Chapter Text
One: “Just Haven’t Met You Yet” by Michael Buble + “Vincent” by Don McLean
I had always heard my soulmate’s singing in my head ever since I was a little girl, and younger me had always found it endearing growing up. It wasn’t like I could hear his/her/their voice or anything; the universe didn’t work like that. It just sounded like a radio station that was slightly off tune, like I was just out of range or something. At least, that’s how it was while I was still up North. I was just pleased that my soulmate cared enough to sing to me, even if I was too shy to sing back.
The first time I really despised my soulmate and their penchant for belting out songs was when I was fifteen years old and was dealing with the deadliest Visitor I had ever encountered up until that point. I was still with the Jacobs Agency then, and we were investigating a haunting at Wythburn Mill in my hometown. It had been a slow night; we hadn’t Seen or Heard much of anything, but that all changed when it suddenly became clear that the Visitor we were dealing with wasn’t your run-of-the-mill (bad pun, I know) Type One, but rather, an extremely dangerous Type Two: a Changer. It was too late for all of us to make a retreat; the Changer was much too powerful and we all knew it.
“Lucy, run!” Alfie-Joe shouted at me as he swung his oiled iron chains like a lasso as if he were a cowboy in the shitty Westerns that were always on TV late at night, “save yourself!”
“I’m not leaving without you!” I shouted back, holding on desperately to my best friend Norrie, who was frozen in place. I knew deep down that she had already been ghost locked beyond hope, but I couldn’t bring myself to just leave her in the mill to die.
“GO!” Alfie-Joe screamed, and I could hear the defeated desperation in his voice. I started tugging Norrie away, but her ghost-locked form was so limp and lifeless that I couldn’t go that fast.
Just then, I felt a familiar sensation in my brain, like someone was adjusting the radio knobs again. I groaned, but it came off as a groan of pain and not annoyance. I forced myself to keep dragging Norrie away from the fierce battle put on by Alfie-Joe and the rest of our team, but the song overtook my thoughts and it was all I could do to keep going:
I might have to wait, I'll never give up
I guess it's half timing and the other half's luck
Wherever you are, whenever it's right
You'll come out of nowhere and into my life
I had never complained about my soulmate’s music tastes before, but right now was really Not. The. Time. “Really?” I complained to myself, “Michael Bublé? Out of all the people and songs to sing right now–”
I heard a shriek from behind me and I kept going towards the entrance. “Mister Jacobs!” I shouted, “Mister Jacobs!” It was no use; I knew the cowardly bastard had probably fled the scene already. I was kicking myself for going in in the first place; I should’ve never let the others enter the mill.
It was now too late for all of that, though. The screams and yells from my fellow agents had suspiciously quieted, and I knew they had passed to the Other Side. It was just me and Norrie now, and Norrie was staring blankly into the night, seemingly unaware of what had happened. I just hoped it wasn’t painful for her.
Unfortunately, my soulmate kept singing:
They say all’s fair in love and war
But I won’t need to fight it
We'll get it right and we'll be united
“Oh, just shut up,” I said as we reached the secondary ring of salt and iron chains that I had insisted on leaving before we went in, “just shut up already!” We were nearing the exit doors, and all I wanted was to leave this damned mill and burn it to the ground. I just hoped the Visitor was sufficiently contained in the traps and rings Alfie-Joe had laid before he shut the doors behind Norrie and me.
Oh, you know it'll all turn out
And you'll make me work so we can work to work it out
And promise you, kid, to give so much more than I get, yeah
I just haven't met you yet
We kept going; Michael Bublé’s terrible voice was still echoing in my head. I had the feeling that this damn mill would never end, but we eventually reached the exit. I knew, of course, that we wouldn’t be safe just by leaving the mill, but I hoped that I could fend off whatever spirits came our way until day broke.
I set Norrie down on a patch of grass and immediately got to work setting up the usual defences. Not even bothering looking for Jacobs, who was probably passed out drunk by the main entrance, I instead tried to keep myself calm. Ghosts fed off of emotions, after all, and it wouldn’t do to get myself riled up over something I could no longer control.
