The House at the End
of Magcali LanE (2019-2020)

 

 

 

At the end of Magcali Lane, a street off the Main Road in Lacrys Cape, there is a house that is exactly as it seems. Its walls are white with li ght dirt stains up the back and side, and bright yellow and purple flowers growing like weeds around the base. The paint is cracked around the edges, leaving little splotches of wood sp eckled in like dark blue on robins' eggs. The shingles are a dark, deep purple, the only bit of color on the house besides the door. The door may be the most interesting thing about the house - a bright red thing, just tall enough for giants to duck through.

In the bright light of the full moon, the house shines, a beacon to call home at the end of a long and tiresome day. And, as one of the inhabitants note as they march past the rusted bike parked out front and up the creaky stairs, it had been quite a long day.

The moment Dolores Crane enters her front door, she knows something is amiss. First and foremost, she notes, her familiar is sitting by the welcome mat. A s she crosses the threshold, Chattox mews loudly and swats wildly at the tails of her dress. Dolores frowns. Chattox is not usually a talkative cat, but now, as he meows again and again, his ears twitching wildly, it seems almost a warning. 
 
She reaches down to pick Chattox up, forgetting to take off her purple waistcoat before she does. He hisses, swatting at the chilled, wet nylon. Dolores ignores him, and instead takes a look around the living room. Chaos, she thinks. The couch is tipped to the side, wildly askew, with pillows spilling over and around it. The collection bin of blankets has been knocked over, and the blankets themselves are messily piled in a heap by the armchair. A moving box is sitting at the bottom of the stairs, its contents strewn across the floor. The window is open, letting in the chilly air and the cool mist of rain. Her cute, cozy cabin has become a disaster site. Not only that, but the air smells distinctly of smoke.

"Oh, no," she says. "This won't do. This won't do at all."

Dolores would describe herself as a very sensible witch; down right intimidating, one might say. In fact, they do say. They say so a lot. When she walks along the cobblestone paths of Lacrys Cape, the townspeople whisper amongst themselves. They say the cane she walks with is made of bones she found in her crawlspace; they say she's trapped the souls of the innocent in the pendant she wears around her neck; they say she turned a suitor into a goat and sent him to Timbuktu to a witch doctor to whom she owed a favor. It's such a shame, they say, sighing and turning their heads. It's a shame, because she's so beautiful.

Dolores is, in fact, beautiful, not that it is anyone's business to say so. Her skin is dark like the night sky, soft and sweet as dewdrops against blades of grass. Red curls cascade around her face to the small of her back. They sway to the rhythm of her steps, standing in stunning contrast to the purple overcoat she wears. Her legs are long and light, her thighs are thick and rounded, her stomach is soft and tender, and her cheeks are rosy and warm. Her nose is not long and crooked like witches in storybooks, but small and button-like; her eyes are not as black as coal, but warm and golden like heavily lidded halos. Dolores is the most beautiful woman in all of Lacrys Cape.

It is important to note that she had never found any bones in her attic at all. Her cane is made of oak wood and dyed with boysenberries. Her pendant is a gift from her mother, long since passed, who left her a pendant, a cottage, and a wild patch of sunflowers in her will. H er suitor was never turned into a goat; he simply died on her doorstep. Then, he moved in. So yes, Dolores is a very sensible witch, but she would hardly call herself intimidating.

By the time she made it through her small house to the kitchen, her glasses are clouded by swirls of smoke. She puts Chattox down, allowing him to scamper away from the heat. He heads for the windowsill so he can climb out onto the front porch. Dolores, meanwhile, steps further into the kitchen, wrinkling her nose at the sight in front of her. There is a pan on the stove, smoke rising from its interior, where little black tar discs sit in a pile of grease. On the floor, there are a variety of forks, some small and some large, some plastic and some metal, some far too ornate and some astoundingly simple. Dolores watches as her roommate reaches into a drawer, picks up another fork, and promptly allows it to slip through his fingers. 
 
She raises a delicate eyebrow and puts her hands on her hips. "Eugene, what on earth are you doing?"
 
Eugene freezes as the fork clatters loudly to the floor. Dolores never thought it possible for a ghost to look scared. "Oh," he says, faux exuberance in his voice. "Hi!" Dolores rolls her eyes. His charms will not work on her, nor have they ever; not in all the time he's lived with her.

