Someone told me there's a girl out there Who: Alice and Lucas What: The pair go on an outing and discuss the oddities of the past week. Where: A coffee shop and the pier When: April 26th, afternoon [backdated]
Alice couldn’t help but smile. She was off from work, the weather was perfect, she had an iced coffee in her hand, and Lucas kept making her laugh. Ever since her new neighbor had come into the bakery, Lucas had made it a point to stop by the bakery before early morning shifts and visit with Alice, and she loved the attention and company. He was easy to talk to and always caused a rush of feelings in her belly that endlessly led her to blush.
Still, she kept him at a distance, only proclaiming friendship. The weekly dinners with Gus continued and Alice was finding herself more and more confused by her various emotions for the men in her life. Between Gus and Lucas, she had plenty of attention, but old demons still haunted her confidence and she proceeded with caution. That didn’t mean she couldn’t have fun with them both though, and today was certainly fun.
“One time,” Alice started, adding to their discussion of kitchen experiments gone awry. They were sitting outside a little coffee place near the beach, the sound of happy families around them as they played in the sunshine. “My little sister got really jealous because I made an Easter cake for the whole family and everyone was praising it. So she decided she was going to make a cake. It came out awful. Somehow the edge was burnt solid while the middle was still undone and gooey. There were eggshells in the batter and it stunk to high heaven. But my mother wanted us to be supportive of her, because my little sister has always sort of been a wandering sort with no direction, so we had to eat the damn thing. It was awful, both teeth-breaking and too soft. And we sat there munching along, pretending we loved it, and my little sister finally goes, this is THE WORST and spits out her cake onto her plate.
“Then my other sister did the same, and my other sister, and me. My mom was so mad, but she ended up doing the same. My little sister, by the way, wasn’t offended. She happily proclaimed she was impossible in the kitchen and never touched a whisk again.”
Lucas laughed happily, clearly amused by the story. “I think I’m a little glad I grew up without siblings now,” he said with a glint in his eye. “Although I got up to my own culinary antics as a kid, probably more than my father wanted to deal with.” He sipped his coffee and then nodded, as if agreeing to tell the story.
“Alright, so I was seven, and I’d just seen this cooking show on TV. My dad was always working hard, and often didn’t have the time or the will to cook anything really elaborate. Usually when he was working on something big we ended up ordering takeout,” he said with a shrug. As a kid, he’d loved it. Now that he was older, a doctor, he marveled that he’d made it out of childhood at all with such poor nutrition.
“Anyway, I was watching this show...the tv chef made it look so easy, so fun, and I wanted to do it too. He was making a stir-fry, with chicken and vegetables and rice...it looked amazing, and I wanted to do it.” He paused, grinning at the idea of a seven year old chef. “I was going to be the youngest chef there ever was,” he added with a self-deprecating laugh.
“So I opened the fridge...we didn’t have much because dad hadn’t bought groceries yet for the week. So instead of celery, I cut up a piece of cucumber. And instead of peppers...well, there was a few tomatoes. We did have onions, so I cut those up, with a lot of tears,” he added with a snicker. “And there wasn’t chicken...but we did have cheese. That’s pretty much the same, right?” Again, he laughed, recalling the story with amusement, although he’d been quite upset at the time with the results.
“Oh god,” Alice laughed, her nose scrunching up. She leaned forward in her chair, her left hand wrapping around her waist as she laughed. “That sounds awful. You didn’t burn the house down or anything with all that, did you?”
“I almost did with the rice,” he laughed, eyes dancing, one finger up for emphasis. He picked up his coffee and took another sip. “I put it in a pot with water and forgot about it while I was doing other things. I noticed the smell just as it started smoking,” he grinned. “And the stir-fry itself was a spectacular mess...all watery and congealed cheese in the pan...we went out for actual Chinese that night. After I got a stern talking to about using the stove.” He chuckled for a moment, but then caught her eye. “I promise, I’ve gotten much better at cooking since. I even know how to make rice properly.”
Alice was still giggling but tried to sober up. “Oh, I can just picture little Lucas working hard over the meal. Were you disappointed when you couldn’t eat what you made? Did you even try it?” She grasped the straw of her iced coffee and moved it around, stirring the ice and making the milk swirl into the dark coffee.
