Chapter Eight

Sophie sat down heavily in one of the kitchen chairs at Fairfields and half heartedly blew her hair from her forehead. She'd just spent the last three days unpacking all those boxes in the stockroom of Belletristic, dusting until she was afraid that the dust was just going to rebel and choke her death, and collapsing into bed each night, still trying to get over the jet lag – sleeping without dreaming and waking up totally disoriented.

She peered at the microwave across the tiled kitchen to see if her tinned soup was ready yet. She had absolutely no idea how to use the absolutely enormous oven… stove… thingy in the kitchen. It was huge, it was cast iron, and it didn't have any knobs or on or off buttons.

It was scary.

Looked like she would be eating microwave food or nothing at all, she thought as the microwave dinged.

Sitting down with her soup, she pondered the fact that Matt's "welcome groceries" were also depleting rapidly, so she'd have to find an English equivalent of a Wal-Mart soon, or she'd have to start foraging for berries in the back garden.

She hated to ask Matt to drive her all over the place (he was still dutifully picking her up for work each morning, which he said was on his way anyway, though she had a feeling it wasn't), but she still wasn't brave enough to tackle Auntie Barbara's old car in the garage behind the house.

Soon. But not yet.

As she washed her one bowl and her one spoon in the sink, Sophie once again marveled at the quiet of the Welsh countryside. Though Bloomington wasn't exactly New York City, there were always ambient noises – traffic, buses, people, loud music, something.

Here there was just… nothing. Nothing except the sounds of sheep every once in a while. Dusk was falling, and she knew it would be pitch black within the next hour – no lights anywhere. She glanced out the window towards Windy Willows, but saw few lights on in the house across the lane.

She still jumped when the house creaked, which it did as she turned the water off.

This in turn made her feel like a complete weenie.

She hated that.

Stowing her bowl and spoon, Sophie squared her shoulders, and then had a flash of inspiration.

Music – big, loud great American rock and roll was what she needed to scare away the weenie feelings. Sophie vaulted up the stairs, returning a few minutes later with her CD collection, yanking out a disc and inserting it into Auntie Barbara's impressive looking stereo system in the family room.

Sophie almost laughed out loud a moment later when Jon Bon Jovi began belting out that he was wanted – dead or alive.

Shaking her hips, she danced around the family room a few times, mastering her air guitar and singing into a microphone made from a rolled up magazine.

If Bon Jovi didn't blast away the scaries, nothing would.

Sophie let the CD play on as she went upstairs to change out of her "work uniform" of the week – dusty jeans and a loose knit sweater – in favor of perfectly broken in, oversized sweatpants and a gray faded Indiana University tee shirt from when she was an undergraduate. She shimmied her way back down the upstairs hallway to the dulcet tones of Bon Jovi and into the bathroom, tugging her hair into a messy bun as she went.

Just as she was about to wash her face of the grit and grime of the day, she saw something… move.

Without moving a muscle, she swiveled her eyes to the right, to the wall only a few feet away.

And there it sat, staring at her.

A spider the size of a bald eagle.

It was huge. And black. And mean looking.

Sophie shrieked like a little girl, jumping back about five feet, willing the spider not to pull some sort of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" move and come flying after her.

"Okay… okay…" she repeated like a mantra, willing her heart to slow down.

Spiders were not her favorite thing. Spiders were pretty much her least favorite thing. Right up there with sharks, rodents, snakes and 1040 tax forms.

This was not good.

"I need a plan…" Sophie said loudly, looking around the bathroom for a weapon of some kind. Finding none, she settled for the next best thing after only a moment's hesitation.

A wad of toilet paper. A wad of toilet paper as big as a house to ensure that there would be no contact between her and the spider when she delivered a death blow.

Shutting her eyes briefly and praying to any and all available gods, she sprang into action, smooshing the offending spider into the toilet paper weapon and throwing it eagerly into the toilet.

With a triumphant "Ha!", she flushed, pleased that she had solved the crisis all by herself and conquered one of her greatest fears.

Ha.

Until the water kept flowing…and flowing… and flowing…

The paper swirled around, the spider probably making a bid for freedom, and she had NO IDEA how to turn off the water. In America, you could just swivel the knob and then plunge or clear the bowl or whatever, but here…

Sophie looked from left to right, not sure what the hell to do now when she saw a light flick on from Windy Willows. She could see the shadow of Ulric the Unfriendly walking across the courtyard, and made a snap decision.

To hell with being bosom buddies – right now she's settle for someone with toilet bowl experience who wasn't deathly afraid of spiders.

Squaring her shoulders and hoping that the toilet would remain at neutral until she got back, rather than gushing all over the floor and causing some sort of massive structural damage which she could never afford to fix on her meager salary, Sophie sprinted down the stairs and out into the night in search of a plumbing savior.

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