After searching the upstairs, Claire had confirmed that it was indeed her own house. But she couldn't find any new rooms that could belong to her. Everything else seemed in its rightful place. She carefully descended the stairs on her four legs and searched the ground floor. Still nothing.
Then the cellar door caught her eye. It was the only place she hadn't looked. But her room couldn't be down there. It was an unfinished cellar, with nothing but old boxes and exposed pipes. It was pretty cold down there...although she guessed being a little cold wouldn't be too much of a problem. Surely the dampness would make it a terrible place to spend a lot of time...although suddenly she wondered how she ever came up with that idea.
As she approached the door something deep inside her began tugging, telling her to keep going. Surely there was something down there that was important. She opened the door and felt a small rush of cold air. Normally it would have gave her a momentary shiver, but her new body didn't mind it one bit. She crept down the dark staircase and groped for the string dangling from the light bulb at the base of the steps. One of her hands located it and she gave a firm tug.
She almost fainted at the sight. Almost the entire basement was cloaked in tangles of cobwebs. They were gigantic and sweeping. Many seem to have decayed from use or age, but plenty more looked completely intact and quite durable.
Claire's first instinct was to scream in horror. She didn't. Her second instinct was to run back up the stairs. She didn't. She was listening to the thoughts that were growing ever more prominent in her head. They were telling her that she was safe here. That this was where she belonged.
Claire slowly walked through the tangles, discovering that underneath the thousands of strands were many of the things that used to be in her room. Only one corner of the basement was free of the webs, and that was where the furnace and air conditioning units sat. Next to those was a dresser, a bookshelf she had in her old room, and a mirror.
She wanted to explore a bit more, but she remembered the deal she made with Jennifer. She looked around the basement, and sure enough there was a phone resting atop some storage bins underneath the main switcher box.
"Hey, Jen. I found my room."
"That's excellent, Claire," Jennifer's voice sounded tired now. "Can we please finish our business now?"
While Claire had been exploring, Jennifer had been increasingly fearing the possibility of her mother coming in and finding her daughter had already grown a whole new coat of wool. Actually, it was more like two coats combined. All curled up, it was quite a puffy coat, but as Jennifer pulled a lock of it straight, she found it was almost a foot long. Her shirt and pants were getting very full of the stuff, and Jennifer worried she might soon have to disrobe completely if Claire didn't change her back quickly. She was the one who had come up with the "do this NOW" curse, after all, and now she seemed to be taking everything quite slowly.
"I'm...I'm not sure I want to change back anymore," Claire said.
"What?"
"Well, the more I think about it...the more right it feels. And I'm not all that scared anymore."
"Well, listen," Jennifer said, impatient but still eager to make this situation pan out for both of them. "I'll give you a small transformation. Whatever you want. Or I could even dare you to feel completely fine about being a spider-girl. What do you say?" She shot another look at her abundant locks. "My hair's not getting any shorter over here."
"Umm," Claire hesitated. "Alright, sure, I can handle it. Give it to me."