He grinned, “I did, it was awful. You’d think, tomatoes, cucumber, onion...that’s a salad, right? Not so great when it’s hot and watery with rubbery chunks of cheese in it. And doused with soy sauce.” He cringed at the memory, glancing out to the beach and the nearby pier. “Want to walk? Finish our coffees on the pier?” He raised his eyebrows, standing and offering a hand to her, his coffee held in the other one. “Maybe if you’re free tonight I can make you actual stir-fry, with actual chicken,” he added with a casual grin, inviting her over for dinner without actually making a big deal over it.
He always left his invitations open, and never judged if she wanted her space. He wasn’t kidding himself that they were ‘together’ in any way, though he was definitely attracted to her. But he’d take any time he could spend with her for what it was.
Alice accepted his offered hand and got to her feet. “For all the time I’ve been here so far, I haven’t gone onto the pier yet,” she observed as she slid heart-shaped sunglasses on. They blended happily with her red hair, making her a bit of a walking strawberry, but Alice enjoyed the look. “Let’s see how long we’re out,” Alice replied honestly. “I have to get to the bakery early tomorrow and I don’t want to turn into a pumpkin on you.” Lucas smiled and nodded, though secretly a little of that smile was just for the sunglasses, which he thought were adorable on her.
She looked down at her feet as they walked and felt she owed Lucas an explanation, for all the times he’d offered to take her out to dinner and she turned him down, it wasn’t entirely due to her being skittish with relationships. “You know, I’m actually going to cut back on work a little. I’m going to start taking Saturdays off and some days I’ll only work as a baker so I’m not trying to do everything at the bakery. So I won’t be a pumpkin for long.”
His eyebrows rose, pleased. “That’s a great idea,” he said happily. “You’ve been so overworked lately, it will be good for you to have more time to yourself.” For his part, he didn’t take her deflection of dinner as anything but a busy schedule, of which he knew far too much about. It was part of why he cherished these moments they could find to hang out for a few hours, because they were so hard to come by. “I’m glad you’re finally trusting your staff a little more to do some things for you, to free up your own time.
“You know,” he added with a playful bump of his shoulder on hers, “overwork is the enemy of creativity. I have a vested interest in your creativity when it comes to baked goods.” Seeing as how he was at her bakery almost every day picking up breakfast or lunch or a treat, if she stopped making new things he’d actually have to plan his daytime meals. And ever since he’d been treating himself to a steady diet of her baked goods, he’d found his own focus and creativity at work have increased. It was probably just a coincidence, but he liked to think otherwise.
Alice smiled and color rose on her cheeks. “I know, I know. You, Rafael, Brittany, Laura--have you met her? She’s a nurse so maybe you have. Everyone has been telling me I need more rest. Brittany finally scolded me about it and I guess I’m finally listening.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I know Laura, if it's who I'm thinking of. We work together sometimes in the ER.” He glanced over at her with a soft smile. “Sounds like your friends are all giving you good advice. I'm glad.”
She gave a little shrug and looked up. “I think the plan is, if things keep going well, that eventually I’ll only do baking at the bakery and none of the register stuff. Maybe even leave more of the baking to someone else while I come up with the creative stuff.” She raised an empty hand, wiggling her fingers, as if indicating the magic that came with creativity.
Lucas gave her a wide smile. “And I volunteer to be your guinea pig, should you ever need one.” He paused, putting his free hand flat over his heart as if making a solemn oath. “I will bear this burden, for the greater good.” He kept up his serious expression for a moment, and then flashed her a playful smile.
“Thank you, good sir,” Alice replied, pausing to stand straight and give a queen-like nod of her head. She smiled quickly after, not able to hold the serious pose for long. “I’ll be testing out summer recipes soon! After Easter there aren’t many holidays to use as themes until the Fourth of July, so it’ll be nothing but fruits! I guess that’s more healthy than the usual.”
She bit at her straw and sipped her coffee as they approached the pier with seagulls flying overhead and the sandy beach dotted with sunbathers.
Lucas grinned over at her. “I'm a sucker for strawberries,” he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, which caused Alice to laugh. “If I can get a strawberry shortcake out of you I'll be forever in your debt.” He sipped his coffee, finishing it off, and tossing it into a nearby trash can. Up ahead he spotted a stall selling funnel cakes, and on impulse he led her towards it. “What is your opinion on fried confections?” he asked, digging in his pocket for cash and eyeing the short menu posted on the truck.
