it. It hadn't taken them much to buy some brackets, screws and shelves.

Stacy's uncle had been willing to do the needed work for them in return for Marilyn's homemade pizza and a case of soda. Though he had also put in a better light fixture with a better light, claiming that room gave him the creeps.

Stacy had agreed with him but didn't tell any of the girls.

"Did we get our things packed up okay?" Stacy asked, Allendra nodding and wiggling the keys to one of her friends giant truck. Standing at the top of the stairs, she looked back and forth and turned to the left, to the first of the two bathrooms that would be shared. "There's a bathroom on each side of the hallway, the bedroom turned closet the one that's next to my room," she said, opening the bathroom door. "I have my own bathroom but you guys can use the bathtub when you want. Just make sure that I'm not going to use it."

She closed the bathroom door and lead the way to the first bedroom.

"The washer and dryer is downstairs off the porch in it's own room and I strung up a line on the porch if you want to hang dry instead of dryer dry something," she continued.

Brandy looked into the first bedroom before looking to the bathroom door. "At least the rooms are a good size."

"This house is measured to be just about a hundred feet short of being called a mansion actually," Stacy replied, smiling as she shrugged. "It lands at about four thou, nine hundred, and is based off of the Colonial shaped houses, but it's a bit more boxy on the outside with some pretty decorative bits," she said. Brandy hummed and stepped inside.

She looked around and decided that she liked the gray walls and dark wood furniture that had been fixed, especially the fact that the bedframe was a queen sized frame. Miranda and Kendra took the next two bedrooms that were shown. Marilyn took the first room on the other side, on the other side of the storage room, while Allendra took the room next to the bathroom.

It didn't take the group of women to organize and carry the last of their things into the house, including dishes, cookware, bakeware, and various rugs to replace things that had been given away. Stacy had ended up keeping the holiday dishes, the larger pots and pans that were used to make the large family dinners. Pretty much anything that was used to make and feed a large amount of people.

She had also kept the kitchen and living room furniture, which all of the girls were thankful for since their last place had come mostly furnished.

As a group, once everything was moved in, they decided to work on the living space boxes, finally getting to see the finished product that was Stacy's office. The women admired the light flooring and the seating area that she had set up around the small corner fireplace. "Does this place have another fireplace?" Brandy asked as she moved the hanging curtain grate.

Stacy flopped into a chair and nodded. "Yep. We can hide it when it's not in use behind a faux brick panel actually, and we do. I did open it up before you guys came around to do a mid-year cleaning though. We are due snow in a few months and the pre-winter cleanings get booked big time." She looked at her friends and roommates. "The con about living in this area is that the wires are still above ground and thus we'll have to deal with anywhere between one to fifteen power outages depending on the weather. We get credit on our electricity bill each time it goes out though."

She smirked as the girls settled down onto the furniture.

"The good thing is that my aunt set up a really good generator that runs the fridges, stove, water heater, and the washer and dryer. Not the lights and main heater though since that would take actually ripping out the walls and doing some rewiring in a few places. She had to do that with the new fridge," she admitted.

Allendra lips tilted down into a thoughtful frown. "Meh, we can always live in the living room if that happens. Or in very thick nightgowns. Not like we didn't have to do it in the last place to," she said, shrugging one shoulder. "It's what you get when living in older places. And the rent is still cheaper here by about a hundred bucks."

"Having no mortgage does work in our favor," Marilyn drawled. She sat on her knees, arms resting on the back of the couch as she looked over the tables that lined one wall. It was already set up as the crafty station for Stacy's future job. Her thesis build was already partly done and sitting in the middle of them along with her plans, notes, and the fabrics she was playing with. "Did your uncle do these tables to?"

"Yeah, he did, for an early Christmas present. He showed me how they could be moved to any corner of this room if I need it," she said, leaning against her desk. "Now, how about we finish the unpacking and then I can show you where the wood is stored on the side of the porch, and then I can show where the fireplace is. Then how about Chinese and Thai tonight?"

The women all cheered and got up to unpack the house. They were intent on finishing it off before they got their dinner for the night. They missed when the mirror tilted on it's nail, but when Brandy noticed, she tilted it back into place with a smile as she passed by it.