It was dust.

The first thing Hana noticed was the dust. Really the only thing that could be noticed, as the disturbance of their entry kicked up a whole cloud of it, so much that it sent Hana coughing and reeling. Blinking the dust from her watering eyes, she motioned for the children to wait at the threshold. Vurrie shouted something apologetically, throwing open the windows immediately and rushing to the back, the movement creating another grey cloud.

“She hasn’t been in here for at least two years,” Aloys said, clearing his throat.

Vurrie returned from somewhere in the back with an old broom that was equally as dusty as the room. She said something, but Aloys just gestured for her and Hana to step outside.

“It’d be easier if I just—” He backed up to the doorway and made some quick motions with his hand. Hana didn’t get a very good look from behind him. A small whirlwind formed inside the building, barely higher than the knees, catching dust and debris as it circled the room before guiding it all out the backdoor Vurrie had opened. A thin layer of dust remained, mostly on the counter tops. The air seemed breathable.

The display of magic left Hana speechless, but Vurrie made a quip.

“I’m not cleaning your house.”

She made what must have been an offer.

“Make it four damis and you’ve got a deal.”

Now that there was no dust in the way, Hana could get a proper look at the place. In the middle of the wide room there was a long bar counter with stools and a serving window behind it to a kitchen. Wooden chairs and an assortment of different sized tables were precariously stacked on top of each other on the far right wall by the stairs. There was a stone fireplace by the left wall, the same colour as the exposed stone wall.

Hana helped Aloys unstack some chairs and square tables, and Vurrie found a rag to wipe down a good portion of the remainder of dust.

“Come in everyone. Don’t take off your shoes.” A cardinal sin, normally, but there was no way she was having them shuffle around here without any shoes. Sure the top layer of dust was removed, but she didn’t doubt it was still dirty, and there might be a loose nail or something lying around on the dark wood floor.

The children filed in, looking around in curiosity. They filled up the seats in no time at all, eager to get off their feet after the amount of walking and standing they’d endured thus far.

“There are rooms upstairs,” Aloys relayed. “They might also need some cleaning.”

“I can do that.” She was starting to get antsy again. She needed to do something productive, but she also needed to watch the children. “But…”

She looked at the children, watching her curiously.

“It’s alright. I can talk to them.” Aloys tapped his head. “The spell works for children too.”

Hana gave the children an official introduction to Aloys— he was a wizard!— and watched them swarm Aloys with questions. Though he seemed to be answering them all with great enthusiasm, the spell must have only worked with one person at a time. She couldn’t understand what responses he was giving them anymore, but the children’s ‘wow’s’ and ‘ooh’s’, and asking him to do spells and whatnot were well received by him. He began impressing the room with little light shows, making little light stick figures dance around. Convinced that he wasn’t going to do anything out of pocket, and thoroughly impressed by the magic, Hana headed upstairs with Vurrie, rolling up her sleeves.

Despite the dust giving the impression that the place was old, the wooden stairs were sturdy. The second floor was a simple hall with seven doors, marginally less dusty than the ground floor. Four doors on the right, two on the left where space had to be made for the stairs, a final door and set of stairs at the very end of the hall.

They swept the hallway down first. The dust was still so thick that it rolled up like a sheet when pushed by the broom. Hana swept it all into a corner, making a lumpy life-sized dust bunny.

Vurrie opened the closest door on the right first. The interior was unsurprisingly dirty, but at least the beds and furniture had been covered by large white cloth. There were two beds, each suited to sleep one adult, on either end of the room. A small shelf hung above each headboard. There was a small desk and chair in between them. It was a bare bones room, nothing in it indicating luxury, but it was practical.

A quick sweep of the floor, wiping down window sills and other surfaces, removing the white cloths covering the beds. Even with another set of hands, it took about fifteen minutes to clear one room, and Hana wasn’t entirely satisfied with the cleanliness. She doubted she would ever be, considering she didn’t have a bottle of cleaning solution and a microfiber cloth.

The rooms were all about the same, save for the one at the end of the hall. It was larger, and entirely empty. Situated at the end of the building, it had wonderful access to light from the windows on three of its walls. It might have been used as a cheap room where guests brought their own bedroll, or just a free space to gather around. They left that one as is— there was no need for it at the moment.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

They were interrupted part way through cleaning the fifth room. Another long bell had signified the passing of an hour.

«Hana! Hannaaa!»

Hana put down the broom, and excused herself with a nod.

“What is it?”

“Well, I was talking to some of the kids,” Aloys began. “And some of them need to—”

She was met with a mixed chorus singing variations on ‘I need to pee!’.

Ah.

Honestly, she was surprised that they had held on for so long without any of them needing to go.

