Chapter Text
"No!"
"No what, Kai?" Jack put down the box.
"No more boxes. I'm sick of boxes. I moved out of a small apartment; I can't for the life of me have gathered so much crap!" Kai let out the grandmother of all sighs. "Can I just move back? Make all of this go away?"
"No!" This time Jack was loud and persistent. "We dragged all your stuff over here, person, and you're stuck with it. How far are you with unpacking the glasses? Why the hell do you need so many glasses?"
"I take one home from everywhere I visit," Kai said. "It's fun."
"It's also a lot of boxes."
"Hah," she said, "be glad I don't collect cobblestones."
"Cobblestones?" Jack stared blankly at her. "Who would… Oh, forget I even thought about asking. I'm going to get a few more boxes. We're almost done."
Kai sighed once more. "Boxes…" She opened one labeled "Bedroom", found it was filled with kitchen stuff, and so she dragged it to the right place. The good thing was she had lots of space, so throwing things in cupboards was quickly done. She shut the door, folded the box, and turned to the wide open back door.
The view of the narrow but long garden made her smile. The trees in the back of it, the high shrubs on either side, those had made her buy this place just within the forest. It had been on the market for a long time, and the price had dropped to something silly, and so she'd called the realtor.
The paperwork had been done fast, and the family of the previous owner had warned her about 'strange things' happening there.
Making sure the house wasn't haunted, she'd asked to sleep there for a few nights, and nothing had happened. "Okay. Boxes… Let's see if there's a weird thing that helps unpacking."
Not counting on that, she went back to the living room and unpacked another box, as Jack brought in the last two. Small ones.
Most of the boxes were in the right rooms, and the necessities for food and sleep were unpacked. Kai asked Jack if she could treat him to dinner. He was a great friend, and the only one willing to help her.
He gladly accepted the offer, and wondered what she'd make, as there was nothing in the house.
"There's a Chinese take-out restaurant not far from here," she said. "I'll go get some. You take notes on every ghost that pops in."
"Ghost?" Jack looked around in the room, making her laugh. "Oh, you rat! While you're out, see if there's a boyfriend for you. Or a girlfriend. Or a whatever-friend you're looking for."
"Uh-huh." Kai didn't even answer. She was fine with her life. Not many people she knew felt comfortable around a non-binary person, even if she'd decided to go by she and her, avoiding more confusion. She also didn't need a whatever-friend, as Jack so eloquently called it.
It didn't take her long to get some food and announced her return loudly, and the hope Jack had put some plates on the table.
"Here. Food," she said, putting the bag on the table. "What's that?"
He stood near the glass cabinet and held up a particular specimen. "I was about ask that too. Where did you pick this one up? With Satan's neighbor?"
"What'dya mean?" She looked at the glass. "That's not mine. I'd never get something like that." She took it from him, went to the kitchen and dumped it in the trashcan.
"There. Done. Now eat. We worked hard enough, and you still have to drive back."
The two sat and enjoyed the food, which was better than Kai would have thought. It was a restaurant to remember.
Jack thanked her for the food. "I brought this bottle of wine," he said, pulling it from his bag. "To celebrate."
"You're so sweet!" Kai got up and went to get some glasses. "What the actual…" She was facing the ugly, dark grey glass she'd thrown in the trash.
Jack got up and was surprised as well. "I am sure there was only one of those…"
"I'm going to fix this." Kai handed him two proper glasses, then took the ugly one out to the back and dropped it in the trash bag which would be collected in a few days. "And stay there," she warned the glass. She was too tired to do more, and by the time she'd returned to the living room, Jack had poured the wine.
"Sorry. A bit too warm for white, but we'll live," he said.
Kai sat down and toasted with him.
For a short while they sat and talked about the day, until Jack had to pack up.
She saw him out and locked the door. Was that even necessary here, she wondered, pondering the habit from the big city. Oh well, it wouldn't hurt anyone.
Back in the living room, she saw there was still some wine in the bottle. Good man Jack, leaving a nightcap. For some reason she had a look at the glass cabinet. "What…"
The grey glass was there again, in all its ugly glory.
"You are one persistent bugger, are you?" Kai frowned. Was this what the sellers had meant by strange things? This was strange, for sure. She took the glass out of the cabinet and was half of a mind to throw it away again. The again did something to her, though. How often would she have to throw it away? "That's not right."
Kai experimented with the glass a bit. There wasn't even a proper way to hold it.
She grinned. "I wonder if there is a proper way to drink from you." She put it on the table and emptied the bottle into it.
