NaNoWriMo 2011, Day 3, part 2

    There was a stone path through the flowers and herbs and vegetables growing in profusion near the road. The path led to a  strange cottage that appeared to be a greatly oversized snail shell half buried in the ground. There was a roughly circular hole for the door, sealed by a thick leather curtain. Holes shimmered along the top of each whorl, quartz windows reflecting sunlight filtered through the tall trees of the forest.
    The Witch led Pieder along the path and into her strange home. He spent the day following her about and learning the tasks he must do. Most were familiar things, like washing the dishes and sweeping the floor. But getting the water consisted of lifting a lever, since the water ran through veins all over the house and could be poured into sinks and buckets in several rooms. One chamber, for the rooms were too open and strangely shaped for Pieder to think of them as boring everyday rooms,  seemed to be an indoor outhouse, which struck Pieder as intensely disgusting. Oddly, it had almost no odor despite being a place of filth. Another seemed to be reserved for cooking. The strangely snail-like house had a root cellar of sorts, indoor plumbing, and a minimal amount of electricity to run various contraptions about the house. One of the chief contraptions thus run seemed to both provide a way from rapidly drying clothes and heating the whole dwelling.
    There was a chamber, almost a hallway between the outhouse chamber and the front room chamber, that had a cot set to one side and a small dresser with two drawers carefully cleaned and empty. It appeared to be his bedchamber. He placed his small bag on the cot and glanced at the Witch, who was paused for him. She gestured for him to place the items in his bad into the dresser. He removed a single change of clothes, a toothbrush, and a book of fairy stories his parents had given him for his tenth birthday. He also had mittens, a jacket, a pair of longjohns, and a wool hat. All of this he was wearing at the moment over and under the rest of his clothing, and he was sweating heavily. He removed everything except his shirt, pants, and longjohns and carefully folded it away in what he assumed must now be his dresser. He had never had his own dresser before. It was strangely pleasant.
    The first night he spent in the Witch's abode was terrifying. Her home smelled faintly of lavender, probably propagated by the various sachets and sprays of lavender that hung about the house. Peider's home, or rather his parents' and sisters' home now that he no longer lived there, smelled of woodsmoke and various cooked foods and drying vegetables.