wheee, crack!
Opened with image of a a young woman--sixteenish?--coming home from school with a younger brother, leaving brother and mourning(?) father upstairs making dinner while she went downstairs to the family room, and the deck bordering their moat pond. (The kitchen was back and away up a slope--that is, the family room[s] were forward of the bedrooms and kitchen, and the lower family room was level with the pond.) It'd started raining, and there were flower petals in the water, spelling out her mother's name. She consiiiiiidered this for a while, then pulled most of the petals in, and spelled her own and her brother's names, her mother being dead, and obviously who this spirit -thing was looking for. Would hate to have a spirit-thing squishing the house because no one answered when it called, after all.
Some time later--and possibly a different dream, though the main character was fairly similiar--she ran into Batman. Whom she'd become convinced was a mutant, based on microfiche and suchlike evidence that represented him as becoming more batlike over time. Nah, turned out he was just mostly-immortal and healed fast. the journalist monkeys just couldn't handle something that simple. =P
Her actual father was a spider-shapeshifter, and was in jail for doing something. She knew what it was, but she didn't understand the motivations behind it, and she wanted to. Possibly to avoid doing something similiar herself--she didn't want to fight crime or become a superhero. This seemed to intrigue the bat, and he seemed to sort of adopt her--finding articles she'd had trouble with, dragging her out for coffee, that sort of thing.
All of which lead to an in-passing line: "I wanted to see if you'd roll or land on your feet."
"I'd have broken my ankles if I tried landing on my feet. I rolled, thanks."
Some time later--and possibly a different dream, though the main character was fairly similiar--she ran into Batman. Whom she'd become convinced was a mutant, based on microfiche and suchlike evidence that represented him as becoming more batlike over time. Nah, turned out he was just mostly-immortal and healed fast. the journalist monkeys just couldn't handle something that simple. =P
Her actual father was a spider-shapeshifter, and was in jail for doing something. She knew what it was, but she didn't understand the motivations behind it, and she wanted to. Possibly to avoid doing something similiar herself--she didn't want to fight crime or become a superhero. This seemed to intrigue the bat, and he seemed to sort of adopt her--finding articles she'd had trouble with, dragging her out for coffee, that sort of thing.
All of which lead to an in-passing line: "I wanted to see if you'd roll or land on your feet."
"I'd have broken my ankles if I tried landing on my feet. I rolled, thanks."