You don't even have one picture up. It's disturbing.
If you should accept this invitation, all you must do is show up for an impractical and overflowing dinner tonight in the back garden of The Lost Souls House, where you will find flowers and fruits blooming in the summer evening, and the stars blinking in welcome.
Please do not be late. That is rude.
"Hey," a sleepy Jen said with a yawn as she walked into the kitchen wearing a matching red robe to Tilly's. They had been a present for Tilly's last birthday. She kept the robe, a set of silk pajamas, two outfits, a toothbrush and face wash here for grown-up sleepovers.
"Hey. Sorry, did I wake you?"
Jen was filling another white mug with coffee before she bent over the other side of the island.
"No. I was too excited to sleep much." She frowned. "What's Ursula's living room tiger doing here?"
Sulphur licked her paw next to where the mug and black invitation sit.
"And what's with the mug and love letter?"
"This isn't your mug?"
Jen picked up the blue Victorian and shook her head. "Nope. It looks exactly like The Blueberry House." She pulled it closer. "It even has the purple door!"
"Hmm. Well, I got this invitation and this mug this morning."
Jen took the thick paper from Tilly and read it over as she sipped her mug of coffee.
"Did you tell Eloise and Urs that your apartment is being sold?"
"Nope."
"Well," she ran a hand over Sulphur's curling and stretching back, "I would say that's creepy, but I mean at this point it's not. And pretty freaking cool. Though you know you can stay here for as long as you need to, right?"
"I do, and as much as I appreciate that, we both know that we would kill each other exactly nine days into that arrangement."
Jen's wide smile flashed, bright white teeth against her skin and the darkness of the kitchen that had slowly started to lighten as the morning got closer. "It's good we know our boundaries."
"Amen to that."
They clinked mugs.
"So, what do you think? Going to take the magical house up on the invite?"
"I don't know. Real estate here is worse than Manhattan."
Jen made a hmm of agreement.
"And of course, losing my job is not helpful. I have savings, but with no clear future I'm kind of starting from scratch."
"What do you think the mug means?"
"Uhhh...that somehow The Blueberry House will play an important role in my future journey? Or something."
"Life is weird."
Tilly nodded absently then thinking of the text message from Ronnie, she looked to her friend knowing what Jen would say if she knew that Ronnie was back in town. She knew exactly the look that would come over her face. But she also knew that if she didn't tell her, she'd be hiding something from Jen that she'd helped her heal from.
"So, Ronnie is back in town."
There it was. That look; her perfect eyebrows arched, head tilted down just so, mouth paused against her mug.