 
Mr. Eugene Oshino was 22 years, 5 months, 15 days, and 17 hours old. Was is the operative word in this particular sense; that is to say, Eugene Oshino was 22 years (and so many days) old when he died.
 
Eugene is (well, was, but you get the point) a very handsome and charming man. He had shaggy dark hair, glowing tan skin, almond eyes, and a big smile that left a dimple in his right cheek. He spent most of his days lounging, playing the ukulele, riding his bike from place to place, and chasing any woman or man that caught his eye. Eugene was a romantic, mainly in the sense that he loved love. He loved falling in love, specifically. There wasn't a day that Eugene didn't fall in love with a big- eyed waitress or a swashbuckling pirate, and he liked it that way.
 
That is, until the day he fell in love with Dolores Crane.

The day he saw Dolores Crane, he had stopped in at a cafe in Lacrys Cape, simply passing through. (Little did he know, no one ever really ‘passed through' Lacrys Cape. It was the kind of town that rooted itself in your bones, the kind that broke your heart just a little bit every time you tried to leave.) He saw her standing across the room drinking the herbal tea she ordered every morning, and it was love at first sight. Well, it was love at first sight for Eugene, anyway. To be quite frank, Dolores hadn't noticed him at all. She had simply exchanged pleasantries with Brogan, the coffee bar's barista, and planned to be on her way. Eugene, evidently, had different plans.
 
In the following few hours, Eugene asked all around town about Dolores. She's a witch, they told him, with warm eyes and a cold heart; she's wicked. Eugene found he didn't much mind wicked, as all the best ones were, s o, he simply gathered a handful of wildflowers, strapped his ukulele to his back, and headed for her house at the end of Magcali Lane.
 
After parking his bike just in front of the garden of beautiful yellow flowers, Eugene marched up the creaky stairs to the bright red door, and knocked with all of the courage he could muster. After a few minutes, the door opened with Dolores behind it and an anxious black cat at her heels. He managed to smile at them both before opening his mouth.

"Good afternoon," he said. He was used to being told that his smile was infectious, so he smiled with all his teeth. Dolores simply furrowed her eyebrows. "My name is Eugene Oshino, and I saw you in the cafe earlier. You're quite beautiful, if you don't mind me saying so; I was simply taken by you. I was wondering if you would like to spend the evening dancing under the stars with me."
 
Now, Eugene was a romantic - not a deplorable wretch. He'd had his fair share of rejection, and he knew how to handle it well. So he simply nodded. He offered her the flowers anyway, which she politely declined, and headed on his way. That was when he slipped on the welcome mat and hit his head on the post.

 
One moment, he was falling backwards - his body warped to space and time as he lost his balance. In another, he was no longer much of anything. In fact, he wasn't anything at all. When he next opened his eyes, he was again looking at Dolores; her cooled and neutral facial expression had turned into something similar to horror. Then, she sighed.

"Come in," she said. Then, she stepped inside, and left the door open for Eugene to follow. Puzzled but delighted, Eugene scrambled up and followed her into her house.
 
It was then that she explained to him in the simplest terms that he had tripped and died on her doorstep. He was confused, then alarmed, then mildly miffed. He had so much left to do, and he had blown it all by tripping and falling on a welcome mat? Well, he thought, reaching for the steady weight of the ukulele on his back, at least some things would never change.

"I don't know what to do now," he said, uncertainly. At the moment, he was looking into a mug of tea Dolores had poured for him. He was saddened to discover he couldn't even pick it up; Dolores assured him that, over time, he would be able to do more corporeal things - drinking tea, opening doors, reading books - but it would take some time for him to conserve his energy. Right now, the tea was more for comforting purposes than anything.
 
Dolores frowned at him, tipping her head. "What did you do before?" she asked. "Can you go home?"

He almost laughed, but instead replied, "I don't really have a home. I used to travel the world, following my fancy. Now, I can't even get on a bike to go anywhere."

Suddenly, the cat jumped up onto the table and sat with his back facing Eugene. He looked at Dolores and meowed loudly, once and then twice. Her nose wrinkled, her face contorted, and she looked deeply uncomfortable. "What?" she asked, but it seemed more for the cat's benefit. "No." The cat meowed again. "You can't possibly - " The cat cut her off this time. Eugene looked back and forth between them, as if watching an enthralling game of tennis.
 