A song popped into my mind just then, one I vaguely remembered my eldest sister singing to me when I was very young. I didn’t know all of the lyrics, but I did know the basic melody and one of the verses, which I just sang over and over again to calm me down.
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you
Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget. I had the sinking feeling that Norrie knew exactly what was going on around her, yet was helpless to do anything against it. What I wouldn’t do to hear her laugh one more time, to hear one more snarky remark about Agent Jacobs!
It was indeed a starry night; the night sky was unusually clear for England, and I could make out various constellations that my sister Mary had taught to me.
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night
I had succeeded in shutting up my soulmate, for now at least. But now I was drained, emotionally and physically, and there was nothing I wanted more than to find my soulmate and demand the reason why Michael Bublé of all people was now stuck in my head.
Second song: I Won’t Say (I’m In Love)
My soulmate never lost his love for singing random songs, even if I did following the deaths and ghost-lock of my best friends and fellow agents. It was pretty easy to tune them out when the songs were decidedly not about romance or love or anything remotely close, but in true the-universe-bloody-hates-me fashion, the more romantic the song my soulmate was singing, the harder or more impossible it was for me to ignore. I tried. I really, really tried. It was just bloody impossible sometimes.
It only got worse after I moved into 35 Portland Row with Anthony Lockwood and George Karim. I didn’t know if my soulmate was just a romantic in general, or if they had fallen for someone who wasn’t me, but the frequency in which my head was filled by sappy romance songs increased dramatically after I had interviewed for and accepted the position of Junior Agent. I didn’t like George at first; he seemed determined to get rid of me at every opportunity and I even overheard him telling Lockwood to fire me when they thought I had gone to bed already. I was drawn to Lockwood in a way I couldn’t explain and couldn’t understand. He was distant at first, but always polite with me, even if I did reckless shite like wear a locket-turned-Source because I was convinced I had a connection to its owner, Annabel Ward.
(I did, but that’s beside the point.)
All of this is to say that my first few months at Lockwood & Co were action-packed, to say the least, and I didn’t have the time nor the energy to really think about my soulmate. Not that that stopped my soulmate, though. They seemed determined to sing enough for the both of us.
Take the night after we tried our little experiment with Annabel’s source for example. While possessed by Annabel, I had touched Lockwood, gotten physically close to him, and Annabel’s ghost seemed determined to get even closer. I couldn’t do much of anything, of course: Annabel’s spirit had almost total control over my body and it was all I could do to metaphorically sit back and watch as my own body was controlled by another. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t affected by the physical contact I had with Lockwood for those few fleeting moments, and I definitely noticed his tortured eyes as my hand grazed his cheek and his hand closed around my wrist. Maybe he was thinking of his own soulmate at that moment, wherever they were. I bet he had a beautiful singing voice, but I never heard it. Like me, he seemed too reserved to sing in public. Only George sometimes sang in the bath, and he claimed that was just to see what effect his voice had on the skull jar I had first seen at my interview.
Anyway, the night after our little experiment, I was awoken by my soulmate singing some song I didn’t recognize. I groaned into my pillow; it appeared that my soulmate was a night owl just like Lockwood and George were. I always heard them puttering around downstairs because neither of them bothered to close doors quietly. One of them was in the shower right now, actually, but I couldn’t tell who it was.
No chance, no way
I won't say it, no, no
I didn’t know if my soulmate didn’t know any of the other lyrics that well, or if they just liked this part of the song, but those lines kept echoing in my head. I desperately wished I could just plug my ears to drown out the din, but plugging my ears wouldn’t help to block out something only I could hear. Rationally, I knew I could just sing something back, maybe like a lullaby to make my soulmate realise we were both supposed to be sleeping right now, but I was too self-conscious of my singing voice to do anything when George or Lockwood could overhear.
Instead, I laid there in bed at two in the morning as my soulmate kept singing to themselves. I hoped they had had a better night than I did.
