Dib's nose wrinkled as he shifted in the chair, muttering sleepily. It was so warm, he must have fallen asleep. So warm, and she was taking so long to heat up—
His eyes shot open. The Glass Lady! He bolted to his feet and raced over to the vent.
He could barely peer in, it was so hot. All the readings groaned in the red zone, and in the combustion chamber lay a puddle of liquid glass.
"Lady?" He ventured, "Glass Lady, are you alright?"
The surface of the puddle rippled. He wondered if she was just sleeping, and he was waking her. But he'd been waiting so long!
"Glass Lady, are you in there?" He lifted his cellphone, snapping a few photos through the vent. "Are you alright?"
The puddle began to shift and bunch, pouring toward the vent opening. Dib yelped, leaping back as it began pouring out of the vent and onto the concrete. As more of it exited, the puddle on the floor began to rise, taking shape and form. Within seconds she stood before him, just as she had for years. A wide, roundish base with tendrils around the edges stretched upward, narrowing and tapering off to a thin neck atop which a blank face sat. As before, a swath of glass hung down off the back of her head, only now he pieced together that it looked like a ponytail of sorts. Oranges, reds, and yellows danced all over her surface, and he could vaguely see distorted images of things behind her through the colors. Two tendrils formed out of the sides of her body, reaching up toward the ceiling and bending to the side in what could have been a stretching motion. The face was completely blank, but as he watched the features began to take shape. Eyes and mouth, not like a person's, but like one would see carved on a statue's face. A little point poked out just below the eyes and above the mouth, which he took to be a nose.
The eyes, once formed, turned and fixed on him. The mouth stretched upward in a grin too wide for a human to make, and she darted forward, exclaiming, "Oh Dib thank you so much I can't believe you finally figured it out you'll have to tell me oh I'm so sorry—" She swerved aside, inches from him, and darted to the far corner of the room, her smile gone. "So very sorry must not touch you oh it almost happened must not happen again."
Dib blinked, jaw hanging open.
The Glass Lady stared at him, fiddling with her tendrils, alternately glancing down and over at him. Finally, she edged a couple inches away from the corner, and murmured, "Please forgive me but what is this expression you are making I have seen people open their mouths this wide to eat things but right now there is no food in front of you could you please tell me which emotion is connected to this facial expression so I know when it is appropriate to make this face?"
Dib's jaw clicked shut as he continued staring.
She fidgeted, looking down again. "Why are you making that face looking at me I know I came very close to you but I did not harm you I would never burn you please don't look at me like that I'm very sorry if I frightened you but say something Dib I've heard you speak for years and years and you told me everything and you put up pictures to keep me company when you were away and you played all around me why are you suddenly so quiet and staring like I'm…" her voice died away.
Shaking himself free of shock, he found his own voice. "No, no Glass Lady, I'm sorry, it's just… I mean… I never really thought… I might have started out thinking you were alive at first, but then I grew up and figured you weren't. I had no idea…" He eyed her warily, but his curiosity was already moving him closer. Besides, she didn't seem dangerous.
Okay, she seemed EXTREMELY dangerous, but in a totally non-threatening, unintentional way. She watched him come closer, and brightened some, the smile returning to her face.
"Then you aren't afraid of me?" She hoped aloud.
"I don't think so," he said, stopping four feet from her. "But I have so many questions… to start with, what's your real name?"
Her smile grew. "I like your name for me Glass Lady is very pretty but my name is Remara and you are Dib Membrane and you like finding proof for things nobody believes in did you get Bigfoot to stop long enough to take a photo yet?"
He felt his shoulders relax. "Not yet, but next time I'll bring some jerky, he seemed to like that, and maybe he'll hold still longer."
"I know you'll get a photo of him someday you're very patient you know you haven't given up yet I don't think you ever will I love hearing your stories I think you kept me smiling inside even though I couldn't smile outside I was too cold but every time you told me stories I felt warmer inside and your drawings too can I keep your drawings Dib I know I can't touch them but I want to keep them can I?"