After a staring match, during which Eugene was fairly certain the cat never blinked, Dolores sighed. The cat mewed and jumped off of the table. "If you like," Dolores began, seemingly addressing Eugene, though he couldn't quite be sure, "y ou can stay here. For a while. I'll teach you how to… be a ghost."

Eugene considered this proposal. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, like a fish. "But - ma'am, I don't know what I can offer you in return."
 
"Cut the chivalry, alright? It's Dolores. And it's not something you need to repay. Think of it as me repaying you, for… my welcome mat being a murder weapon, and what not."

She didn't need to tell him twice. He reached over to envelop her in a hug, and ended up falling and passing right through Dolores, her chair, and her mug of tea. Dolores shivered and warned him never to do that again. He agreed. (As she would learn, he didn't mean it.) And so, Dolores garnered a roommate, even i n times like this she regrets it.

Through the cloud of smoke bridging the expanse between the door and stove, Eugene smiles sheepishly. "Hi!" he says. Dolores doesn't bother to tell him he's repeated himself. "Didn't know you would be back so soon."

"I was running all over town for errands," Dolores says. She removes her coat and places it over the back of the kitchen chair, then takes off her pointed hat and plops it onto the table. "I'm actually back later than I thought I'd be." Once she's settled, she crosses her arms and frowns at him again. "But then I came home to this, so maybe I should have stayed out."

"I can fix this!" Eugene yelps hurriedly. He reaches to the ground and attempts to gather the forks, only for his hand to go right through them. "Okay, maybe I can't.
 
Dolores, despite herself, feels amused. She brushes past Eugene, careful to avoid the minefield of forks, and clicks the stove burner down and off. Eugene looks embarrassed; if a ghost's cheeks could go red, she imagines that his would. "That's better," she says, simply. She steps back and away from the stove, towards the door again. "Now, why is my house filled with smoke?"

Eugene groans, letting his legs fold underneath him as he sits on the floor. "I tried to cook dinner," he tells her glumly. She can't help but think that he looks like a petulant child. "But I lost my corporeality half way through and now my chicken cutlets are chicken crisps."
 
"I would say they're hardly chicken at all," Dolores replies. He whines, and drops his head onto his knees. For a ghost, he's very dramatic; Dolores has always thought so. "Why on earth would you cook dinner? I brought home beetroot for stew."

At this, Eugene raises his head and sighs. "Because I'm not strong enough to move the furniture."

Ah, yes; the decimated living room. "Well, why was the furniture moved in the first place, then?"

Eugene perks up at that. "That, at least, was not my fault! Well, not directly." He tilts his head. "Do you remember the room we're renting?"

 Of course she does; how could she forget? Their new roommate has only been living with them for a few weeks, after all. "You're saying Chandra destroyed my living room?"

"Shh, you're skipping ahead!" Dolores rolls her eyes, but remains quiet. "Well, remember when we approved her application?"

Dolores doesn't need to think about it; she remembers it like it was yesterday. When Eugene had suggested renting out an extra room to earn income, Dolores had nearly scoffed off the idea entirely. Nearly. But, her herbal remedies and potions weren't making nearly as much money as they'd used to - not since the goblin family had moved out of town anyway, and she had to pick up a second job charming and divining… Maybe he was right. They had the extra space; Eugene took up very little space in the attic, and Dolores's master bedroom was the only one occupied. There was her study, sure, and two bathrooms, but that left the guest room empty. So they put an ad in the Lacrys Post, and waited until their mailbox filled with applications. A nice mermaid here, a sweet banshee there; they picked their top applicants, mailed their responses, and set corresponding meeting dates.

Chandra Kaur didn't seem any different than the past twenty applicants looking to rent their extra room, Dolores had thought privately. She's a very well-mannered woman, straight-faced and polite, even saying hello to Eugene when she came in. (Very few people did, assuming he was a rather typical unwanted haunting, and he was always quite affronted.) She had big, poofy tendrils of black hair, in flyaway curls all around her face. On her brow bone, thick black eyebrows lay upon smooth dark skin, leading down her face into a long nose, pierced with a bright green gem, and even further into a gently quirked mouth. As soon as she sat down across from them, her hands bunched tightly in her sweater sleeves and her foot tapped anxiously in her hiking boots on the wooden floor. Dolores had an inkling of a good feeling about her - not that she was about to say so out loud.