This scene won't play,
I won't say I'm in love
Oh. So it was a love song. That explained why I couldn’t focus on anything else. I had a funny feeling in my chest. Was my soulmate singing about me, or about someone else? Had they met someone else? Were they trying to tell me they didn’t care that the universe wanted us together?
At least out loud,
I won't say I'm in love
It had to be about someone else, right? If my soulmate wouldn’t admit it out loud, then they must know that the person they were singing about wasn’t their soulmate. My stomach hurt. I wanted nothing more than for my soulmate to just shut up and leave me alone, but I was helpless against it.
The music finally got quieter, and I guessed my soulmate had had enough singing for one day. The shower turned off, and a moment later I heard a door open downstairs and feet shuffling before another door closed. It was Lockwood; his bedroom was on the same level as the bathroom.
I never did find out where that song was from; my soulmate never sang it again and I was too embarrassed to ask Lockwood or George. I knew George wasn’t into sappy shite like that, and Lockwood would probably shut down at any mention of a soulmate. He was probably one of those tossers who claimed he didn’t even have one. Wanker.
Third song: Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears
Unfortunately for me, both my soulmate and I knew the next song that would be stuck in my head for ages. Oh sure, I had little melodies or random lyrics running through my mind every once in a while, but for the most part, my mind was blissfully empty of any particularly annoying songs.
That didn’t mean that we didn’t have a lot going on otherwise, though. Lockwood & Co was busier than ever after we had successfully solved the murder of Annabel Ward and finally brought the poor girl some peace, even if the identity of her murderer could never be released to the public. Meanwhile, I had recently found out that I could talk to a skull floating in ectoplasm, so I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that I was too busy to obsess over every song lyric that happened to worm its way into my brain.
The next significant soulmate song I remember hearing happened soon after the Bickerstaff case. You know, the one where George became weirdly friendly with this older bloke who was clearly off his rocker, and I was almost forced to look into the bone glass? I’m just glad Lockwood didn’t get shot or something. Lord knows he’d crow about it for ages.
Our phone was ringing off the hook, and Lockwood was cockier than ever before, but I was happy. I had proven to both Lockwood and George that I could, in fact, understand the skull jar, and I could feel my Listening Talent grow stronger each day. There was nothing more than I wanted from life, except for maybe for my soulmate to shut up every once in a while. You see, as much as I was in a good mood, I was also fucking exhausted after almost being murdered by a fanatical archivist who almost definitely had been feeding lies to George about how Lockwood and I didn’t need him.
Which wasn’t true! I think George was starting to understand that after we all got home. He had the most injuries out of the three of us, and the poor bloke was still wearing glasses with cracked lenses until he was able to get replacements. Lockwood and I exempted George from the Biscuit Rule as long as he needed to fully recover, so long as he stayed out of the kitchen and didn’t take the skull jar with him into the bathroom. I never heard the end of it after he doused the skull jar in a lavender-scented bubble bath one night.
Anyway, George had long gone to bed and it was just me and Lockwood in the library. Lockwood was reading one of the various tabloids he subscribed to, while I was cleaning up the mess of books George had left scattered about after he got frustrated that he couldn’t read the tiny, neat print in one of the old paranormal research journals. I sighed to myself as I picked up a particularly heavy tome; George seemed to be of the opinion that the heavier the book, the more likely he could find whatever relevant yet oddly obscure information he needed. I hated to admit it, but most of the time he was right.
“All right there, Luce?” Lockwood called, peering over the top of the tabloid. A photo of Penelope Fittes from her ball was plastered on the front cover.
“Yeah,” I replied, “just tired. I think I might turn in soon.”
Lockwood set down the tabloid on the side table next to his favourite armchair. I could see a picture of the two of us at the ball, and I cringed at how large my arms looked, how big I looked in general next to Lockwood’s skinny frame. “Alright,” he said softly, “good night, then.”
“Good night, Lockwood,” I said with a soft smile. “Sleep well.” I trudged up the stairs to my attic bedroom before flopping down on my bed. I knew Lockwood would be pleased with himself for getting us in the tabloids yet again, and I knew, rationally, that we desperately needed the money. The sixty thousand pounds we got from the Fairfax debacle only went so far, after all. Still, I wished he would leave me out of it. I wasn’t one for the spotlight; no, I preferred to stay backstage and let Lockwood do all the talking, even if it did land us in sticky situations.
