Theora noticed things had… changed, during her absence, when she stumbled over a bag right after entering her apartment after her long work day.
There was a box she’d never seen before lazily dropped at the door to the kitchen, its contents half-spilled over the floor; clothing, a pillow, a bag, and a potted little cactus. A linen bag lay next to it, on the side, with a cabbage rolling out. The drawers were pulled out of the cabinet left to the entrance, some of her things now lying on the floor, and the large cupboard with her clothes stood open. It was easy to identify who was responsible by the evidence she’d left: Dema’s scarf was heedlessly draped over the mess; not really meant to conceal it, it just added to the overall disarray.
When Theora entered the kitchen, she saw a pot boiling over just as Dema lunged forward to pull off the lid. The floor was littered with vegetable peels, tomato sauce blots, dabs of flour and less easily recognisable remains, with the contents of the storage cupboard Theora had been too scared to open for the past year all stuffed into the corner with the plants.
“Hey there!” Dema let out, smiling wide. “Welcome home! Food’s almost ready.”
Theora beamed. This was incredible work. Dema had managed to hide all of Theora’s mess under an entirely new mess of her own making in just a single day. None of the old chaos was left; it was like Theora had been absolved of all her prior sins.
“Oh, by the way,” Dema added, kneeling down to open cupboards to find dishware, “Invent One came over to visit.”
Theora had to resist the urge to hug her from behind, and managed to take her gaze away from Dema’s calves. Instead, she went over to the table, to make room for them to eat — Dema had used it to prepare the meal, instead of the kitchen counter, because the kitchen counter was filled with what appeared to be soil. Dema had perhaps repotted some plants. “Who’s Invent One?”
“Dunno. She took a look around the apartment and said some surprising stuff. Outright baffling.”
Theora froze, an empty bowl containing the remains of some lemon-scenting dressing in hand. “She took a look around?”
Dema was oblivious to the reaction, turned around from finally having found two plates, and said, “Yep!”
“Like… here? Everywhere?”
Dema nodded. “Went to the living room and stared at the bed for a while and then she went home.”
That was terrifying. Theora’s heart was pounding up to her throat as she tried to sort her thoughts. She managed, “Was that… before… or after you uhm… made your own impression on the apartment?”
Dema tilted her head. “Was kinda like, right in the middle of it?”
Theora’s tension subsided in a wave of relief. If a total stranger had seen her mess totally unobscured by Dema’s work, Theora might have cried.
Dema gently placed her hands on Theora’s shoulder and guided her to sit down, pushing her down onto a chair. Soon after, a bowl of vegetable soup followed — it smelled amazing.
“Thank you so much.”
“No problem,” Dema sing-songed with a smile. “Still warm ’cause I kept it on the stove. Kinda expected you earlier, though?”
Earlier. Out of an old habit, Theora looked at the dead clock on the wall next to the refrigerator.
A second ticked by, startling her.
Dema followed her gaze. “Oh! Hope you don’t mind. Noticed it was out earlier, so I, uhh… wounded it.”
“You wound it up?”
“Yeah!”
Comparing it to the time on her phone, Theora noticed Dema had apparently set the clock a bit lazily. It was off by a few minutes. “Thank you. No, I don’t mind at all. And yes. Sorry I’m late.”
“What were ya doing?” Dema was smiling in honest curiosity.
What had Theora been doing? It really could only be that she’d lost track of her thoughts after work again. “I… I was at the grave.”
“Oh… You mean that…” Dema frowned, rubbing her temples. “That… Amanda? Amanda… Dupont?”
The name chomped at Theora’s brain. It left her stumped, blinking. “Yes,” she got out.
Dema sat down across from her and hummed, pulling her legs in front of her chest. She was wearing one of Theora’s shirts — too large for Dema, so she comfortably pulled the fabric over her legs. After a moment’s thought, she asked, “If it draws you in so much, why not try to find out more about her?”
“You mean… about Amanda? I don’t know. I’m… scared.”
“Of what? Think it’s gonna be bad?”