 
Luckily, Chandra seemed unfazed by nearly everything they threw at her. Where others winced at Dolores mentioning running out for eye of newt, Chandra had held steady. Where most would have bolted when Eugene casually reported his tendency to float through walls, Chandra had stayed put. Where many would have drawn the line when Chattox jumped onto the table and leveled them with an inquiring look, Chandra had stared back. She even managed to survive when Eugene propped his feet up on the table and began to strum his ukulele. She informed them she worked odd hours at the animal shelter downtown, so she was quite used to chaos. At the end of the first round of questions, they were prepared to offer her a key to their house.

Finally, it came down to Chandra and the mermaid. Frankly, though, Dolores didn't really feel like having an entire bathtub installed. Chandra moved in at the end of the month.

Chandra, they were quick to note, is a lovely roommate. She's keen to keep to herself; she always washes her own dishes and does her own chores; she never touches anything without permission. (Dolores noted this, loudly and particularly, when Eugene had ransacked through yet another one of her potions and caused a minor explosion. Eugene had merely stuck out his tongue in response.) In fact, it was nearing the end of the temporary trial period, and Dolores (and Eugene) were near ready to offer her a permanent stay. Sure, she tended to take late night walks and return early in the morning, and yes, she sometimes smelled peculiarly like a wet dog, but the animal shelter was fairly taxing, apparently. So sue Dolores if she found it hard to believe that Chandra had ruined her house.
 
"Yes," Dolores says slowly, raising an eyebrow yet again. Eugene is acting as if struck dumb - well, maybe not struck. Perhaps he's simply just dumb. "Of course."

 
"Well," he drawls, "I don't know if perhaps I failed to notice, but I don't recall her noting an allergy to silver, do you?" Dolores blinks, unsure where this is leading. Eugene pauses, then continues, adding even more stress onto his words. "What about a tail? An aversion to the full moon? What about her being a dog person?" Dolores is still confused; evidently, this is not what Eugene is searching for. Then he says: "A werewolf. Honestly, Dolores, sometimes you're downright dim."
 
For a moment, she stands gaping, as Eugene pulls himself off of the ground. He reaches into the drawer again and attempts to pull out another fork. It falls to the floor. At that, Dolores's brain finally catches up to her mouth. "A what?"

"Well," Eugene begins, and if Dolores didn't know any better, she would say he sounded downright bored with the whole thing. Actually, she does know better, and he does sound bored. He turns to face her and gives her a rather flat look. "I don't know if you've noticed, but tonight happens to be a full moon. And when a werewolf sees a full moon - "

"I know what a werewolf does," she snaps, confusion giving way to anger for a moment. "What I want to know is: Is Chandra actually a werewolf?"
 
Eugene considers for a moment. "Either that, or she was eaten by a werewolf," he concedes. Dolores cannot see her own face, but she assumes she looks horrified. Eugene quickly continues. "But I floated upstairs to her room and it didn't seem like she'd been eaten. It was messy, but not gory, you know? All I know is that I was sitting here, playing a new tune - I'm telling you, there's something in musical magic, and if I can just hit the right chord - "

 "Eugene! Get on with it."
 
" - Alright, alright. Anyway, I was sitting on the couch and strumming my ukulele, and all of a sudden, a wolf comes bounding down the stairs and tears up the living room. Luckily, I'm dead, otherwise I'd have been killed!" He pauses to sigh, picking up another fork to drop it to the floor. The smoke has mostly dissipated, and Chattox enters, padding pleasantly into the kitchen. Eugene reaches down to pet him, and the familiar leans into the touch. "Right. Anyway, she knocked over the couch, tipped some other stuff over, then jumped out the window. Honestly, she didn't even say goodbye; it was quite rude."
 
Dolores shakes herself. Werewolves aren't native to this area, not that she knows of; Lacrys Cape is too far south for a regular werewolf population. She wonders how on earth Chandra made it out here. When she applied, she listed her previous address as just a few towns over and had a glowing recommendation from her previous landlord. Dolores's question was: why had she transformed now? Even during a full moon, most seasoned werewolves are able to control their shift. Maybe she was bitten just recently, or else something had triggered the transformation. It wasn't unheard of, werewolves becoming agitated by outside factors.
 