“Very good and something I can’t make myself. I’m really bad with large quantities of hot oil.” She walked beside Lucas, close enough to occasionally brush against him, but didn’t reach out for his hand. Not now a cautious voice told her. Her emotions were all over the place in regard to men and she had to figure that out before fully pursuing anyone. “Let me guess, you’re a fan? Powdered sugar and all?”
He grinned back at her, “damn straight,” he chuckled, pulling out a few bills and then approaching the truck. “One large one, please,” he said their the guy watching them, pointing to what he wanted on the sign. He turned back to Alice. “You'll love this,” he assured her, turning back just in time to accept the plate of decadence and pass his money over. He procured two forks and handed one to Alice, showing off the plate of fried dough, dusted almost white with icing sugar, piled high with whipped cream and smothered in mixed berries.
“As a doctor,” he said with a smirk, “I can't recommend eating this much grease and sugar to anyone. But as a human being, I really hope you're hungry,” he laughed. He motioned to one of the patio tables near the truck so they could sit and eat.
Alice turned to the tables and picked the one with the least amount of powdered sugar all over. She took a seat and turned her hungry eyes to the fried dough. “I’ve had this before where it’s just the dough but never with all these berries and whipped cream. It looks even better than just the fried dough.” She grinned at Lucas and raised a fork. With the sunshine and the company and everything going so well, Alice felt she could hint at a topic that she had generally kept at bay and out of her mind. “It’s nice to be out and about. With work being so crazy and then last week at the apartment…”
He looked up from digging into his side of the funnel cake, replying with soft smile and a nod. “It was pretty wild, huhh?” he said with a smile. “I didn’t see you, but I was doing a lot of wandering around. I think everyone was a little...disoriented, I guess, by the whole thing.” He paused and ate a forkful of pastry and cream. “The weird part was...I went to work today and nobody seemed to notice I’d been gone. Someone even welcomed me back from ‘my vacation’.” A frown of confusion creased his forehead, but it was more amused than annoyed.
Alice’s eyes went wide. “Yes!” She whispered leaning close to Lucas, the closest they ever had been. “Oh thank god this happened to you too. I was so worried you were going to go, ‘oh what about last week’ and all of that was in my head. When Sunday happened and suddenly we could go outside I went to work--remember, I have a hard time saying no to work--and they were all ‘oh, did you have a nice break?’”
Alice licked at her fork and shook her head thoughtfully. “I thought I lost my mind. I mean, I remember it all, it all felt so real, but even the wheat was gone.” She fell silent at that, her back straightening a little and her eyes suddenly incapable of meeting Lucas’s.
Lucas was with her up until her last comment. He frowned just slightly, but didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, so instead tried to make light of it with an amused smile. “The wheat? Was there a field of it growing somewhere?” He’d seen lots of things growing on all of the floors, though he hadn’t fully explored them all. It was conceivable he’d missed a wheat field on one of them.
“Not exactly,” Alice said quietly, stabbing the food with her fork. She tapped her foot for a moment and pressed her lips together with thought before glancing at Lucas and meeting his eye. “A lot of weird things happened during the past week, right? So you’ve got to believe me when I tell you this. But, like, I had strands of wheat growing from my head… like hair. It happened once before, I woke up from a strange dream and I had a piece of wheat attached to my scalp. That one I still have, it’s at my apartment, but during the past week I kept having strands in my hair, sometimes it was a lot, other times it wasn’t, but on Sunday when I woke up it was all gone. It hasn’t come back since, either.”
She sat back and placed her fork on the plate, frowning as she looked at Lucas and expected him to back away from her.
Lucas’s eyebrows rose steadily as she spoke, and he forgot all about the funnel cake for a moment. “Wow,” he said after she finished. “I have to say, that was the first...physical transformation I’ve heard about,” he told her. It didn’t even occur to him to question what she was saying, or whether she was making it up or hallucinating - there was no question as to what had happened. If anything, he sounded concerned. “Did...did it hurt? I mean...a plant growing in your head...there’d be roots, right? Is there damage?” His eyes suddenly trailed up to her hair, as if he could detect the plugs where the wheat surely must have come from.
“I mean, it felt like hair being pulled from my head,” Alice admitted, her hands reaching for her hair and gathering it over her shoulder. She brushed her fingers through her hair absentmindedly. “And it had the end like the end of a hair has, like the little root and all. Not like a plant root or anything.