I soon dozed off, but it wasn’t long until I was woken up again by my soulmate singing yet another song. Luckily, or unluckily, for me, I recognized the song this time as my soulmate knew more words. Why they were a fan of Tears For Fears, though, I didn’t know. I had heard their songs growing up thanks to my eldest sister Sarah being a fan, but was never much of a fan myself.
You keep your distance via the system of touch
And gentle persuasion
I'm lost in admiration, could I need you this much?
Oh, you're wasting my time
You're just, just, just wasting time
Something happens and I'm head over heels
I never find out until I'm head over heels
Something happens and I'm head over heels
Ah, don't take my heart, don't break my heart
Don't, don't, don't throw it away
The singing in my head got louder as my soulmate reached the chorus, and for the first time I could remember, a part of me wanted to sing along. My sister Mary swore up and down when I was younger that if you sang along to your soulmate, you might be able to hear their actual voice. I didn’t want to risk my soulmate hearing my voice, however, because I was quite rubbish at singing, and I figured the universe would get tired of us eventually and push us towards each other. I never thought that that might have already happened.
This song was surprisingly enjoyable to listen to, probably because my soulmate actually knew what they were singing this time. They stopped entirely once the song was over, and I drifted back off to sleep with a smile on my face.
George noticed my happy mood the next day at breakfast. He was much more aware of shite like that than Lockwood and I ever were, and he called me out on it immediately. “What’s gotten into you?” he asked as I put a cup of tea in front of him. His right arm was still in a sling, so he wasn’t making breakfast.
“Oh, nothing,” I replied as I grabbed the finished toast from the toaster, “Morning, Lockwood,” I called over my shoulder as the other boy took his seat next to George.
George frowned as I returned to the table. “You seem more well-rested than usual, and I don’t think it’s all because we’ve taken the last few nights off. So, what is it?”
I could feel myself blushing, but resolutely tried to brush it off. “Oh, my soulmate was singing a cheesy 80s ballad right before I fell asleep and I didn’t have any nightmares for once. I never knew they liked Tears for Fears.”
Lockwood suddenly choked on a piece of toast, and George’s left arm swung to hit him on the back. “You alright, Lockwood?”
“Y-yeah,” Lockwood stuttered as he took a hasty gulp of tea that I knew was still way too hot before he spit it back in the mug, “must’ve gone down wrong or something.” His face was pale, but I chalked that up to the minor near-death experience he just had, and I reached for the butter. “Here, Luce,” Lockwood said as he grabbed my plate, “let me do that for you.”
“Thanks,” I said with another involuntary blush. George just snorted and muttered something about us being daft as usual. Lockwood and I steadfastly ignored him, and I was oblivious to the looks George was giving Lockwood. The skull jar glowed green in the corner, but the valve wasn’t open. I was blissfully unaware of whatever was running through Lockwood’s mind at that moment. Lockwood gave me back my now perfectly buttered toast, and we ate in silence.
Fourth song: “Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac
My soulmate was strangely silent after their foray into 80s British bands that night soon after the Fittes Ball, and I didn’t think too much of it. I was going through my own stuff, too. Lockwood and George had hired an assistant, a Miss Holly Munro, while I was up North visiting family for a week, and it was still a sore subject in the household. I wasn’t mad at Holly, or at least that’s what I told myself. No, the real reason why I was so upset was that Lockwood and George made this decision without me. I had the sinking feeling they waited just until I was gone to hire someone new, just so I’d have to put up with them without complaint when I got back.
I had my ways of showing my distaste for Holly, let’s be clear. I know I’m not an easy person to live with. And as much as Lockwood, George, and Holly herself will speculate, Holly was not the reason why I left 35 Portland Row and moved into my shitty flat in Tooting.
Great, now you don’t believe me either. It’s the truth, I swear. My Talent was becoming too strong for my own good, and I was becoming too reckless. I was putting the others in danger, and I really cared about them. All of them. Yes, even Holly. Even perfect, tidy Holly.
