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68.

In the night the Sillas River rose over its banks. The black water climbed up the hill and seeped under the newly-painted garage door. The river lapped at the tires of Randall’s truck before it flooded into the house, Freya felt her bed begin to float, all around her was the sound of trickling water.

She’d had this dream before. Freya always escaped the house somehow. She would ride her sodden mattress down the swelling river like she was Huckleberry Finn, drifting past the steeples of flooded churches and over drowned neighborhoods. But there was something out of place, the smell of the river was wrong. Freya knew the black water of the Sillas River intimately, it had been in her nose, in her lungs. It had a a slightly brackish, stony smell. The water flooding into her bedroom smelled like bacon.

Freya blinked, the lights in her room were dark and the sky outside was overcast. But the harsh fluorescents of the kitchen were shining too. She had a wincing expectation that they would blind her, but the eyes that saw them were already acclimated. She could still hear the trickling of the river, but then she felt Dan grin, it was the sound of bacon hissing on the griddle. He was at work at the diner, they’d linked while she was still dreaming.

Oh no, Freya thought, worried about what he might have seen. She remembered the way Dan shrank from her dream of death. But there was no dread from Dan, he was even disappointed that the dream had broken up. From miles away he beamed that he’d been alarmed at her dream at first, but he was beginning to enjoy it. It broke up the tedium of washing dishes.

Dan’s hands were in a sink, scrubbing as fast as he could. Freya could feel the warm water through his gloves, she felt pressure of all those dishes piling up at the end of the counter. The actual dishwasher had called out sick, she could feel a little exasperation on the edge of Dan’s thoughts as he explained. It wasn’t the first time, and Dan suspected the man would be fired soon.

Dan didn’t mind washing dishes, but dishwashers didn’t make tips, every time this happened it cost him twenty or thirty dollars. She could feel his frustration, he’d brought it up to the manager before but he’d been rebuffed, and he couldn’t afford to quit over it.

Freya had a sudden desire to make things better, she had money, she could just give him some. Her thought met resistance, Dan’s thoughts about money were tangled in pride and embarrassment, and she let the idea go at once. She didn’t want to make him feel worse.

Instead she turned her attention to this new ripple of Unity. She’d never joined Dan while she was asleep before. Now that she was fully awake she was trying to gauge how they felt about it.

Dan was concerned, but he thought it was generally a good thing and she agreed with him. They wanted the unity, wanted to be close. Dan felt a deep, protective happiness, he liked to feel that she was safe and warm, wound up in the covers while he was working.

I can work too, she asserted, but she felt a little mirth in response. She’d slept in until 10 AM, Dan had to wake up at 5 AM for his shift at the diner, even after he’d done all the driving last night. Freya felt guilty, she wished she could do more, but Dan beamed back that he was just happy to have her mental company. Dishwashing was monotonous, there was no one to talk to.

Freya needed to pee. The urge had been increasing since she’d woken up, and now Dan was beginning to feel her discomfort. She was dying of embarrassment, there was no way to hang up on Unity. Dan tried to assure her it was ok.

Go ahead, he thought, I’ll focus on dishes.

Freya was mortified, but it was becoming imperative. She felt him trying to focus elsewhere but at the same time he was fighting against his own interest, part of him wanted to know how it felt. Her cheeks were aflame with shame, but she really had to go, for a moment in the bathroom she just shut her eyes and felt blessed relief.

Afterward she could feel a momentary terror from Dan that he’d gotten so caught up in the feeling that he’d pissed his pants.

He had to stop washing dishes and run to the bathroom himself. Freya had the same weird fascination he’d had, peeing felt very different as a man. Dan noticed her interest as he was hurriedly zipping up and washing his hands to rush back to the dishwashing station.

Sorry! I’m so gross, she thought, but Dan wasn’t ashamed. He’d been desensitized to so many things growing up with a twin. It was just a human thing, her reminded her. She brushed her teeth, and her stomach was growling, it didn’t help that the smells of cooking food were all around Dan.

She peeked out at the driveway, Lassa was still gone. She had the urge to check her phone, but then she remembered it was gone and she was glad of it. She was already with the only person she wanted to hear from.

Was that true? Dan questioned Freya, with concern on the edge of his thought. She felt a little embarrassed, but it was true. She didn’t have any other really close friends anymore.

They spirited back and forth on that point, Dan was showing her how from the outside he could see that a lot of people liked her and would be closer if she let them. It was both illuminating and humiliating to see his perspective, when he felt her tiring of it he dropped the point. It wasn’t something she could fix any time soon. Unity had become more comfortable, differences between them that had once seemed like they might tear the world in two had been reduced to minor distractions.

What if it never ends?

Neither of them was certain which of them had formed the question first. Could they go through their whole lives like this?

Freya had a sudden vision of Dan, red in the face, screaming at her to get out of his head as his hands closed around her neck. Miles away, she could feel him wince, clenching a plate tightly in his gloved hands. The image hit him like a physical blow.