She was so busy thinking that she hadn't even noticed Eugene had started speaking again. "... planting new seeds in the garden," he's saying, "so I did my chores last week with corporeality. I don't know why I'm losing it now, though it could be the stress." He sighs and leans against the wall, nearly falling right through it before righting himself. "Honestly, the life of a stay at home ghost is horrible. I should have compensation."
 
Dolores rolls her eyes. When she opens her mouth to respond that he doesn't do much of anything (besides play songs on a ghostly ukulele), the stairs outside the house creak. Chattox, who was lazing by Eugene's feet, sits up straight, then immediately takes off towards the living room. Eugene and Dolores exchange a quick glance, then follow the trail of the black cat out to greet the incoming visitor. 

When the door slowly opens, making as little noise as possible, it is indeed not a visitor. Instead, Chandra enters, looking far worse for wear than Dolores had ever seen her with features altered in a way that made her nearly unrecognizable. She has long, fuzzy ears sticking out from beneath her hair; her nose looks more like a snout, shorter and with a black cap. H er brows are heavier, more furrowed, and her eyes are glowing bright blue, where before they were brown. Her face and body are covered in dirt, and her clothes - an oversized sweatshirt and a small pair of black shorts - and hair are drenched from the rain. Chattox, wrapped around Dolores's legs, hisses. Chandra smiles sheepishly at the cat, and then her roommates, clearly embarrassed. "Oh," she says. "Hello."

They stare at her. Dolores, after a long pause, opens her mouth to speak, but is cut off when Eugene crosses his arms and talks instead. "Well, well, well, look who it is," he begins. Chandra winces, but he continues. "Little Miss Perfect Roommate! Not so perfect when you try to kill me, huh?"
 
Chandra blinks, confused. "Aren't you dead?" she asks.

 "Whoa!" Eugene yelps. "You can't just ask if I'm dead! Especially not when we're apparently not telling each other everything."
 
At that, Chandra looks thoroughly reproached. She coils in on herself a little, shuffles backwards just a step. "Chandra," Dolores says, cutting Eugene off before he has time to further stick his foot into his mouth, "what happened?"
 
They watch as Chandra shifts from foot to foot, then reaches up to scratch at the back of her neck. She looks away and doesn't meet their eyes for a moment. "I'm not quite sure," she admits. "I wanted to tell you both - really, I did - but I didn't have a chance. Then all of a sudden, last week, my symptoms started acting up; getting antsy in the evening, excessive accidental shifting. Then, tonight, I completely lost it."
 
Dolores frowns. "You could have come to me, you know," she says. Chandra nods, softly, but Dolores continues anyway. "I have cures for these kinds of things on hand, and at the very least I could have given you a staying potion."
 
Chandra nods again, and crosses her arms. In the sweatshirt, Dolores can't help but think that she looks quite small. "I know. I should have told you both sooner. But I didn't disclose to my last landlord either, and we had no issues." Her voice becomes small all of a sudden, a gentle whisper now. "Most people don't… tolerate werewolves all the time, you know."

"They don't tolerate witches either," Dolores reminds her.

Chandra shakes her head and replies, "I know. I just - I've no idea what's going on with me; it feels like I've totally lost control."
 
For a moment, Dolores considers her. Meanwhile, Eugene pipes up. "Well, thank you for sharing with us," he says, charming as ever. Chandra relaxes a little, dropping her arms and smiling slightly. "Now we can help you figure out what's going on, and - "
 
"One week, you said?" Dolores asks suddenly, standing up straight. Chandra nods, and even as she and Eugene share a confused glance, Dolores looks to have decisively made up her mind. She brushes past them both to the front door, stepping around the pile of blankets and out. The other two have no choice but to follow her.
 

Dolores leads her parade down the steps around the side of the house and to the wild garden. She's glad to see that it has stopped raining, as she'd forgotten her overcoat and hat inside in her haste. The sunflowers are standing as tall and wild as ever, just as they've always been, bringing sunlight even in the dim moonbeams they stand in now. Dolores moves past them, bending down to grasp at a handful of purple flowers. Chandra and Eugene look at each other, then back to her, watching as she brings the flowers up closer to her face. After a long moment, Dolores stands abruptly, saying, "Aha. I knew it." She turns around and holds out her hand, one of the small purple flowers plucked straight from the ground, curling at the ends in search of its lost roots. "Wolfsbane," she says smugly. "Eugene planted wolfsbane in the garden."