Okay, I’ll admit I was jealous of Holly at first, but it quickly became obvious that she was not Lockwood’s anyone’s soulmate. She sang all the damn time, like a bloody Disney princess, and I almost even asked her if she knew that one song my soulmate sang like only half the lyrics of. Besides, she apparently even told Lockwood and George that she had already found her soulmate, a young woman who worked at DEPRAC who she met at a karaoke night. There was no reason for me to be jealous of her, right? So, logically, it makes sense that she would not be the reason why I left.
No, the truth is a lot more complicated than that. There were several reasons why I left 35 Portland Row, but the main one, as I mentioned, was the fact that my Talent was getting out of control and endangering the others. I could tell my recklessness was rubbing off on Lockwood, too, and I didn’t want to be the reason why he ended up dead at sixteen.
So there I was in my shitty little flat in Tooting, when my soulmate suddenly decided to sing again after months of radio silence from them. I had no idea if my soulmate was a guy, girl, or neither, and honestly, it didn’t matter to me. I was worried about them, about their sudden absence after I had been subjected to late night cringey romantic songs every once in a while. Had they found someone else? Maybe they were upset that I never sang back, which was fair, but at the same time, I was painfully shy about my horrid singing voice, and I wasn’t the type to express my emotions through song. I much preferred sketches.
Which is why my flat was littered with my old sketchbooks filled with Lockwood, George, and the Skull, but that’s beside the point. I was lying on my unmade bed, with Skull’s jar glowing in the corner like some demented night light, when my soulmate decided to sing again. Unlike the other times I could remember, they were mad, and I found out that night that however loud romance songs were in my head, angry curses in the form of songs were much, much louder. The sudden sound in my head made me sit up involuntarily, and I made eye contact with myself in the cracked mirror in the corner.
And can you tell me was it worth it?
Baby, I don't want to know
Time cast a spell on you, but you won't forget me
I know I could have loved you
But you would not let me
I recognized the song right away, of course. Mum LOVED Fleetwood Mac for reasons I never quite comprehended, and Silver Springs had been on repeat for weeks when my sister Catherine got dumped by a local bloke in our village. I was very familiar with the lyrics, and I had a sinking feeling I knew why they were being sung.
My soulmate had had their heart broken. It couldn’t have been by me , I thought to myself as I looked at my reflection. The cracks warped my reflection, but I could still see myself rather well. I looked like shit, but I imagined that my soulmate looked much, much worse. Good, I thought to myself, serves them right for falling in love with someone who wasn’t their soulmate . I steadfastly ignored the fluttering feelings in my chest that I got whenever Lockwood gave me one of his wide grins that he never seemed to give George or Holly and instead focused on the largest crack in the mirror, the one that ran through my chest. Almost like a broken heart.
Time cast a spell on you, but you won't forget me
I know I could've loved you, but you would not let me
I'll follow you down 'til the sound of my voice will haunt you
Give me just a chance
You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you
Was I such a fool?
The song only grew louder in my head, and I imagined that my soulmate was belting out the lyrics at this point. It was too loud to do much of anything else other than sit on my bed and stare at my reflection some more, so that’s exactly what I did. I noticed every flaw: the way my hair didn’t sit right at my shoulders because I couldn’t be arsed to pay the obscene amount of money that Lockwood did for decent conditioner, how my nose seemed a bit too large for the rest of my face, and how wide my thighs got when I sat down. I tried to look away from my reflection, tried to break the spell that this song had put me under, but I couldn’t.
My soulmate seemed determined to sing the whole song. Despite the fact that the song was sung from a woman’s perspective, I still didn’t have a clear idea of what gender my soulmate was. All I could feel was the deep hurt my soulmate felt, and I desperately wished I could find some way to alleviate them of it, if only to stop the song pounding in my head.