I’m sorry!

Dan reeled for a moment, it took a second for both of them to come to terms with the intrusive thought.

That’s not us, they tried to assure themselves, but it was just a thin film at the surface of their fear. They shared a worry that once the newness all drained away, terrible things might be revealed at the river bottom.

We’re wasting this.

Freya focused her will, determined not to let her wayward thoughts capsize the Unity this time. She thought of something nice she could do for Dan, out of habit she began thinking of ways to hide it and spring it on him at the right time. She realized how dumb that was and they almost laughed aloud at it. There could be no surprises between them.

You don’t have to, Dan smiled, she could feel the tension in his cheeks, the sense of lift in his chest as he grinned.

I need to practice anyway, Freya thought, tuning her guitar.

Freya played her guitar for Dan as he washed dishes, miles away in the diner’s kitchen. He could hear her every bit as clearly as he’d heard the concert the night before. She began to play Stormy Monday, and feeling his slight disappointment, dropped it after a few bars moved on to Down in a Hole. Rock music was much more interesting to Dan. Even as his enjoyment picked up, he felt a little guilty about it.

You don’t have to change what you’re playing for me.

She nodded in the empty room, she didn’t have to, but why waste this moment? What he liked was what he liked, there was no use pretending.

Freya played on, tapping her repertoire for songs she thought he might like. She played Change and then Violet, and he was really getting into it, nodding his head at the sink.

The dishes accumulated and disappeared, her fingers slipped over the frets, and the torrent of thoughts passing between them became gentle waves climbing slowly up the shore and slipping back into the sea. Freya’s hunger and Dan’s weariness faded into the background, and time lost all weight. They were at peace.

She played at the tempo he worked, it was a curious kind of dancing between them. Hearing the music through her ears only, he could better see the contrast between them. She was trained to hear the notes, and her hearing was better in general, it lent the experience a magical, almost otherworldly feel for Dan.

The experience was more than just listening, as he was exposed to the way she thought about music, he was beginning to understand more. She could feel him learning in little bursts of epiphany, starting to recognize pieces of structure in the songs, hearing notes he’d missed before.

Freya realized that if Unity didn’t end, she could almost certainly teach him enough music theory to begin playing on his own. The idea swelled up into a huge excitement between the two of them. It was something he’d never thought he could do, but now anything seemed possible. What an incredible gift that would be! She thought about the mandolin, the way he’d been entranced by The Battle of Evermore.

We could play that together, Freya beamed and they were both engulfed with joy at the thought. Learning like this was pure pleasure. Dan wanted to reciprocate, to give her something in return but he wasn’t sure how. She already knew how to run and he wasn’t that much further ahead in Krav Maga than her. Her mind flashed to homework, and Dan could feel her dread, the to Freya the idea of trigonometry was like a storm front on the horizon.

I can help, no problem, Dan thought, and she could feel him smiling, the confidence behind the thought. She went through her ritual of putting her guitar away and got out her textbook. She felt apologetic that he had to do homework while he was at his job.

But she felt that he was interested in the challenge, he was eager to see what he could remember. At first Dan was straining to recall how everything worked, it had been two years since he’d studied this. But as he remembered one thing, the next would lock into place, rapid-fire like the teeth of a zipper. It was an exhilarating feeling.

The great stone of comprehension she’d been slowly rolling uphill felt like it was gliding on ice. Dan’s understanding was as sharp as a blade, he sliced through the problems and then doubled back to help her see how he’d done it. The sensation of simultaneously teaching and learning was pure pleasure.

After thirty minutes of working with Dan, Freya went from being certain she would fail the class to wondering how she’d ever been afraid of this. It was all locked in, she had it. They were radiating together, happiness and gratefulness, there was a sense of nuclear potential trembling between them. If Unity didn’t stop, neither of them would ever struggle with a test again.

I could retake the SATs! The thought exploded in Dan’s head, an answer to all of his fears about the future. Freya agreed immediately, envisioning herself sitting at a computer, feeding him every answer.

We’re more together, they thought, the idea towered above them. It was exhilarating and frightening, within the Unity they were an entirely new kind of being.

Until the end of his shift, Freya and Dan resonated on the idea, wondering what it meant, how they could use it, what dangers lie within. Just as everything seemed possible, Unity began to falter. Despair swallowed them at once.

“I miss you already,” Freya sighed, clinging to the threads. She caught only a pale ghost of his response, but she knew exactly what he wanted to say. It wouldn’t be long until they were together again. They’d planned to meet Radomir and the others that afternoon at the China House Buffet.

Freya was alone again, suddenly aware that someone had rung the doorbell several times, and they were thumping on the front door now. She wondered if she could just wait for them to go away, but if they were that insistent it was probably Lynn Harris. She scrambled to come up with some excuse for not answering.

Already the air felt too still, lonely thoughts crashed about in in her skull, sad and unaccompanied. She threw on clothes and answered the door.