Holding the glass with both hands, she turned it around a few times. The rim looked as if it was made by a drunk, wobbly and uneven. She selected the least dangerous side and carefully drank from it, ready to stop as soon as anything were to dribble down her cheek and into her clothing. Somehow that didn't happen.
The odd, golden glow from under her fingers was what did happen, and she had not expected that. Kai held out the glass and blinked against the light coming from the glass. It formed lines, then slowly morphed into actually characters.
"Finally I am free," she read. "Free? Who is free?"
As if the glass had been waiting for that, more lines appeared, which in the end formed another sentence. "Meet me at the foot of the oak."
"I'm drunk," Kai decided, putting the glass down. "I worked too hard, I drank too much wine, and I'm seeing things. And which oak? I'm in the middle of a frigging oak forest."
"I will show you," the glass displayed.
"Okay, that's it." Kai took all the glasses and other dinner items and put them in the kitchen sink. Some water on top of it would make cleaning easy in the morning.
With that, and a good feeling, she went to bed, which was the air mattress she'd used in her test-sleeps. Making the real bed had to wait until tomorrow, as did so many other things. She didn't even notice falling asleep.
* * *
Kai woke up, not immediately knowing why. She never woke up at night, unless the neighbors' cats were fighting, and there were no cats here. Not even neighbors. Then she noticed the brightness on the outside of her closed eyes.
"Who turned that goddamn light on," she muttered, opening her eyes.
Slowly she sat up, not letting the ugly glass out of her sight. It stood on the floor, just a few feet away from her. The words "Meet me at the foot of the oak" shone brightly.
"This is a dream, right?" She fell back onto the pillow, but the light stayed as bright as before.
After a few minutes, trying to ignore the persistent light, she kicked away the sleeping bag and got up. "I'm going to throw you away so badly, your maker wishes he'd never made you in the first place," she growled, picking up the glass.
"I will show you," the glass responded, this time in less bright light.
"No. I'll show you."
Kai located her slippers, slipped her feet in them, and carried the glass down the stairs. It gave off so much light, she didn't even have to switch on the real ones.
Once outside, she held up the glass, ready to smash it into the tiles, but decided against that. She'd have to clean that up in the morning.
"The foot of the oak…" the glass conveyed.
"I'm going slightly mad. No, strike the slightly." Kai sighed. "Which bloody oak, you bloody piece of glassware?"
She had decided to play along with this weird dream, and bury the glass at the foot of the first oak she would run into. And hopefully that would let her sleep for the rest of the night.
Carefully she walked into the garden. Her own garden, she realized with some pleasure. And this was her first nightly visit to it. She looked up and saw a myriad of stars. For a while she stopped and just stared. She'd never seen to many stars, except in pictures.
"Right…" She walked on, following the light beam coming from the glass. "Light beam. I should be surprised, I know," she told the glass, "but my time will come. Sleep time. Just so you know."
The walk ended near a big tree. An oak.
"Right, buster," Kai told the glass. "End of the line for you." She knelt down, put the glass in the grass, and started digging a hole. Once that was done, she took the glass and put it in its makeshift grave. "It was nice knowing you, but you're not disturbing my sleep no more. If you behave, I will dig you up. In ten years or so."
She scooped up a handful of sand and dropped it on the glass. The next moment she was in total darkness, which shocked her. The fact someone yelled out, "Stop! What are you doing!" shocked her more. A lot more. The words were followed by the sound of someone spitting out something.
"Who's there!" Kai was wide awake now, as she scrambled away from the tree, banging into the next one in the dark. "Ouch, dammit!"
Her heart pounded. Here she was, in her underwear and slippers, in the dark, hearing a voice that told her to help.
"Help with what?" Kai asked, getting more and more convinced she was inside a lucid nightmare.
"Getting out of this piss-hole of course!" It was a female voice, and it sounded angry and annoyed. "I'm finally free and I'm not going to be buried in some dark hole after all this."
"Who are you?" Kai asked. "And where are you? I can't see a thing in the dark."
"Wait…" the voice said. A few seconds later, an odd glow came from the ground where she'd started burying the glass. It was a golden glow, mixed with grey. Did grey glow exist, she wondered as she crawled towards it.
With that light, it was easy to retrieve the glass, and she reached for it. The glass vanished, and a hand grabbed her wrist.
"Pull," the voice said.
"Let go of me!" Kai now wished for neighbors who could hear her and come to help.
"Once you pulled," the voice said. "Now pull!"
Kai pulled.