I'll follow you down til' the sound of my voice will haunt you
Give me just a chance
You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you
Time cast a spell on you, but you won't forget me
I know I could've loved you, but you would not let me
I'll follow you down 'til the sound of my voice
The song came to an end, and I was left there in the silence of my flat to contemplate the lyrics. A part of me was waiting for my soulmate to pick up again with another song that would surely leave me with a days-long headache, but instead, all I heard was the hum of the ancient radiator. I know I could’ve loved you, but you would not let me . I was dying to know who my soulmate was, and who they were singing about. Surely the person they were pining over made it clear that they weren’t soulmates, right? Was that the reason why my soulmate was so upset? Were they mad at the universe?
I eventually drifted off into an uneasy sleep, and had a nightmare about Aickmere’s again. It was just me and Lockwood in a dark cavern, with the walls and random Visitors closing in all around us. I tried to reach for him in my dream, but it was too late. I could feel the Visitors surrounding him until there was nothing left but the husk of a boy. I woke up in a blind panic, reaching out for Lockwood, but all I grabbed was empty air. For what was definitely not the first time, I wished that my soulmate would sing a lullaby to me so that I could go back to sleep.
Fifth Song: “Last Christmas” by Wham!
Following my soulmate’s quite heart wrenching and passionate rendition of “Silver Springs,” I was left alone with my thoughts for a couple months. I still worked as an agent, of course, but now I was Lucy Carlyle, Freelance Agent instead of Lucy Carlyle of Lockwood & Co. I had business cards made and everything, and I almost slipped one in the mailbox at 35 Portland Row before I chickened out and disappeared again into the early morning fog. The less that George, Lockwood, and Holly knew about what I was up to, the better, I reasoned to myself as I walked back with the business card burning a hole in my pocket. A not insignificant part of me wanted to move back home, to apologise to Lockwood everyone for leaving so suddenly, but I was too stubborn to do so. I kept telling myself that I was keeping them safe, and ignored the small voice in the back of my head that reminded me of how much of a help my Talent could be when I wasn’t being reckless.
It had been about two months, give or take, when my soulmate finally sang to me again. It started off as a normal day for me. I woke up around one in the afternoon following a late case and quick trip to the furnaces, where I watched Harold burn a silver promise ring a young bride had gotten from her soulmate right before her wedding to another man. The other man had killed her in a blind rage when she refused him on their wedding night, and the ring had been trapped in the floorbeds of a rather quaint, if not haunted, bed and breakfast near Marylebone. I had been the owners’ second choice for the job, the wife explained over the phone. Lockwood & Co had come out for a consultation, but ultimately declined the job and referred them to me once it became clear that the Visitor was trying to speak to someone.
“You’re not the easiest person to find, dearie,” Mrs Bates had said to me while I was writing down notes about the Visitor, “the agent at Lockwood & Co had no idea how we could contact you. What a charming young man he was, though. We ended up having to go through DEPRAC.”
“My apologies, Mrs Bates, but I’m rather new to freelancing. Now, when would you like me to come out?”
All in all, it had been a rather straightforward case once I had spotted the Visitor. She was a small, sad woman in a tattered wedding dress, and she kept pointing to a spot in the ground and whispering “My soulmate. Please don’t hurt my soulmate, too” until I was finally able to pry one of the floorboards up and secure the Source. I felt bad burning it; it wasn’t like the ring was valuable outside of it being a Source and all, but there was something so final about watching it go up in flames.
Anyway, I didn’t even realise what day it was until I tried to go to the local chippy for my customary after-work meal of fish and chips. I was greeted by a “CLOSED” sign and it wasn’t after I tried three more restaurants that I stumbled upon a Chinese takeaway that was actually open. I ordered my usual and it didn’t take long until the food was ready. “Happy Christmas!” the shopgirl called after me as I left.
Oh. That explained why all the other places were closed and why Harold gave me a sad look as I left today. This wasn’t my first Christmas in London, but it was my first Christmas all alone. Last Christmas was the best Christmas I had ever had, even though it was just the three of us. George and Lockwood had lovingly decorated 35 Portland Row with all the decorations that Celia and Donald Lockwood had collected over the years, and I got to help make a quite strong eggnog that ensured that we were all in high spirits the entire time.