 
As if on cue, Chandra sneezes, taking a step back away from the plant. "Sorry," she says softly, and Eugene scoffs.

"Wolfsbane?" he asks. "I didn't plant wolfsbane. I planted monkshood."

"Also known as wolfsbane," Dolores says, flatly.
 
Eugene narrows his eyes and leans in, sniffing at the plant. Then, he sighs. "Maybe… this is possibly wolfsbane." Dolores rolls her eyes, and Eugene smiles sheepishly. "Sorry." Chandra simply shrugs.

"No need to apologize," Dolores replies, promptly crumpling the wolfsbane in her hand. "There is merely a need to get to work." The look of confusion on her roommates' faces is nearly payment enough. Nearly.

As the night goes on and the early light of dawn stretches into morning, the speckled white paint of the house at the end of Magcali Lane shines in the yellow tone of daylight. T hree roommates bustle around in quick succession. Dolores, a no-nonsense witch, makes a staying potion with more strength than strictly necessary, scooping in drops of beetroot she thankfully had on hand. Eugene, an undead tunesmith, kneels outside in the garden, using what little corporeality he has to pick monkshood from the ground. Finally, Chandra, a well-meaning yet apprehensive werewolf, toils away in the kitchen, scrubbing burnt chicken bits out of a pan after a long morning of cleaning up the living room. As she scrubs away, the stairs to the front door creak and Eugene enters, wiping at his brow with the back of his hand and heading straight for the kitchen.
 
"Okay," he says, entering. Chandra jumps at the sudden influx of his voice, but smiles politely, and goes back to her dishes. Meanwhile, Eugene sits in the kitchen chair, tucking his feet up underneath him. "I think I got all of the wolfsbane out of the garden. If there's any left, I'll go back out next week and get it then, but for now, I am exhausted."
 
Chandra grins and asks, "Can ghosts even become exhausted?"
 
After a moment, Eugene gives her a flat look. "We need to work on your ghost etiquette," he informs her. Chandra snickers.

Just at that moment, Dolores enters, breezing past Eugene and heading for the expanse of the counter. She reaches into the jacket of her purple waistcoat and plops a vial down. The vial is full of deep red liquid, viscous and thick in quality. "Staying potion," she says to Chandra. "It'll help with any unwanted shifts."

"And taste like beetroot stew!" Eugene informs her, chipper as ever. Dolores glares, and he merely shrugs. "I'm not wrong."

Chandra smiles, and reaches out to touch Dolores gently on the arm. As a reflex, Dolores tenses, but doesn't pull away. "Thank you," Chandra says sincerely. "For everything."

Dolores mumbles something along the lines of a welcome, then heads to grab the mug of herbal tea that has been so kindly prepared for her. Chandra smiles gratefully. Then, she reaches for the vial, with swift but soapy hands. As soon as she grasps the glass, the vial slips out of her slippery hands and towards the floor. Eugene gasps, and Chandra's eyes widen in shock. The glass containing the ruddy red liquid goes tumbling through the air, ready to spill out over the white tile. Then, from where she has begun to drink her tea, Dolores snaps her fingers. The vial freezes in midair, and as she raises her finger, rises and lands back on top of the counter. Chandra and Eugene watch with awe, and Dolores merely continues to sip her tea, thinking with great interest about what potions she needs to make to give to her new mermaid client. Her roommates look at her, when suddenly, Eugene speaks.
 
"Wait a minute," he says. "You have magic."

Dolores fixes him with a flat look. "Yes."

"Physical magic," Chandra adds.

"Yes," Dolores repeats. "And?"

"And so you could have cleaned the kitchen and garden yourself!" Eugene says incredulously, sitting up straight in his chair and unfolding his legs.
 
"Yes," Dolores agrees, shrugging and taking another sip of her tea, "I could have."

"Well, then why didn't you?" he asks. "It wouldn't have even been any effort for you."

 

Dolores finishes her tea with one final sip, and then puts the mug down onto the counter. "Well, how else would you two have learned your lesson? Besides, it is simply not my job to clean up your mess." With that, she takes her leave, throwing a casual goodbye over her shoulder, leaving her two roommates dumbfounded in her wake.