“But… I wasn’t the only one who had a physical transformation. My best friend, Brittany? Her arm changed a few times and Obed, do you know him? He apparently changed too, although I didn’t see that.” Alice dropped one hand and used the other to push her hair back from her face once more. She shifted on the chair and licked her lips. “You’re a doctor, are you sure we weren’t all hallucinating?”
Lucas grinned and cut into the funnel cake again with his fork. “I wouldn’t rule it out completely,” he said with a shrug, “but it’s extremely unlikely that everyone in the building would have a hallucination about the exact same things...there were just...too many details that we all experienced the same way. That’s just not how hallucinations work.” He took another bite of dessert and chewed thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’ve met your other friends, but it’s interesting that some people seemed to have strange...transformations, I guess you could call them, and others didn’t. Although the entire situation is kind of mind-boggling in itself,” he added wryly.
Thoughts of the stone and vines and severed heads on his floor came to mind unbidden, and he did his best to push them away, only to be replaced by images of the ninth floor, the white marble and statues and...entrails. And the strange feelings he had while looking at them. “I did have my own share of strangeness,” he said before he could stop himself. He looked up at her and smiled. “I just...okay, it’s weird, but...I ran into this cloud of blue butterflies on my floor, right? And they just disappeared into thin air right in front of me like they weren’t even real? And then I saw them again when I was with a neighbour, Gabe, only they were orange this time he saw them too, so I know I’m definitely not making it up.” He paused, again thoughtfully tearing at the fried dough. “I just got this feeling...I could have sworn that the blue butterflies were leading me to find Gabe...so that he could see the orange ones.” He shook his head after a moment, “I don’t know, it could have just been coincidence.” But he knew, somehow, that it wasn’t.
“That sounds… really pretty,” Alice admitted. “And I feel like anything that happened during that week wasn’t coincidence…” Alice retrieved her fork and began poking at the dough again. “Do you know of the name Uke Mochi at all? That’s the name of the woman I dream about. She’s made of wheat and rice and all this grain and she can sort of let herself fall apart into a pile of grain and then pull herself together again.” Alice sighed and leaned back against her seat with a laugh. “I was going to google the name once the apartment let us out again and completely forgot.”
Lucas frowned slightly and shook his head, “no, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of her. It sounds like a cool superpower though, like the ultimate camouflage?” he said, smiling at the idea. “It’s cool that you’re a baker, and this...Uke Mochi is all about grains,” he added thoughtfully, “almost like it’s related.” A strange feeling inside told him that it very much was related, but he couldn’t see exactly how. “You should look her up, it would be interesting to see what else you can find out about her.” He envied her in a way; it wasn’t as if he could exactly google ‘seeing things in entrails’ or ‘magical butterflies that disappear when you look at them’. Google would probably tell him he was high.
“Do you want to search with me?” Alice asked, a playful smile on her lips and a spark in her eyes. She reached to her side and withdrew her phone to hold it up. “We should google it right now, just look up her name and see what it says. I’m sure there’s a Wiki article.” Turning the phone in her hand, her finger brushed over the screen and unlocked it, and quick work brought up google.
Lucas leant over, interested, as she typed in the name and the results came up. He tapped one link that looked interesting and his brows rose. “Uke Mochi no Kami...Japanese goddess of food,” he read aloud, a smile on his lips. “Well, you certainly do a very good job of feeding all of us,” he said with a grin, bumping her shoulder with his. He skimmed the story on the page and a slight frown creased his forehead. “Ohh dear, that sounds...harsh. She feeds her visitor and he kills her? What a terrible houseguest!”
He looked at her, “this is the woman in your dreams?” he asked. He was a little jealous of her having so much direction, when he had so little about his own weirdness, but forced his thoughts to stay on her. He’d figure out his own stuff on his own time; talking about bloody entrails wasn’t exactly polite date conversation.
Alice was frowning at the phone, having read all the same things Lucas had, she glanced up at him and gave a nod. “In both of my dreams about her she was scared of this man, scared he’d come after her again.” She let out a sigh. “No wonder she dresses herself up in grains. In one of the dreams she recalled having died and becoming the grains but sort of liking it because it kept her hidden.” Alice looked off for a moment but her body stiffened. “If we’re all, like, housing these gods or whatever, do you think that god that killed her is out there too?”
She looked at Lucas, a line between her brows as they knit in concern. “Do you think he’d be dangerous?”