“Are there washrooms here?” She hadn’t seen any upstairs. It turned out ‘washroom’ was one of those words that didn’t quite exist, but it didn’t take him long at all to understand.

“Oh. The privy. It’s outside.”

Past the bar counter and kitchen, through the backdoor, was a little space with an awning overlooking the backyard.

The remains of construction work, broken planks and tile, splintered beams and broken brick lay in a large pile against one side, piled higher than the low wall. The hazardous heap looked like it might topple at any moment, and Hana gave it a wide berth as she crossed the yard.

There were two large wooden sheds in the backyard, of about the same size. There was a small gap between the two of them. Aloys pointed out the one on the left being the outhouse.

Inside the outhouse were three stalls. It was too much to hope for a modern, or even vintage toilet, however. Each one looked like a box with a hole at the center and nothing else. The toilets had the appearance of being clean, but Hana didn’t trust it, not after all the cleaning that had to be done upstairs.

“So, toilet paper…”

“You use paper for the toilet? To wipe?”

Oh. I’m in hell.

Actually, the underworld might have toilet paper. This was certifiably, undeniably worse.

“What do you use?” Hana was afraid to ask.

Please don’t say ‘nothing’. Or ‘hands’. Or ‘a stick’. Or—

“Rags or leaves, mostly. There’s some mullein outside. Just need to rinse it off first.”

Aloys strolled out and picked some leaves from a plant growing by the wall. The leaves were low to the ground, growing in a spiral-like clump like a succulent. He handed them to her, and the first thing she noticed was how soft it was. There were worse replacements for toilet paper, she supposed.

Only a few steps away from the outhouse there was what looked like a water pump, like the old ones that required hand power. Underneath the bits of moss and dirt, it was clear that the pump itself wasn’t actually very old.

He approached the water pump, inspecting it quickly from all angles. He brushed away some moss on the curved handle. Hana wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he appeared satisfied and was nodding to himself.

“A very reliable model.”

Aloys fished around in the sleeves of his robe, and pulled out a white spherical stone the size of a large marble. He placed it inside a divot right above the spout, and it clicked into place. Pulling down the handle far down enough locked it into place as well. Water gargled, coming out from the spout in short bursts, but soon clear water flowed from the spout in a steady stream. The shallow stone basin underneath it had small holes arranged in a floral pattern to drain excess water away.

“It’s clean,” Aloys reassured her. To prove his point he cupped a handful of water and drank it.

“That stone…”

“A marvusel. Stores mana. There’s a filter inside that purifies the water, all it needs is the energy. For this one, it’ll eject the stone when there’s no more mana left. Now, older models will either do nothing, or use a mana sensor to determine the remaining mana left in the stone. That comes with its upsides and downsides too, you see…”

There was more, but it seemed to be veering into the overly technical, and Hana stopped trying to understand when the translation spell left half of the words he said unchanged. She was more than happy to just consider it a magical device, which didn’t seem so far-fetched if she accepted that magic itself existed.

Hana squatted down and ran her fingers underneath the stream. It was cold. She cupped some of it in her palms. It smelled fresh, like spring water. The filter contraption on the pump… Hana was impressed that it managed to clean the water this well. There wasn’t much of a way to see if it held up to modern water treatment other than giving it a shot.

She rinsed off the leaves, gave the toilet seats a good wipe-down, and headed back inside to collect the children that needed to go. It turned out to be all of them. Luckily, they didn’t need any help for this part, and although they were off put by the leaves as well, she was able to convince them they were clean and safe to use.

She stood by the entrance of the outhouse, handing out the mullein leaves like campaign promoters handing out little packets of tissue paper on the streets.

“What’s in the other building?”

“Bathtubs, probably.” Aloys was overseeing the rinsing of hands— there was no soap— and was jumping at the chance to explain the device inside the water pump to any of the kids who stopped to listen for a second. Once the conversation got too technical, they excused themselves and ran off in search of their friends.

Hana surveyed the gaggle of muddy children in front of her. “Would it be okay if we used them?”

“Vurrie said you can use the place however you need. Don’t see why not.”

When the last of the children finished up with the toilets, Hana gave them very clear instructions to wait by the back wall, safely away from the leaning tower of wreckage.

There were two rooms in the little bathhouse, each identical. A faucet was fixed to the wall, with a rounded wooden tub, almost shaped like the modern bathtub, sitting underneath. There was a small table for towels, clothes, and other belongings. One end of the tub had an extended ledge with a depression for soap. At least, she hoped it was for soap. If that didn’t exist here, she would give up.

Let’s see what we’re working with…

Hana peered inside the tub and instantly regretted it.