Pun Detectives and the Case of the Missing Music! (Part 21)

Always by my side. I didn’t think anyone had ever said anything that meaningful to me before. I wanted to tell her the same. That as long as we were in this game together, I’d be by her side too. But of course, for once, I clammed up, couldn’t get the words out. Even with no one else around besides the one person I now probably trusted more than literally anyone else, it was still too embarrassing.

“Speaking of sides, Boss,” Lily said calmly, “there is a matter I have been meaning to bring up for a while now.”

“What?”

“It concerns what you said earlier — about the water’s depth: ‘you should be able to touch the bottom on that side.’”

“Oh. Yeah. What about it?” Better question: why was I getting such a bad feeling about this? My gut was sinking like the Titanic.

“The observation certainly applies to the other side of the pool.” She nodded, still calm, towards the side she meant. Way over on the other end of the pool, the water lapped about at a pleasant three feet. The shallow end. “Only one problem.”

“Yeah?” Gulp.

“On this side, there is no bottom.”

Like a cartoon character who didn’t fall till they realized they were standing on nothing, she fell back underwater, splashing the surface into a storm just trying to stay above the surface.

“Lily!? Jesus Christ!”

My head shot back and forth, from one side of the pool to the other. All at once, I realized my mistake. In all the confusion I had gotten disoriented. The shallow end, where I had fallen in the other day, was way over on the other side of the pool. Where Lily had fallen in, on the other hand, was the opposite end. The end we’d all end up on sooner or later. Where I had been, mentally, just recently. And like me, she wouldn't be able to make it out alone. At some point or another, you’ll find yourself in the 👉deep end👈, and when the time comes, you’ll have to 👉depend👈 on others to help you out.

Lily thrashed violently, doing all she could to keep her head up.

She was counting on me.

I made to help her, but froze in my tracks. I couldn’t swim any better than her after all. The depth markers on the sides of the pool glinted, mocking me.

“∞ ft”

Oh come on! Infinity feet?!?!?!

I forced myself to move. I ran and skidded onto my knees, streaking red onto the wet tiles until I reached the very edge of the pool. The sting was instant and needle-sharp. No time to worry about that. I leaned over the edge and stretched, forcing my arm as far as it would go. She was close. I could almost reach her. If I just stretched myself a little further.

A little further.

A little further.

Come on, dammit! Stupid muscles! Stretch!

The ball of my shoulder felt like a miniature sun shooting a nuclear-fusion inferno down my arm, all the way to the tips of my outstretched fingers. I wormed over the side as far as I could without falling in myself, dared my muscles farther and farther. The burn of chlorine was like a pitching machine fastballing my face with chemical stench. Every bone and muscle in my arm screamed. Still, I couldn't reach her. Only the cold spray of her thrashing so much as glanced my hand.

Come on. More! More! She’s right there! Reach!

Then: contact. An ice-cold hand clasped my arm. It was clammy and stiff and freezing, white as death, like the hand of a corpse. Finger by lifeless, willowy finger, it inched up my arm.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! Lily!!!! Christ, why are you so heavy!?!?”

But I knew why. It was the same reason why she couldn’t smile right, and why her laugh was enough to send a shiver up your spine if you weren’t used to it, and why she acted weird all the time.

It was the same reason she hadn’t stopped to think about how I would feel before she gutted my book.

And it was the same reason why I had gone off on her.

It was the same reason why she was so cold to the touch.

Her freezing fingers dug into my skin. At that moment I knew two things perfectly. That no matter how hard she tried, no matter how close she got, Lily Lilac would never truly be human.

And that I had to pull.

#

It was over. We knelt panting by the side of the pool. Lily was coughing up water. Chlorinated geysers were shooting out of every infinitely deep pocket on her damp and clingy maid costume.

I rolled onto my back on the damp tile floor, no longer caring how wet I was getting. My bloody knees stung enough to shame a swarm of wasps.

“I don’t hate you,” I said once I caught my breath.

“Boss?”

“You said it before. ‘Even if you hate me.’ I don’t.”

All she said was, “I see.”

We stayed there like that for a long time. I couldn’t tell how long. It was like I had completely lost all sense of time, and so it could’ve been a minute later or an hour when Lily finally said, “Oh, right,” like she was just remembering something. “Look, Boss.”

I was so tired I felt like I would never look at anything ever again. The adrenaline was wearing off, so all I could manage was to flop my head in her direction.

She was smiling. It was simple and unremarkable. But real. “I’ve been practicing.”

“Pffff…pffftftft… PPPPFFFTT… Ahahahahahaha!” I laughed. I didn’t even know what I was laughing at. I didn’t think Lily did either, but she joined in all the same. Not her usual tinny, staccato laughter. Real, big laughter. From the gut. We sat there laughing for what felt like a long time. And then, for what felt like an even longer time, we just lay there in silence again.

“I’m sorry, Boss. And thank you.”

“Isn’t that my line? Well, I guess I do deserve some thanks this time too. And Lily, you deserve an apology from m—”

“Boss. Pardon me for interrupting. But I mustn’t let you say that. You must not apologize to me. The reason is that I do not harbor, nor have I ever harbored, any ill sentiment toward you. My ire has been aimed solely at my own shortcomings. I have failed in many ways. I maintain the hope that I can continue to change and to grow as a RED assistant so that I may one day make it up to you. As well, I have something to show you.”

“Show me?”

“Yes. I will show it to you first thing on Monday. Will you please promise to come to HQ first thing on Monday morning, Boss?”

Still feeling like she could stand to blame me just a little more than she evidently was, all I could say was “ok.”

How much longer we stayed like that, I don’t know. But eventually I got up, wet motes of invisible glass, uncomfortable but not particularly sharp, peeling off my skin, and lent another hand to Lily to help her get up too.

When she rose to her knees and took my palm in hers, I froze.

Before, she was as cold as ice, as cold as death.

Now she was hot.

And getting hotter by the second, it felt like.

Her hand was burning up, growing hotter and hotter in mine, like it was simmering, boiling, scalding. It wasn’t stopping.

“Uh, Lily? Are you alright? Your hand…”

“I am alright, Boss. I am just feeling a little… A little lightheaded is… all…”

Now that I got a good look at her face, she seemed more than a little red.

Her hand slackened. Hot as a flame, it fell from mine, and her entire frame seemed to give way. Since when had it been so slight, I wondered. Her knees buckled. Her face fell to the floor, landing in glass dust.

“Hey, Lily. Come on. Get up.”

I shook her shoulder.

“Stop playing around.”

No response.

“Lily? Lily?? Lily!?”

The end of Pun Detectives and the Case of the Missing Music (Part 21)!
To be continued in Part 22!