The Fire in the Glass
an excerpt

The third time the child with no name appeared it was raining, water streaming cold against my window glass in the midst of the green summer wood. There was no fire that day, though the air felt chill and I shivered a little in my chair by the vacant hearth, Edaia’s blanket drawn tight about my shoulders. I had left off writing in a sudden fit of rage, and the pages of my notebook lay scattered about like ever so many autumn leaves on the carpet; I had wept and now sat in the listless quiet that must inevitably follow such a storm. It was Ol, not I, who first sensed her presence; he lay languidly on the back of his red armchair, batting at some stray mote of dust when I heard him stiffen as if startled, and then give a soft little mew.

She stood at the casement, drenched through and shivering, her lips nearly blue with cold, though the day itself was warm. I jerked up from my chair and unlatched the window, the rhythmic rain cascading down in a shining cataract from the eve of the roof.

“What’s it called?” she asked me, “This water that falls from the sky?”

I looked at her with some degree of incredulity. “Have you never seen rain before?”

She shook her head and I caught the sheen of tears in her gray eyes. “It is beautiful,” she said, “it is impossible, this rain. Why does it make me shiver so?”

“You are cold,” I told her.

“Cold?”

I studied her, intrigued by her strangeness, touched by her sorrow and her pale eyes that looked somehow familiar. “Would you like to come in?” I asked her.

She nodded, and before I could point her around to the door she clambered over the windowsill and fell in a damp heap upon the carpet. Ol eyed her crossly and I couldn’t help but laugh a little. She glanced inquiringly up at me and I regained my countenance and shut and latched the window. The rain echoed on in the overhanging trees, whispering steady upon the roof and running once more silver against the glass; Edaia’s image rose anew within my mind. I sighed, without knowing that I sighed, and the child who had no name reached out one pale hand and brushed her fingers across my arm. “You miss her, don’t you,” she whispered, “You miss the lady whom you lost.”

I nodded without a word, and wrapping Edaia’s blanket about the child’s thin shoulders, I settled her into Ol’s chair and knelt to lay a fire upon the hearth. Ol, after a few moment’s profound annoyance, curled up into her lap and fell asleep, purring contentedly. She rubbed his ears with a sort of delighted awe, and I wondered where she could possibly come from, this child who knew nothing of cats or rain or what it meant to be cold. Hell, she said she came from Hell, but not even I could believe that.