And then she takes a bite out of the not-strawberry.

It tastes somewhat like a strawberry, but also nothing like a strawberry. It's like a half remembered recollection of a strawberry that has had the forgotten parts filled in with something else that fits. It's lighter, sweeter, with a subtle but alluring undertone of something darker and richer, with more depth than a strawberry could contain. Something - other. Something native to this world of shadows and forgotten things. Something forgotten, then remembered, then put here because it seemed like it belonged.

It's pretty good, actually.

She takes another bite, than a third to finish the berry. 

She smiles. She puts the stem left between her fingers in one of the empty spice bottles.

She notes the titles of the books on the bookshelf. She moves the shoes over to near the door for when she goes back downstairs. She folds back the bedsheets and checks the crack between the bed and the wall. 

The books are the sorts of things someone would keep around because they liked having them at hand; books of poetry, of stories of heroes that triumphed against darkness, of comfort and warmth and love. The way they're organized doesn't follow any objectively logical scheme, but they are placed with too much purpose to be random. Whatever method they were organized by is not immediately obvious, though; it's likely she'd have to read each of them, cover to cover, to really know.

There is nothing hiding between the bed and the wall, nothing lost or dropped or forgotten. Perhaps they moved somewhere else, or perhaps nothing was ever abandoned there. It's hard to tell, in this place.

The bedsheets are soft and comforting, and perhaps could even be warm. Or perhaps not; it's hard to tell without using them.

She winces when she notices the way the books are arranged.

She stands in silence a moment. 

She looks at the plant - but no. 

She takes two of the lavender coins from the pouch, and places them click-click next to each other on the bookshelf.

She leans the various staffs up in the corner by the bed. She puts the shoes downstairs by the doormat, and the cooking section in the unoccupied space beneath the last librarian's personal books. She is exquisitely careful not to crowd them while they grieve.

She lays the wood treated for wands on the bedside table by the staves, so neither of them will get lonely and the old staves can give their juniors good advice. She fills in the space left by the wood with the books that have runes that look similar to the ones on the burner. She moves more stacks of books to atop the bed.

After her rearrangement, there are only a few remaining stacks of books still on the floor, at a much more reasonable height than before. She definitely still needs some extra bookshelves to house all of these books, but much less desperately, now.

She takes the sheets off the bed entirely, folds them neatly into eighths, places them on a side table with the pillows atop them, and fills the space they were taking on the bed with the last of the books. 

She checks behind the curtains.

She looks out the window, careful of her own reflection.

Nothing hides behind the curtains except the window, but it's always smart to check.

The window itself is dark, but obligingly doesn't cast much of a reflection. The world outside the window is slightly brighter than the dark interior, but it does not actually edge into 'bright.' Grey, perhaps, is a better term. It is very grey, out there, like a dark fog that has swallowed everything whole. In spite of the fog, she can make out a shadowed alleyway, with a cramped street and tall, narrow buildings of varying, somewhat conflicting styles. They look like they have come from lots of different places, and been put together here. Not all of them have doors, and most of them don't have windows. Some of them look like they might be stacked on top of each other, where the roof designs oblige this arrangement. There is no obvious way to get to the ones higher up. One gets the impression that the things in this alleyway are not interested in making visiting them convenient. They are simply where they have decided to be.

Not particularly welcoming. 

Then again, she supposes she's not particularly welcoming either. Things are as they are. 

She wraps herself in the heaviest blanket, togalike, and steps out through the bolder door.

The blanket was a smart idea; the alley outside of her new home is colder than inside, and a chillier wind nips through the air. It's less quiet, here, but does not go so far as to edge entirely out of the descriptor 'quiet.' The only thing to hear is the faint sound of the wind, and the faintest hint of a whisper that it carries with it. Otherwise, the alley is still and quiet. There are no lights behind any of the doors, no movement behind any of the scattered windows, and nothing making its way through the grey fog. It seems she is alone - the faint hint of a whisper is far away, and probably unconcerned with her.

From this side, the bolder door proves that it is of the same clever kind as the one indoors, even going so far as to outdo it. With the door closed, it's difficult to even see that it's there from the alleyway. It blends in easily with the rest of the wall, just another set of grooves and shapes in the textured wall. If one didn't know to look for it, it would be quite easy to miss it entirely and think it another doorless building. Such a thing would hardly be out of place, here. Perhaps other buildings have such hidden doors.

She smiles, running a hand along the smooth edge where door meets wall. 

She runs her fingers through her hair, brushing out a little of its tangledness and tucking it out of the wind.

Then she goes looking for more clever doors.

There is a tall, severe looking building with stone spires and ivory ivy crawling up its walls, whose large bricks disguise another clever door, if not as well as her own did.

A very small building is squeezed between two other, more imposing ones, with another on top of it. Width wise, it's barely large enough to contain a door, and the clever door that hides there blends in expertly with the wood paneling next to it.

If there are other clever doors in the immediate area, they are either on one of the buildings that sit perched atop another, or they are disguised so well that they probably don't want to be found.

She knocks quietly on the smaller building's wood-panelled door.

Her only answer is silence.

With a turn of her hand, she asks the lock if it would like to let her in.

The door opens obligingly; if there is a lock, it isn't preventing her entry.

Inside, the building is astonishingly cramped. It's impossible to get very far past the doorway without actually climbing over things. It looks like it's a place used for storage - it probably was once a shed - and filled with boxes and desks and tables and chests, all of which are covered in objects from various sources. There's a tea set, perched awkwardly on a chair that's perched precariously on a desk. To the left, on a set of stacked boxes, a porcelain doll regally sits. Hanging from a hook on the nearby wall are several spare sets of clothes that look like they'd fit her. There's what looks like a music box and a number of stuffed animals and laced cloth, draped over whatever spare places are available. There's certainly more to behold, but it's hard to take in everything that's present; there's so much, all in this tiny space.

The items inside all have a decidedly feminine air to them, but otherwise, they seem completely disorganized. It's not clear from where she stands if there are any bookshelves in this mess.

Gosh.

...This is going to take a while to find homes for. 

She takes down the tea set from its precarious perch, doffing her blanket with an apology: the blanket doesn't belong on the ground, but the tea set needs kept from the cobblestones or they will argue. Blanket as a pad for the tea set: tea set upon the blanket, a good few paces away where it need not fear too many careless steps. 

Now, down comes the chair, over the other direction so it cannot kick the tea set.

She looks over her shoulder at the tea set. Hm.

Carefully, she sets the music box atop the blanket to keep it company: then she picks up the tea set again and carries it in to the back room of the bookstore, where she leaves it atop the table there. 

Returning to the alley, she surveys the storage space again. 

There's what looks to be a jewelry box, now that she's gotten the chair out of the way. Behind that is a set of musical instruments, a harp and a piano and a violin, the harp and violin awkwardly draped over their larger fellow. There's a set of combs and hairsticks to the right, in gold and silver and shimmering glass. A set of paper flowers are scattered around, like someone sat down with colored paper and made a dozen little lotus flowers in all kinds of colors, then gently placed them in various locations throughout the shed.

And still there is more; yes this will take a long while to find homes for.