“I have no idea. To be honest, I never even considered finding out more.” The thought alone gave her anxiety; as if it was forbidden knowledge that might get her to places she did not want to go.
“Maybe you should? If only to help you deal with it. Mind if I look her up later?”
Theora couldn’t do it herself, but if it was Dema… “No.”
“No as in…”
“No, I don’t mind.”
“Right. You gotta work on that, it keeps confusing me…” Dema rubbed the back of her head. “Oh, also, I brought my guitar! Don’t use it much nowadays. I guess you’re gonna need an amp at some point if you keep playing, but just starting out like this should be fine?”
It was only then that Theora noticed the large instrument bag above Dema’s head — stuffed into the only remaining space of the kitchen: the top of the refrigerator. Her view then fell onto another bag hanging off it half open, the contents threatening to drop out.
“… Are those…”
“Oh?” Dema turned around. “Yeah! My inline-skates. I kinda prefer barefoot nowadays but seeing yours in the shed made me wanna get them out again.”
Theora had been using hers years ago for first responses — until her deployment area had grown to the point of requiring a motor vehicle to arrive fast enough.
Theora smiled. “We should skate together some time.”
The following two weeks went by in a daze. Sometimes, Dema would join Theora at work — for no apparent specific reason; she just sat around next to the graves, explored plants, or played with insects. She apparently really liked having ants crawl over her feet and legs, before gently guiding them back down again.
The days were getting colder, so Theora did not always love to see Dema out barefoot, but Dema didn’t like wearing shoes; she probably didn’t even have any. Most of the time, Theora managed to impose her own sweaters on Dema which at least appeared warm enough, albeit somewhat oversized.
In comparison, time without Dema went by much slower. It made Theora nervous. As if something had lodged itself into the base of her skull, and was now poking at her brain. Being without Dema was wrong. But Theora tried to prevail. Dema wouldn’t suddenly disappear, right?
And yet. The words from their first encounter were still ringing in Theora’s mind.
‘Be an honour to get buried by you one day.’
Why had Dema said that? When they went inline-skating together one evening, Dema had to take an early break. That was normal for someone who didn’t get a lot of exercise in, right?
“Don’t leave home often,” Dema explained as she sat on the stairs leading into the city part, breathing hard, but smiling. “Glad I get to do that more often now. Carry me up?”
And Theora liked carrying her anyway, so she did that a lot even when Dema wasn’t exhausted. So Theora carried her home. But she took every detour Dema suggested. She skated down a narrow tarmac road, Dema’s happy shouts in her ears, who then asked Theora to walk back up through the stairs, maybe just to see if Theora could do that on skates, carrying a person.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
She could.
Dema was also excited to start making music together. During their first lecture, Theora absorbed with all her attention every little movement Dema made while showing off what a guitar could do.
“So, that’s the E-string,” Dema said, pointing at it. “Play it!”
Theora tugged at it, and a tone resounded. She breathed it into herself, to never forget it.
“What makes it an E?” she asked. Theora did enjoy music, but it had always been obscure. All she knew were the songs Serim was sending her; nothing about how music actually worked.
Dema shrugged. “That’s just what’s been decided. That” — she slid her finger down the neck of the guitar, pressing down on the string, then plucking it with her other hand, to produce another sound — “is also an E.”
Theora tilted her head, trying to absorb that sound as well, making space for it in her brain. It was exhausting, of course, but Dema took the time to show her, so Theora wanted to make the time worth it.
But she had to admit — “It sounds completely different. Why are they both called E?”
“It’s an octave higher. But they’re the same.” She fetched the guitar from Theora’s grasp and played a few more notes, now at the same time. “See? Octaves.” Seeing Theora’s dissatisfied expression, Dema laughed. “Is that giving you trouble?”
“It’s fine.” Theora bit her lips. They sounded completely different. Still, she stored everything into her memory — Dema’s movements and what sounds they produced, as they played up and down the guitar. It felt like her head had exceeded its capacity a while ago, but still. She wanted to know these things.