Now, though, I was left alone in my tiny flat with no decorations whatsoever. I had totally forgotten that it was Christmas, and even though the holiday hadn’t meant much to me before I came to London, I was still sad and a bit jealous that I would be spending it alone this year.
I ate the Chinese food in silence and looked around my place. I had a pile of laundry in the corner that I desperately needed to give to the laundress, but I was waiting on a check to clear from my last job. The skull jar sat on my kitchen countertop, where it gave me a death glare because I had closed its valve ever since it made comments about me crying in my sleep again. I got the feeling that he didn’t really celebrate Christmas, either.
I moped around a bit for the rest of the day, lost in my thoughts of the previous Christmas. My soulmate seemed to be in a similar mood, and I wondered again who hurt them as a familiar song started playing in my head.
Last Christmas I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I'll give it to someone special
Everyone knew Wham!, and I was no exception. I let out a groan, because I knew this song would be stuck in my head for the rest of the day. Why did it have to be so catchy?
Once bitten and twice shy
I keep my distance, but you still catch my eye
Tell me baby, do you recognize me?
Well, it's been a year, it doesn't surprise me
I thought back to my last Christmas. I had gotten Lockwood a new tie, a navy blue one that had stood out to me when I went shopping before the Christmas hols. Lockwood had given me a wide grin and put it on immediately, and he wore it more often than not when we weren’t out on cases. “It’s too important to be damaged by ectoplasm,” he explained one night when we were at a night cafe after an easy case, “and buying a replacement one just wouldn’t be the same.”
I wondered if he still wore it. Lockwood had given me a sketchbook and a set of coloured pencils in return, and I had left them there when I moved out. I didn’t mean to, I swear, but it must’ve slipped my mind. I was itching to sketch again, anything to get me out of this funk I was in.
Happy Christmas, I wrapped it up and sent it
With a note saying "I love you", I meant it
Now I know what a fool I've been
But if you kissed me now, I know you'd fool me again
I imagined what I would get Lockwood this time around. Maybe a set of cufflinks; he was always complaining that the ones his dad had weren’t really his style. I had found a pair of skull ones a while back, but I had kept telling myself that I would wait until they would go on sale. I guess I never got around to buying them.
George was both easier and harder to shop for. Easier, because last year we weren’t that close yet for me to actually have cared about what I got him, and harder, because he had very specific tastes. Last year, I got him a spa set I found on discount at a LUSH store, and he seemed happy enough. The hall bathroom smelled of lavender for a solid month after, so I figured he liked the various bath bombs and soaps I got him. This year, I was planning on getting him a new leather bound journal for his archival research, but that, too, would have to wait for another time.
A crowded room, friends with tired eyes
I'm hiding from you and your soul of ice
My God, I thought you were someone to rely on
Me? I guess I was a shoulder to cry on
My hand involuntarily flew up to my neck, where Lockwood’s diamond necklace still sat. I had wanted to give it back to him in person when we went to that cafe after I told him I was quitting, but he had stormed out before I could work up the courage to unclasp it and slide it over to him. I was left sitting there with countless cups of now-cold tea all around me, and I knew the necklace was too precious to just leave there.
I had been wearing it ever since.
I had been lucky to avoid Lockwood, George, and Holly ever since I left. Somehow our schedules had been aligned so that we never saw each other, not even in passing. A part of me held out hope that I’d see Lockwood’s billowing coat at the furnaces or when I went to my bimonthly mandated meeting with a DEPRAC officer, but there was nothing so far. It was just me and Skull against the world.
A face on a lover with a fire in his heart (I gave you mine)
A man undercover but you tore him apart
Maybe next year I'll give it to someone
I'll give it to someone special
The song came to a close, and like the other times when my soulmate sang to me, they didn’t start up with a new one. I was left there to ruminate on the lyrics. I desperately wished I knew who my soulmate was so I could confront them once and for all, so that I could let them know that it wasn’t fair to me that they were singing about someone else.
An idea suddenly came to mind, and I opened my mouth to sing for the first time in years. I only hoped my soulmate would really listen.