Lucas was thoughtful for a moment, considering the idea, and then shook his head, forcing it back into reality. “I don’t know; do you really think she’s real? It was just a dream, right?” He asked, but then trailed off, thinking of the wheat she said appeared in her hair. “Why, has this happened to other people too?” he asked her. He thought of Gabe and the butterflies, of his strange fascination with the entrails that should have alarmed him but instead spoke to him of things he didn’t yet understand.
He took her hand in his, drawing her attention to him. “I don’t want you to get too upset over this,” he said with a warm smile, “if he is real, maybe he’s just as confused as you are. Or maybe...maybe it’s just dreams.” He shrugged, but didn’t want to make her think he was being dismissive of her fears. He didn’t want her to think he believed her crazy...far from it. “I’m actually a little jealous of you...having these strange dreams, strange...transformations,” he said, glancing briefly up at her hair. “All I’ve experienced was some butterflies, and…” he paused, and then shook his head. “Well, if there are gods in us, I haven’t met mine yet.”
Alice smiled softly at Lucas and before she realized it, she reached out to gently touch Lucas’s hand with her own. “Maybe that’s for the best,” she admitted but then immediately thought of everyone she had spoken to. “You know, not everyone has had the dreams or weird changes or anything. You’re certainly not alone in that. But, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem to happen to people instantaneously… it seems to take time. You might have dreams or see more than butterflies.”
She smiled at him but then realized that she had her hand resting on his and blushed before withdrawing her hand and smiling down at her phone.
He quickly withdrew his hand from her when she moved, smiling shyly back at her. “I rarely remember my dreams,” he said, “and the ones I do remember are usually about work.” He shrugged, filling his mouth with more fruit and whipped cream. “It might be nice to have more interesting dreams.”
He sat back and looked out at the ocean beyond the dock, smiling. “Somebody...on April fools day, left some guitar strings in front of my apartment door. Just...out of nowhere. Maybe someone is trying to get me to start playing again,” he suggested. “I just...I have this feeling it's related, you know? Somehow. To what happened last week. We all got strange gifts, and they were...strangely specific.”
Alice looked up at Lucas and leaned a little closer. “No, I agree completely. They were such odd gifts but everyone got one and they all seem to mean something but it’s just not… clear. Did I tell you about Daniel’s gift? He lives in the complex too and he got a badge from a cop who used to live here, you know, before the apartment closed. But I agree, it has to be related. Mine was a lesbian cookbook, but like they got the cookbook part right at least…” She bit at her lip and poked her fork at the food again before breaking off a piece.
“I didn’t know you played guitar,” she admitted before biting more of the dough.
Lucas couldn’t help the laugh that fell out of his mouth when she told him about her gift. “I didn’t know that cookbooks required a specific sexuality,” he laughed, “is there...a different way to cook that I’m not aware of?” He was trying to make light of it, to get her laughing to relieve the obvious discomfort she was feeling at the admission. Then he nodded at her next comment.
“Yeah, it was a thing in College,” he said with a somewhat sheepish grin. “I was in a band and everything, I have a few songs we wrote. I’ve let it slide for a while after that; being a doctor takes up a surprising amount of time. But those strings...reminded me that I should probably get back at it, scrape some of the rust off of those muscles,” he said with a smile tugging at his lips.
“You should!” Alice replied with the long sought after grin. “It’s obviously a sign from whomever sent it, the apartment gods or whatever. They know you should be playing again, or maybe if you are tied to a dead god, it’s a dead god of music or something.”
Lucas laughed at that, “who says it’s a dead god?” he chuckled, though made a show of seriously considering the idea. “A god of music...and medicine? And maybe...roguish good looks?” he said, a mischievous gleam in his eye that clearly showed that he was playing with her. “Who does that sound like? Am I Apollo, then?” he asked, cutting another bite of funnel cake with his fork and scooping up a fair amount of cream with it. “Greek god of the sun, patron saint of douchebags,” he laughed, popping his fork in his mouth.
“Ohhh, maybe,” Alice replied with a smirk, moving to rest her chin on the palm of her hand. She smirked at Lucas but gently nudged his elbow with her other hand. “You should go and play a little, see if Apollo comes calling. I bet you it’s all tied and you’ll have to let me know if you have any dreams or weird things happen, other than the butterflies.”
He chuckled and nudged her back. “You'll be the first person I call,” he said with a grin. He split the last bite of cake in half and indicated for her to have the other half. “Come on, we'll walk a bit of this off down the pier,” he said, standing and offering her his arm with a roguish grin, definitely not at all like that of Apollo.