“Usually when making music, you pick a number of notes from all the ones that exist and put them into a group, so then you play mostly notes from that group, right?” Dema explained, as if Theora knew any of that. “For example—” She played a string of notes. “That’s the C Lydian augmented scale. And also, since you have six strings, you wanna be able to play more than one note at the same time. So you gotta learn how to grab them. I usually just use random notes that I think fit, but for example, here’s a Dominant 7th suspended 4th chord. Gotta remember it, it’s super important!” She smiled and it gave the impression that she was both totally serious and joking at the same time. “If you move it up and down the fret like this, you can play it with the root on different notes. But like, that’s for later, because barre chords are straining for the fingers, gotta practise for a while and such.”
Theora followed the fingers at specific positions, in their set rhythm. She looked over at what strings she plucked and when, the cyclic movements of the hand across the strings, but not always touching to produce a sound. Dema’s hands were smaller, so Theora monitored the place where they touched the instrument rather than their exact pose.
When she got the guitar back, she played it herself, pushing her body to do exactly as told. The C Lydian augmented scale. A Dominant 7th suspended 4th chord. She mirrored the movement on a different origin to play it from what Dema had explained as another ‘root’.
She looked at Dema’s face seeking approval, her mind clouded from the effort, but found her staring in slight confusion.
“I thought you said you didn’t play?”
“I didn’t,” Theora said. “I’m just doing what you did.”
“Really?” Dema followed Theora’s fingers as she repeated the sounds. “Oh, really! You’re doing it like me. Damn!”
She smiled, and that smile made the effort worth it.
“I’m a little tired now, though,” Theora murmured, and fell asleep on the spot.
Dema also fell asleep sometimes — for example, when they watched another movie together, and one time at the graveyard as well. She tended to sleep in during the mornings, and was sometimes still buried in bed when Theora left the apartment. On other days Dema would be up first, and prepare breakfast.
One night, as they lay entangled on the couch, Dema shared her favourite musicians. She was clearly about to pass out, had been for hours, and now it was past midnight. But Dema always said, ‘just one more’ and Theora obliged, under the condition that it really was ‘just one more’.
It never was.
“You are clearly tired,” Theora said. “Let’s go to sleep.” She nodded to the other side of the room.
“Don’t wanna,” Dema mumbled. “Can’t end without showing you her second worst best album.”
“You can show me tomorrow. We have all the time in the world.”
Dema’s eyes wandered over Theora’s face. “Really? Found it already?”
They then both blinked in confusion at those words.
“Do you dream too?” The question was dangerous, but with her head fuzzy from sleep deprivation, it slipped out of Theora’s mouth anyway.
Dema scratched her hair, then rubbed her eyes. “Dunno… But no dreaming now. Still gotta show you that song. Gonna be the last one.”
Theora smiled indulgently. “That sounds like a lie. You are lying to me. It won’t be the last, it never is.”
Dema produced a little pout from deep in her chest. Her eyes were closed, she was basically already sleeping. “Oh, yeah?” she murmured. “Maybe I’m a bad girl after all. You should bring me to justice.”
Theora slung her arms around Dema to pick her up. “I will bring you to bed.”
That same night, Theora received the third emergency alert of the week, although none of them had been life-threatening. Dema wanted to join, but then Theora wouldn’t be able to climb onto the roof from the bathroom window and gently jump down right to her shed from there. So, she went alone.
Another night, Theora was woken up by Dema playing on her bass and humming a melody along with a smoky voice.
“Hey there,” she murmured, and Dema turned her head, surprised.
“Damn! Did I wake you?”
“Please keep going,” Theora said, and cuddled herself back into the sheets, listening.
That was, apparently, the reason Dema was so sleepy during the day — she was writing songs at night.
Theora was off call on Saturday, so she put on her red coat, packed some food, Dema, a book, and an umbrella, and drove them out of town to the northern fields. They had plans to go practice outside of Theora’s house later in the day — where they could actually use the electric part of their electric instruments without disturbing anyone.