Dib put up his hands. "Whoah whoah… Remara, you said? You have to slow down a little bit, I can only answer you if you stop to take a… breath…" He peered at her body. "Do you even have lungs?"
"What are lungs?" She puzzled, answering his question.
"Vibration of glass particles maybe," he mused, inspecting her, "You could probably make sound from any part of your body that way." It made sense, her voice held an undertone of ringing, like tiny chimes clashing together to form every syllable. And with no lungs, she had no need to pause for breath.
"Lungs are vibration of glass particles maybe?" She was even more confused.
"No no no, I was just guessing how you're talking. Lungs are part of the human body, I breathe with them—something I don't think you need to do—and they help me talk." He noted that even though she had no lungs or respiratory system he could see, she continued to move her mouth when she spoke. Maybe he could ask her more questions about how she worked, what she was, where she'd come from…
"Ohhhhh," she nodded, "So can I keep your drawings?"
Despite himself, Dib found he was smiling. It was hard to believe someone actually cared about his childhood scribbles. "Well first we have to find a place for you to stay. You can't stay up in the attic, that's for sure. I'm guessing you're… well let me check." He walked over to his father's desk, imitating his voice mockingly, "Let's do this scientifically." He pulled out a heat gage and returned, handing it to Remara. "Would you hold this please?"
Gingerly she took it, wrapping her tendrils around it. The meter instantly shot into the four digits, giving an annoying blat sound as it fluctuated around 1600 degrees Farenheit.
"Yeah you're going to catch things on fire if you go back upstairs." He chewed his lip. "You're probably not right now just cause you're in a concrete room. But maybe here's the best place for now, seems like you need to keep warm and the boiler's the best place for that." He stared at the boiler, struck by a thought. "How could you possibly have gotten that hot, our boiler couldn't have heated you to 1600!"
She blinked. "It wasn't a very hot flame but I made it more and kept pulling it in and putting it out and pulling it in and putting it out over and over to make it very hot inside me until I could move again and then I just kept it inside me and kept taking heat but it is leaving me all the time I can't hold onto it if I'm not in warm places." She sighed. "I used to have a gift a friend gave to me it was a stone that held as much heat as I put in it like storage and I could go for very long times without needing to be in a hot place because it was inside me but I lost it when I was running."
"You looked like you were running when I first saw you." He seized on that. "What were you running from?"
Her features blurred, almost as if she were pulling them back under a smooth, blank surface. "I do not want to talk about that Dib can we please not talk about that time?"
Slightly alarmed, he soothed, "It's okay, it's okay, we don't have to talk about that right now. We can talk about other things, yeah? Like… like you've been frozen for a really long time, are you hungry?"
"Hungry this is that thing people say they feel right before they eat am I correct but I do not need any sand right now I have not moved around very much."
Stunned by the implications of her words, he glanced at the floor. A light shimmer traced her path on the concrete floor, the thinnest sheen of glass wherever she had moved. "Of course!" He exclaimed. "Sand? You need to replenish yourself whenever you move, just like we do, but your energy output is literally visible and has to be replaced oh man oh man this is so cool!"
"Actually I am very hot not cool and that's what I just said so I do not need sand right now but perhaps later I might but for right now I would really like to see your—"
"Drawings, I got it. I'll grab them from upstairs. Stay here, ok? I'll be right back." As he started up the stairs, his watch beeped. He gasped. "Remara, actually, I gotta go to school. Stay here, and if you hear footsteps and I don't call your name, you hide in the boiler and don't say anything, got it?"
"Okay Dib have a good day at school and please tell me all about the plague when you get back it's very sad but it's good to hear you talking."
He blinked, grinning as he flew up the stairs. They were in the middle of learning about the Black Plague for the sixth time that year, he still couldn't believe she had heard every word he'd ever said to her.
Class would be slow today, he could just tell.
…
Note: Lades and gents, this is what has been affectionately dubbed "Remaraspeak." Get used to it, she doesn't pause for much. By the way… how many of you figured out that Remara is my default icon (and if this changes in the future, I'll make sure she's the cover of this story when I change it)?