But for now, crows were cawing above as Dema stepped up a hill, turned around at the top, and waved down, holding the umbrella to shield herself from the rare raindrop.
Instead of waving back, Theora fetched her phone, and took a picture. It was on that day that she learned Dema loved having her pictures taken, and that ended up being their main occupation on the trip.
“Oh by the way,” Dema said around noon, right after posing in front of a birch tree, “I looked up Amanda Dupont. You know, that girl in your grave.”
Theora straightened up so suddenly, her back cracked. “What did you find out?”
“It’s like, a total mystery! There’s apparently been speculation all over? Like, that girl just… went poof. Y’know?”
“As in… died suddenly?”
“No, but that’s the thing,” Dema said, pointing at the tree. “Apparently they never found her body. And then like, nobody knew how she even disappeared? Place was locked from the inside. And everybody swears she was a shut-in. Had no family or friends around. Phone and all were still at home too. And they like, didn’t even notice her being gone until much later, judging by the state of the apartment and the food in it and such.”
Theora frowned. “Are you saying she might not actually be dead?”
Dema shrugged. “She was never seen again and it’s not like she was really set up to just skip town. She was talking daily on some fanfiction chat group. That’s actually how her disappearance was found out — people there got worried because no more chapters got posted or something? So they started an investigation to dox her. I mean like, find her address. Is it still doxxing when it’s done for a good cause? I mean, apparently some were unhappy and said, ‘If she just wants to up and leave, let her be!’”
Dema must have been putting quite some time into this.
“But yeah, that’s the gist. This shut-in suddenly disappeared from the face of the planet. Like she just… got lost. They didn’t even have any current photos of her. Only old-ass ones from before her transition.”
Theora frowned. It was of course possible that the urn she’d buried back then didn’t contain actual ashes. “If the grave is empty, then why do I feel so drawn to it?”
“Dunno.” Dema poked the ground with the tip of the umbrella. “Maybe it’s time?”
Theora frowned. “If that was the case, I think the grave would be louder.” It did call out to her, but not really in that way. At least, she thought that was the case, as these slivers of memory vanished from her mind.
Still—
If that girl had been a shut-in, there was also no way they could have ever met. After all, Theora wasn’t in the habit of breaking into places. Well, except when she was out for a rescue, if someone was stuck somewhere.
Theora wiped a raindrop out of her eyes and sighed. If Amanda actually was still alive somewhere out there, she really wanted to meet her.
“Ah, speaking of time,” Dema then said. “It is time, isn’t it? We gotta get going?”
Theora didn’t understand. Yes, they had plans to play their instruments after this, but it was still early in the day. “I didn’t know we were on a schedule.”
“Oh yeah,” Dema said. “Just ’cause, like, I don’t want the drummer to wait for us.”
This about a drummer was total news to Theora. “There will be someone else?”
Dema nodded. “Can’t wait for you to meet her! She’s cool. I thought we could make music together, maybe?”
“You’d like that?”
“Yeah,” Dema answered, smiling. “Never really got to play together with others before. I’m stuck at home most of the time. Been kinda lonely. So…”
“Sounds good to me,” Theora answered. “I can’t wait to impress that friend of yours.”
Dema giggled. “She’ll probably just think you’ve been playing for ages.”
Theora let Dema climb on her back so the way back down wouldn’t exhaust her, and they made their way to leave the fields. Theora pulled out her phone to take a picture of them; with Dema looking over her shoulder, arms slung around Theora’s neck.
Dema looked so pleased. She’d been so happy about everything they’d done that day; as if she hadn’t gotten to go outside so much in a long time. She hummed a melody from her nightly writing sessions as they descended.
Theora still did not really get music, but she had learned all the note names by heart and had engraved how to produce them onto her body. She could play any chord Dema requested without hesitation, like a well-trained bunny. Dema had been saying that Theora’s progress on the guitar was good; perhaps now she would get to see if that was actually true.
Before Theora knew it, she’d started humming along.